‘The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender’ DVD Review – A Unique Look Back At Hollywood’s Golden Age

From the ground-breaking director of Rock Hudson’s Home Movies and , The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender is another witty and enlightening essay on the gay undercurrents of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Dan Butler (Frasier) acts as tour guide as he uncovers a squeamish fascination with gay eroticism and camp. The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender is a rich and funny meditation on American sexual identity, film history and culture. You will never look at Westerns the same way again!

For thoughts on The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender, please check out my previous discussion here (around the 2:00 mark).

Video Quality

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender comes to DVD with an okay 480p transfer that showcases the material well within its source limitations. While my initial guess was this was shot on video, IMDb lists 35mm film as the original format. This information makes the lack of a proper restoration and Blu-Ray release a bit more unfortunate. Despite this, there is little in the way of age related wear throughout. The archival clips seem to be in the best condition that would have been expected back in 1997, but do not expect too much from them. The skin tone of Dan Butler looks fairly natural, but the presentation offers up very little in the way of fine detail. The image is consistently soft and the lighting can cause some blooming. What colors there are appear a bit reserved and black levels are subject to some crush and compression artifacting. The film is not a showcase effort by any means, but those looking for a straightforward representation of the material will just be glad to have it available. 

Audio Quality

The DVD comes with a Dolby Digital 2.0 track that does not push itself in any notable way. There is not much in the way of music, but what is here maintains a decent fidelity with no extreme issues of clipping or blown out audio. Vocals are fairly clear throughout, with only occasional moments where things sound a bit fuzzy due to the quality of the source material. This is not a persistent issue, but it should be noted that these issues exist. You would not expect this to be a knockout audio presentation, and this disc is about as good as the source material will allow. There are optional English SDH subtitles provided. 

Special Features

• Bonus Films By Mark Rappaport

• • The Vanity Tables Of Douglas Sirk (2014): An 11-minute exploration of the use of vanity tables in cinema, the clashing between the value that is put on beauty and the ascribed “vanity” of women, and how Douglas Sirk in particular uses this technique to mine greater emotional depth of character. 

• • The Double Life Of Paul Henreid (2017): A 34-minute exploration of Austrian actor Paul Henreid and his position as a star on the rise at Warner Bros., how his career shifted after WWII, the bitterness that began to emanate from his work, how he existed within the politics of the time and more. 

• • Martin und Hans (2021): A nearly 36-minute dive into the lives of Martin Kosleck and Hans Heinrich von Twardowsk who left Hitlerian Germany and live a long-lasting relationship. Martin is Jewish, Hans is homosexual. You get to understand the difficulties both faced in the work they were provided and in the world at large. 

Final Thoughts

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender is an essay documentary which takes a look at classic cinema from an atypical vantage point, especially for this point in time. This journey into the past encourages you to open your mind and analyze film thanks to some carefully chosen examples. Even if some of these choices may be reaching a bit to suit their hypothesis, it is likely to inspire some rich discussion points. Our main issue with this work is that it does feel a bit dated, and it feels like we have better vocabulary and insight that could be used if it were made today. Kino Classics has provided a DVD with a fair A/V presentation and some great supplemental documentary shorts. 

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender is currently on DVD and Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the DVD

Disclaimer: Kino Classics has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.