I'm not big on classic films that have been colorized, but the process applied to this 1933 footage of the last surviving Tasmanian tiger in captivity is wondrous. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia released the colorized and upscaled video in honor of Australia's National Threatened Species Day today.
The Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) was a beautiful carnivorous marsupial that went extinct in the 1930s in part due to human hunting and encroachment on the animal's natural habitats. (To this day though, people report occasional sightings in the region.) Filmmaker Samuel François-Steininger worked his magic on original footage shot at Tasmania's Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart in 1933.
From the NFSA:
The colourised Fleay film features Benjamin, the last captive thylacine. We see Benjamin lying down, walking around the perimeter of the small enclosure, opening his mouth wide, sniffing the air and scratching.
Fleay, a conservationist who advanced the breeding of endangered species in captivity, was bitten on the buttocks after shooting the film. At just under 80 seconds, Fleay's footage is the longest single film of the 10 separate thylacine films known to exist.
More about the Thylacine at the Australian Museum.
Also, enjoy this terrific New Yorker feature from 2018 by Brooke Jarvis: "The Obsessive Search for the Tasmanian Tiger."
