Toronto. Kodachrome movie film was release in 1935 followed a year later as 35mm ‘slide’ film. The whole spectrum of Kodachrome films and processing were redesigned in 1938.
In 1940, Kodak strongly promoted the new colour film for amateurs with a line of 35mm cameras, and 2×2 inch slide projectors. Both cameras and projectors were heavily advertised in ads such as this June, 1940 ad in Popular Mechanics hitting Kodachrome, cameras, projectors and the NY World’s Fair (1939-1940) which opened in 1939 when WW2 hadn’t yet touched the huge and wealthy American nation. (The ad says ‘field’ a sly reference to the NY World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens.)
A big thank you to that photography historian and good friend, George Dunbar. George kindly shared this find with us. As I noted elsewhere, my first use of Kodachrome was in the late 1950s when the transparency film had an incredibly slow ASA 10 rating. As knowledgeable photographers can attest, films with such low sensitivity are extremely contrasty. Over expose a stop and the slide seems washed out but under expose a stop and you get almost blackness.
Thus exposing for highlights gave inky shadows while exposing for shadows gave washed out highlights bereft of detail.