BLACK & WHITE IN COLOR

Film colorization, under increasing attack, is trying hard to get the good words out.

Publicity firm of Solters, Roskin and Friedman was hired by Hal Roach Studios--which has copyrighted the term colorization --to handle p.r. duties. Rob Word, senior Roach veep of creative affairs, said he hired Solters merely to set up interviews “so I could communicate how important this process is.” And a Solters spokesman claimed, “It’s not a tough account. All the arguments really melt in the face of logic.”

But Rogers & Cowan has abandoned publicity chores for Color Systems Technology Inc., which colors black-and-white films for Ted Turner. They quit after only a month.

“He (Warren Cowan) didn’t want to take our money when everybody was already doing a story on us,” said Charles Powell, Color Systems exec v.p.

But a R&C; rep confided: “The account became too controversial for us.” And a spokesman for Hanson & Schwam, which had the account for a year prior to R&C;, said they gave it up because “colorization’s become too explosive and negative an issue.”

Meanwhile, Directors Guild prez Gil Cates continues to call colorization “film vandalism, pure and simple. Coloring films is morally indefensible. I can’t imagine any creative film maker not being upset if his publicist was involved in promoting colorization in any way.”