`GWTW': FRANKLY DAZZLING.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Frankly, Scarlet, viewers will give a damn.

Technicolor has been showing off its recently revived dye-transfer process to create movie prints after 25 years of using a different approach. Dye transfer, which is proprietary to the company, made Technicolor a synonym for almost surreally intense movie colors after it was introduced in 1935.

To show what dye-transfer will mean for viewers, the company recently ran side-by-side comparisons of the old and new processes on a clip of ``Gone With the Wind'' in a screening room at its Universal City headquarters.

The classic, originally shot in Technicolor in 1939, will be re-released Friday in about 250 theaters nationwide. The dazzling new prints also have been digitally retouched, with digital stereo sound added and the film's original screen format restored.

Of all the work done on the latest ``GWTW'' re-release, however, viewers likely will most enjoy the effects of the new film process. In talking about it, Technicolor President Ron Jarvis sounds almost like he's shilling detergent.

``It gives a totally different look,'' Jarvis said. ``There are blacker blacks, the whites are whiter and less yellow. Colors are more vibrant. This has to it almost a 3-D feel.''

But he's right. Compared to the dye-transfer print, a print using the newer, widely used color-positive process was duller, less nuanced, less intense, less, well, Technicolor.

``By the time you process the colors (with color-positive systems), it's not really what was on the set,'' Jarvis said. `It's like a veil on the film.''

Technicolor abandoned the dye-transfer process in its U.S. operations in 1974 after putting out ``Godfather II.''

Jarvis, who joined the company the following year, calls the decision ``a bad mistake on the part of this company's management,'' driven in part by the company's then-gloomy assessment of the future of theaters, and an attraction to what seemed to be a more modern system.

But Jarvis spent a couple of years working in London, where the company still offered dye-transfer prints until 1978. During that time, he learned a great deal about the process, enough to order its revival five years ago when he was head of the company.

``I felt very strongly we should go back,'' said Jarvis. ``A good idea is a good idea.''

Technicolor since has spent about $20 million improving and refining the old techniques so they can be used on any kind of film, Jarvis said. Already, the approach has begun appearing in films such as ``Bulworth'' and ``Godzilla.''

The Technicolor dye-transfer revival, though perhaps the most notable, isn't the only improvement to one of the most loved films of all time, said Warner Bros. Vice President for Film Preservation Richard P. May.

Smudges, scratches and other damage to the original negatives, a result of various reissues over the years, were digitally cleaned up by EDS Digital Studios, so the new prints will sparkle even more, May said.

Chace Productions dubbed the original nitrate print soundtrack onto digital and rebuilt it into a rich stereo version. Chace president Bob Heiber said his company ``added nothing'' to the existing music but merely made it more lifelike and enveloping.

And for the first time in decades, the film will be shown in its original aspect ratio - 1.33:1. Most of the re-releases over the years have clipped the upper third of the frame to fit the film into a ratio of 1.85:1, May said.

``I'm as close as anyone to seeing the original materials and most of the re-releases'' of ``GWTW,'' May said. ``I've got to say, this is as good as it's ever looked.''

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Photo

Photo: Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh are looking better than ever with the recently revived dye-transfer Technicolor process and digitally cleaned-up negatives used on Friday's re-release of ``Gone With the Wind.''