From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Evelyn C. Leeper  wrote:   
   >But the original is better (in spite of the fact that I go on to   
   >list a lot of its flaws). The restoration done by DEFA brings out   
   >the vivid colors, which seemed to be a pan-European thing at the   
   >time: Italian films of that era also had those intense primary   
   >colors.   
      
   That's Agfa process.  In the case of Italian films it was Agfa   
   process under license to Ferrania most of the time.  In the case of   
   the DEFA films it was film from what is now ORWO, the old Agfa   
   plant in Wolfen.   
      
   There are a lot of Soviet films in Sovcolor which is basically   
   Agfa process.  After the war the Soviets packed up one of the   
   Agfa manufacturing plants and brought it back to Ukraine where   
   they kept making 1930s-style Agfa stock under the Svema name   
   until the late 1990s.   
      
   The Agfa process uses completely different color chemistry than   
   Eastman process, and if it's processed properly it is extremely   
   stable and does not fade.  (Unfortunately it took a while for   
   people to figure out that the wash water pH had to be within a   
   pretty narrow range for the film to be stable but once they   
   did things were okay.)   
      
   The film prints of First Spaceship on Venus that we got in the   
   west (and Boskone owns a 35mm print still) were the cheapest   
   possible Eastman prints and faded pretty badly.  American   
   International Pictures didn't keep much in the way of archives   
   or rights paperwork so video versions of that film which you   
   see today are invariably transferred from a faded print.   
   --scott   
      
      
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)