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The following report, originally titled 'Technicolor Inc.', was prepared by the Wall Street firm White, Weld & Co. for prospective investors in the Technicolor Corporation.1 This document was prepared at a time when Technicolor was the reigning colour process in Hollywood. It documents the amazing growth of the corporation during the post-war era [especially 1947-1955] when more and more features films were being made in colour. The report comes at a point just prior to Technicolor's loss of its dominance within the industry. In 1950, Eastman Kodak had introduced a three-emulsion monopack colour film [Type 5247] that enabled filming in colour with standard, 'black and white' cameras. Eastman's colour negative enabled filmmakers to break Technicolor s strangle-hold on colour filmmaking; studios were no longer required to lease Technicolor s proprietary camera equipment, to obey the strictures of Technicolor's on-set colour consultants, or to put themselves at the mercy of Technicolor s over-booked lab, which was often unable to deliver prints in time to accommodate studio release schedules.
The information presented below thus needs to be read in the context of subsequent developments within the film industry that led to a reversal of fortune in Technicolor's prospects. According to Technicolor's Annual Reports to stockholders and The Film Daily Yearbook of Motion Pictures, the corporation's post-war business success peaked in 1953, when the total footage of positive prints it shipped to customers reached 560,550,932, its total sales hit $37,701,770, and its net profit was $2,371,735. After 1953, corporate financial numbers fall off precipitously. Between 1954 and 1957, footage shipped dropped almost in half from 529,906,813 to 275,858,949. The Annual Reports suddenly stop providing footage-shipped figures in 1958/59. At the some time, net earnings per share fell during this 1954-57 period from $1.18 to $.05. Between 1958 and 1962, according to the 1968 Film Daily Yearbook, the company paid no dividends to its stockholders.2 Moody's Industrials reports that Technicolor stock had the following annual highs and lows during this period:3
Thus, in spite of the increase in production of colour films and television material noted in this report, the advent of Eastmancolor negative and competition with other colour labs in the mid1950s cut significantly into Technicolor's business by the end of the decade. The stock, valued here at...