MIT 150: The Top 50

Number 20: Movies in color The process that brought colors to movie screens was invented by a company founded in 1915 by Herbert Kalmus , MIT class of 1904. A high school dropout who worked as a carpet salesman, Kalmus joined with another MIT graduate, Daniel Comstock , to launch a company called Technicolor Corporation. So began a 20-year-long effort to create high-quality color films. The 1935 film “Becky Sharp” was the first full-length three-color movie; five years later, Technicolor won an Oscar for the color photography in “Gone With the Wind.” And, yes, the “tech” in Technicolor was Kalmus’s tip of the hat to his alma mater.
File

E-mail this article

Invalid E-mail address
Invalid E-mail address

Sending your article

Your article has been sent.

Number 20: Movies in color

The process that brought colors to movie screens was invented by a company founded in 1915 by Herbert Kalmus, MIT class of 1904. A high school dropout who worked as a carpet salesman, Kalmus joined with another MIT graduate, Daniel Comstock, to launch a company called Technicolor Corporation. So began a 20-year-long effort to create high-quality color films. The 1935 film “Becky Sharp” was the first full-length three-color movie; five years later, Technicolor won an Oscar for the color photography in “Gone With the Wind.” And, yes, the “tech” in Technicolor was Kalmus’s tip of the hat to his alma mater.