The Color Green

An Affair to Remember and Police Beat

Would anyone remember Lee Marvin's scarf in Seven Men from Now so well if it was the usual red or yellow instead of that fertile green that stands out against the dusty brown of Lone Pine?

Why does the color green always stand out so vividly in movies? Is it because we see it so rarely? It's like the George Harrison of the movie palett: an essential (and underrated) element, and it's always a pleasure to see it take the lead.

It seems like filmmakers' passions always lie with red or blue, never with green. Maybe Technicolor is to blame: it was so good and vivid with those colors and green was more the domain of Agfacolor (also known as Ansocolor). Jacques Tourneur's Stranger on Horseback has some of the sharpest greens in cinema, thanks to the Anscocolor, but they say the director was never happy with it.

Blue was fashionable for a while. I hope green will be all the rage some time soon.