“You need more than luck in Shanghai.”

– Elsa Bannister

“Life has its tricks. Its oddities.”

– Jackie Demaistre

Orange: a building or structure*

“Today is the first day of a life of sacrifice.”

– Moritoo Endō

Partially filmed near the 厳島神社 (Itsukushima Shrine) with its striking vermilion torii.

 

Shot on Eastmancolor, relatively cheap and globally available, and influenced by Hollywood colour melodramas of the time, in particularly Rudolph Maté's Mississippi Gambler (1953) (source), and in its turn greatly influenced the implementation of colour in global cinema to come.

 

Jigokumon won two Academy Awards in 1955, for Best Costume Design and Best Foreign Language Film.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Red: best use of red in food or fashion*

“She looked at the red shoes, for she thought there was no harm in looking. She put them on, for she thought there was no harm in that either. But then she went to the ball and began dancing. When she tried to turn to the right, the shoes turned to the left. When she wanted to dance up the ballroom, her shoes danced down. They danced down the stairs, into the street, and out through the gate of the town. Dance she did, and dance she must, straight into the dark woods.”

– Hans Christian Andersen, De røde Skoe (1845, tranl. Jean Hersholt, 1949), via

Another one of The Archers' #Technicolor extravaganzas. This time, not to wow the worn-down post-war black-and-white audience, but as an an active storytelling instrument.

 

Built around Hans Christian Andersen's haunting tale De røde Skoe (1845).

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Someone is sad, or cries*

 

A wealthy Athenian writer on holiday on Hydra falls for the morose Marina (Ellie Lambeti), one of the daughters of his widowed innkeeper, causing disruption in the close-knit island community.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

“It's a lot of work, ya know, just staying alive.”

– Rosemary Scott

Someone naps or sleeps*

“I guess we like each other a lot, huh?”

– Monika Eriksson

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.