Colorization has improved

Today I watched two colorized clips of The Three Stooges on SpikeTV, and I came away very impressed.

Old movie series and older television series are re-issued every so often with the claim "remastered". But with this, as well as last week's entry about the 1960s Star Trek getting dazzling (for it) special effects, I think those in charge of remastering have finally mastered the art - no pun intended.

I had to look twice before I could verify it was an actual Stooges flick (and with Curly & Shemp, no less). I remember about twelve years ago, when Alan Thicke hosted a Stooges retrospective, complete with the first-ever colorized feature film from them. The tint of the overall video was blue, and it looked very grainy. You could tell it was a color-up job.

Yesterday's airing on Spike made it look as if the episode was originally produced in color in the 1930s. There were no defining color tints; everything was in balance. Even better, the sound was remastered, meaning you didn't hear any of that audio garbage the old films of the 30s and 40s are known for.

This was a nice treat, although I may be the first to say that I won't lose my nostalgic feeling over the old quality of those films. Sometimes, seeing them in black & white, with audio noise and bad splicing, only add to the flavor of those films.

I would never hope to see these colorized, restored versions become the rule completely. They are nice, they show how advanced the art of restoration has become, and it can be used as a selling point to get the attention of new generations, who have seen nothing but color and heard nothing but Dolby sound.

But for those of us who remember a different era; the one classically defined as Hollywood's "Golden Age", a return to the old quality doesn't hurt our viewing pleasure; in fact, it enhances it.