Color delight

I watched this on TCM when you did, at midnight (EST). It was interesting to see an entire silent film in two-strip Technicolor. I have the silent film version of “Ben-Hur,” but it has, as I recall, only 2 Technicolor sequences. I also have “Mystery of the Wax Museum” (1933), which was filmed completely in two-strip Technicolor, but the subject matter hardly allowed the cinematographer to exploit color to the degree that it was in “The Viking.” Even though I have read a great deal about the Technicolor dye transfer process, with my writer’s [artsy] brain, it is somewhat baffling to me as to how, without the third strip used for full Technicolor (which specifically picked up the blues), they could – for want of a better word – “isolate” the blues (and yellows) from the strip that produced a b & w “interpretation” of all the greens on set and location, and get a bluish tinge – turquoise, I suppose. The acting was good (though expectedly histrionic); and Donald Crisp is always a pleasure to watch. LeRoy Mason, who played Alwin, the romantic lead, had MASSIVE sideburns! With that 5 o’clock shadow, if he had let his moustache grow in, he could have rivalled Tom Selleck!