Shot in 1922, a full 13 years before the first color feature film, here’s a restored test of Kodachrome color motion picture film.
In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray appears almost translucent, her flesh a pale white that is reminiscent of perfectly sculpted marble, enhanced with touches of color to her lips, eyes, and hair. She is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear.
Becky Sharp (1935) is credited in that article as being the first feature film to be shot completely in color via the three-strip Technicolor process, though color was used through the two-strip Technicolor process in earlier films like the fantastic Doctor X (1932), and Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933), among others.
That two-strip Technicolor process made for an interesting looking film, and after growing up seeing things in full living color, lends itself to giving a film, especially a horror film, a surreal feeling.
I wonder if the boys at Kodak ever thought of something like “High Definition” back in 1922? Or how relatively short the lifespan of Kodachrome film would end up being?