Until 1922, stencil colour films only existed on 35 standard gauge, the work of colouring 18 x 24mm images already being sufficiently delicate, painstaking and precise on that gauge. Colouring images nine times smaller in area could seem an impossible task, a challenge which Charles Pathé took up from the second year of Pathé-Baby film issues, in October 1923. It should be remembered that colouring of films, first by brush, frame by frame, then by stencil, by shot, scene and reel, had been born in 1894 In that year, Thomas Edison had a miniaturist paint each frame of his film La Danse d’Annabelle, which had great success, first in his "Kinetoscope", a machine for individual viewing, and then on the screen in 1896 and 1897, projected by his "Vitascope". In France, it was Georges Méliès who was the first to colour, still by brush, one of his films: Le Manoir du diable, in 1897. For another two years, the paintbrush was the sole colouring tool and the time devoted to each copy coloured was considerable.

A new technique appeared in 1899, the stencil: using working positive prints, the portions of the image to be coloured were cut out. There were as many stencils cut out as there were colours to be applied. Then the black and white print to be coloured was overlaid with the first stencil film corresponding to the first colour; the colour was applied (aniline in an aqueous alcohol solution) by brush to the back of the stencil, which only allowed the colour through to the film being coloured where there were cut-outs. The same operation was then carried out with the second colour and the corresponding stencil and so on, sometimes with up to seven colours, which required seven stencils to be cut!

These film masks or stencils were several tenths of a metre long, allowing colour to be applied to several dozen images at a time. Instead of only one or two coloured copies of a film, hundreds could now be made.

Then in 1909 Charles Pathé introduced a colouring machine, still on the principle of the stencil, but in which the copies to be coloured and the stencils were drawn through mechanically, as in a printer, while the colour was applied by a rotating brush. Each colour could now be applied to an entire reel in a single operation.

This method remained in use until 1928, and had to be abandoned, on the one hand for economic reasons and on the other for technical reasons since, with the appearance of optical sound, the colours could run onto the sound track and cause interference (spitting?).

Five years before the process was abandoned, the first substandard stencil colour films, the only ones ever produced in this way, appeared in Pathé-Baby catalogues.

Since the colours already ran on standard 35mm prints, one can imagine the difficulties Pathé technicians had to overcome to put colour onto images no larger than 6.6 x 8.5 mm.

The colouring was imperfect, each area of colour either not covering or covering more than the tiny area required. On projection, the colour "floated" around the edges of the subject, not coinciding with the lines the colourist would have wished.

Because some cut-outs were so small as to be impossible to make, curious phenomena arose on projection with some films: an actor might well have a flesh-coloured face but grey hands, for example!

To minimise the imperfections, directors took account of the demands of the colour process in making their films. Méliès, for example, used carefully graduated shades of grey for his costumes and scenery, which were easier to colour than real materials shot using emulsions which were not even orthochromatic at that time; for instance red or yellow fabrics were rendered as opaque black on such film.

Others placed their subjects against a black background so that any leakage of colour would not be noticeable.

This was the method for the beautiful film Métamorphoses de miss Flutter, which was in fact a cut down version of Métempsycose, made in 1908; similarly La Création du petit monde, in which the same décor is seen. These precautions reduced runs and halos but were not enough to eliminate them entirely.

Nowadays it is an open question whether we value these films because of or in spite of their imperfections.

The first Pathé-Baby catalogue (October 1922) had no coloured films, but they all appeared in the next year’s issue (October and supplement December 1923). There were 19 and cost 10 francs per cassette, as against 6 francs for black and white versions. The chosen colour subjects were moreover short and rarely exceeded seven metres as against the normal ten. The same subjects are found in both black and white and colour (but at the different prices) and to help tell them apart, the former had a white label and the latter a black label with the reference "coloured".

Here is the list of films and references:

The multicoloured wings of a charming human butterfly undergo marvellous transformations before our eyes.

Girls are born from roses and boys from cabbages. The childhood myth charmingly animated.

High speed cinematography shows the blooming of a flower.

Juvenile playlet. Victim of his brother’s greed, Régine weeps bitter tears. Her uncles and aunt know how to sooth her upset.

Juvenile playlet.

Mischievous Régine disturbs her uncle’s siesta who joins in her games without getting cross.

Entymology. All the stages of metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly with delicate, brightly-coloured wings.

Agriculture. In Assam, the cultivation, harvesting and processing of tea.

Natives in equatorial Africa give themselves over to the dangerous pursuit of crocodile fishing.

Botany. Their sticky, chalice-shaped leaves allow them to catch insects, as filmed here.

Art in motion. Dance movements inspired by Roman gladiatorial combat.

Travelogue. The little island in the gulf of Naples, celebrated for its golden grapes and marvellous wild setting.

Animated cartoon from O’Galop retelling La Fontaine’s fable. [Dove and Ant]

Travelogue. The golden esplanade, blue waves, the casino, the sumptuous hotels,

The resort of Kings and Queen of the resorts.

Folk dance. Framed by veils, decked with jewels, Kalidja dances, turns, sways…

Folk dance. Beautiful images of dance with trick flame reflected in a pool.

Travelogue.

Travelogue. The lively, pure and nimble waters of the Tarn, dominated by rocky spires and limestone walls.

Fashion. Displayed by elegant models, the most beautiful creations of the great couturiers designed to exploit feminine beauty.

Travelogue.Set in the Normandy countryside, the Pearl of the Emerald Coast spreads its beaches, its fine villas and gardens in bloom.

Studying catalogues from subsequent years, one notes that no other titles are added and the existing ones are rationalised bit by bit. There are only 11 in 1928 (Miss Flutter, Petit monde, Lys du Japon, Bon oncle, Papillon Machao, Le Thé, Népenthè, Gladiateur, Biarritz, Toilettes du soir, Trouville), only one remains in 1935 (Toilettes du soir), and they have completely disappeared from the catalogue in 1937.

Having found no trace of any reason for this fall from favour, we are reduced to speculating that, because of their higher price, these films did not have the success with the public necessary to offset the additional technical costs involved in the colourisation.

Thanks to numerous Pathé-Baby film issues, now alas no more, cinephiles still have the benefit of a rich reflection of the cinematographic art, in its new-minted colour, naive and seductive, before which none can remain unmoved.

(This article by Gilbert Bianchi appeared in Infos-Ciné No. 11 (January 1991) and No.12 (April 1991).

(For more on stencil colour, see  Pathécolor)

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