Omnicolor (or Omnicolour, spellings vary) is an elusive entry in the history of colour film invention. The scant information about Omnicolor may be due to its provincial nature, it never having been used to make full films, and no known equipment or test footage having survived.

The descriptions of the tests tend towards hyperbole and the suggestion of salacious detail, but the limited technical information available indicates that Omnicolor was remarkably similar to the Raycol and Talkicolor processes and so likely to have produced similar results.

The public was first made aware of this colour filming process when the local press in Liverpool, Merseyside, reported the screening of some tests on the morning of March 8, 1932, at the Regent Cinema in Crosby, a coastal town in the suburbs of Liverpool. It was said that the process had originated in Middlesex two years previously, with additional work having taken place in Germany. Development was now continuing in a small lab in Liverpool. Three scientists were said to be behind the invention, although the only named one was E. D. Cooper from Hull, East Yorkshire. It was claimed that, “[e]verything that the human eye can see can be reproduced in perfect, natural colours” (Liverpool Evening Express, 1932) and “the stereoscopic effect of the image was to be noted” (Liverpool Echo, 1932). The process was now being presented as an investment opportunity by the British Colour Development (BCD) syndicate. This syndicate was headed by John Davies of Bootle, Liverpool, and who, readers were told, was struggling to keep this invention away from German interests.

On May 10, 1933 – a year and two months later – Omnicolor Ltd was registered in Liverpool, and it was at this point that the process was finally given a name. A major launch took place that October, heralded on the front page of a Sunday tabloid as the “Greatest Invention Since Radio”. This news story promised that Omnicolor could film in nighttime and fog with ease, and that it, “makes many of the thinner garments worn by women transparent. [It is] no longer possible to photograph actresses in flimsy nightdresses […] for the flesh tints would show clearly” (The People, 1933a: p. 1). Other marketing claimed that, unwilling to take no for an answer, Josef Goebbels was now said to be involved in purchasing negotiations to assume German ownership (The People, 1933a: p. 3). 

The tests continued screening at the Regent as British studios Gaumont-British and Stoll Film expressed their interest, Sir Oswald Stoll even asking for a screening in London. Curiously, the British film industry journal Kine Weekly confessed that it had yet to see much proof of the claims around Omnicolor, and found Davies reluctant to share much technical detail on the process. In contradiction to previous reports, Kine Weekly stated that Omnicolor only had a single, unnamed inventor, although ‘[h]e is stated to be a German’ (Kinematograph Weekly 1933a). In a follow-up article, more on the technology and the tests was revealed, although no further mention was made of the elusive inventor (Kinematograph Weekly, 1933b). Elsewhere, Omnicolor was receiving positive reviews regarding its realism and colour range (The Era, 1933)

It was not until June 1934 that a patent for Omnicolor was granted to the non-German Davies as inventor (without mention of Cooper, or others), and a demonstration at the Queen’s Cinema in Bayswater, London, took place. In August and September, it was back to the Regent in Crosby to show scenes of rural Devonshire. Further improvements of the image were reported, along with apparent interest from a London investor. By October, ownership of Omnicolor had passed to the Spectro Ltd syndicate, headed by Morton Travers, who was screening demonstrations at the Rialto in London’s West End district. It is here that the Omnicolor story disappears from the press, suggesting either a name change, or a failure to attract further journalistic interest.

Historian Simon Brown, in Sarah Street’s Colour Films in Britain (2012, p. 281) states that Anthony Bernardi (inventor of Raycol) took over the Omnicolor concern in 1934. His name appears on patents the following year, all of which would be granted in December 1936. Sadly, these came too late for Bernardi as The Hendon and Finchley Times of May 8, 1936, reported that he had resigned from the syndicate in April and he was in court filing for bankruptcy. Despite having petitioned for the winding-up of Omnicolor the year before (London Gazette, 1936), John Davies continued working on the system into 1937. No further public sightings seem to have occurred of Omnicolor tests or full films, and Omnicolor Ltd was liquidated on May 5, 1938 (London Gazette, 1938).