"I don't know why, but I always remember one of my all-time favourite films 'Bad Day At Black Rock' as being Black and White, but it always turns out to be in colour...."

*I* know why! It's likely because you first watched it on black-and-white TV.

One of my all-time favorite films, not a Hollywood noire drama but rather a British comedy, is The Ladykillers, (The original featuring Alec Guinness, not that awful latter-day remake.) It was a favorite of my dad's, and I watched it with him many times, doubling over with laughter, back when our TVs were always B&W.

Somehow, it seems that by the time I was routinely watching TV in color, that movie wasn't shown any more, or not so often ~ anyway, I went decades without seeing this film on TV. Of course, there were periods of time in the 60s when I didn't watch TV at all. And after I moved out of my parents' house, the old man no longer influenced my viewing choices. (Well, not all my viewing choices; I did still watch NY Mets games whenever possible...)

Anyway: Sometime since the turn of the 21st century, I had a chance to see The Ladykillers on TCM cable, and was ASTOUNDED to see it was actually shot in color! Garish mid-50s Technicolor. Kinda disoriented me for a while...