I caught this up the theatre in 1978--the first story was in b&w--the second in color. On cable however the whole thing is color. Anybody know why this is? There were other films done in b&w in this era (like "Manahattan" & "Young Frankenstein") and I don't see them being shown in color.
shareYes, the VHS version was the same way. My guess is the studios forced Stanley Donen to shoot in color for the first movie. Donen was able to get his way and show the B&W version in theaters, but when it flopped, they reverted back to the color prints for all future releases. When I rented it a few years back, I had to manually adjust the color to B&W for Dynamite Hands.
From what I understand, when Mel Brooks did Young Frankenstein, the studios made him shoot the film in color. That's why on some VHS copies, you'll see color stills from the movie. They even put green make-up on Peter Boyle. But the difference is that movie was a hit, and Mel Brooks was able to keep it in B&W only.
Thanks for the info. It seems studios are under the stupid assumption that everything has to be in color to be a hit. I heard that Woody Allen got to shoot "Manhattan" in b&w only because his previous movie ("Annie Hall") won a couple of Oscars. "Manhattan" was very successful in fact BECAUSE of the b&w. I didn't know that stuff about "Young Frankenstein". I can't imagine that ever working as well as it did in color.
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