Morgana was a two-color additive process developed by Lady Juliet Rhys Williams and Sydney George Short in the UK, based on the same rotating filter principle as Kinemacolor. Lady Juliet, a politician and advocate for social reform in south Wales, had a strong interest in motion pictures and a familial connection to the industry through her mother, Elinor Glyn, the writer-screenwriter-director-producer. Glyn’s company, in which Lady Juliet, her husband – Lord Rhys Rhys Williams – and Glyn’s other daughter – Lady Margot Davson – were involved, had been a significant investor in Talkicolor: another (commercially unsuccessful) two-color additive process. Lady Juliet’s interest in color motion picture film was first piqued in 1924 when visiting the set of Glyn’s production of His Hour. 

Several years later, on the set of Glyn’s Knowing Men (1930), recognizing the many technical problems with Talkicolor, Lady Juliet was inspired to explore perfecting the two-color rotating filter process for the amateur market. Working with S. George Short in London, their experiments at first used 35mm but soon shifted to 16mm and the amateur market. To overcome the distracting flicker caused by the alternating colors of the rotating filter, Short devised a complex projection mechanism where each frame was projected three times by a retractive projector movement, resulting in a quasi-increased frame rate. Little is known about Short and how he and Lady Juliet met, but Lady Juliet credits his “mechanical knowledge and genius” that helped “solve the flicker problem.” (Williams, 1932)

The pair filed patent applications in the UK (October 1930) and the US (August 1931), and in December 1931, Bell & Howell bought the rights to manufacture and sell the filter/projection mechanism with their Filmo 70 camera and Filmo 57 projector. Bell & Howell featured an article about the Morgana color process written by Lady Juliet in for Filmo Topics, June/July 1932, its monthly promotional publication for “personal motion picture makers” and users of its products. The camera was priced slightly cheaper than the comparable model without the Morgana attachment ($245) because it included only one lens instead of three. A full-page advertisement in the same issue of Filmo Topics indicated that the cost of a camera would be $190 and a projector, $210. The equivalent of several thousand dollars in the twenty-first century. The ad also noted that the camera’s “Morgana filter [is] instantly removable for taking B/W or Kodacolor pictures” and similarly, the projector’s “Color wheel is instantly removable for showing B/W films.” There are no known reports on whether the customized mechanism had an effect on how other types of film appeared when projected.  

While the customized projection mechanism reportedly eliminated flicker in the projected image, even Bell & Howell’s own advertisements admitted the process still had shortcomings: “The disadvantages of the Morgana Process are less than those of any other two-color additive process. Color rendition, while not so faithful as by a three-color process, is nevertheless very pleasing and artistic. Slight fringing is prevalent with close-ups in fast motion but is not considered objectionable.” (Williams, 1932)

News of the new color process began to circulate in July 1932 with the announcement appearing in amateur cine publications such as Movie Makers and in industry/trade press, such as American Cinematographer, which carried a Bell & Howell advertisement featuring Morgana in its August issue. 

Despite this promotion in the press, there is no evidence that the Morgana attachments for cameras and projectors were ever sold commercially, but there are reports that demonstration reels were made. In its November 1932 issue, International Photographer mentions a Morgana demonstration given at the West Coast Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE) meeting the previous month; and in its March 1933 issue, it describes a 350-ft film made by a Bell & Howell employee (most likely Joseph Dubray) of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses earlier that year. The film was shown to an audience of 300 at the Tournament Association’s annual awards banquet and later, a private screening was given to the parade’s grand marshal, Mary Pickford, and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks.

In May 1933, American Cinematographer noted that the Comte (Frédéric) de Janzé of Paris would be experimenting with Morgana color on his hunting expedition to Africa. However, a subsequent article written by de Janzé in Movie Makers, September 1933, makes no mention of the color experiment.

By the early 1930s, other color processes such as Kodacolor and Vitacolor had established a foothold in the amateur market, and with the prospect of more practical and affordable color processes such as Dufaycolor and Kodachrome on the horizon, production of the Morgana color process was abandoned. As a major manufacturer of film and photographic equipment, Bell & Howell would almost certainly have been aware of the imminent arrival of Dufaycolor 16mm, available to the UK market in 1934, offering an accessory-free color option to amateurs, and the development of Kodachrome would have been on their radar too. Along with the economic slump in the early 1930s, it is not surprising that Bell & Howell did not continue manufacturing the Morgana equipment. Simon Brown notes that, “The registrar was informed to dissolve [Morgana Syndicate Ltd] in February 1937 and it was noted at this point that the Morgana patents had been allowed to lapse and that the agreement [with] Bell and Howell was therefore valueless.” (Brown, 2012)

A note about the name “Morgana”: The origins of the name are uncertain but it is possible it could be a reference the county of Glamorgan in south Wales, where Lady Juliet lived, and/or a reference to the character of Arthurian legend, Morgan le Fay (aka Morgana), whose origins lie in Welsh/Celtic mythology.