his Solarchrome system. Higgins, who shot several dozen features and a number of newsreel items, documentaries and advertising shorts in the first four decades of the twentieth century, was one of Australia’s most experienced and highly regarded cinematographers. According to Sheila Higgins, her husband had been preoccupied with perfecting a colour film system for more than twenty years before the founding of Solarchrome.  In 1937, Higgins and business partners registered their Solarchrome Processing Company which would photograph and develop films in colour with a new bi-pack process. Their initial capital was a modest five thousand pounds. The Cinema News Company in Queensland soon purchased the rights to Solarchrome to produce a series of one-reel colour films highlighting the state’s scenery.
One of the surviving Solarchrome titles is the short documentary A Playground of the Pacific (1938). Shot by Arthur Higgins, it featured crowds of Sydney-siders swimming, relaxing in the sun and watching surf lifesaving competitions.  Promoted as an ‘all-Australian colour short’, the film was part of an intended series called Colorlogues of Australia. And where better to begin than Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach? Solarchrome soon found uses in animation as well as documentary. Willie the Wombat (1939), a promotional short directed by Eric Porter, was claimed as “the first Australian colour cartoon”. Porter aimed to devise cartoon characters based on koalas, kangaroos and wombats to rival Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. After a preview of Willie the Wombat, a reviewer described the Solarchrome colours as ‘remarkable’, adding that ‘while lacking the range of Technicolor, it suggested interesting possibilities for the production of full-length Australian films in colour.’  The documentary short, Sydney on Show (1940), photographed by Arthur Higgins, soon followed. It presented glimpses of Sydney during its annual Royal Easter Show.
In the wake of the Second World War, competition to control colour film production and processing intensified. ‘German Colour Secret on Way to U.S. and Britain’, announced the trade paper the Motion Picture Herald in 1946. There was an increasing demand for colour motion picture film stock and great interest in the German Agfa colour film process. The stock had long been considered as simpler and less expensive than Technicolor and produced good results on screen. Nathan Golden, U.S. Scientific Consultant, represented the motion picture industry on a Field Intelligence Agency to Germany. He questioned colour scientists who had worked at the Farben and Agfa plants and were now held under ‘protective custody’ on progress made during the war. Men who later stood trial at Nuremberg accused of crimes against humanity – there was a high price to be paid for cheap colour film. Golden reported that Agfa film was processed and printed just like black-and-white film. Its colours were paler than those of Technicolor and resembled pastels. As a result of the information gleaned from the German colour scientists, it was estimated that all feature films would be produced in colour within five years.
Technicolor’s near monopoly on colour feature film production was dealt a further blow when the company and Eastman Kodak were charged with violation of anti-trust laws. The two companies were accused of conspiring to monopolise colour film manufacture and processing in the United States and foreign territories in an agreement that dated back to 1934. Technicolor produced 90% of colour motion picture prints internationally and Eastman manufactured the film stock and saw off competitors.  Armed with the Golden Report, the Ansco Company, announced they had developed a new fast colour film stock to compete with Technicolor. In Europe too more competition was on the way. Processes such as the Belgian Gevacolour and the Italian Ferrania Colour were variants of the Agfacolor process. Like Ansco Color, they were made possible by the industrial secrets the Allies obtained as part of the spoils of war. In response, Technicolor ramped up it