One of the consequences of my exploring photography and lighting has been that I am much more sensitive these days to what I see on the film screen. Last night I watched a favorite of mine, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, on TCM and was intrigued to learn from the host that the film's unique look was a result of the film stock being "flashed", i.e. pre-exposed to provide more detail in the darks, and thereby give the film an aged look. Apparently, the producers did not like the initial rushes, and ordered Altman to re-shoot those scenes. Altman responded by blaming the Canadian lab that was doing the processing and somehow managed to continue blame-shifting until the entire film had been shot and it was too late for a do-over. (Heh-heh.) While reading about the process just now, I learned that Ansel Adams himself used this technique and explained it in detail in some of his books.
Just thought I would share that bit of trivia with you in case it was new and interesting to anyone else.