Ultra is a Chor when it came to the colorization of Chori Chori

Okay. Avenging with a vengeance when it comes to this blotch job. The film is called Chori Chori. Here's the backstory. In Indian Cinema, technology didn't develop as fast as it did in the United States...understandably so as the budgets weren't there. Widescreen experiments were done but weren't common practice until the 70s, and it took until the 1960s before color film was commonly used (Indians preferred to use Eastman Color, although one would never guess it watching a DVD today, as the color correction done represents ANYTHING but Eastman Color).

Chori Chori was a 1956 film and a musical remake of It Happened One Night. The film was shot mostly in black and white with the industry's common aspect ratio at the time, 1.37:1. I first saw Chori Chori on VHS. My parents had a copy they had purchased from a vendor on Devon Street in Lincolnwood, IL. Looking at it recently, it looks to be at least 2 generations of VHS transferred from a Umatic 3/4", indicated by the frequent dropouts on the source tape. This film holds a special place in my heart as it has one of the most beautiful music numbers in a Hindi film, called Aaja Sanam. Take a look:

Now, while the VHS we owned was atrocious in many ways compared to the DVD rip above, it did have two musical numbers that, as I mentioned before, were shot in color. One is Pancchi Badun Urit Phiron, which takes place in a park (our main female lead, Nargis, decides to venture off there during her bus layover, which results in her tagging along with Raj Kapoor for the rest of the trip) and another is when the two leads are hitchhiking and come across a puppet show. In 2009, when I was studying at UCLA, I started a project trying to find out what happened to these color elements. The VHS we owned, which included the numbers, was from the early 80s, and it appears that every DVD release that had come out up to that point had them in black and white! Did these color elements still exist? Where was this magical print that was used for this horrendous video transfer? No one knew. But a thorough search found that no DVD included them in color. Here is the puppet number in black and white:

Then, one magical day, a press released was announced. The ENTIRE film was to be colorized and matted to 1.78 for a new HD release. Whaaa? I.....just......wow. That's all I can say to that. Personal opinion only, I believe in keeping things as true to form as they can. And this goes for all ends of the spectrum; upmixing a film to 5.1 is no better than colorizing it. You are tampering with the director's work. For years we nagged about pan and scan being an issue, and now people are cropping because a wider image will appeal to modern audiences. If the people in charge of this project had done a little research, they would have seen how terrible colorization projects were received in the United States and eventually abandoned because of the backlash on how terrible they looked. But, no. They felt that their colorization ways were 'magical'. Now, if this wasn't bad enough, here's where my real beef is. In NO WAY do the colors of the new colorization match the colors of the original sequences as they were shot in color. Take a quick peak at this:

I wish I could upload the original color sequence of this film as a reference. One day I will when I get my VHS to DVD unit working again, but just to give you an idea, I think we can all agree that Nargis did not have purple skin. Whose leg is being pulled into believing this was shot in color? Nor did she wear a pink and purple sari in this number. The blouse was red, the dupata was white. As I mentioned before, it's possible that there aren't any more copies of the original color sequence to use as a reference, but I am sure that there are press photos, reference stills, or something of the sort that could have been used. It's such an insult to the original film-making team to release something like this, and to market it as an impressive project.

One day, hopefully, the color elements will be found, the film will be returned to its original aspect ratio, and a reasonably decent release that would do Raj Kapoor and Nargis proud will hit the market. Until then, I hope people enjoy watching the beautiful noir like number I posted above looking like an Easter extravaganza, as seen in the newly restored colorized clip below:

Signed,

The Celluloid Avenger