There were disturbing results in archiving these extremely historic events in color, related directly to the properties and instabilities of Kodachrome I film of the time. The pigments of these color films reacted with the lacquer coating meant to protect the films in common storage conditions, causing very disappointing fading of blue dye, as well as changes in other dye components in these films. Careful, cool storage conditions in top secret vaults would have prevented much of this film quality destruction, and especially if the problem were discovered before the early 1970s, when Kodachrome I films were discovered to experience such destruction.
The blurriness of Kodachrome I films was attributed to the immense grain of very slow 16 mm ISO 10 color film, as well as the bleeding of dyes in the celluloid. These films were so slow that night scenes had to be simulated using blue filters in daylight. Blue dyes were the least sensitive to light in this stock, and therefore simulated darkness using blue filters. Notice in 1950s cowboy films that night scenes contained long shadows and bright highlights from sunshine, due to this technique of low light simulation required by Kodachrome I.
Some of this seems wrong, or not knowledgeable - there's no discussion of what the chemical formulas were of the three component colour dyes. There's nothing on the way human perception changes as light dims. The 'immense grain' comment must be wrong - slow films had fine grain, which was what made them slow; graininess must be related to the fact that, with colour, in effect there are three different images, which must imply a loss in resolution - black and white films of the same date are impressively sharp - and loss in sensitivity - so that brighter lights were needed.
But - of relevance to nukes - note the comment on night-time colour filming - ''day for night" as it's called now. It suggests that some or all of the films made of supposed nuclear tests at night were in fact filmed during the day ... and it provides a clue as to how the cheating can be detected, by shadows!
