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Agfacolor was a series ofcolor film products made byAgfa of Germany. The first Agfacolor, introduced in 1932, was a film-based version of theirAgfa-Farbenplatte (Agfa color plate),[1] a "screen plate" product similar to the FrenchAutochrome. In late 1936, Agfa introducedAgfacolor Neu (New Agfacolor), a pioneering color film of the general type still in use today.[2] The new Agfacolor was originally areversal film used for making "slides", home movies and short documentaries. By 1939, it had also been adapted into anegative film and aprint film for use by the German motion picture industry. After World War II, the Agfacolor brand was applied to several varieties of color negative film forstill photography, in which the negatives were used to make color prints on paper. The reversal film was then marketed asAgfachrome. These films useColor Developing Agent 1 in their color developer.[3]
Agfacolor Neu, called simply Agfacolor after its predecessor had been retired, was the German response toTechnicolor andKodachrome. Like Kodachrome, introduced byEastman Kodak in 1935, the new Agfacolor film was an "integral tripack" with three differently color-sensitized emulsion layers. Unlike Kodachrome, the corresponding color-formingdye couplers were made integral with each layer during manufacture, greatly simplifying theprocessing of the film: with Kodachrome, the dye couplers had to be introduced one at a time during a very complicated development procedure that required special equipment and could only be done at a Kodak processing plant.
Agfa was formed in 1867, and part ofIG Farben from 1925 to 1945. Its Wolfen plant, which was the sole producer of Agfacolor film until the end of World War II, was constructed in 1909.[4]
Realizing they were at least one year behind their American competitors, German technicians decided to steer away from Kodak's approach to capturing color images on film and invested in their own technology. Their work bore fruits in the summer of 1936, when chemical engineers of theAgfa company in Germany tested their new material Agfacolor at the swimming competition of the1936 Summer Olympics inBerlin. Although the German technology promised the use of one and the same material for different purposes, ranging from photographic negative film for prints to photographic slides and motion picture films, it took another three years—until July 1939—for any German motion picture film studio to experiment with the film.
TheThird Reich's Minister of PropagandaJoseph Goebbels admired Hollywood movies and examined them carefully in regular private screenings (sometimes withAdolf Hitler and his staff).[citation needed] Technicolor films such asThe Garden of Allah (1936),Gone with the Wind (1939) and Disney'sSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) made him realize that Hollywood feature films presented a threat to Germany's internal market, and that Hollywood's dominance of color film technology should be matched, at least if Germany was serious about engaging in a cultural war with the US and Britain.[citation needed]
It was not until the beginning of principal photography forWomen Are Better Diplomats (German:Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten) a 1939 musical starring the singer/dancerMarika Rökk and actorWilly Fritsch that Agfacolor was used for a major motion picture. The use of Agfacolor was reinforced by the top of theNazi film industry, ReichsministerJoseph Goebbels, and the executives atUFA eventually gave in to his pressure. Agfacolor was then used throughout the entire film shoot ofWomen Are Better Diplomats.[citation needed]
Throughout the shoot, the film yielded mixed results as it was still very sensitive to differentcolor temperatures caused by solar altitude at different times of day. Thus, outdoor shots were difficult to handle: A lawn in front of a castle appeared completely yellow, later brown, then bluish. The technology was not fully developed, and Agfa labs were virtually using the shooting of the film as testing grounds for their new stock, continually changing the formula throughout the shoot based upon unsatisfactory results, so that entire scenes had to be repeated once a new formula was being tested.[citation needed]
Meanwhile the production costs had risen from 1.5 to 2.5 million ℛ︁ℳ︁. More than two years after its start date,Women Are Better Diplomats opened in October 1941. Despite its rather weak color quality, the film proved to be a major hit, earning more than 8 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ by the end of the war.[citation needed]
After the process's growing pains had been overcome throughout the production ofWomen Are Better Diplomats, the following Agfacolor movies were shot and printed much quicker and with better results. The technology was improved at a rapid pace.Veit Harlan was allowed to shoot his next picture in Agfacolor. Between the summers of 1941 and 1942, Veit Harlan finishedDie goldene Stadt (Eng:The Golden City), a dreamy propaganda fairytale starring his wifeKristina Söderbaum as a young, innocent country girl who comes to the golden city ofPrague and is seduced by an unscrupulousgigolo.
The Golden City premièred at theVenice Film Festival in September 1942 and was awarded for its outstanding technical quality, and actress Kristina Söderbaum won an acting award. Shot by cameraman Werner Krien, who had done black-and-white pictures before, and assisted by special effects specialistKonstantin Irmen-Tschet (once in charge of the SFX camera inFritz Lang'sMetropolis), the film displays an impressive symphony of colors.
Made for UFA's 25th Anniversary,Münchhausen (1943) was the third German feature film – out of over a dozen – to be produced using Agfacolor film between 1939 and 1945. Other Agfacolor productions includeThe Woman of My Dreams (1944), a musical starring Marika Rökk andKolberg (1945), a dramatization of German resistance throughout theNapoleonic Wars and the regime's last major propaganda feature film. A significant number of Agfacolor movies shot between 1939 and 1945 survived the war, but most of them exist only in fragments today.
Towards the end ofWorld War II, large quantities of raw Agfacolor stock were seized by theSoviet Union and served as the basis for theSovcolor process,[5] which was widely used in the USSR and otherEastern bloc nations;[6] such films produced inPoland were also described asPolcolor, the first beingAdventure at Marienstadt (1954).[7] One of the best-known Sovcolor films isWar and Peace (1965–67) and many ofAndrei Tarkovsky's films used it as well.[8][9] Sovcolor was known for the variable quality of its colors, which led to continuity errors as colors changed between scenes; more prestigious productions used importedEastman Kodak stock instead.[10][11]
Agfa was divided into Agfa-Werke, a subsidiary ofFarbenfabriken, inWest Germany andAgfa Wolfen inEast Germany after World War II and the division of Germany. Agfa-Werke opened a plant inLeverkusen. Agfa Wolfen sold the Agfa brand rights to Agfa-Werke in 1964, and changed its name to ORWO. Agfa-Werke merged with Gevaert that same year to form Agfa-Gevaert.[12]
Agfacolor consumer products were also marketed in North America under the namesAnsco Color and Anscochrome (from Agfa's then-US subsidiary,Agfa-Ansco). Prior to World War II, the film had been imported from Germany. After the War began, the American subsidiary was seized by the US Government. At the request of theWar Department, Ansco then developed a similar color film, which it produced in its own factory inBinghamton, New York. Anscochrome was widely distributed, but met with limited commercial success in competition with Kodak product.[13][14]
Ansco Color was also used inHollywood films, including some produced byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Films shot in Ansco Color includedThe Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949),Bwana Devil (1953),Kiss Me, Kate (1953),Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954),Brigadoon (1954), andLust for Life (1956), the final film shot on this film stock. Anscochrome films for still photography were manufactured until 1977.[15] Agfacolor[16] was used in one of the first color French comedy and topless films withLouis de Funès calledWomen of Paris[17] (fr.Ah! Les belles bacchantes) dated 1954.
Famous professional early works made in Agfacolor were war photo reports made duringInvasion of Poland (1939) byHugo Jaeger;[18]Paris during German occupation (1940-1944) byAndré Zucca;Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) by Zbigniew Borowczyk (3 photos), Karol Grabski (1 photo) and Rosemarie Lincke (1 photo);[19]Warsaw Uprising (1944) by Ewa Faryaszewska and Gerhard Wiechmann;[20]Prague uprising (1945) by Oldřich Cerha[21] and duringHungarian Revolution of 1956 by Jeno Kiss.[22] Works were made by occupants and also by resistance members. All photographs survived in excellent condition.
In 1978, Agfa ceased production of color film based upon the original Agfacolor process, switching to Kodak'sC-41 process.
