Figure 1.--The boy eating an apple made me laugh. It is a good solid English apple which the boy is enjoying. It doesn't look like he is very willing to share it. He ate the aple all on his own and seemwd to enjoy it. This color system did not show red very well. The apple was a brownish red.

'The Open Road' is an early travelogue filmed by Claude Freiese-Grene using his father's Biocolour film system. It was a two color additive system which mixed black-and-white and color frames. When the film was projected at 24 frames per second, the two colors seemed to merge, creating the illusion of natural color as a result of the persistence of vision. The Biocolour system was not developed techically any further because of the inherent limitations of a two-color system and progress in America, Germany, and elsewhere on three-color film systems. The film was shot on a car journey between Land's End in England north to John O'Groats in Scotland (1924-26). It was the first English film providing any realistic color images of England. The idea was to create a series of 26 short films which could be shown as weekly episodes in movie theaters. It was a great idea for introducing the Biocolour system to the movie going public. It was first exhibited at trade shows where it was aclaimed for the beauty of the color images (1925). Modern readers will not be as impressed, but it was spectacular to film audiences in the 1920s who had never seen any realistic color images before. And they provide us today a wonderful, rare color record of Britain in the 1920s.

Claude Freiese-Grene: Biocolour Film System

'The Open Road' is an early travelogue filmed by Claude Freiese-Grene. He was an early British film pioneer. One of the film processes he worked on was making colour films. William Friese-Greene He was working on the adaptive process when he died in 1921. The work was continued by his son, Claude Friese-Greene.

Biocolour Film System

Freiese-Green used his father's Biocolour film system. It was a two color additive system which mixed black-and-white and color frames. When the film was projected at 24 frames per second, the two colors seemed to merge, creating the illusion of natural color as a result of the persistence of vision. The Biocolour system was not developed techically any further because of the inherent limitations of a two-color system and porgress in America, Germany, and elsewhere on three-color film systems. A reader writes, "I think a couple more films were made using this system and were superseded by better colour systems."

Travelogue

The film was shot on a car journey between Land's End at the western tip of England (Cornwall) north to John O'Groats at the northern-most point of Scotland (1924-26). It was the first English film providing any realistic color images of England. The idea was to create a series of 26 short films which could be shown as weekly episodes in movie theaters. It was a great idea for introducing the Biocolour system to the movie going public. It was first exhibited at trade shows where it was aclaimed for the beauty of the color images (1925). Modern readers will not be as impressed, but it was spectacular to film audiences in the 1920s who had never seen any realistic color images before. And they provide us today a wonderful, rare color record of Britain in the 1920s.

BBC Documentary

A HBC contrubutor reprts, "The BBC did a documentary a few years back on this film and recreated the journey. As they went along they gave further information and found people who were in the film and their descendants. A boy working on a farm was able to be traced and his son was found. Then the Lancashire Orphans feature came up which I thought would be good for HBC page now that the background and what happened to the children had been discovered."

Southport Orphans

Uur contribuor tells us, "Part of the travel film was shot in the Southport area of Lancashire. He filmed at a village on the Flyde coast. In the sequence he filmed a group of children using hit natural colour process. This is valuable because it shows the correct colour of the children's clothes. Not only that but the children's names are known and what happened to them later in life has been pieced together. The children in the film still are likely to be from the same family. Their family name was Cross. There were seven children but only three are in the film. The little boy eating a slice of bread might also be one of the Cross children. The boy holding the cat is Richard Cross. The little girl is Grace Cross and the boy holding the smaller boy's hand is Ewart Cross. There father was Thomas Cross but he died shortly after Grass was born in 1919. They were looked after by their mother. Grace was very fond of Richard. He was her favourite brother. Grace and Richard were very fond of animals and had two pet cats a ginger one seen in the film and a black one. They lived opposite a shop which made clogs which is why they are wearing this type of shoe. Sadly mum died aged 40 in 1924. The children became orphans, Grace went to live with her Great aunt. It seems the boys went to live at an orphanage in Preston, Lancashire. The sad thing was that Grace's great aunt for some unknown reason did not let her write to her brother or go to see them. In later life she believed that any letters they wrote to her were kept by her aunt. However she did receive a letter from two of her brothers called Jim and Ewart in December 1930. Grace kept this letter all her life. The village kept the memory of this family and never forgot them." [Ferguson]

Sources

Ferguson, William. E-mail message (June 18, 2021).