One of the First Color Feature Films No Longer Exists
Cupid Angling, a lost 1918 color film, was the first and last film to be made using the Douglass Natural Color process.
Like any creative community, the film industry has only been able to make significant technological leaps after a trial period of experimentation and invention. While the medium’s longevity is reliant upon filmmakers willing to take the necessary risks in order to push the craft forwards, early failures are just as critical in sustaining that transition as the more well-regarded successes. This is certainly true of the emergence of color films in the early 20th century. While there are innumerable masterpieces of the silent black-and-white era of cinema, the use of color in the filmmaking process has allowed the artform to advance to the stage that it has reached today. Despite being a highly consequential technical achievement that challenged the way cinema was perceived, the early color film Cupid Angling was made using a process that no longer exists.
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