12 Angry Men - B&W film with a color cover - Why?

[pythons]

I bought 12 Angry Men from HMV yesterday for £9.99 and what a fantastic and rivetting movie it was, a tenner well spent!

I was just over at the Internet Movie Database and I saw the video cover for this movie is in color? Why? It's a black and white movie, why would they go to the trouble of colouring in the cover of the video?

Is this regular practice for older movies?

Here's what I mean:

http://posters.imdb.com/Covers/05/00/83.jpg

<i>(sorry it's linked from imdb.com but for some reason I cant log onto my own webspace... :rolleyes: )</i>

This seems really pointless to me.

[charlie angel]

That's what it would have looked like if you were there. Didn't you know that Henry Fonda was slightly orange?

[Michael Brooke]

Because, believe it or not, there are some braindead fools who refuse to buy a film if it's in black and white, on the grounds that it's "not as good as colour"!

So it's common practice to produce colour covers regardless of the nature of the film, on the grounds that it <U>might</U> fool people - similar techniques can be seen with the marketing of <I>Amelie</I>, whose trailer deliberately doesn't mention that it's not in the English language!

[Ben Martin]

Originally posted by pythons
This seems really pointless to me.

i couldn't agree with you more. the dvd cover is similarly afflicted. this disappointing practice seems (as far as i can tell) to have begun with the movies being released for the first time on dvd. i first noticed this on to kill a mockingbird (http://uk.imdb.com/ImageView?u=http%3A//images.amazon.com/images/P/0783225857.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg), and on the waterfront (http://uk.imdb.com/ImageView?u=http%3A//images.amazon.com/images/P/B00003CXBU.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) seems to be the latest 'casualty'. i can't really fathom this out, especially when you consider how fabulous those region 2 hitchcock releases look with their B&W covers.

i can only speculate that the studios think that people who (to their own loss) dislike all B&W movies offhand might accidentally buy these releases thinking they are colour! that would be sweet justice and, if they then actually watch the movies, possibly even a good idea. i still dislike it personally though.

[pythons]

Yeah I thought as much. To be honest it's a bit patronising.

It's tuff to beleive there are people who would not watch a movie because it isnt in colour or wasnt made in the last 20 years. :rolleyes:

At the end of the days wouldnt these people take the movie back upon discovering it was in black and white anyway?

It just seems a little bit tacky for an otherwise superb movie.

(The DVD cover is in black and white mind! :))

Mark

[Arch Stanton]

A couple of months ago i sat down to watch twelve angry men on the Carlton Cinema channel. It started and it was in colour! and stared Tony Danza!


O.K it also stared Jack Lemon and George C Scott and was directed by William Friedkin.


But Tony Danza!!!1111

[Michael Brooke]

<B>It's tuff to beleive there are people who would not watch a movie because it isnt in colour or wasnt made in the last 20 years. </B>

These people very much do exist - I've met quite a few!

<B>At the end of the days wouldnt these people take the movie back upon discovering it was in black and white anyway? </B>

Well, there's only so much you can do... but if they decide to at least give it a go, they might be converted, much like <I>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</I> demonstrably converted quite a few people to the joys of films not in the English language.

[Ben Martin]

Originally posted by pythons
(The DVD cover is in black and white mind! :))

true (on region 2) although it has been given a yellow wash to make it very sepia-toned. the region 1 disc has the same 'full colour' image that you posted above.

[Dear Mr Echo]

I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have black and white artwork for a black and white film - most of the original film posters would have been in colour and I generally prefer covers to echo the way a film was represented in its original poster artwork. This example is just poor design and is slightly misleading, the original poster is much more interesting - as long as the packaging states that the film is in black and white then that's fine for me. But when the cover artwork is in colour and states that the film is colour too (see To Kill A Mockingbird) then thats a major mistake.

I know there are copyright issues but I wish that film companies would utilise more original artwork for their releases, particularly for older films (especially the Hitchcock films - see how much better Vertigo looks compared to the recent Hichcock collection series) - even Criterion are a bit of a disappointment in this respect.

Andrew

[Ben Martin]

Dear Mr Echo - you raise a key difference here. i think what we have been discussing so far is specifically using colourised black and white stills from the movie as cover artwork. colour artwork (almost always actual 'art') that was used as the original theatrical artwork would be an entirely different matter.

personally, i am constantly frustrated by the studios' apparent need to change perfectly good (sometimes superb), well-recognised theatrical artwork for something that is rarely (if ever) better and more often than not much worse. for example, region 1 releases often seem to have their artwork swapped for an image that is boringly dominated by the faces of the two main protagonists.

[Dear Mr Echo]

I was just saying that colourised artwork isn't a problem with me as long as its done well and the film is labelled correctly - this isn't the case here though and I do think that there is an implication that the film is in colour in this instance. Black and white cover artwork can look cheap if poorly designed and I suspect that is half the reason for colourising the images here. Imagine the same straight b/w shots combined with that appalling typography... would you want to buy it? Actually looking again the actual colouring isn't that bad - a bit orangey but miles ahead of the To Kill A Mockingbird cover.

And you are quite right the use of original artwork is a different subject but I was just pointing out that I can't think of much in the way of arguement to support this type of design over the use of original material other than $$$$$$$$$$ and having b/w publicity stills probably more readily available than poster artwork.

Andrew