As someone who only got a colour tv in high school and enjoyed monochrome monitors from 1984 until 1995, let me add to the anecdotal evidence that “going grey” does actually make screen interaction less seductive.
My phone was set on greyscale for ages and when I had to change it to colour (to easily distinguish whether messages were being sent as texts or as data) I really noticed how much more I wanted to look at the damn thing.
I had done this before and it worked wonders, then I switched back and had forgotten about this trick. I’ll reset.
cause that “weird” color-tint is most likely the version the original audience saw in 1922 in cinemas; as the intro-description of this restored version reads:
“a tinted nitrat print with french intertitles from 1922…was used as a basis for the restoration.”
lots and lots of silent movies were tinted for different mood in scenes and especially for night/day-scenes (blue-night, light amber/yellow-day)
basic information on old tinted “black/white”"-films:
Wow, my mind blown is blown! I guess I was projecting my idea of a proper, “serious”, “classic” way of watching a classic movie… just like the “Greek and Roman statues as objects of pure white marble” fallacy, I guess!
(That acknowledged, I think I still prefer my desaturated version. One year of my photography studies was purely b/w, maybe it’s because of that. But, next time, I will give tint a chance!)
know what? totaly understandable. imagining something like “12 angry men” in a tinted version?! yikes! 
Ha. “Everything’s red because they’re all angry. Wait, now it’s all blue because that guy is sad!”
I would totally watch that.
I remember seeing a colorized/painted version of a war movie some years ago, and they went with a very neon palette. It was hilarious. Unfortunately I was unable to find it…
And the rocket’s red glare!
I think a version of the “angry-red-blue-sad” emotional color-coding persists in contemporary tinting and color-grading… To paraphrase you:
“Everything’s blue because they’re all futuristic. Wait, now it’s all brown because we’re gritty.”
Side plug: I once made an experiment white-balancing decidedly tinted movies.
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