Editing Agfacolor (section)

==History==
===Development===
[[Agfa-Gevaert|Agfa]] was formed in 1867, and part of [[IG 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.{{sfn|Street|Yumibe|2024|p=30}}

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 the [[Agfa]] company in Germany tested their new material Agfacolor at the swimming competition of the [[1936 Summer Olympics]] in [[Berlin]]. 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.

===Early use in German motion picture films===
The [[Third Reich]]'s Minister of Propaganda [[Joseph Goebbels]] admired Hollywood movies and examined them carefully in regular private screenings (sometimes with [[Adolf Hitler]] and his staff).{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}} Technicolor films such as ''[[The Garden of Allah (1936 film)|The Garden of Allah]]'' (1936), ''[[Gone with the Wind (1939 film)|Gone with the Wind]]'' (1939) and Disney's ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow 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|date=July 2022}}

====''Women Are Better Diplomats''====
It was not until the beginning of principal photography for ''[[Women Are Better Diplomats]]'' (German: ''Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten'') a 1939 musical starring the singer/dancer [[Marika Rökk]] and actor [[Willy Fritsch]] that Agfacolor was used for a major motion picture. The use of Agfacolor was reinforced by the top of the [[Nazi]] film industry, Reichsminister [[Joseph Goebbels]], and the executives at [[Universum Film AG|UFA]] eventually gave in to his pressure. Agfacolor was then used throughout the entire film shoot of ''Women Are Better Diplomats''.{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}

Throughout the shoot, the film yielded mixed results as it was still very sensitive to different [[color temperature]]s 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|date=July 2022}}

Meanwhile the production costs had risen from {{Reichsmark|1.5 to 2.5 million|link=yes}}. 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 {{Reichsmark|8 million}} by the end of the war.{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}

==== ''The Golden City'' ====
After the process's growing pains had been overcome throughout the production of ''Women 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 finished ''[[Die goldene Stadt]]'' (Eng: ''The Golden City''), a dreamy propaganda fairytale starring his wife [[Kristina Söderbaum]] as a young, innocent country girl who comes to the golden city of [[Prague]] and is seduced by an unscrupulous [[gigolo]].

''The Golden City'' premièred at the [[Venice 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 specialist [[Konstantin Irmen-Tschet]] (once in charge of the SFX camera in [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis (1927 film)|Metropolis]]''), the film displays an impressive symphony of colors.

==== Later Agfacolor films during the Third Reich ====

Made for UFA's 25th Anniversary, ''[[Münchhausen (1943 film)|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 include ''[[The Woman of My Dreams (1944 film)|The Woman of My Dreams]]'' (1944), a musical starring Marika Rökk and ''[[Kolberg (film)|Kolberg]]'' (1945), a dramatization of German resistance throughout the [[Napoleonic 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.

===Legacy of World War II===
Towards the end of [[World War II]], large quantities of raw Agfacolor stock were seized by the [[Soviet Union]] and served as the basis for the '''Sovcolor''' process,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QQq6ncCkHlMC&dq=Sovcolor&pg=PA163|title=Questions of Colour in Cinema: From Paintbrush to Pixel|first1=Wendy Ellen|last1=Everett|first2=Wendy|last2=Everett|date=February 21, 2007|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-03911-353-8|via=Google Books}}</ref> which was widely used in the USSR and other [[Eastern bloc]] nations;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://filmcolors.org:443/timeline-entry/1316/|title=Sovcolor negative film type B}}</ref> such films produced in [[Communist Poland|Poland]] were also described as '''Polcolor''', the first being ''Adventure at Marienstadt'' (1954).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xPzyAAAAMAAJ&q=polcolor|title=Four Aspects of the Film|first=James L.|last=Limbacher|date=February 21, 1978|publisher=Arno Press|isbn=978-0-405-11138-9|via=Google Books}}</ref> One of the best-known Sovcolor films is ''[[War and Peace (film series)|War and Peace]]'' (1965–67) and many of [[Andrei Tarkovsky]]'s films used it as well.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=unPhu6dHnCkC&dq=Sovcolor&pg=PA414|title=Dictionnaire général du cinéma: du cinématographe à Internet: art, technique, industrie|first=André|last=Roy|date=February 21, 2007|publisher=Les Editions Fides|isbn=978-2-7621-2787-4|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWLna_OuIokC&dq=Sovcolor&pg=PA271|title=Science-fiction & Fantasy Cinema: Classic Films of Horror, Sci-fi & the Supernatural|first=John Howard|last=Reid|date=January 1, 2007|publisher=Lulu.com|isbn=978-1-4303-0113-4|via=Google Books}}</ref> Sovcolor was known for the variable quality of its colors, which led to continuity errors as colors changed between scenes; more prestigious productions used imported [[Eastman Kodak]] stock instead.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VvBPEAAAQBAJ&dq=Sovcolor&pg=PA80|title=Chromatic Cinema: A History of Screen Color|first=Richard|last=Misek|date=April 26, 2010|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4443-3239-1|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Jesse |first1=Arthur |title=Metal Picture Prints |url=https://www.canvasndecor.com/metal-photo-prints.htm |access-date=8 December 2023}}</ref>

Agfa was divided into Agfa-Werke, a subsidiary of [[Bayer|Farbenfabriken]], in [[West Germany]] and [[ORWO|Agfa Wolfen]] in [[East Germany]] after World War II and the division of Germany. Agfa-Werke opened a plant in [[Leverkusen]]. 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.{{sfn|Street|Yumibe|2024|pp=30-31}}

Agfacolor consumer products were also marketed in North America under the names [[Ansco#Color film: Anscochrome|Ansco Color and Anscochrome]] (from Agfa's then-US subsidiary, [[Ansco|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 the [[United States Department of War|War Department]], Ansco then developed a similar color film, which it produced in its own factory in [[Binghamton, New York]]. Anscochrome was widely distributed, but met with limited commercial success in competition with Kodak product.<ref>[http://historicphotoarchive.com/f2/ansco.html Anscochrome and Ansco color transparencies slides.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130213174349/http://www.historicphotoarchive.com/f2/ansco.html |date=2013-02-13 }} June 11, 2010.</ref><ref>[http://www.oldkingsroad.com/Ansco/brady/ansco1.htm About Ansco.] February 07, 2008.</ref>

Ansco Color was also used in [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood films]], including some produced by [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]].  Films shot in Ansco Color included ''[[The Man on the Eiffel Tower]]'' (1949), ''[[Bwana Devil]]'' (1953), ''[[Kiss Me, Kate (film)|Kiss Me, Kate]]'' (1953), ''[[Seven Brides for Seven Brothers]]'' (1954), ''[[Brigadoon (film)|Brigadoon]]'' (1954), and ''[[Lust for Life (1956 film)|Lust for Life]]'' (1956), the final film shot on this film stock.  Anscochrome films for still photography were manufactured until 1977.<ref name=BillsHistory>Camp, William L. [http://billsphotohistory.com/3.html ''Ansco Chronology, From a Binghamton, N. Y. point of view.''] July 14, 2011.</ref> Agfacolor<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.lacinemathequedetoulouse.com/programmation/projections/29513?from=2016-09-11&to=2016-10-11 | title=Ah ! Les belles bacchantes – les Branquignols }}</ref> was used in one of the first color French comedy and topless films with [[Louis de Funès]] called ''Women of Paris''<ref>''Women of Paris'' is a translation of title for the Spanish market.</ref> (fr. ''[[Ah! Les belles bacchantes]]'') dated 1954.

====Agfacolor during the Second World War====

Famous professional early works made in Agfacolor were war photo reports made during [[Invasion of Poland]] (1939) by [[Hugo Jaeger]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://time.com/3486074/world-war-ii-erupts-color-photos-from-the-invasion-of-poland-1939/|title=Invasion of Poland, 1939: Color Photos From WWII's First Front|date=November 12, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141112002419/http://time.com/3486074/world-war-ii-erupts-color-photos-from-the-invasion-of-poland-1939/|archive-date=2014-11-12}}</ref> [[Paris]] during German occupation (1940-1944) by [[André Zucca]]; [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] (1943) by Zbigniew Borowczyk (3 photos), Karol Grabski (1 photo) and Rosemarie Lincke (1 photo);<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/media/102632-warszawa-plonace-getto |title=Warszawa. Płonące getto &#124; Wirtualny Sztetl |access-date=2019-10-27 |archive-date=2019-10-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191027151048/https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/media/102632-warszawa-plonace-getto }}</ref> [[Warsaw Uprising]] (1944) by Ewa Faryaszewska and Gerhard Wiechmann;<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://muzeumwarszawy.pl/fotografie-ruin-ruiny-fotografii-1944-2014/|title=Fotografie ruin. Ruiny fotografii 1944–2014|newspaper=Muzeum Warszawy |date=7 February 2017|author1=Mwadmin }}</ref> [[Prague uprising]] (1945) by Oldřich Cerha<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.vhu.cz/barikady-a-stejnokroje-prazskeho-povstani-v-barve/ | title=Vhu Praha | date=18 May 2015 }}</ref> and during [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]] by Jeno Kiss.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://estost.photoshelter.com/gallery/Hungary-1956-Uprising-in-color/G00002lhHAwiR.Xc/C0000hpp41P1sy5k|title = Hungary: 1956 Uprising in color - Images &#124; EST&OST}}</ref> 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's [[C-41 process]].