h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Read your entry. Just a brief note about color.

Various forms of color were used in movies back into the silent period. Some films were hand-colored, (like Pathe's "The Golden Beetle," from 1907). Others, ("Les Vampires," a Feuillade serial from the teens, for example), were tinted with single colors, frequently to indicate day or night, (blue for night, sepia for day). There were also early attempts to shoot in color: Technicolor developed a 2-strip system that was used in two gorgeous sequences in "Stage Struck," a 1925 comedy starring Gloria Swanson (of "Sunset Boulevard" fame).

The 1930s saw the advent of three-strip Technicolor, ("The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), and "Gone with the Wind" (1939), to name a couple of examples), while in the 50s, the three-strip Technicolor system was replaced with single-strip Eastman Color.