AMC is showing Miracle On 34th Street now

But it's the colorized version. I. Just. Can't. I thought colorized versions were a phase?

• I had the exact same reaction when I turned it on last night, OP. I totally thought it was regarded as a tacky, tasteless '80s phase, and that showing a colorized movie would be unthinkable today. I wonder if it has to do with them thinking children won't be willing to put up with a black-and-white movie - I remember seeing a TV commercial for a set of Shirley Temple DVDs, and they were colorized.

• "I would like to tell you how it feels to see yourself painted up like a birthday cake on television. It feels terrible. It hurts." --Ginger Rogers on coloization, to Congress in the 1980s

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• Wow - I hate colorization too, but Ginger's quote still deserves a huge MARY!

• Awww, R2. Great quote.

  OP

• I don't know if they fixed it or not, but in the first colorization of this movie, there is a scene where Kris is riding in a taxi cab and the colorists forgot to color the scenery outside the back window of the taxi cab.

• You call that blanched, bathed in piss look and jaundiced appearing flesh tones COLOR? Just adjust the saturation levels on your television to black & white accordingly.

• There's only one reason they'd air a colorized movie, because they know it would get higher ratings. Therefore you're out-voted, more people want to see it colorized. And there's no comparison to the 80s colorizing phase, they've vastly improved the technique, with some believed to look exactly like the movie was originally in color. But if it's so important to you to watch it in b&w, you could turn all the color down on your tv, or download a b&w copy.

• It's so much nicer in black and white especially if you get a really good print, the color versions never live up to the crisp, sharp b&w editions of this movie.

• Yes some movies are better in b&w, I just don't have an automatic negative reaction to colorization. I prefer the first two seasons of Bewitched colorized, but of course that's just a fluffy tv show. I also don't care anything about Miracle on 34th Street, so I'm not even thinking about whether it'd piss me off to see it colorized. I have a copy of Reefer Madness colorized in neon colors and it's fabulous, but again that's not comparable to a serious movie, many of which I'd also prefer to see in b&w. I've heard there's a really great colorization of Psycho though, I'd like to see that.

• Some things would just look totally wrong in color. like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

• IIRC, all of Shirley Temple's movies have been colorized. I would love to see Broadway Melody of 1940 colorized though.

• Shirley's not happy about it.

  http://25.media.tumblr.com/ef4e16d396a7bc73f5cab593f35e375a/tumblr_meu5uyusgV1qafm1vo1_500.jpg

• It would be interesting to see some of those earlier MGM movies colorized, like Ziegfeld Girl, for example. It's hard to believe they didn't shell out the bucks on that one back in 1941. Colorizing doesn't negate the originals. It's just another viewing option.

• Does John Payne appear shirtless in that one? That might be well worth a colorization.

• I like the one with Mr French and Cissy in it.