Betty Field

What you say is essentially true but with some inaccuracies. The reason for the superiority of Technicolor has to do with the lab processing. It is a dye transfer process. Technicolor changed its formula a couple of times between 1939 and the fifties, mostly to tone down the over-saturation and eliminate bleeding, especially in the red strip. The pictures before the war have one look (Robin Hood etc.). Getting flesh tones correct was the biggest challenge. When its done wrong all skin tones look orange instead of cream-colored. In the forties the color was more stable and some of the absolute best looking results happened then (especially Fox, Paramount and Universal). See pictures like Captain from Castile, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Leave Her To Heaven or Phantom of the Opera. In the fifties the process changed a lot. The color is handsome but no longer as vibrant and breathtaking. You are wrong to say there was no true Technicolor after 1955. The Technicolor lab didn't close until the seventies. Directors who cared, and had clout demanded Technicolor processing. Thus Hitchcock's late UNIVERSAL pictures were all Technicolor till the lab closed in 1974. Vertigo, North By Northwest, To Catch A Thief and Rear Window are all true Technicolor. After 1974 Hitchcock filmed in England where the British Technicolor lab stayed open a bit longer. British lab produced a different color palette, more pastel but very rich and beautiful. Frenzy, Family Plot were done this way. Other examples of true Technicolor in this period include the first two Godfather films and Jaws. When processed properly these negatives can still produce beautiful results. Technicolor was so much better than Eastman that many Eastman films were processed in the Technicolor lab to produce better results. You'll see copies that say Print by Technicolor. When companies like Fox transferred their IB negatives to Eastman safety stock, which was less flammable, many great Technicolor films were lost forever. In the seventies, there were many 16mm Technicolor prints that survived in the hands of collectors and museums. Today, few people can tell what Technicolor should look like. It's all in timing the scene when you print it and scenes have to be done individually. There used to be instructions for timing that the labs understood. Night scenes, action scenes , indoor or outdoor lighting, all had to be done differently, depending on how they were originally lit. Today everything is processed by computer and these important distinctions are lost. Only if they get source material that was originally timed correctly do you get the right result. Then suddenly it will look spectacular. Only a handful of movies survive in this form.