Wow! Great information, guys. And no doubt on the master's thesis, breadth of topic.
...Plus-X has been discontinued for a little while. Instead we only have the much inferior DoubleX....
Right, I mixed them up in the post. My bad. I have some old-stock Plus-X in the fridge but am mostly shooting Double-X these days. Will post the samples shortly.
If you’re interested in old-time film making and have a 16mm camera, try some positive stock. These are cheap and wonderful for experimentation. Do you have a 16mm projector?
YES! In fact, I bought some Tri-X from a vendor that includes processing to positive and scanning to Digital Intermediate. There is also a nonprofit that has analog editing bay - something that makes a lot more sense on a positive than negative. I haven't started processing reversal but I think it's within my abilities.
Sadly I don't own a 16mm projector but I do live in Los Angeles, therefore have access to lots of resources.
In fact, one cannot judge films’ photographic characters by what one sees on a TV or computer monitor. There is a categoric difference between a silver image projected in the dark and a RGB image rendered on a display. Closest would be a beamer image in the dark but that would be RGB, too. A monochrome beamer appears hard to be found and this would still make lines, no continuous picture.
Today's public has a visual memory of watching this type of footage, chiefly on TVs. I'm going to start with digital output, and once I'm confident in my process and can assemble a project at the right scale, I'll produce prints from negative. The only means I'm aware of producing prints are the expensive services like Fotokem in Burbank that appear on the credit roll on films like Dunkirk. I had thought of investigating how it can be done on the cheap but first I have other fish to fry. Shooting positive fixes that but impacts the variables.
You really need to define a look you are going for, before you can get there...
Let me qualify the problem... if one spends a few hours looking at documentary footage, one sees a broad slice of war footage. Consider The War, a Ken Burns Film (free on Netflix); Second War Diary - The War Day by Day (Amazon, 73 hours), The First World War (Amazon, even older!).
Kino and Europan, I completely agree the footage is ...
all over the map; a mixture of 16mm and 35mm footage of all types of filmstock, processing conditions and, as you see them now, multiple degrees of generational (copying) degradation.
This is what makes it interesting. Every shot has a distinct look. One can easily separate the careful 35mm footage of Hitler and Churchill from 16mm handheld field, as you point out, hastily shot and processed.
The first answer filmmakers do when they want the look of the era (say 50s) is go back to using the cameras, lenses, etc of that era. 16mm and 35mm cameras can be had (16mm being more within my budget). With effort, a camera in working condition with clean lenses from the era can be found. Film from that era cannot be found, nor can the age effect on film (without patience). I hope to approximate that in the chemical process.
It's a fair point that what we see on Netflix or broadcast TV poorly restored has limitations compared to what people actually saw in a theater projected back in the day. I'm thinking I want to start with what today's viewers see on TV as a lower bar; once printing and 16mm projection is within my means I'll rethink my strategy.