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5.9/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.9/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Color Scales remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you got nine minutes and want to see some old-school fish from the 1930s, Color Scales is... actually kinda neat. But if you hate vintage narrator guys who talk like they have a clothes pin on their nose, you will absolutely lose your mind. 🐠
Its basically a trip to the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, except the camera is from ninety years ago. No plot, no actors, just wet things swimming around in glass boxes.
Pete Smith does the talking, and honestly, he won't shut up about how "funny" these fish look. He keeps calling them names and making weird voices for them.
The color in this is weirdly warm, almost like someone spilled hot orange juice on the film strip. It makes the water look like a big bowl of soup.
It's definitely more relaxing than sitting through something like Judy Forgot, mostly because fish don't have dialogue to mess up. They just do their little bubbles.
Some of the close-ups are so close you can see the scales vibrating. It gets a little bit creepy if you look too hard at their eyes.
Smith keeps making these bad puns that makes you groan out loud. You can tell he thought he was absolutely killing it in the recording booth back in 1932.
I kept waiting for a big shark to show up and do something cool, but mostly they just float there. Like they are waiting for their shift to end so they can go home.
Its not a masterpiece, but hey, it's shorter than Small Timers and you learn a tiny bit about angelfish. Or at least you look at them while eating some snacks.
Just don't expect some deep message about the ocean. It's literally just "hey, look at this wet stuff."