Beatles Film Shows Its True Colours

From Vanessa Thorpe, Guardian:

Help! is restored to its Sixties glory - with a little assistance from a red phone box and £700,000

The original, vibrant colours of the 1965 Beatles' film Help! are to be brought to the public eye once again tonight when a revitalised version is screened for the first time. The results of 11 months of work may surprise those who think they can remember what the 1960s looked like. At a cost of £700,000, the company the Beatles founded, Apple Corps, has given Help! an almost eerily fresh and contemporary look.

Hidden details and forgotten visual jokes have emerged from the shadows of a film which is still credited with inventing the music video. A restoration team working in London and California has cleaned 40 years of dirt and scratches from every frame and the colour distortion has been corrected.

The key to unlocking the true tones of the original footage was the British pillar box. Once those who were working on the faded and broken celluloid reels had found scenes including a post box and a traditional red telephone kiosk they were able to use the shade as a template for the level of colour. 'A pillar box doesn't change colour. We all know that. It was bright red then and it is bright red now,' said film restorer Claire Ferguson. 'We knew from looking at this and from looking at the de-graded grey of the policemen's helmets in the film, which should be pure black, that the rest of the colour had to be adjusted to fit.'

The overall effect is a much lighter, more glamorous film.

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