Silent Film Distributors (new thread)
ChaneyFan
>>> I bought an 8mm print of THE GOLD RUSH from Entertainment Films in the
late sixties. It is the worst print I've ever owned--or seen-- of a silent
film!
I think an interesting thread for this group would be a brief discussion of the
various suppliers of silent films that thrived in the 1960's and 70's, only to
go belly up in the 80's when film went the way of 8-track tapes. A brief
summary:
Blackhawk Films: the Rolls-Royce of collections. High quality, high prices, a
tremendous inventory including virtually all the silent and sound Laurel &
Hardys, many of the Fairbanks swashbucklers, incredibly rare silents you've
never heard of before or since (BROKEN HEARTS OF BROADWAY, THE SOCIAL
SECRETARY, THE CLODHOPPER), many, many more titles. Went out of business in
the mid-1980s, but David Shepard bought the collection and now sells films
through National Cinema Service and Festival Films. Many of the S8mm titles
were available only in mediocre quality, but with few exceptions the 16mm
prints were, and still are, the gold standard for silent films.
Griggs Moviedrome: Another premium quality company run by Bob Lee for about
half a century until his death around 1990. The best quality prints of PHANTOM
OF THE OPERA (29), WOMAN IN THE MOON, and METROPOLIS, and many other titles to
boot. Of greater interest was Lee's "private" list which included THE KID
BROTHER, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, IT'S THE OLD ARMY GAME, MISS
LULU BETT, CONRAD IN QUEST OF HIS YOUTH, THE CANADIAN, STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD
HEIDELBERG, THE BIG PARADE, WINGS, FLESH AND THE DEVIL, and lots of other
highly desirable titles. The p.d. titles are now sold by National Cinema
Service, and the private list is unfortunately no longer available.
Glenn Photo Supply: One of the few original dealers still in business. Murray
Glass has a large, eclectic collection of titles that range from stunning
quality to unwatchable garbage. A few very nice and rare titles such as a
lovely tinted/toned LOVE NEVER DIES (early King Vidor), THE CRADLE OF COURAGE,
HELL'S HINGES, THE CAT AND THE CANARY, and several of the early Willis O'Brien
and Starevich films (I especially recommend THE MASCOT which is a honey of a
film and print), but you take your chances on quality most of the time, and
prices are about 50% too high.
Museum of Modern Art: Yes, MOMA used to sell 16mm prints of many of their
titles...and as far as I know they still do. Astronomical prices, but some
great stuff like a tinted BROKEN BLOSSOMS, the uncut LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN, and
lots of Griffith Biographs.
Enrique Bouchard: this collector in Argentina duped all sorts of copyrighted
features and sold them mostly in 8mm, with a few in 16mm. He was one of the
early sources for many of the Buster Keaton titles. Quality was usually very
poor, but in the 1970's it was the only place you could get titles like
BATTLING BUTLER and THE THREE AGES. I haven't from him or of him for years and
don't even know if he is still alive, let alone in business.
Cine Service Vintage Films: I discussed them a few days ago. Not much rare
stuff, but they had the most complete print of PHANTOM (1925). Went out of
business in the mid-70's.
Ed Finney: A director of B-westerns, Finney also collected and had a small but
impressive catalog of titles, mostly silent including THE PENALTY, SKY HIGH,
and THE MAN FROM PAINTED POST.
Breakspear Films: A little known British business that sold S8 prints only, but
had some very rare silent material, such as the Lon Chaney's BY THE SUN'S RAYS
and some rare Biograph shorts.
Milestone Movies: An amazing company that was more-or-less a front for Bill
Everson, who provided all the preprints. As a result, several one-of-a-kind
titles such as CITY GIRL, THE LAST COMMAND, THAT CERTAIN THING, and A SHIP
COMES IN were available, but only in 8mm or S8mm.
Manbeck Films: A minor distributor with a handful of negatives such as THE
EAGLE and TOLABLE DAVID. The only noteworthy title they had was the best 16mm
print I have ever seen on CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI.
Reel Images: Jon Sonneborn ran this company, with early help from Marty
Kearns, but eventually he got out of film and into video, renaming the company
Video Images. Not much rare stuff with a few exceptions: the best print of
THE PLAYHOUSE, and nice prints on Fairbanks' MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH and
Hart's THREE WORD BRAND.
Thunderbird Films/Morcraft Films: Thunderbird was run by Tom Donohoo (sp?) who
gave up the business when he went to prison. The business was taken over by
Dermott Morgan until he died a few years back and the negatives were all sold
to a stock footage library. Some interesting titles including some of the
rarer Chaplin shorts, the best print of ECSTASY, a few rare Lloyd shorts, and
other gems.
Niles: the Poverty Row of film distributors. If Niles had a watchable print in
their catalog, I certainly never saw it. Most of the collection consisted of
dupes of other companies' product. Nothing you couldn't get anywhere else, but
they were priced dirt cheap, and you got what you paid for.
National Cinema Service and Festival Films: These two distributors don't
really have their own product, per se, but they act as suppliers for
Blackhawk, Griggs, and other collections and are still actively in business.
These are two of the last places where you can still buy 16mm silent films. I
particularly recommend Festival Films, since Ron & Chris Hall who run it have a
wealth of experience on film quality and offer very good prices.
I'm sure there were others, but these are the main companies that come to mind.
I need Rusty, Bob, Rob, David, Rick, Ed, Chris, and some of the other
long-time collectors in this group to comment on any others I have forgotten.
================
Jon Mirsalis
Chan...@aol.com
http://www.sri.com/biopharm/misc/jonfilm.htm
Lon Chaney Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan
MKELO
<<Enrique Bouchard: this collector in Argentina duped all sorts of copyrighted
features and sold them mostly in 8mm, with a few in 16mm. He was one of
very poor, but in the 1970's it was the only place you could get titles
and don't even know if he is still alive, let alone in business.>>
Mr. B is still around. Recently received his 16mm list. Still has many Keaton
titles. Has LOTS and LOTS of European films.
Best,
Mk
(Michael Kriegsman)
Christopher Jacobs
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> I think an interesting thread for this group would be a brief discussion of the
> various suppliers of silent films that thrived in the 1960's and 70's, only to
> go belly up in the 80's when film went the way of 8-track tapes.
> Niles: the Poverty Row of film distributors. If Niles had a watchable print in
> their catalog, I certainly never saw it. Most of the collection consisted of
> dupes of other companies' product. Nothing you couldn't get anywhere else, but
> they were priced dirt cheap, and you got what you paid for.
>
Those of us on limited film purchasing budgets had a bit of a soft spot
for Niles, despite the dupes. Actually Niles had a few quite good prints
(very few). The secret to finding them was to check the catalog listings
that boasted the prints were from 35mm nitrates. Their print of
Barrymore's SVENGALI may have been a dupe but it was also amazingly good
and could pass for a reduction. INVISIBLE GHOST and BLUEBEARD had very
nice picture quality but the sound was pretty mediocre. (My Niles prints
of these three titles, alas, suffered some significant flood damage.)
A company you left off was Select Films, which had a 16mm rental library
and a large selection of 8mm prints for sale including a few exclusives
like some PDC DeMille productions. Many of the titles they carried were
from other dealers, as well. They also had a "private" list and had a
lovely 8mm BEAU GESTE that I wish I had brought upstairs before the
flood. When they went out of business, they sold off their rental prints
for next to nothing--some great 16mm deals (like $25/print) if you liked
the remaining choice of titles.
And what about Cinema Eight? or was that the same as National Cinema
Service? And of course many of us got started on Castle, Ken, and
Columbia abridgements...all those "complete" 9-minute versions and
"headline" two-minute versions.
Chris Jacobs
Stan16mm
Chaneyfan asks help from,>Rusty, Bob, Rob, David, Rick, Ed, Chris, and some of
the other
>long-time collectors in this group to comment on any others I have forgotten.
Jon, we have travelled in the same circles for years but, sadly have never
sphered together. I enjoyed your filmic trip down memory lane. Yes there were
many others, Castle, Ken, Atlas, Hollywood Film Enterprises, Famous Films,
DeMaio, Derann, to name but a few, but what I would like to hear about is if
anyone out there remembers International Film Service, run by the late Norman
Levinson, who worked out of Greenvale, Long Island.
He was a very important dealer in films for the 8mm and 16mm collector and had
a nice quantity of negatives. He always discounted the Blackhawk collection
and other distributors by 15%. I met him when I was eleven years old and he
was to me, what the old man was to the boy in Cinema Paradiso. Any film
collectors care to share any memories?
Stan16mm
Marvin Jones
On 2 Dec 1997 05:34:24 GMT, chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
>Griggs Moviedrome: Another premium quality company run by Bob Lee for about
>half a century until his death around 1990.
I'm curious about this information. I remember the company being run
by an actor named John Griggs. I even worked in a road company of
Peter Pan back in the '60s with a couple of actors who were good
friends of his and talked about attending screenings of films at his
home. So who was Bob Lee and how did he fit into it?
Christopher Bird
Derann Films still print films on Super 8 (very high quality prints given
the tiny frame area of this format), though I don't think they print any
silents.
There are others in Britain, but the only one I know that still prints
silents is Perry's Movies in London. I have prints of `A Trip to the Moon'
and `The Great Train Robbery' from them, at 20 pounds each, which
arereasonable quality but not great. They also recently reprinted `The
General' which you can biy for 90 pounds. But it's mute, and the quality
probably isn't much better than video, though vastly more expensive.
Christopher Bird
JERFilm
>Mr. B is still around.
Yes, he still advertises in CLASSIC IMAGES....
Jerry Rutledge
Waseca, MN - USA
David P. Hayes
ChaneyFan <chan...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971202053...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> I think an interesting thread for this group would be a brief discussion
of the
> various suppliers of silent films that thrived in the 1960's and 70's,
only to
>
> Niles: the Poverty Row of film distributors. If Niles had a watchable
print in
> their catalog, I certainly never saw it. Most of the collection
consisted of
> dupes of other companies' product. Nothing you couldn't get anywhere
else, but
> they were priced dirt cheap, and you got what you paid for.
Niles had very good prints on Super 8 of Laurel & Hardy's "Utopia" (the
American release version of "Atoll K"), of the Our Gang silent two-reeler
"Derby Day," and of the silent one-reelers "Don't Shove" (Harold Lloyd) and
"Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life" (Keystone). The latter two were
obviously duped from Blackhawk 16mm (Niles even left in the Blackhawk "The
End" title and also the Blackhawk replacement opening titles by blocking
out the "Blackhawk presents" portion of the frame). Still, given that
Blackhawk frequently didn't put the care into Super 8 pictorial contrast
that they did on 16mm, the Niles Super 8 prints were probably better than
the Blackhawk Super 8.
Another responder mentioned that it helped to look for "From 35mm nitrate"
in the descriptions in the Niles catalog. This is true--and I found it
remarkable that Niles so openly implied that the undesignated (as from
35mm) films were from inferior preprint. "Rocketship" (the feature version
of the first "Flash Gordon" serial) was designated as from 35mm; I never
saw their print.
Niles' desperation for business and their willingness to sell for low
prices, came through to me when I ordered a used print from their sales
flier and received a note saying that the item was out of stock and that
delivery would be delayed for about two weeks. After I wrote back saying
that I had ordered a USED print and thus there shouldn't be an issue of
when another print would be in stock, they wrote back saying that they
would be sending me a new print at the used-print price!
Others writing in this thread have mentioned Castle (later Universal 8) and
Ken Films. Although they didn't issue silent films as a policy, each had a
small number (often one-reel abridgments of two-reelers) and the quality
was extraordinary. Castle's one-reel "Railroad Stowaways" was from Mack
Sennett's two-reel "Cannonball Express" (1925) starring Billy Bevan and
Andy Clyde; the picture was sharp, of excellent contrast, and without
scratches. Ken Films had one-reel versions of the two-reelers "Happy Times
and Jolly Moments" and "Good Old Corn." Both had been Vitaphone
compilations of the 1940s that presented highlights of Sennett (and a few
non-Sennett) scenes. By cutting these compilations to one reel each, Ken
Films simply excised some excerpts altogether but kept the others as
Vitaphone had left them. Quality was astonishingly good.
Castle Films' lack of knowledge about their silent product came across in a
long-standing error in one description. "Lonely Luke" was said to be the
lead character in one comedy, although "Lonesome Luke" was apparently
intended.
--
David Hayes
David P. Hayes
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> I think an interesting thread for this group would be a brief discussion
of the
> various suppliers of silent films that thrived in the 1960's and 70's,
only to
> go belly up in the 80's when film went the way of 8-track tapes.
Missing from listed posted was the company Film Classics Exchange of Los
Angeles. They had a substantial number of obscure silent films:
two-reelers made by Florida-based companies during the late-1910s, several
Larry Semon comedies, no-name feature films, "Rex, King of Wild Horse"
(which no one else had), etc. They sold Stan Laurel's last solo
(non-Hardy) film long before Blackhawk did.
--
David Hayes
David P. Hayes
Bobster123 <bobst...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971203005...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
Regarding Thunderbird Film's owner,
> Just what did Tom Dunahoo go to prison for? Is he still
> there/around?
He went for child molesting. He was released about ten years ago. Last I
heard, he was part of a religious organization.
> About three years ago, I called Morcraft after seeing their ad in THE BIG
REEL.
> The guy I talked to said he was looking into releasing more Thunderbird
titles
> on video. Was wondering recently whatever happened to them.
I got the idea that Morcraft didn't do much video business. I visited
Morcraft a couple of times circa 1987, and what came across was that they
were making 16mm prints of features for television stations, but it should
be obvious that once such prints were in circulation, broadcast-caliber
tapes would be made from them and that the business would dry up. It also
seems to have happened that public domain distributors to television found
much more 35mm source material.
> Thunderbird was
> a really hot and cold company. Sometimes you'd get a fabulous print-
other
> times it would be unwatchable. A lot seemed to have to do with their lab
work,
> which I believe was done in-house.
Some was in-house, some not. In one of the 1970s catalog, Tom reported
about his experiences with outside labs and what he was doing about the bad
experiences.
> Niles had an excellent collection of Our Gang silents, though. I often
> wondered why they offered such a big selection, and Blackhawk (who had
the
> rights to the copyrighted Our Gang titles) didn't.
Sales figures, presumably.
> Was Niles duping Blackhawk prints this way illegal? I mean, I know the
films
> themselves were public domain, but didn't Blackhawk copyright their own
> releases of them? Or is it legal just as long as the Blackhawk logo
isn't
> used?
Niles duping Blackhawk, from a legal standpoint, shouldn't be any different
than Blackhawk copying from the original studio's materials. Blackhawk
could claim ownership of their historical introduction titles (although I
can't recall their copyrighting them) or translations of intertitles
originally (or found) in a foreign language (and Blackhawk did so), but as
for "their releases" of 16mm and 8mm copies of what were originally 35mm
films, these are not eligible for copyright. The copyright law is clear on
mere quirks of mechanical reproduction not constituting grounds for
copyright protection. Therefore, Blackhawk might recognize their print had
been copied as a result of a tell-tale scratch or from frames missing some
emulsion in specific locations, but such unique aspects of a print do not
constitute creative expression and therefore cannot be copyrighted
separately.
--
David Hayes
Bobster123
>From: "David P. Hayes" <david_...@msn.com> wrote:
>Niles had very good prints on Super 8 of Laurel & Hardy's "Utopia" (the
>American release version of "Atoll K"), of the Our Gang silent two-reeler
>"Derby Day," and of the silent one-reelers "Don't Shove" (Harold Lloyd) and
>"Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life" (Keystone). The latter two were
>obviously duped from Blackhawk 16mm (Niles even left in the Blackhawk "The
>End" title and also the Blackhawk replacement opening titles by blocking
>out the "Blackhawk presents" portion of the frame)
The best prints of UTOPIA came from Thunderbird. In fact, I think they had the
original 35mm print of it. I heard that Tom Dunahoo bought the 35mm print from
a Big Reel ad. Just what did Tom Dunahoo go to prison for? Is he still
there/around?
About three years ago, I called Morcraft after seeing their ad in THE BIG REEL.
The guy I talked to said he was looking into releasing more Thunderbird titles
on video. Was wondering recently whatever happened to them. Thunderbird was
a really hot and cold company. Sometimes you'd get a fabulous print- other
times it would be unwatchable. A lot seemed to have to do with their lab work,
which I believe was done in-house.
A friend of mine bought NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD from Niles. They left in the
Hollywood Film Exchange logo- but the quality was so overexposed that you
couldn't even see it!
Niles had an excellent collection of Our Gang silents, though. I often
wondered why they offered such a big selection, and Blackhawk (who had the
rights to the copyrighted Our Gang titles) didn't.
ChaneyFan
Thanks to those of you who suggested additional titles. I had certainly
forgotten about Select and Charlie Tarbox. I didn't list Ken, Durann, and
Castle, because to my knowledge they did not sell any silent features uncut,
and certainly didn't have anything silent that you could not get elsewhere.
I thought of another important one I forgot to mention. Historical Films in
Hollywood was (I believe) operated by Kemp Niver, and had an enormous catalog
that consisted almost exclusively of prints from the LOC paper print
collection. Quality was variable, prices were high, but he literally had a
couple of hundred Biographs that no one else had, and hundreds of other prints
from Edison and other early studios. A few unusual titles he had were several
of the rare Wm S. Harts, and these were from nitrates, not paper prints. I am
doing this off the top of my head, but I believe the titles were SAND, THE
TESTING BLOCK, WHITE OAK, and O'MALLEY OF THE MOUNTED. I have no idea what
became of all these negatives, but I have a suspicion that they were donated to
either UCLA or USC.
Robert Birchard
David P. Hayes wrote:
>
> Niles' desperation for business and their willingness to sell for low
> prices, came through to me when I ordered a used print from their sales
> flier and received a note saying that the item was out of stock and that
> delivery would be delayed for about two weeks. After I wrote back saying
> that I had ordered a USED print and thus there shouldn't be an issue of
> when another print would be in stock, they wrote back saying that they
> would be sending me a new print at the used-print price!
Actually, their used print list was a scam for advertising
copyrighted titles as used prints so they wouldn't be accused of
bootlegging. As far as I remember all their "used" prints were new
prints.
Niles was an interesting company. It started out with great
quality and great integrity--but success made one of the owners go
"Hollywood." The once-conservative midwestern gentlemam started
sporting gold chains, open front shirts, and longish hair and he began
to take frequent trips to Hollywood to indulge in the pleasures of the
flesh. As his extracirricular activities increased, the qulaity of the
films and the service deteriorated to the point where the company had no
good will left. They finally went bankrupt.
--
Bob Birchard
bbir...@earthlink.net
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Guest/birchard.htm
Michael Gebert
> Therefore, Blackhawk might recognize their print had
> been copied as a result of a tell-tale scratch or from frames missing some
> emulsion in specific locations, but such unique aspects of a print do not
> constitute creative expression and therefore cannot be copyrighted
> separately.
Apparently, though, you can claim restoration work, no? It seems to me
that there's a big gray area here that would get settled on a case by case
basis (for instance, if Raymond Rohauer was copying you, he would
interpret the law one way, but if you were copying him, he would interpret
it another, and if you were continuing to sell something of yours that he
had copied in the meantime., he would interpret it a third way, and if the
film was lost but it was in his catalog anyway....)
David P. Hayes
Michael Gebert <mg...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<mgmax-03129...@pool-207-205-139-30.chia.grid.net>, starting with a
quote from me:
Raymond Rohauer made a practice of altering the original films in order to
secure a new copyright. He would change the titles so that they were in a
new lettering style and with minor changes of wording. (In one case,
though, he changed "there" to "where" (as I recall; it may have been a
similar "change"), and failed to realize that the alteration rendered the
dialogue unintelligible. Such changes were called grounds for claiming
that new creativity had been expended and that the new prints were
protected by separate copyright. Adding a soundtrack to a silent film has
long been grounds for claiming a new copyright on a public-domain movie,
although it seems understood that if the picture is unchanged, someone else
can strip off the soundtrack and legally duplicate the movie.
Restoration is a trickier area. Here, the claim is that painstaking effort
goes into making the work look as it originally did--hence, success is
achieved when there is NO creativity (except the of overcoming mechanical
obstacles). UCLA has registered their restoration of "Becky Sharp," but
whether the new copyright would be upheld in court is a different matter.
It may seem an outrage that long hours and exorbitant expenditures would
not be rewarded by legally-enforceable exclusivity. I'm not arguing that
one way or the other; I'm attempting here merely to communicate what the
law says to the best of my understanding. I can tell you that the Supreme
Court ruled earlier in this decade that telephone directories were not
eligible for copyright because no creativity was involved in what the court
saw as a mere compilation of factual information that was
readily-accessible to the telephone companies. It was shortly after that
ruling that multiple brands of CD-ROM editions of the U.S.'s phone
directories began to appear. (Previously PhoneDisc U.S.A. (which since
then has been renamed Digital Directory Assistance, or DDA) had the field
to themselves). Right now, there are many such CD-ROMs, and can be bought
for very low prices at local retailers.
At the time of that ruling, I was working for a distributor of computer
databases. In that capacity, I soon thereafter spoke with an executive of
one of the major producers of databases, and she told me that the reporting
of the Supreme Court decision was correct, that many people in her company
were speaking of it often with regards to how it might affect them and the
industry as a whole, and that she was aghast. As it happened, she had
previously worked in management for a phone company, and she knew that
apart from the arguable lack of creativity (the Court was referring to the
pages all having the same design, the use of a single typeface throughout
the listings, etc.), there was an exhausting amount of work involved. Such
had had no (overriding) bearing on the Court when it ruled on how it should
interpret the laws passed by Congress.
I trust the readers of this newsgroup will understand that I turned the
subject from movies to database because that enabled me to explicate on
copyright law that applies also to movies. There are undoubtedly other
facts that could be reported on this issue. Anyone?
--
David Hayes
David P. Hayes
Robert Birchard <bbir...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<348595...@earthlink.net>...
> Niles was an interesting company. It started out with great
> quality and great integrity--but success made one of the owners go
> good will left. They finally went bankrupt.
Not only that, the people "disappeared" such that they couldn't be located.
Tom Dunahoo told me that he wanted to buy Niles' negatives (I wondered why
he would want many of them) but had been unable to locate the people or
assets. He shook his head, "they're just gone." Several years later, JEF
Films in Canada would announce that they had acquired the Niles materials,
were planning to overhaul many of them, and that the titles were available
again. It came too late in the film-collecting business.
Michael Gebert
In article <01bd0067$7d88f100$03502299@whatever>, "David P. Hayes"
<david_...@msn.com> wrote:
> Raymond Rohauer made a practice of altering the original films in order to
> secure a new copyright. He would change the titles so that they were in a
> new lettering style and with minor changes of wording.
Sometimes it was quite a bit more than that, though. The Keaton films'
titles had to be significantly un-Rohauered
And that wasn't all he did. The other things I named-- such as copying
something you had found or even buying a print from you, then
recopyrighting it himself and going after you when you continued to
distribute your film-- were among his charming practices.
FIREZINE
dsu...@concentric.net wrote:
>
> In article <01bd0067$7d88f100$03502299@whatever>, "David P. Hayes"
> <david_...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> > not be rewarded by legally-enforceable exclusivity.
>
> matter how much time and effort you put into an out-of-copyright work, it
> should remain an out-of-copyright work. Otherwise people start getting
> strange ideas - akin to "squatter's rights" for film (i.e., "I've owned
> the only print of this out-of-copyright film for thirty years, therefore I
> own all the rights!").
> Doug
Boy this sounds frightingly familiar. Does this apply to symbols put onto
the film itself? Would just the symbols be copyrightable and not the
image itself?
ChaneyFan
>>>He went for child molesting. He was released about ten years ago. Last I
heard, he was part of a religious organization.
Actually, I had heard it was for statutory rape for his involvement with two
teenage girls.
Unless I am mistaken, Donohoo died many years ago.
dsu...@concentric.net
FilmGene
<<Otherwise people start getting
strange ideas - akin to "squatter's rights" for film (i.e., "I've owned
the only print of this out-of-copyright film for thirty years, therefore I
own all the rights!").>>
Not so strange. If one owns the only copy of a film and does not distribute it,
one effectively controls that film. The question of "rights" are moot. It is a
question of private property.
Gene Stavis, School of Visual Arts - NYC
ChaneyFan
>>>I can tell you that the Supreme Court ruled earlier in this decade that
telephone directories were not eligible for copyright because no creativity was
involved in what the court saw as a mere compilation of factual information
that was readily-accessible to the telephone companies.
The way most places have gotten around this is by inserting a bogus reference
into their list of phones, films, whatever. For example, there is one bogus
reference in the AFI teens book (very funny when you find and read it). If
someone copies the book and includes this reference, thereby proving they
copied the book instead of doing independent data collection, they will be
caught. Likewise, mailing lists usually include a bogus address to their own
PO box so if someone copies the list they will get mailings to that box.
The cards are clearly stacked in favor of someone who goes to the effort to
create or restore a film...as well they should be. If someone really wanted to
go after dupers, they could successfully do it using a variety of tools. The
question would become whether it would be worth the money. Fora silent film
the answer is nearly always no.
ChaneyFan
>>>Otherwise people start getting strange ideas - akin to "squatter's rights"
for film (i.e., "I've owned the only print of this out-of-copyright film for
thirty years, therefore I own all the rights!").
Whoa!!! Hold on! It depends on what you do with it. I made a dig at a guy
yesterday for saying that he could trade videos of THE SCARLET CAR in exchange
for MR. WU. Consider my case:
Through donations and other activities that cost me time and money, I
negotiated a deal to get the nitrate on THE SCARLET CAR(1917 w/Lon Chaney) out
of LOC. It was sent to Film Technologies, possibly the most expensive, but
highest quality, lab in the country. I had a 16mm negative made, but it was
out of sequence, missing opening titles, and generally a mess. I spent hours
and hours putting it together only to discover a reel was missing. I then
tracked down the missing reel, which was only available on 35mm safety. This
went back to Film Tech. for an additional negative. I eventually pieced this
together (and gave all the notes to LOC who could then fix the continuity on
their print), shot new titles, created some continuity break bridging titles,
created all new opening credits, and that's why you can now see a more-or-less
complete print of it today. I put a copyright notice on the print as "Restored
Version."
Now what did I do with this? First, I ran ads to sell 16mm prints at $50 above
print cost to anyone who wanted to buy it. Then I cut deals with Sinister
Cinema and Kino to put it out on video. Anyone who wants to get THE SCARLET
CAR get buy reasonably priced 16mm prints or video tapes.
After all this effort, I have still not broken even on this. I'm close, but am
still in the red by a few hundred bucks. So do I think I have a legal and
moral right to go after anyone making bootleg copies when they can get it
legally? You betcha!
EckHarDT50
>
>>>>He went for child molesting. He was released about ten years ago. ...
>Actually, I had heard it was for statutory rape for his involvement with two
teenage girls.
>
>Unless I am mistaken, Donohoo died many years ago.>>
From overexertion?
David P. Hayes
In article <dsulpy-0412...@ts006d33.pri-nj.concentric.net>,
dsu...@concentric.net wrote:
> In article <01bd0067$7d88f100$03502299@whatever>, "David P. Hayes"
> <david_...@msn.com> wrote:
> > It may seem an outrage that long hours and exorbitant expenditures would
> > not be rewarded by legally-enforceable exclusivity.
> I would be outraged if "legally-enforceable exclusivity" WAS applied. No
> matter how much time and effort you put into an out-of-copyright work, it
> strange ideas - akin to "squatter's rights" for film (i.e., "I've owned
> the only print of this out-of-copyright film for thirty years, therefore I
> own all the rights!").
Your comment points up the desirability of law that would recognize a
difference analogous to that between squatters and homesteaders. Those
who genuinely add value to a property ("homesteaders") would be granted
rights. Those who make no efforts or only superficial, unsubstantive
ones (properly defined) on an out-of-copyright work (these film-holders
being the "squatters") would not be granted legal protection against new
prints unauthorized by them.
David Hayes
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
David P. Hayes
I previously wrote:
> ...I can tell you that the Supreme Court ruled earlier in this decade
that
> telephone directories were not eligible for copyright because no
creativity was
> involved in what the court saw as a mere compilation of factual
information
> that was readily-accessible to the telephone companies.
ChaneyFan <chan...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971205044...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> The way most places have gotten around this is by inserting a bogus
reference
> into their list of phones, films, whatever.
My recollection of the telephone-directories case was that phony entries
did not constitute enough creativity, in the opinion of the Supreme Court.
The subject was brought up at the time, and did not stop the avalache of
CD-ROM telephone directories. Also on the subject of phony entries: the
makers of the Trivial Pursuit board game were sued by the creators of a
trivia book who realized that the questions and answers in the game had
been duplicated from their work. The trivia-book people could point out
instances of errors and oversights they had put into their publication, but
the court nonetheless ruled that the use by Trivial Pursuit was permissable
use of the information. Sad.
> Likewise, mailing lists usually include a bogus address to their own
> PO box so if someone copies the list they will get mailings to that box.
This is different. Compilers of mailing lists rent out their data with
contracts stipulating that buyers are entitled to a limited number of uses.
If the list-renter exceeds the usage he paid for, he can be sued for
violation of contract, which is different from violation of copyright.
Incidentally, my understanding is that mailing-list-compilers usually put
in several phony addresses, to dissuade users from gambling that if they
mail to just half of the list that they'll have a 50% chance of avoiding
detection. Mailing lists use as their phonies what seem to be genuine
street addresses in cities far from their place of business; a phony name
attached to a legitimate address can alert the recipient to misuse of the
mailing list.
> The cards are clearly stacked in favor of someone who goes to the effort
to
> create or restore a film...as well they should be.
I certainly sympathise with your position, Jon. I read your comments
regarding restoration of "The Scarlet Car." I understand your investment,
and I champion your efforts. If I should ever want to commercially use
"The Scarlet Car," I know that my options are: (a) negotiate an arrangement
with you, or (b) check out the out-of-order materials from the Library of
Congress and the repository for the otherwise-missing reel, and to go
through the effort of determining the proper sequence of the shots, and
then to do the work and arrange for lab services; the latter would be an
unnecessary repetition of your work, so you can see what I regard as the
best decision.
Respectfully yours,
--
David Hayes
Stan16mm
Regarding Norman Levinson and the wait for films....... Since I always went
there to pick up my orders, I never had any problem with him. But for anyone
who had to wait for orders from him, let me tell you what the place looked
like. He worked from his house and he had a filmic mess all around. Like
Oscar Madison, only in a celluloid sense. Now it was the kind of mess that
any film collector would love to be around but if you were waiting on an order
from him, it would be easy to get lost in there.
Stan16mm
Eric Grayson
On Thu, Dec 4, 1997 12:18 AM, FIREZINE <mailto:FIRE...@INTREPID.NET>
wrote:
>dsu...@concentric.net wrote:
>>
>> In article <01bd0067$7d88f100$03502299@whatever>, "David P. Hayes"
>> <david_...@msn.com> wrote:
>>
>> > It may seem an outrage that long hours and exorbitant expenditures
would
>> > not be rewarded by legally-enforceable exclusivity.
>>
>> I would be outraged if "legally-enforceable exclusivity" WAS applied. No
>> matter how much time and effort you put into an out-of-copyright work,
it
>> should remain an out-of-copyright work. Otherwise people start getting
>> strange ideas - akin to "squatter's rights" for film (i.e., "I've owned
>> the only print of this out-of-copyright film for thirty years, therefore
I
>> own all the rights!").
>> Doug
>
>the film itself? Would just the symbols be copyrightable and not the
>image itself?
>
This is really correct. Once a film is in the public domain, it usually
stays that way. For example, several years ago, when It's a Wonderful Life
was still in the public domain, it was colorized. The colorized version
was copyrighted. However, the copyright only covered the new aspects to
the film. So you would be in copyright violation if you made a copy of the
film in color, but in perfect compliance to law if you copied the same tape
in black and white!
The same goes for symbols embedded in the picture. This practice started
several years ago on the networks. They were sick of people taping live
video feeds of important news events and then selling the tapes. If all
networks used the same camera, the results were indistinguishable and
prosecution was difficult. With the logos, you can easily tell where the
tape came from...
Eric
Rob Farr & Kathy Lipp-Farr
Based on the telephone book ruling, I wonder if a filmography is
copyrightable? A good filmography compiles data from a variety of
sources both primary and secondary, but in the end, is just a list, like
the phone book. Filmographies which incorporate plot synopses based on
personal viewings or original reviews might be arguably more "creative"
since the author uses editorial skills to whittle a plotline down to a
few sentences.
Rob Farr
David P. Hayes wrote:
> I can tell you that the Supreme
> Court ruled earlier in this decade that telephone directories were not
> eligible for copyright because no creativity was involved in what the court
> saw as a mere compilation of factual information that was
dsu...@concentric.net
In article <3488CA...@ix.netcom.com>, Rob Farr & Kathy Lipp-Farr
<lipp...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Based on the telephone book ruling, I wonder if a filmography is
> copyrightable?
No. Information is NOT copyrightable. If you were to review the films or
actually write about them, that would, of course, be covered.
Doug
dsu...@concentric.net
In article <8813569...@dejanews.com>, david_...@msn.com wrote:
> In article <dsulpy-0412...@ts006d33.pri-nj.concentric.net>,
> dsu...@concentric.net wrote:
> > In article <01bd0067$7d88f100$03502299@whatever>, "David P. Hayes"
> > <david_...@msn.com> wrote:
> > > It may seem an outrage that long hours and exorbitant expenditures would
> > > not be rewarded by legally-enforceable exclusivity.
> > I would be outraged if "legally-enforceable exclusivity" WAS applied. No
> > matter how much time and effort you put into an out-of-copyright work, it
> > should remain an out-of-copyright work. Otherwise people start getting
> > strange ideas - akin to "squatter's rights" for film (i.e., "I've owned
> > the only print of this out-of-copyright film for thirty years, therefore I
> > own all the rights!").
> > Doug
>
> Your comment points up the desirability of law that would recognize a
> difference analogous to that between squatters and homesteaders. Those
> who genuinely add value
.. ah, but who's to determine "value"? Rohauer could claim, for instance,
that his new title cards increased the value of a Keaton film, while film
purists would say that ditching the originals DECREASED it.
> ...to a property ("homesteaders") would be granted
> rights. Those who make no efforts or only superficial, unsubstantive
> ones (properly defined)
... again, who's to define this?
> ... on an out-of-copyright work (these film-holders
> being the "squatters") would not be granted legal protection against new
> prints unauthorized by them.
I would like to see a "use it or lose it" rule established. To me, silent
film is a cultural artifact and belongs to our culture more than it
belongs to some person or entity who had no part in creating it in the
first place, but simply holds the "legal rights". I believe that it would
be reasonable that, after X amount of years, ANYONE has the right to
exploit a silent film. This will insure that the film will circulate and
give it a better chance to survive.
Doug
Michael Gebert
In article <B0AE0D...@199.3.65.142>, "Eric Grayson"
<wolf...@indy.net> wrote:
> This is really correct. Once a film is in the public domain, it usually
> stays that way. For example, several years ago, when It's a Wonderful Life
> was still in the public domain, it was colorized.
Usually... but not always. In the case of It's a Wonderful Life, RKO was
able to reassert copyright based on the still-operative underlying
copyrights in the original story and the music. Maybe that would stand up
in court and maybe it wouldn't, but it succeeded in scaring off dupers and
TV stations showing old PD prints. (I assume this is the reason why some
PD prints of the similarly accidentally-out-of-copyright 1939 Love Affair
have new music; the only thing standing in the way of their distributing
it was the score.)
On the other hand, Raymond Rohauer tried to gain control of Birth of a
Nation by buying the rights to the two Thomas Dixon novels it was based
on, and he didn't succeed.
>A good filmography compiles data from a variety of
sources both primary and secondary, but in the end, is just a list, like
the phone book.
No. Pure facts are not copyrightable, even when you've put some work into
compiling them. (Incidentally, speaking of the AFI fake film, for my book
The Encyclopedia of Movie Awards I wanted to slip their fake movie into my
lists so I could spot someone who used my book as a source, but alas, it
was too early, it would have stood out among the few awards given then.
In their spirit, though, I still slipped one fake winner in, and did some
other things that will enable me to recognize myself as a source-- for
instance, compilations of National Board of Review winners always list a
film called Vier von der Infantrie, without realizing that that's the
movie we all know as Westfront 1918. I'll be pretty sure that anybody in
the future who does list it as Westfront 1918 will have gotten it from
me. But all I will get from that is a little satisfaction, I don't own
the lists any more than the sources I copied from.)
>Filmographies which incorporate plot synopses based on
personal viewings or original reviews might be arguably more "creative"
Yes, you certainly are getting closer to plagiarism/copyright violation,
though in practice there would have to be a large number of examples to
make a case stick. I read a sentence about the Oscars in Entertainment
Weekly a while back that was almost word-for-word from my book, down to
the examples given-- but it was only one sentence.
Michael Gebert
> Your comment points up the desirability of law that would recognize a
> difference analogous to that between squatters and homesteaders. Those
> who genuinely add value to a property ("homesteaders") would be granted
> rights. Those who make no efforts or only superficial, unsubstantive
> ones (properly defined) on an out-of-copyright work (these film-holders
> being the "squatters") would not be granted legal protection against new
> prints unauthorized by them.
Sounds great. Unfortunately, I know exactly how it will be used. Whites
moving into a property would be evidence of improvement. Non-whites would
be evidence of unsubstantive improvement. (I live in Chicago, where such
distinctions are drawn all the time.)
FilmGene
<<The same goes for symbols embedded in the picture. This practice started
several years ago on the networks. They were sick of people taping live
video feeds of important news events and then selling the tapes. If all
networks used the same camera, the results were indistinguishable and
prosecution was difficult. With the logos, you can easily tell where the
tape came from...>>
Which recalls of course the wonderful "AB" logo which was conspicuously placed
on the sets of Biograph films so that even dupes would contain the company's
logo.
FilmGene
<<I would like to see a "use it or lose it" rule established. To me, silent
film is a cultural artifact and belongs to our culture more than it
belongs to some person or entity who had no part in creating it in the
first place, but simply holds the "legal rights". I believe that it would
be reasonable that, after X amount of years, ANYONE has the right to
exploit a silent film. This will insure that the film will circulate and
give it a better chance to survive.>>
"Simply holds the legal rights" -- a small phrase, but contains a complete
negation of the rights of private property. Now, maybe you disagree with the
notion of private property. Yous should say that rather than cloaking it in
"good for society" disguise. What you are suggesting is confiscation.
"Cultural artifacts" are not exempt from property rights. Perhaps if you were
an artist or the descendant of an artist, this might be clearer to you.
The copyright law does in effect provide a period of years after which a work
is in the public domain. There are scads of works which are legitimately in the
public domain and do not circulate at all.
Michael Gebert
In article <19971206203...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
film...@aol.com (FilmGene) wrote:
Yes. If I ever make a movie I intend to put an AB logo on the set
somewhere, in homage. Weren't there other companies that did the same
thing? I seem to remember spotting them several times in different shorts
in that Before Hollywood touring program, though Biograph is obviously the
most familiar example of this to us now.
dsu...@concentric.net
In article <19971206204...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
film...@aol.com (FilmGene) wrote:
> <<I would like to see a "use it or lose it" rule established. To me, silent
> film is a cultural artifact and belongs to our culture more than it
> belongs to some person or entity who had no part in creating it in the
> first place, but simply holds the "legal rights". I believe that it would
> be reasonable that, after X amount of years, ANYONE has the right to
> exploit a silent film. This will insure that the film will circulate and
> give it a better chance to survive.>>
>
> "Simply holds the legal rights" -- a small phrase, but contains a complete
> negation of the rights of private property. Now, maybe you disagree with the
> notion of private property. Yous should say that rather than cloaking it in
> "good for society" disguise. What you are suggesting is confiscation.
Get lost, Gene. When great films can be kept from being seen by something
as silly as changing a title card or buying up copyright on a song in the
film, there's obviously something wrong with the system, and scumbags
should not be allowed to exploit loopholes in the law to claim films for
themselves that are out-of-copyright. I'm not arguing against private
property, I'm arguing that once the film becomes public domain it is
PUBLIC property, and should remain that way.
>
> "Cultural artifacts" are not exempt from property rights. Perhaps if you were
> an artist or the descendant of an artist, this might be clearer to you.
I have a Master's in Fine Arts (I just don't put credentials after my
name, like you do), but I'm not talking about art. If someone's owned a
Rembrandt for 300 years and passed it down through their family - fine.
Undoubtedly a reproduction of that painting has been published, and a copy
is available for public inspection. I'm not even arguing that films are
exempt from property rights, I'm merely arguing that once they go public
domain, they should remain there.
>
> The copyright law does in effect provide a period of years after which a work
> is in the public domain. There are scads of works which are legitimately
in the
> public domain and do not circulate at all.
Irrelevant. Provided the source material is available, they're still there
for exploitation (which, to me, equals preservation) if someone desires.
Doug
FilmGene
Doug wrote:
<<Get lost, Gene. When great films can be kept from being seen by something
as silly as changing a title card or buying up copyright on a song in the
film, there's obviously something wrong with the system, and scumbags
should not be allowed to exploit loopholes in the law to claim films for
themselves that are out-of-copyright. I'm not arguing against private
property, I'm arguing that once the film becomes public domain it is
PUBLIC property, and should remain that way.>>
What he actually initially wrote was:
<<To me, silent
> film is a cultural artifact and belongs to our culture more than it
> belongs to some person or entity who had no part in creating it in the
> first place, but simply holds the "legal rights". I believe that it would
> be reasonable that, after X amount of years, ANYONE has the right to
> exploit a silent film. This will insure that the film will circulate and
> give it a better chance to survive.>>
These are not consistent. By reducing the argument to films which have fallen
into the public domain he defeats the essence of his argument which was that
anyone should be able to use silent films if they do not distribute them after
a period of time. If Doug wishes to revise his theory, he should do so.
<<I have a Master's in Fine Arts (I just don't put credentials after my
name, like you do), but I'm not talking about art.>>
Having a Masters in Fine Arts does not make one an artist. I did not say that
you were not an artist, just that what you said seemed to me inconsistent with
someone who makes a living through his art.
And, I use my school affiliation not as self-promotion but as identification.
Note that no degree is mentioned. For all you know, I could be the custodian.
David P. Hayes
> In article <B0AE0D...@199.3.65.142>, "Eric Grayson"
> <wolf...@indy.net> wrote:
>
> > This is really correct. Once a film is in the public domain, it
usually
> > stays that way. For example, several years ago, when It's a Wonderful
Life
> > was still in the public domain, it was colorized.
Actually, there have been TWO colorized versions of "It's a Wonderful
Life." In the mid-to-late 1980s, Colorization Inc. did a job of it. (Hal
Roach Studios issued it on VHS.) Colorization Inc. began by negotiating
with Frank Capra to secure Capra's cooperation, and for awhile it looked as
if that would happen, but they had a falling out and Colorization Inc.
realized that the public-domain status meant that they could proceed
without anyone's authorization, so they did. Some time later, Capra and
Jimmy Stewart denounced the whole concept of adding color, saying nothing
of the failed cooperation.
Years later, Republic contracted American Film Technologies (the only
colorizer of the three companies doing it that used pixel-by-pixel
replacement) to do a new job. The color choices were entirely new and not
based on the earlier effort. Republic has since used its claim of holding
the film's "copyright" to force the Hal Roach Studios tapes off the market.
> Usually... but not always. In the case of It's a Wonderful Life, RKO was
> able to reassert copyright based on the still-operative underlying
> copyrights in the original story and the music.
It was never RKO doing the asserting. RKO distributed the film to theaters
in 1946, but Liberty Films owned it. Liberty sold to National Telefilm
Associates (NTA), which changed its name to Republic, which has since been
acquired by Spelling, which was bought by Paramount/Viacom.
--
David Hayes
Michael Gebert
In article <01bd033d$277e02e0$19502299@whatever>, "David P. Hayes"
<david_...@msn.com> wrote:
> > Usually... but not always. In the case of It's a Wonderful Life, RKO was
> > able to reassert copyright based on the still-operative underlying
> > copyrights in the original story and the music.
>
> It was never RKO doing the asserting. RKO distributed the film to theaters
> in 1946, but Liberty Films owned it. Liberty sold to National Telefilm
> Associates (NTA), which changed its name to Republic, which has since been
> acquired by Spelling, which was bought by Paramount/Viacom.
Whoops, of course you're right, I was conflating two old studios that
began with "R." Actually, I think your account of that very strange
corporate history isn't quite right-- Republic at one point acquired our
old friend Blackhawk; later Republic was acquired by Wayne "Blockbuster"
Huizenga and I think Blockbuster bought Spelling separately, later selling
that whole ball of wax to Viacom (which also bought Paramount, also
separately)-- although some of the ex-Blackhawk/Republic catalog business
was sold off to Critics' Choice, then owned by Playboy, and the archival
material went to David Shepard. Finally, anyway, now Huizenga is running
his car-dealer business with the name Republic Industries. So in a very
strange way, now, you can buy a Toyota from Blackhawk Films-- not to
mention from Vera Hruba Ralston....
Marta Dawes
There is also some controversy now about them even being able to
copyright a movie based on the ownership of the music within. This
whole story may flipflop around for years.
Marta
David P. Hayes wrote:
>
> Michael Gebert <mg...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
> <mgmax-06129...@pool-207-205-139-176.chia.grid.net>...
> > In article <B0AE0D...@199.3.65.142>, "Eric Grayson"
> > <wolf...@indy.net> wrote:
> >
> > > This is really correct. Once a film is in the public domain, it
> usually
> > > stays that way. For example, several years ago, when It's a Wonderful
> Life
> > > was still in the public domain, it was colorized.
>
> Actually, there have been TWO colorized versions of "It's a Wonderful
> Life." In the mid-to-late 1980s, Colorization Inc. did a job of it. (Hal
> Roach Studios issued it on VHS.) Colorization Inc. began by negotiating
> with Frank Capra to secure Capra's cooperation, and for awhile it looked as
> if that would happen, but they had a falling out and Colorization Inc.
> realized that the public-domain status meant that they could proceed
> without anyone's authorization, so they did. Some time later, Capra and
> Jimmy Stewart denounced the whole concept of adding color, saying nothing
> of the failed cooperation.
>
> Years later, Republic contracted American Film Technologies (the only
> colorizer of the three companies doing it that used pixel-by-pixel
> replacement) to do a new job. The color choices were entirely new and not
> based on the earlier effort. Republic has since used its claim of holding
> the film's "copyright" to force the Hal Roach Studios tapes off the market.
>
> > Usually... but not always. In the case of It's a Wonderful Life, RKO was
> > able to reassert copyright based on the still-operative underlying
> > copyrights in the original story and the music.
>
> It was never RKO doing the asserting. RKO distributed the film to theaters
> in 1946, but Liberty Films owned it. Liberty sold to National Telefilm
> Associates (NTA), which changed its name to Republic, which has since been
> acquired by Spelling, which was bought by Paramount/Viacom.
>
> --
> David Hayes
David Pierce
David P. Hayes wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Adding a soundtrack to a silent film has
> long been grounds for claiming a new copyright on a public-domain movie,
> although it seems understood that if the picture is unchanged, someone else
> can strip off the soundtrack and legally duplicate the movie.
>
I have filed a good number of these registrations
for various producers (such as the Lumivision/
Eastman House version of THE LOST WORLD), and the
Copyright Office is not asleep at the switch.
You can copyright changes to the original work,
but the CO policy is that choice of transfer speed,
tinting and format (including typeface) of titles
are not protectable. Registration of a new music
track would provide no protection for the film itself.
>
> Restoration is a trickier area. Here, the claim is that painstaking effort
> goes into making the work look as it originally did--hence, success is
> achieved when there is NO creativity (except the of overcoming mechanical
> obstacles). UCLA has registered their restoration of "Becky Sharp," but
> whether the new copyright would be upheld in court is a different matter.
>
Actually, UCLA only registered their "preface" to
the restored "Becky Sharp," not the restored version
itself. From my experience, I am not sure that the
restored version would be protectable, since the
Supreme Court determined that "sweat of the brow"
effort alone was not sufficient for a copyright.
You can find more about the telephone book decision
than you ever wanted to know at:
http://announce.com/wb270/Feist.htm
David Pierce
Silent Film Sources
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm
Updates and news the first of every month
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/monthly.htm
The Silent Film Bookshelf
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf (new address)
ChaneyFan
>>>No. Information is NOT copyrightable. If you were to review the films or
actually write about them, that would, of course, be covered.
But I think in the case of the "fake film" in the AFI book, they wrote a
synopsis, created a fake cast, etc. In fact, it is very funny and clever, and
I think most jurors would consider this creativity. If someone then simply
lifted the title, cast, and credits and stuck them in a book somewhere (that
was sold...it is tough to claim damages via copyright infringement if no money
changes hand...but not always), AFI could legitimately claim that someone had
stolen this copyrighted piece of creativity, since it existed nowhere else and
could only have been obtained by copying it from the book.
ChaneyFan
Gene Stavis said:
>>>There are scads of works which are legitimately in the
public domain and do not circulate at all.
The main reason this is true is because the only extant print is in an archive.
Archives do not acknowledge public domain (neither do studios). In the
opinions of the archives, if the film was donated by Paramount, it is owned by
Paramount, regardless of copyright status. If you think this isn't true, try
writing LOC to get access to public domain films such as VICTORY (1919) or THE
ENCHANTED COTTAGE (1924).
This is especially true for Library of Congress. Most people don't realize
that many major studios donated all their nitrate to LOC, they took a big tax
writeoff for the donation, they got tax payers to pay the millions of dollars
in restoration and preservation costs, and the studios then get free storage
and free access to their material, all at taxpayer expense. These films will
remain restricted forever due to the instrument of gift or other document
between the studios and archives. The copyright status has absolutely nothing
to do with whether the film will become available. This is your tax dollars at
work!
Don't like it? Write your Congressman or Senator.
dsu...@concentric.net
In article <19971207182...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
film...@aol.com (FilmGene) wrote:
> Doug wrote:
>
> <<Get lost, Gene. When great films can be kept from being seen by something
> as silly as changing a title card or buying up copyright on a song in the
> film, there's obviously something wrong with the system, and scumbags
> should not be allowed to exploit loopholes in the law to claim films for
> themselves that are out-of-copyright. I'm not arguing against private
> property, I'm arguing that once the film becomes public domain it is
> PUBLIC property, and should remain that way.>>
>
> What he actually initially wrote was:
>
> <<To me, silent
> > film is a cultural artifact and belongs to our culture more than it
> > belongs to some person or entity who had no part in creating it in the
> > first place, but simply holds the "legal rights". I believe that it would
> > be reasonable that, after X amount of years, ANYONE has the right to
> > exploit a silent film. This will insure that the film will circulate and
> > give it a better chance to survive.>>
>
> These are not consistent. By reducing the argument to films which have fallen
> into the public domain he defeats the essence of his argument which was that
> anyone should be able to use silent films if they do not distribute them after
> a period of time. If Doug wishes to revise his theory, he should do so.
In my initial post, I unthinkingly wrote with the assumption that all
silent films were now out of copyright. Obviously that's incorrect. Sorry
for the confusion.
>
> <<I have a Master's in Fine Arts (I just don't put credentials after my
> name, like you do), but I'm not talking about art.>>
>
> Having a Masters in Fine Arts does not make one an artist.
Boy, you can say THAT again :-)...
I did not say that
> you were not an artist, just that what you said seemed to me inconsistent with
> someone who makes a living through his art.
I can't see this, because I'm clearly assuming that anyone who had
anything creative to do with making silent films is now dead.
>
> And, I use my school affiliation not as self-promotion but as identification.
> Note that no degree is mentioned.
Yeah... I guess that's to differentiate you from all the other Gene
Stavis' who post here.
> ... For all you know, I could be the custodian.
dsu...@concentric.net
In article <19971208045...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
When you say "access" do you mean being able to walk in and view a film,
or do you mean being allowed to make a print?
oksana dykyj
In article <19971208044...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
> >>>No. Information is NOT copyrightable. If you were to review the films or
> actually write about them, that would, of course, be covered.
>
> But I think in the case of the "fake film" in the AFI book, they wrote a
> synopsis, created a fake cast, etc. In fact, it is very funny and clever, and
> I think most jurors would consider this creativity. If someone then simply
> lifted the title, cast, and credits and stuck them in a book somewhere (that
> was sold...it is tough to claim damages via copyright infringement if no money
> changes hand...but not always), AFI could legitimately claim that someone had
> stolen this copyrighted piece of creativity, since it existed nowhere else and
> could only have been obtained by copying it from the book.
Jon:
Is it possible for someone not familiar with silent film, or even with
basic knowledge, to assume that this "fake" was actually produced and
citing it in a research paper? I'm concerned about an authority's
"misinformation" being used as factual information.
Oksana
--
Oksana Dykyj
Concordia University
Montreal
Michael Gebert
> >>>No. Information is NOT copyrightable. If you were to review the films or
> actually write about them, that would, of course, be covered.
>
> But I think in the case of the "fake film" in the AFI book, they wrote a
> synopsis, created a fake cast, etc. In fact, it is very funny and clever, and
> I think most jurors would consider this creativity.
I'm not sure what precedents exist, if any, for how little text is
required to establish plagiarism. In a practical case, though, the
offender could claim that he was simply trusting that the AFI catalog was
a reliable source. And after all, the point of reference books is to be
used-- I certainly hope people copy from my awards book, especially in
those areas where I corrected long-standing errors from other sources.
Incidentally, if anyone thinks it was irresponsible of the AFI to make up
a film, know that the Oxford English Dictionary contains a made-up word--
though no one's ever found it in the 65 years the OED has been out. After
all, where would you turn to verify it?
ChaneyFan
>>>Is it possible for someone not familiar with silent film, or even with basic
knowledge, to assume that this "fake" was actually produced and citing it in a
research paper? I'm concerned about an authority's "misinformation" being used
as factual information.
No intelligent source could make this mistake. They make references in the
synopsis to the Kennedy assasination and other modern events. If you read it
the whole film and synopsis is a riot, but someone who was simply going through
copying information without reading it would never notice.
ChaneyFan
>>>When you say "access" do you mean being able to walk in and view a film, or
do you mean being allowed to make a print?
I primarily mean copying the film. It can sometimes restrict the ability to go
in and see the film also. If a film at LOC truly has no restrictions (no
copyright, no instrument of gift, no donor restrictions, not from a studio) you
can in fact request (in fact, demand) that LOC make you a copy. You will pay a
fortune and get lousy lab work, but they will do it.
dsu...@concentric.net
In article <oksana-0812...@audiovisual-43-24.concordia.ca>,
oks...@vax2.concordia.ca (oksana dykyj) wrote:
> In article <19971208044...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
> chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
>
> > >>>No. Information is NOT copyrightable. If you were to review the films or
> > actually write about them, that would, of course, be covered.
> >
> > But I think in the case of the "fake film" in the AFI book, they wrote a
> > synopsis, created a fake cast, etc. In fact, it is very funny and
clever, and
> > I think most jurors would consider this creativity....
I don't think it would matter. The "creative" entry was obviously
presented as FACT in the midst of thousands of other facts. You could
never prove anyone's intent to violate creative copyright under these
circumstances.
Doug
David P. Hayes
Michael Gebert <mg...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<mgmax-06129...@pool-207-205-139-176.chia.grid.net>...
> > ... Those
> > who genuinely add value to a property ("homesteaders") would be granted
> > rights. Those who make no efforts or only superficial, unsubstantive
"squatters") would not be granted ...
> Sounds great. Unfortunately, I know exactly how it will be used. Whites
> moving into a property would be evidence of improvement. Non-whites
would
> be evidence of unsubstantive improvement. (I live in Chicago, where such
> distinctions are drawn all the time.)
In my post, I specifically wrote "...properly defined..." to preclude
misapplications such as the one you cite.
--
David Hayes
Moviephile
>If a film at LOC truly has no restrictions (no
>copyright, no instrument of gift, no donor restrictions, not from a studio)
>you
>can in fact request (in fact, demand) that LOC make you a copy. You will pay
>a
>fortune and get lousy lab work, but they will do it.
>================
>Jon Mirsalis
Once again its all in who you know when it comes to the quality part, paying a
fortune is not correct, a fourtune and a half would be the right sum.
D.W. Atkinson
David Pierce
oksana dykyj wrote:
>
>
> Jon:
>
> Is it possible for someone not familiar with silent film, or even with
> basic knowledge, to assume that this "fake" was actually produced and
> citing it in a research paper? I'm concerned about an authority's
> "misinformation" being used as factual information.
>
While Jon's point was that the AFI catalog included
a made-up entry to catch anyone who copied the book
wholesale, Oksana is concerned about the hapless
researcher who expects to be able to rely on reference
books.
To that, I believe that _all_ reference books need
to be approached with a certain amount of skepticism.
For example, a few years back there was a dreadful
book on the films produced by PRC- low budget, bottom
of the barrel program pictures of little artistic
merit. The research was (apparently) conducted entirely
from secondary sources.
As I recall there was a scathing review in Films in Review,
which pointed out that the book even claimed that PRC had
released a serial, which was untrue. The author responded
that another book, "King of the Bs," said that they released
a serial, so it must be true! He felt no need to verify
anything found in other books.
Wonderful as they are, the AFI catalogs are not without their
faults (for example, the two Paramount features missing from
the 20s volume). They are one source for information- not _the_
source- and any student who believes that they can stop
with the catalogs deserves that "F" on their paper!
Robert Birchard
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> David said:
> >>>Wonderful as they are, the AFI catalogs are not without their
> faults (for example, the two Paramount features missing from
> the 20s volume).
>
> silent titles missing from the teens, 20's, and 30's AFI books. You can argue
> some of these (too short to be qualified as feature, not a true U.S. release,
> etc.), but the point is that there is a lot missing. I gave this list to
> Patricia Hanson who was Executive Editor, and a day later she was on the phone
> with me arguing over several titles she thought shouldn't be on the list. I
> define "feature" as anything over 3 reels, so some of the long Chaplin shorts
> (A DOG'S LIFE, SHOULDER ARMS) qualify. Many of these are long, American-made
> features though that simply aren't listed. . . [snip]
>
> I'm curious if anyone else has found other missing titles in these otherwise
> truly fine books.
Two feature Westerns that come immediately to maind as missing from
the AFI '20's catalogue are:
"Big Stakes" a 1922 Western starring J. B. Warner (Murray Glass sells
this)
"The Outlaw Herder" (Goodwill, ca. 1926) starring Yakima Canutt.
Hollywood Film Enterprises used to sell prints of this and I know of at
least two extant prints.
--
Bob Birchard
bbir...@earthlink.net
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Guest/birchard.htm
ChaneyFan
Dennis said:
>>>Once again its all in who you know when it comes to the quality part,
paying a fortune is not correct, a fourtune and a half would be the right sum.
The last time I looked into it, they would send the safety reference print (not
the nitrate, not the fine grain) to their local (crummy) lab and charge you
double lab cost.
If you do someone a favor you can often get a favor in return. For example,
the way I got THE SCARLET CAR was that I donated a rare silent to them (THE
SACRED MOUNTAIN, starring a German actress/director I dare not mention in this
group) and in return they gave me access to the nitrate print. At the time I
had great connections there but, alas, many of my friends who assisted this
transaction are long gone.
But it is still within the realm of possibility. Like if you came up with the
40-reel GREED camera negative (but not merely a safety 35) they might give you
access to a workprint of an Educational Comedy.
ChaneyFan
David said:
>>>Wonderful as they are, the AFI catalogs are not without their
faults (for example, the two Paramount features missing from
the 20s volume).
The *two* films? TWO films?? David is being overly kind. Here is a list of
silent titles missing from the teens, 20's, and 30's AFI books. You can argue
some of these (too short to be qualified as feature, not a true U.S. release,
etc.), but the point is that there is a lot missing. I gave this list to
Patricia Hanson who was Executive Editor, and a day later she was on the phone
with me arguing over several titles she thought shouldn't be on the list. I
define "feature" as anything over 3 reels, so some of the long Chaplin shorts
(A DOG'S LIFE, SHOULDER ARMS) qualify. Many of these are long, American-made
features though that simply aren't listed. Format is title, year, Studio.
Teens:
Almost Good Man, The 17 UNIV
Back to God's Country 19 SHPMN
Beauty and the Barge 14 CROMP
Bishop's Carriage 13 FMPLY
Black Brook, The 16 GENRL
Bootle's Baby 15 PAR
Brigadier Gerard 16 UNIV
Brother Officers 15 PAR
Call of the Wild, The 14 FMPLY
Choosing a Wife 19 AFN
Christmas Carol, A 13 CROMP
Conquering Christ, The 18 ?????
Day of the Dog 13 FMPLY
Derelict 14 PARMS
Dog's Life, A 17 CHPLN
Folly of Desire, The 16 UNIV
Ghost in the Garrett, The 20 NWART
Golden God, The 14 LUBIN
Held for Ransom 14 ISP
Her Paternal Right 16 PARGN
His Neighbor's Wife 13 FMPLY
House of Temperly 13 PARMS
Jeanne Dore 16 UNIV
King and the Man 13 FMPLY
Kingdom of Love, The 17 FOX
Lawyer Quince 13 CROMP
Leaves of Memory 14 ECLTC
Like Most Wives 14 BSWTH
Long Chance, A 18 UNIV
Me An' Me Pal 17 UNIV
Message from Mars, A 13 ????
Money God, The aka/Do Riches Bring Happiness14 MTROP
Mother 17 AFN
My Old Dutch 15 UNIV
Number 17 20 FOX
On the Bread Line 15 MAJES
Passing of the Third Floor Back 18 AFN
Pathways of Life 16 ????
Price of Justice, The 15 APEX
Queen of the Smugglers, The 14 SAYRF
Red Saunders Plays Cupid 17 UNIV
Rival of Perpetua, The 15 SHUBT
Rose of Granada 19 PAR
Rupert of Hentzau 16 UNIV
Secret of the Mountain, The 14 ECLTC
Seventh Person 19 FOX
Shoulder Arms 18 CHPLN
Sight Unseen, A 14 LENRD
Silent Accuser, The 14 ECLTC
Sky Monster, The 14 UNIV
Sons of Satan, The 16 UNIV
Souls Triumphant 15 RLNCE
Stain, The 14 ECLTC
Stork's Nest, The 15 COLUM
Strikers, The 15 APEX
Sunnyside 19 CHPLN
Three Black Trumps, The 15 PICPF
Thumb Print, The 14 MLIES
Tiger Band 19 WARNR
Under Suspicion 16 UNIV
Warrior, The 17 AFN
West of the Sacred Gem, The 14 ECLTC
Wild Animal Life 13 FMPLY
William Tell 14 PARMS
Woman and the Law 18 PAR
Woman of Debt, The 15 IMP
World of Today, The 15 GRNBM
20's
Alice Through a Looking Glass 28 Pathe
Better 'Ole, The 27 Warner Bros.
Blizzard, The 24 Fox
Bottom of the World 30 Talking Picture Epics
Dancing Vienna 29 First National
Desert's Toll 26 MGM
Devil's Garden, The 21 First National
Dinty 21 First National
For Your Daughter's Sake 22 J.W. Film Corp.
Hardboiled 26 Fox
Her Rise to Fame 27 Excellent
Honeymoon Abroad 29 Sono Art
Lady of Whims, The 25 Arrow
Let's Sing 30 Talking Picture Epics
Life 21 Paramount
Marquis Preferred 29 Paramount
Masquerade 28 UA
Monna Vanna 23 Fox
Nineteen and Phyliss 21 First National
Old Dad 21 First National
Over the Hill 21 Fox
Pawns of Passion 29 Sono-Art
Prince and the Dancer 29 Sono-Art
Red Russia Revealed 23 Fox
Secret Spring, The 26 Paramount (French?)
Shadows of Fear 28 First National
She Couldn't Help It 21 Realart
Terror Mountain 28 FBO
Venus 29 UA
Water, The 26 Garson
The 30's book is better, but is still missing a few:
Forbidden Territory (38) HOFBG
Forgotten Women (36) IMPER
In Old Louisiana aka/Louisiana Gal (37) CRSNT
Morning After, The (34) MAJES
Three on a Honeymoon (34) FOX
Story of Two Orphans aka/Bondage of Fear (32) ?????
I'm curious if anyone else has found other missing titles in these otherwise
truly fine books. By the way, the 40's book will be out next year at about
$250.
Bobster123
>From: chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
>The last time I looked into it, they would send the safety reference print
>(not
>the nitrate, not the fine grain) to their local (crummy) lab and charge you
>double lab cost.
So a typical two-reel comedy would cost about how much to get from LOC on 16mm?
The going rate for a Blackhawk or Glenn Photo print right now is about $175.
ChaneyFan
>>>So a typical two-reel comedy would cost about how much to get from LOC on
16mm? The going rate for a Blackhawk or Glenn Photo print right now is about
$175.
Most of their stuff is 35mm, so you would have to do a reduction negative. Lab
cost is probably around $0.70/ 16mm ft now, and double that would be around
$1120, the first timed answer print would be around $300, and subsequent
release prints would run a little over $100 each. So to get to your first
release print would set you back abiyt $1500. Blackhawk prices are starting to
sound better and better, aren't they.
Of course you could do like I do and try to sell some extra prints and make
lots of money. (Note extreme degree of sarcasm)
oksana dykyj
In article <348DEF...@dc.infi.net>, David Pierce <sun...@dc.infi.net>
wrote:
> oksana dykyj wrote:
> > Jon:
> > Is it possible for someone not familiar with silent film, or even with
> > basic knowledge, to assume that this "fake" was actually produced and
> > citing it in a research paper? I'm concerned about an authority's
> > "misinformation" being used as factual information.
> > Oksana
> >
>
> While Jon's point was that the AFI catalog included
> a made-up entry to catch anyone who copied the book
> wholesale, Oksana is concerned about the hapless
> researcher who expects to be able to rely on reference
> books.
> To that, I believe that _all_ reference books need
> to be approached with a certain amount of skepticism.
> For example, a few years back there was a dreadful
> book on the films produced by PRC- low budget, bottom
> of the barrel program pictures of little artistic
> merit. The research was (apparently) conducted entirely
> from secondary sources.
<snip>
> Wonderful as they are, the AFI catalogs are not without their
> faults (for example, the two Paramount features missing from
> the 20s volume). They are one source for information- not _the_
> source- and any student who believes that they can stop
> with the catalogs deserves that "F" on their paper!
>
> David Pierce
>
David,
I agree with you on this but how can we realistically expect students to
produce thorough research when they are enrolled in colleges or
universities where access to primary information is extremely limited. I'm
referring, of course, to undergraduate students who are not required to
produce exhaustive research, at colleges with standard resources; there is
no excuse for graduate students. Secondly, we cannot expect undergraduates
to be motivated to seek out primary sources (and be equipped to deal with
graduate school) when all they are encouraged to read and cite in their
own essays, are articles quoting secondary and tertiary sources. Many
students are not provided with the impetus to do correct research by their
instructors whose area of interest/research is often not historically
oriented. Properly designed subject-based research methods courses should
be part of basic curriculum but for various reasons this is not always the
case.
Christopher Jacobs
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> I define "feature" as anything over 3 reels, so some of the long Chaplin shorts
> (A DOG'S LIFE, SHOULDER ARMS) qualify.
Actually I believe a strong case could be made for the inclusion of
3-reelers as features in the 'teens catalog, particularly those made in
the first half of the teens. A 1913 book I have called "Motion Picture
Work," evidently an assembly of correspondence-school materials for
people interested in getting into some aspect of the movie business,
quite matter-of-factly states that most movies are filmed and shown at
14 frames per second. It also estimates an average 1000 ft reel as being
around 18 minutes (the average time today for a 2000-ft reel). At this
rate a full 3-reeler would last about 54 to 57 minutes--as long as an
average 5 to six-reeler at 24 fps and easily long enough to be called a
"feature."
Chris Jacobs
ChaneyFan
Oksana said:
>>>I agree with you on this but how can we realistically expect students to
produce thorough research when they are enrolled in colleges or universities
where access to primary information is extremely limited.
Bill Everson had one answer to how to become a film scholar. He said the only
way to do it was to go out and watch a lot of movies. Period. He was
obviously oversimplifying, but his point is that when doing *film* research,
the only primary research material is a *film* not a book.
If, for example, you want to research Frank Borzage, the *very first* thing you
need to do is go out and watch every Borzage picture you can get your hands on.
After you have done that, *then* and only then should you begin to dig into
reference books, interview people who worked with Borzage, etc.
Having said that, for an undergraduate there are still a number of useful tools
that are easy to come by and serve as an excellent introduction. If I was
designing an independent study program for someone interested in silent film, I
would tell them to do the following over the course of a year:
1. Watch the Brownlow Hollywood series.
2. Read Brownlow's "The Parade's Gone By" and Everson's "Classics of the
Silent Screen" and "American Silent Film."
3. Watch the Brownlow shows on Griffith, Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd.
4. Ask them to watch any 5 silent films (different genres and stars) and write
a paper on which one they liked the best and worst, and why. (Selection can be
almost anything, but assuming we are limited to fairly common titles, make it
SUNRISE, METROPOLIS, CITY LIGHTS, THE BIG PARADE, and THE CAMERAMAN."
5. Let's say they liked METROPOLIS best of the bunch. Tell them to watch 5
more Fritz Lang pictures, not necessarily silent, at least 2 silent, (e.g.,
DESTINY, SPIES, M, FURY, MANHUNT) and write a short essay on the differences
and similarities between them.
6. If they liked CITY LIGHTS the least, ask them to compile a complete
filmography of Chaplin's films (Ahhhh, those library research skills will come
in handy after all), indexed by studio, and ask them to watch one from each
studio (Keystone, Essanay, Mutual, First National, Chaplin Productions) and
write another paper on how Chaplin's style changed at each studio.
At this point the student will either be consumed with interest or will be
ready to have you sign a drop slip. For those who stay, you can branch into
several areas of research, depending what their particular interest is. There
are several possible schools of thought here. Each of these could be a one
semester project. For example:
The David Pierce School: Research the copyright status of the films of Lon
Chaney and write a paper on which ones are public domain and why.
The Bob Gitt School: Research the archival status of the feature films of
Harold Lloyd. Provide video tapes of the Time-Life print of THE FRESHMAN and
the uncut version. Provide a video editing table and ask the student to cut
the scenes from the uncut version into the Time-Life print. Show the restored
version to the class and discuss what was cut.
The Jon Mirsalis School: Research the different musical scores used for THE
BIG PARADE (original cue sheets, 1930 reissue, Carl Davis). Discuss what
musical themes were common between them. Compose and perform your own score
for the class (OK, I'm assuming the person is a music major.)
The David Shepard School: Provide the student a videotape of a silent film
with foreign intertitles. Ask the student to get an English translation
(either from a cutting continuity or by getting a translator), creating English
titles, and cutting them together (in video of course) and running the restored
version for the class. (Extra credit: Remove a random 10-min sequence of the
film and ask the student to find out what was missing and insert continuity
bridging titles.)
I have actually done each of the four "schools" above, and learned more from
each of these experiences than any book or college course could possibly teach
me.
With minimal resources and a lot of enthusiasm, I think it would be rather easy
to design an exciting silent film curriculum for a young student. If you are
in NYC, DC, L.A., Rochester, San Francisco, etc., it is particularly easy, but
even in Fargo you will find resources (won't you Chris?).
ChaneyFan
Chris Jacobs said:
>>>Actually I believe a strong case could be made for the inclusion of
3-reelers as features in the 'teens catalog, particularly those made in the
first half of the teens.
3-reelers are kind of the no-man's-land of silent film. There were so few of
them made that no one quite knows what to do with them. In the case of Langdon
and Lloyd, the 3-reelers were clearly intended to test the waters for moving
into feature films. A few short non-comedy featurettes were also done at 3
reels.
There are even a handful of 4-reelers, and these are even rarer. Many people
don't start thinking feature until you hit 5 reels, but Chris' point is
correct. At 16-18 fps, these 3-reel "shorts" would have been on the order of
45-50 min...about the same as a 5-reeler run at 24 fps.
Christopher Jacobs
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> With minimal resources and a lot of enthusiasm, I think it would be rather easy
> to design an exciting silent film curriculum for a young student. If you are
> in NYC, DC, L.A., Rochester, San Francisco, etc., it is particularly easy, but
> even in Fargo you will find resources (won't you Chris?).
> ================
Well, Fargo has a few more than Grand Forks. The Intro to Film class I
teach usually has only one or two silents--a comedy (usually STEAMBOAT
BILL JR) and sometimes a drama (BROKEN BLOSSOMS or TOL'ABLE DAVID), in
addition to one session of movies from Muybridge to Griffith Biographs.
Basically, up here almost any study of silent film would have to be
independent study--mainly through viewing films via tape or traveling to
conventions, special-ordering books (especially reprints of original
1910s-20s sources), and occasionally finding original fan/trade
magazines at antique sales. The most fascinating research (even if not
always reliable) I think is reading the early issues of trade magazines
and Photoplay. If I could afford it I'd get them all on microfilm, as
the local university library has only "Variety" and the "NY Times."
Chris Jacobs
Michael Gebert
In article <19971211052...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
> If, for example, you want to research Frank Borzage, the *very first*
thing you
> need to do is go out and watch every Borzage picture you can get your
hands on.
Urg! Good luck, or maybe, bad example, since you'd have a hard time
getting your hands on most of the good ones (like Man's Castle) and an
easy time getting your hands on the pretty bad ones (like Strange Cargo).
Fortunately you'd at least get to see Three Comrades, and maybe History is
Made at Night....
mack twamley
ChaneyFan <chan...@aol.com> wrote in article <. For example,
> the way I got THE SCARLET CAR was that I donated a rare silent to them
(THE
> SACRED MOUNTAIN, starring a German actress/director I dare not mention in
this
> group) and in return they gave me access to the nitrate print.
****************************************************************************
***********************
Golly, Jon, who might that actress/director be, anyway? Could it be (as
the Church Lady would say.)....
,,,,,,,,,,,,"S A T A N ??"
cheers,
Mack Twamley
ChaneyFan
>>>The most fascinating research (even if not
always reliable) I think is reading the early issues of trade magazines and
Photoplay.
I agree with Chris that these are fascinating reading, but I wouldn't rely too
heavily on them as a source of truth. The trades (like Motion Picture World,
Universal Weekly) were written for exhibitors and were, therefore, extremely
biased in their attempt to get exhibitors to buy films. Photoplay was a fan
magazine with the same accuracy level as, say, The National Enquirer.
For my Chaney research I skimmed every Photoplay at LOC from the late teens
through 1930 looking for Chaney items. It was tremendous fun, but Photoplay
was loaded with mininformation. Still, I will say it gives you a wonderful
feel for the era. I enjoyed the advertisements the best, especially the
cryptic ones for "Women's problems."
ChaneyFan
Michael Gebert said (in reference to screening all the Borzage films):
>>>Urg! Good luck, or maybe, bad example, since you'd have a hard time getting
your hands on most of the good ones (like Man's Castle) and an easy time
getting your hands on the pretty bad ones (like Strange Cargo). Fortunately
you'd at least get to see Three Comrades, and maybe History is Made at
Night....
I was actually thinking of the silents more than the talkies. Karen Alters at
Second Line Search got her M.A. degree at NYU under Bill Everson and did her
Masters thesis on Borzage and she told me that in a one year period she was
able to see pretty much everything from 1927 on. They get a bit sparser before
1927, but even of the earlier stuff I've seen GUN WOMAN, HUMORESQUE, VALLEY OF
SILENT MEN, BACK PAY, THE Nth COMMANDMENT, LAZYBONES, THE LADY, THE CIRCLE, and
several of his early starring roles (like THE SWITCHTOWER). From 1927 on, I
think all the Borzages exist, and I would actually describe most of them as
common (except for the elusive BAD GIRL, Borzage's only Oscar, and one of the
only talkies I haven't seen). I'm sure that being Bill Everson's student
opened doors that wouldn't be there for the typical student, but the basic
concept is still the same.
By the way, I picked Borzage as one of a dozen names that came to mind, but I
think his career would be interesting material for a student because he had a
long, succesful career in both silents and talkies, working as an actor in
early teens films, and working as a director into the early 1960s. I also like
Borzage because I think he can do a romantic story better than just about any
director around, with the possible exception of Clarence Brown, another
director who's career went from 1920 into the 50's.
David P. Hayes
ChaneyFan wrote in message
<19971212053...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>From 1927 on, I
>think all the Borzages exist, and I would actually describe most of them as
>common (except for the elusive BAD GIRL, Borzage's only Oscar, and one of
the
>only talkies I haven't seen
"Bad Girl" has screened at UCLA's Melnitz Hall. The title is somewhat a
misnomer, but it was the title of the book on which it was based. The movie
is similar in content to Borzage's next film, "After Tomorrow."
--
David Hayes
oksana dykyj
In article <19971212053...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
> Michael Gebert said (in reference to screening all the Borzage films):
> >>>Urg! Good luck, or maybe, bad example, since you'd have a hard time
getting
> your hands on most of the good ones (like Man's Castle) and an easy time
> getting your hands on the pretty bad ones (like Strange Cargo). Fortunately
> you'd at least get to see Three Comrades, and maybe History is Made at
> Night....
> I was actually thinking of the silents more than the talkies. Karen Alters at
> Second Line Search got her M.A. degree at NYU under Bill Everson and did her
> Masters thesis on Borzage and she told me that in a one year period she was
> able to see pretty much everything from 1927 on.
Jon,
A few comments: Your proposal for an independent study in silent film is a
very interesting and ambitious one. I agree that watching as many films as
possible is the first thing a student should get involved in. I also have
the benefit of having studied with Everson (and Leyda) at NYU. This is
however not the real world of film studies in North America. Most film
studies courses are given in academic departments that have nothing to do
with the study of film as a discipline, such as Modern Languages, History,
English, Philosophy. The membership of the Society for Cinema Studies is a
good example of that. Outside a couple dozen or so institutions, films on
VHS are watched on small tv monitors. Let's take your Borzage example and
go to say, Burlington, Vermont. UVM has two books on Borzage. They have no
Borzage videotapes and because their on-line catalogue is tedious to
search, it may be that the only silent films on video that they own are 3
Keatons. I would suspect that they have some other silent classics but I
didn't immediately see them. Yet, UVM teaches a good number of Film
Studies courses. I honestly doubt that going to the video rental outlets
anywhere near the UVM campus would yield any Borzage titles either. Same
thing for Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. They also have two
books but no Borzage videos. I can't speak for the area near the campus
but the video outlets in Baton Rouge do not tend to stock silent film
titles.
Concordia does not own any Borzage titles. UC Berkeley's Media Center only
has The Switchtower on VHS from Video Yesteryear. Yet undergraduates at
both these universities have access to film archives and other research
centers where undergraduates in Vermont and Louisiana simply do not.
Unless the students invest in their own mail-order videos and travel to
where they can see silent films projected, this experience just is not
part of the course design and curriculum at their institutions.
David Pierce
oksana dykyj wrote:
>
> David,
> I agree with you on this but how can we realistically expect students to
> produce thorough research when they are enrolled in colleges or
> universities where access to primary information is extremely limited. I'm
> referring, of course, to undergraduate students who are not required to
> produce exhaustive research, at colleges with standard resources; there is
> no excuse for graduate students. Secondly, we cannot expect undergraduates
> to be motivated to seek out primary sources (and be equipped to deal with
> graduate school) when all they are encouraged to read and cite in their
> own essays, are articles quoting secondary and tertiary sources. Many
> students are not provided with the impetus to do correct research by their
> instructors whose area of interest/research is often not historically
> oriented. Properly designed subject-based research methods courses should
> be part of basic curriculum but for various reasons this is not always the
> case.
>
I accept Oksana's point that students are not required
to be critical researchers, and that original research
materials are not available to them.
However, I believe that the important point for an undergrad
is to be able to develop and defend their conclusions.
For example, I got an email recently from a student who
was assigned to write a paper on silent movies. They
decided to profile the most popular stars of the twenties,
so they emailed me to find out who they were.
There is no single answer to this. Would the list include
Chaplin who didn't star in a film for years at a time, etc.
So, I refused to give the student a list, but suggested that
they just choose several of the major stars and defend their
position as among the most popular performers.
My point was that the student did not to come to definitive
conclusions, but needed to be able to defend the conclusions
he drew from the available evidence.
I am reminded of a story told by Joe Adamson in his book
on Tex Avery. I quote:
In the presumably authoritative "International
Encyclopedia of Film," Roger Manvell typifies
the style when he writes of the "the traditional
Tom & Jerry series of Tex Avery, the Cat and Mouse
characters originated in the late 1940s." ***
There are almost more mistakes in this sentence
than words: we find Mr. Manvell crediting Avery
with the _creation_ of characters he never used
even once *** and allowing their birth to _follow_
their fifth Oscar ***. He might as well have been
talking about the "traditional" Myrna Loy Westerns
of Alfred Hitchcock.
The student can do sloppy research on Alfred Hitchcock if that
is all that is expected of them; however, they had better be
able to source their facts, and defend their conclusions.
David Pierce
Christopher Jacobs wrote:
>
> Well, Fargo has a few more than Grand Forks. The Intro to Film class I
> teach usually has only one or two silents--a comedy (usually STEAMBOAT
> BILL JR) and sometimes a drama (BROKEN BLOSSOMS or TOL'ABLE DAVID), in
> addition to one session of movies from Muybridge to Griffith Biographs.
> Basically, up here almost any study of silent film would have to be
> independent study--mainly through viewing films via tape or traveling to
> conventions, special-ordering books (especially reprints of original
> 1910s-20s sources), and occasionally finding original fan/trade
> always reliable) I think is reading the early issues of trade magazines
> the local university library has only "Variety" and the "NY Times."
>
This is the reason that I have been posting
contemporary articles from the teens and
twenties to the Silent Film Bookshelf. I
live near Washington, DC, now but where I
grew up, I would have been pleased to have
access to "Variety."
In fact, this month's issue is on SUNRISE, and
I would be interested in opinions on the
original reception to the picture discussed
in these articles.
David Pierce
David Pierce
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> The last time I looked into it, they would send the safety reference print (not
> the nitrate, not the fine grain) to their local (crummy) lab and charge you
> double lab cost.
>
> the way I got THE SCARLET CAR was that I donated a rare silent to them (THE
> SACRED MOUNTAIN, starring a German actress/director I dare not mention in this
> had great connections there but, alas, many of my friends who assisted this
> transaction are long gone.
I think that Jon has pointed to the real
issue here. It is one thing if archival
policies are established that films are
only accessible for duplication in theory
but in practice are prohibitively expensive
for poor quality results, but the policies
go away if you know someone or have something
to trade.
Federal archives should not pick and choose
who deserves access. All taxpayers should have
the same right to access the best possible
materials. Making commercial copies from reference
materials rather than preservation masters raises
questions about the purpose of preservation and
who the films are being preserved for.
In my opinion, having films available to view
on Steenbecks in one location in the country
weekdays from 9-5 is not access.
David Pierce
Silent Film Sources
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm
Updates and news the first of every month
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/monthly.htm
The Silent Film Bookshelf
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf
Michael Gebert
> I am reminded of a story told by Joe Adamson in his book
> on Tex Avery. I quote:
>
> In the presumably authoritative "International
> Encyclopedia of Film," Roger Manvell typifies
> the style when he writes of the "the traditional
> Tom & Jerry series of Tex Avery, the Cat and Mouse
> characters originated in the late 1940s." ***
> There are almost more mistakes in this sentence
> than words: we find Mr. Manvell crediting Avery
> with the _creation_ of characters he never used
> even once *** and allowing their birth to _follow_
> their fifth Oscar ***. He might as well have been
> talking about the "traditional" Myrna Loy Westerns
> of Alfred Hitchcock.
Ah, yes, a quote so beautifully put that "Myrna Loy westerns" has long
been a standard phrase for misinformation among me and my cronies.
ChaneyFan
Oksana said:
>>>Most film studies courses are given in academic departments that have
nothing to do with the study of film as a discipline, such as Modern Languages,
Touché Oksana! But I didn't say that manyuniversities have *good* film
programs, merely that they *could* have good film programs. I would say that
at least 50 people in this newsgroup have built better film study libraries
than 90% of the universities that offer film study programs. Surely if a
private individual, doing this as a hobby, can build an adequate study library,
a major university should be able to do the same.
When I was at North Carolina State Univ. in the 70's, they had a small film
curriculum that was, to be blunt, incompetently run. I recall that for Stanley
Kubrick, they ran a pan-and-scan video of 2001 on a 21" TV...copied from
network TV no less!
Nevertheless, as part of the student film program (run by students like David
Pierce and myself, not faculty) we screened approximately 250 films per year
(at least 80 were classic/old films), and about 25 silents a year had live
accompaniment (OK, this is because I was there; when I left it died), and in
the 4 years I was there we had Frank Capra, Rouben Mamoulian, William Freidken,
Martin Ritt, Bill Everson, and Leonard Maltin as guests...among others.
What does it take to pull this off? One to two interested people and a modest
budget. The actual film courses were largely fecal, but you could still get a
heck of a good education...it's certainly where David and I saw many silent
films for the first time.
I admit that it is a lot easier to study the films of Frank Borzage (or anyone
else for that matter) in NYC, L.A., D.C., or San Francisco. But there are
still resources out there that can and should be tapped. David and I pulled it
off in Raleigh, NC (as students no less), and that is easily as much of a
cultural wasteland as Burlington, VT.
David P. Hayes
in message <348B2164...@home.com>:
>There is also some controversy now about them even being able to
>copyright a movie based on the ownership of the music within. This
>whole story may flipflop around for years.
>There is also some controversy now about them even being able to
>copyright a movie based on the ownership of the music within. This
>whole story may flipflop around for years.
Since the above passage was posted, various parties who took part in the
earlier exchange have traded email, and thus a clarification can be offered
on that basis. The above passage was ambigious about the controversy over
the non-renewal of the film's overriding copyright, as opposed to enforcing
a pre-existing copyright on the music. This is not the same as an attempt
to restore copyright, nor of establishing who owns the music.
Dimitri Tiomkin--credited with writing the film's score--took out a separate
copyright. This copyright does not pose a problem if music rights are
licensed from the song owners, and this almost invariably happens (just look
at the end credits of recent movies--they're full of such notices as
"...through BMG special products licensing," "...performed by.... courtesy
of Sony Classics,"...). A standard contract for the sale of the music for
use in
the movie would grant the studio and its assignees and its future owners
with the right to use the music, probably in perpetuity.
Under the law in force at the time, the music in "It's a Wonderful Life"
could not have been copyrighted more than a year after it was first heard by
an American audience. Under the current laws, it's five years after first
exhibition.) The only thing that has changed in recent years with regards
to determining who has the legal right to show "It's a Wonderful Life" is
that (a) the "owners" of the movie have become aware of this separate
copyright, (b) the "owners" have made a deal with the estate of the
(credited) composer, Dimitri Tiomkin (who did not write all of the music,
despite what Republic would have you believe), and/or (c) Republic has made
a lot of public statements and
announcements and sent a lot of legal letters to warn others not to use the
movie.
Many people's understanding of the situation has been clouded by
general-circulation, general-interest newspapers and magazines. However,
general newspapers aren't good about getting these kinds of facts and
details correct--and tend to mess up about such things as the music
copyright not being a recent
copyright as opposed to merely being something that has only recently been
enforced.
This subject had been discussed in past months (by myself and others). A
search through DejaNews will provide more information to those wanting it.
The interpretations herein are mine, and I can not presume to speak for
anyone I've heard from in the discussion of this topic.
--
David Hayes
JimNeibaur
Jon stated:
at least 50 people in this newsgroup have built better film study libraries
than 90% of the universities that offer film study programs.
------
True - I teach an introductory film history course and use more materials from
my own collection than that which can be found in the University's own library
(16mm or video). It seems I have everything they have, and more. They have
staples (Birth of a Nation) but not similarly important films (Broken
Blossoms). What kills me is the college library has so very few important
silent films, but they do have a 16mm print of the East Side Kids feature
Ghosts on the Loose.
---and you don't know how tempted I have been to find a way to use that one in
class.
JimN
Michael Gebert
So hasn't anybody's college been buying all these Image laserdiscs of
things like America, Isn't Life Wonderful, the Melies films, etc.?
David Pierce
David P. Hayes wrote:
>
> >There is also some controversy now about them even being able to
> >copyright a movie based on the ownership of the music within. This
> >whole story may flipflop around for years.
>
> Since the above passage was posted, various parties who took part in the
> earlier exchange have traded email, and thus a clarification can be offered
> on that basis. The above passage was ambigious about the controversy over
> the non-renewal of the film's overriding copyright, as opposed to enforcing
> a pre-existing copyright on the music. This is not the same as an attempt
> to restore copyright, nor of establishing who owns the music.
>
> The only thing that has changed in recent years with regards
> to determining who has the legal right to show "It's a Wonderful Life" is
> that (a) the "owners" of the movie have become aware of this separate
> copyright, (b) the "owners" have made a deal with the estate of the
> (credited) composer, Dimitri Tiomkin (who did not write all of the music,
> despite what Republic would have you believe), and/or (c) Republic has made
> a lot of public statements and
> announcements and sent a lot of legal letters to warn others not to use the
> movie.
This is an interesting approach to controlling
use of "It's a Wonderful Life," but this is not
what happened. I have talked with an attorney
who was very close to this, and also examined
the documents on file at the U.S. Copyright Office.
Having a license on the music is not sufficient,
as any broadcaster with an ASCAP/BMI license can
use any of their music under a blanket license.
What Republic Pictures did was to get an exclusive
license for the "timed-relation" of several pre-existing
songs that were used in the background of key scenes
in the picture. Republic does not base their exclusive
control of the picture on the underlying story or the
Tiomkin score.
In April 1992, Republic licensed "This is the Army Mr.
Jones" from Irving Berlin Music Company. In October
1993, Republic licensed several songs from WB Music
Corporation: "Avalon" (by Vincent Rose, Al Jolson, and
B. G. DeSylva), "North America Meets South America"
(by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers), and "Vieni, Vieni"
(by George Koger, H. Varna, and Vincent Scotto. Both
of these licenses were exclusive only to the extent that
Republic has the exclusive right to these songs in
"timed-relation" with scenes in the film.
While there has been a lot of speculation as to what
Republic did, an examination of the documents shows
a different story.
David Pierce
Silent Film Sources
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm
Updates and news the first of every month
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/monthly.htm
The Silent Film Bookshelf
http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf (new address)
Robert Birchard
David Pierce wrote in part:
>
> What Republic Pictures did was to get an exclusive
> license for the "timed-relation" of several pre-existing
> songs that were used in the background of key scenes
> in the picture. Republic does not base their exclusive
> control of the picture on the underlying story or the
> Tiomkin score.
>
> In April 1992, Republic licensed "This is the Army Mr.
> Jones" from Irving Berlin Music Company. In October
> 1993, Republic licensed several songs from WB Music
> Corporation: "Avalon" (by Vincent Rose, Al Jolson, and
> B. G. DeSylva), "North America Meets South America"
> (by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers), and "Vieni, Vieni"
> (by George Koger, H. Varna, and Vincent Scotto. Both
> of these licenses were exclusive only to the extent that
> Republic has the exclusive right to these songs in
> "timed-relation" with scenes in the film.
>
> While there has been a lot of speculation as to what
> Republic did, an examination of the documents shows
> a different story.
>
I would still bet that such a claim is bogus if anyone had the time
and money to fight it. The synch rights to those songs were granted to
the producer in 1947, and unless there was a specific limit on those
rights, the original agreements should still be in force.
The irony of all this, of course, is that Republic actually
licensed their material on "It's a Wonderful Life" to several public
domain distributors in the past. They were licensing property rights in
the best material--not copyright.
Capra's film is one of the best casws for Public Domain. A f;op
when it was first released and only marginally released to TV, the
picture began to get attention in the late 1960's and early 1970's when
interest in Capra's work was reawakened with the publication of his
autobiography. Because the picture was PD it began to be widely
screened and has since become a classic.
There have ben many atttempts to re-secure copyright with new
material, new music, re-editing, etc. It is a damned shame. Rohauer
nearly ruined the Keaton pictures with his meddling. Thank God he
kicked the bucket before the original versions on many of the pictures
crumbled to dust.
Some enterprising soul actully added synthesizer scores and color
to the John Wayne Monograms a few years back !
With digital technology it becomes increasingly easier to alter and
manipulate films. There really ought to be a law to maintain the
original versions and spare unsuspecting audiences from the tampering of
quick buck artists.
Robert Birchard
JimNeibaur wrotein part:
> . . .but they do have a 16mm print of the East Side Kids feature
> Ghosts on the Loose.
>
> ---and you don't know how tempted I have been to find a way to use that one in
> class.
>
I still remember Bob Epstein's American Film Histoty class at
UCLA which he began with screenings of "International House" and "Bride
of Frankenstein." His class was an eye-opener. He ran some of the
standard clasics, but he ran a lot of films that were considered
unworthy of critical consdieration (this was in the late 1960's, mind
you). Wonder Bar, The Gang's All Here, Isn't Life Wonderful, and The
Bowery were among the films I first saw in Bob's class.
While the Bowery Boys picture may not be a classic in any way,
shape or form it may be a worthy trigger for discussion on the nature of
screen comedy, or the impact of time and money (or lack thereof) on film
production.
Thomas Murray
Re: Chaneyfan's >>>silent titles missing from the teens,
20's, and 30's AFI books: I took a llittle time out to doublecheck
your 20's list and was able to locate 13 of the 30 "missing: films.
Here goes:
20's Films I found in the 20's catalog (1921-1930):
Better 'Ole, The (27) WB (s/b 26)
Desert's Toll (26) MGM
Hardboiled (26) Fox (s/b Hard Boiled)
Lady of Whims, The (25) Arrow (s/b My Lady of Whims)
Terror Mountain (28) FBO s/b Terror (28) FBO, which also
has characters who live on top of a mountain)
For Your Daughter's Sake (22) J.W. Film Corp (brief reference to this
title --was originally The Common Sin (1922)
20's Films that are in the teen's catalog (1911-1920):
Devil's Garden, The (21) First Nat'l (released Nov 1920)
Dinty (21) First Nat'l (first showings Nov. 1920)
Life (21) Paramount (first showings Oct. 1920)
Nineteen and Phyllis (21) First Nat'l (first showings Dec. 1920
Old Dad (21) First Nat'l (first showings Nov 1920)
Over the Hill (to the Poorhouse) (21) Fox (first showings Sep 1920)
She Couldn't Help It (21) Realart (first showings Dec 1920)
I didn't have time to check out your teens and 30's missing lists,
but it's great to find the 13.
TOM MURRAY
Thomas Murray
Correction: For Your Daughter's Sake (22) J.W. Film Corp,
which is briefly referenced in the 1921-1930 AFI catalog
was originally titled and released as The Common Sin (20),
which is fully described in the teens catalog, 1911-1920.
TOM MURRAY (I had originally said The Common Sin was released 1922)
Jeremy Bond Shepherd
In message <mgmax-14129...@pool-207-205-139-103.chia.grid.net>,
mg...@mindspring.com (Michael Gebert) wrote:
>
> So hasn't anybody's college been buying all these Image laserdiscs of
> things like America, Isn't Life Wonderful, the Melies films, etc.?
My college hasn't, but I have.
---
Jeremy Bond Shepherd "What do you mean coming here DRESSED like that?
jb...@netcom.com Amateur theatricals?"
oksana dykyj
In article <19971213062...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
I would say that
> at least 50 people in this newsgroup have built better film study libraries
> private individual, doing this as a hobby, can build an adequate study
library,
> a major university should be able to do the same.
There's a double whammy that tends to impede the building of good
collections in academic libraries: Faculty members whose interests lie in
their own research and who do not communicate wants or needs to their
subject librarians, and librarians who have little training in non-print
materials. When I went through library school in the mid 1980's, there was
one course on AV materials given by someone who did not know what tracking
was on a VCR or how to focus a film on a 16mm projector. The curriculum
dealt with the established library practice of engaging jobbers or
specific distributors for all educational material. The institution I
attended no longer offers this course because of cutbacks and because they
are more interested in teaching courses about electronic media. What AV
librarians need to understand is that there is not one equivalent of
books-in-print for the non-print area. We have to establish relationships
with many distributors and get in a networking loop. If we're buying for a
film studies department we should come to understand basic technical
terminology such as pan & scan and make every effort to read video quality
reviews in addition to content quality.
In any event good collections come out of people, as you indicated in your
post, Jon. It's students who communicate interest to their faculties, it's
faculty members who foster good relationships with their librarians and
even mentor them when necessary, and it's the librarians themselves who
must instill enthusiasm into the acquisition process.
ChaneyFan
Bob Birchard said:
>>>I would still bet that such a claim is bogus if anyone had the time
and money to fight it.
I agree with Bob. As I pointed out some weeks back for THE GOLD RUSH, being
granted copyright and being able to defend it are two very different things.
There isn't enough money in GOLD RUSH to warrant a fight, and the only stations
that ran p.d. dupes of WONDERFUL LIFE are PBS stations with no money, so no one
was going to fight it.
Republic tried in vain to assert their copyright on the film. They tried with
the story for years and no one took them seriously. I don't know why everyone
suddenly backed down based on the music copyrights.
>>> Capra's film is one of the best casws for Public Domain. A flop when
it was first released and only marginally released to TV...Because the picture
was PD it began to be widely
screened and has since become a classic.
Again, I agree. I've told this story in this group before, but it bears
repeating. In 1976 when we brought Capra to North Carolina State for a week,
he wanted to run BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, MR. SMITH, and WONDERFUL LIFE for
his three evening shows with Q&A. We knew the first two, but everyone on the
program committee said, "What the hell is IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" and we went
scrambling for our reference books to see what it was. When it ran I can
safely say there wasn't a body in the audience who had seen it and it brought
the house down. Someone asked Capra why the film was completely unknown and he
went into a bit about how it was beaten for all the Oscars by THE BEST YEARS OF
OUR LIVES, but that didn't really answer the question. As soon as it went p.d.
it became the "Christmas Classic" it is today, but when I grew up the Christmas
Classic was MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, not IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.
ChaneyFan
Tom Murray said:
>>>Re: Chaneyfan's >>>silent titles missing from the teens,
20's, and 30's AFI books: I took a llittle time out to doublecheck
your 20's list and was able to locate 13 of the 30 "missing: films.
Thanks Tom. I should point out that I put that list together years ago and
didn't think to check the 20's list against the teens book, so I'm not
surprised some of the titles were in there. I'll be surprised to see if you
turn up the same proportion of teens and 30's films though, as I did those
lists much more recently.
JimNeibaur
Jon stated in part:
everyone on the
program committee said, "What the hell is IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE" and we went
scrambling for our reference books to see what it was. When it ran I can
safely say there wasn't a body in the audience who had seen it and it brought
the house down.
-------------------
I saw WONDERFUL LIFE on late night TV one Christmas Eve around 1977 or 78. I
saw its listing in the TV Guide and was impressed by the cast, so I sat through
it. I was surprised at how good it was, and why I hadn't heard of it before.
It is interesting that this film, once so little known, is now one of the four
or five old movies that everyone is aware of.
Jim
Michael Gebert
In article <19971216054...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan) wrote:
> >>> Capra's film is one of the best casws for Public Domain. A flop when
> it was first released and only marginally released to TV...Because the picture
> was PD it began to be widely
> screened and has since become a classic.
I want to clarify something about this, not that the above isn't quite
true, but the story is a little more complex. The movie wasn't exactly a
flop-- it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and it had a
respectable box office-- but it wasn't cheap, either, and lost some money
for Capra's new company. More to the point, though-- and I think this is
what really did its reputation in-- it was greeted kind of
condescendingly, especially next to the (not entirely dissimilar) The Best
Years of Our Lives, which after all is also about a small town and a
paternalistic bank manager, etc.
On the one hand, Wyler & Co. breaking new ground in the serious treatment
of social issues, and on the other, there's Frank up to his old
Capra-corn. No angels in the Wyler film-- and no amputees in the Capra
one. It took the passage of at least 20 years to make a younger generation
see it differently.
ChaneyFan
Michael said:
>>>On the one hand, Wyler & Co. breaking new ground in the serious treatment of
social issues, and on the other, there's Frank up to his old Capra-corn. No
angels in the Wyler film-- and no amputees in the Capra one. It took the
passage of at least 20 years to make a younger generation see it differently.
This is a very astute observation. The immediate post-War years were a very
cynical time in America and a film like BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (which I have
to say *is* one of the best American films of all time) played right into the
sentiment, whereas the tone of WONDERFUL LIFE was better suited to the 1932
Depression years alongside Busby Berkeley musicals. Time is certainly a
wonderful way to revisit these films. In the same vein, a film like EASY RIDER
seemed so incredibly topical at the time, but now seems like...well, it seems
like a film from the 60's!
But I can't help but wonder if WONDERFUL LIFE had been owned by Paramount or
MGM instead of Liberty Films, if it wouldn't have been better known.
RFCSAC627N
>From: chan...@aol.com (ChaneyFan)
>I can't help but wonder if WONDERFUL LIFE had been owned by Paramount or
>MGM instead of Liberty Films, if it wouldn't have been better known
I don't recall IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE *ever* being shown on television before
the early 70s--unlike Capra's Columbia films.
Richard Carnahan
JimReid56
> I don't recall IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE *ever* being shown on television
>before
>the early 70s--unlike Capra's Columbia films
In the late 70's, I worked at a television station in Oklahoma. In our archives
were piles and piles of promotional materials for movies the station had bought
over the years. There was a large set of materials for "Wonderful Life". Don't
know exactly when they had it, but judging from the style of the ad slicks I
would guess it was '50's or early '60's vintage.
MooveeLovr
> I don't recall IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE *ever* being shown on television before
> Richard Carnahan
I recall seeing IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE several times on television as a child
here in my central California hometown. This was in 50's and 60's. But MIRACLE
ON 34TH STREET was THE Christmas movie then much overshadowing Wonderful Life.
Mary
FIREZINE
Well it's certainly made up for it. It peaked out at 5 times in one day,
on as many different stations. That's got to come close to "I Love
Lucy"'s record. Since Barrymore missed out playing Scrooge on film, at
least we get to seem him in a similar character.
Zuzu's Petals
Stan16mm
For good or bad, P.D. or not, NBC just paid for T.V. rights to air It's A
Wonderful Life for the next five years. It airs Saturday evening.
Stan16mm
Visit my new website at http://members.aol.com/Stan16mm/stantaffel
David Pierce
ChaneyFan wrote:
>
> This is a very astute observation. The immediate post-War years were a very
> cynical time in America and a film like BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (which I have
> to say *is* one of the best American films of all time) played right into the
> sentiment, whereas the tone of WONDERFUL LIFE was better suited to the 1932
> Depression years alongside Busby Berkeley musicals. Time is certainly a
> wonderful way to revisit these films. In the same vein, a film like EASY RIDER
> seemed so incredibly topical at the time, but now seems like...well, it seems
> like a film from the 60's!
>
> MGM instead of Liberty Films, if it wouldn't have been better known.
Maybe, but remember that both BEST YEARS and
WONDERFUL LIFE were independent productions
released by RKO.
According to company records, BEST YEARS grossed
$9,849,660 (plus more in a road show) and
WONDERFUL LIFE grossed $3,143,676
(slightly less than SONG OF THE SOUTH).
The annual review in Variety (January 7, 1948),
lists BEST YEARS as the top grossing picture.
WONDERFUL LIFE is #27 (#6 among RKO-released
pictures). The accompanying story doesn't even
mention the Capra picture.
I suspect that the real problem was that
WONDERFUL LIFE cost too much, so it was perceived
as a failure- one that Capra's independent company
could ill afford.
As for Jon's comment:
> But I can't help but wonder if WONDERFUL LIFE had been owned by Paramount or
> MGM instead of Liberty Films, if it wouldn't have been better known.
The real issue was the television distributor.
In 1955, the corporate shell of Liberty Films
sold the picture (through a cut-out) to M&A
Alexander Productions, Inc., a television
distributor. This company was later bought out
by National Telefilm Associates (which later
changed its name to Republic Pictures).
NTA was a major distributor for many years, but
after television moved to color in the 1960s,
their mostly black and white films were seldom
broadcast. When WONDERFUL LIFE fell into the
public domain, the film had been little seen
for years.
Stan16mm
Someone mentioned THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES as being a great picture. I wish
to state that I have always maintained that it is the best picture that came
out of Hollywood in the post WW2 era. I maintained that until I saw
Schindler's List and then included both of them on my small list. It is my
opinion and am only saying it because I read the aformentioned post.
ChaneyFan
Stan said:
>>>Someone mentioned THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES as being a great picture. I
wish to state that I have always maintained that it is the best picture that
came out of Hollywood in the post WW2 era. I maintained that until I saw
Schindler's List and then included both of them on my small list.
I was the one who said it Stan, and I agree that there are not a huge number of
truly great films that came out after WWII, but I think you are being somewhat
unkind. Everyone in this group loves silents (and most of us like pre-Code
30's too), but contrary to the opinions of some, I would say that in some
genres you really need to get into more recent films to get the best of the
best. Not to take this too far off topic for a silent film group, I'd offer
the following as some post-WWII films that can stand their own against any
comparable silent film.
First of all, the post-war years had some very rich offerings, and some of the
greatest films ever made were released in the few years after the war including
I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING (1945), IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), THE BEST YEARS OF
OUR LIVES (1946), ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM (1946), BLACK NARCISSUS (1946), THE
GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (1947), THE BISHOP'S WIFE (1947), and A DOUBLE LIFE (1947)
Several other genres really didn't blossom until well after WWII. The most
obvious is science-fiction, and not just because of the advent of cooler
special effects. With the exception of METROPOLIS and WOMAN IN THE MOON, there
really aren't many great silent sci-fi films, yet after WWII you have the likes
of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), THEM (1954), THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
(1954), FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND (1977),
ALIEN (1979), E.T. (1982), POLTERGEIST (1982), ALIENS (1986), and THE ABYSS
(1989--Director's cut only).
And for musicals (obviously not relevant to silents), I would put SINGIN' IN
THE RAIN (1951), AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951), and CABARET (1972) ahead of any
musical of the 30's-40's.
Thrillers were also much better beginning in the 50's. Quick! Name a really
good edge-of-your-seat silent thriller. (OK, now name one not directed by
Alfred Hitchcock). Starting in the 50's you have REAR WINDOW (1954), THE NIGHT
MY NUMBER CAME UP (1955), VERTIGO (1958), NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959), THE
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), FAIL-SAFE (1964), DUEL (1971), JAWS (1975), and
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1990).
Courtroom drama is another genre that just didn't work in silents. Despite the
enthusiasm some in this group have for THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, I would
favor WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), THE VERDICT (1982), or PRESUMED
INNOCENT (1990).
Want a good action picture? I think THE CRIMSON PIRATE (1952), THE GUNS OF
NAVARONE (1961), JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1964), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
(1981), DIE HARD (1988), THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1989), and APOLLO
13 (1985) are as good as anything in the silent era. (Maybe not better, but
certainly as good.)
And what I would call "human dramas" never really did much in the silent era.
THE CROWD is one of very few really solid such pictures, whereas in more recent
times you have ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980), TESTAMENT (1983), PLACES IN THE HEART
(1984), THE COLOR PURPLE (1985), FIELD OF DREAMS (1989), MY LEFT FOOT (1989),
and SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993). I admit that this is probably due to the fact
that silent audiences had no interest in seeing a movie about people suffering
(which is why THE CROWD was such a milestone).
Then there are the oddballs that just have nothing comparable in the silent
era. What silent could compare to BREAKING AWAY (1979), RESURRECTION (1980),
BIG (1988), or HERO (1992).
And finally, I have to say it, but BEN-HUR (1959) really is a better picture
than the silent...although I love both versions, and although not a comedy, I
like RUDY (1993) better than Lloyd's THE FRESHMAN.
Now before you all start flaming me, I'll concede many victories to silent
pictures. For comedies there is nothing to compare to even a mediocre silent
comedy. In fact, if I took the worst Lloyd, Chaplin, or Keaton, the only
post-WWII films I can think of that are even close are THE COURT JESTER(1956),
CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESER (1950), and PARENTHOOD (1989).
I also concede that animation (not particularly big in the silents) peaked in
the 1930's, and after WWII probably the only films that are even worth a nod
are WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991), and TOY STORY
(1995), and two of those rate only because of animation gimmicks.
Silent love stories also are way ahead of anything in the sound era. Certainly
SUNRISE, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, THE BIG PARADE, STREET ANGEL (just to name a few)
are some of the greatest love stories ever made. The only thing close after
WWII is BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946), LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (1957), and BULL
DURHAM (1988).
So there are good films made after WWII, and there are genres that just worked
better in sound (and color, and widescreen, and high-tech) than in silents.
This is not to denigrate the era we love, simply to point out that (IMHO) there
are other marvelous films that built on the accomplishments of the silent era.
Robert Birchard
Stan16mm wrote:
>
> Someone mentioned THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES as being a great picture. I wish
> to state that I have always maintained that it is the best picture that came
> out of Hollywood in the post WW2 era. I maintained that until I saw
> opinion and am only saying it because I read the aformentioned post.
> Stan16mm
>
> Visit my new website at http://members.aol.com/Stan16mm/stantaffel
You really need to also include the rarely seen (due to rights
problems) "The Story of G. I. Joe." A truly fine WW II film.
Michael Snider
> MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), FAIL-SAFE (1964), DUEL (1971), JAWS (1975), and
> THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1990).
> enthusiasm some in this group have for THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, I would
> favor WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), THE VERDICT (1982), or PRESUMED
> INNOCENT (1990).
>
> Want a good action picture? I think THE CRIMSON PIRATE (1952), THE GUNS OF
> NAVARONE (1961), JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1964), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
> (1981), DIE HARD (1988), THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1989), and APOLLO
> 13 (1985) are as good as anything in the silent era. (Maybe not better, but
> certainly as good.)
than this .
> THE CROWD is one of very few really solid such pictures, whereas in more recent
> times you have ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980), TESTAMENT (1983), PLACES IN THE HEART
> (1984), THE COLOR PURPLE (1985), FIELD OF DREAMS (1989), MY LEFT FOOT (1989),
> and SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993). I admit that this is probably due to the fact
> that silent audiences had no interest in seeing a movie about people suffering
> (which is why THE CROWD was such a milestone).
Actually the latter film is easy to imagine in silent days - there were
all sorts of films about farmers in jeopardy. I wouldn't consider it to
be any sort of milestone or even a particularly good film.
> era. What silent could compare to BREAKING AWAY (1979), RESURRECTION (1980),
> BIG (1988), or HERO (1992).
>
> And finally, I have to say it, but BEN-HUR (1959) really is a better picture
> than the silent...although I love both versions, and although not a comedy, I
> like RUDY (1993) better than Lloyd's THE FRESHMAN.
>
> Now before you all start flaming me, I'll concede many victories to silent
> pictures. For comedies there is nothing to compare to even a mediocre silent
> comedy. In fact, if I took the worst Lloyd, Chaplin, or Keaton, the only
> post-WWII films I can think of that are even close are THE COURT JESTER(1956),
> CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESER (1950), and PARENTHOOD (1989).
Parenthood as some sort of masterpiece ? I'd say that Jackie Chan would
be the closest thing today to the greats of silent comedy. I'd put one
of Woody Allen's earlier films in this list.
> I also concede that animation (not particularly big in the silents) peaked in
> the 1930's, and after WWII probably the only films that are even worth a nod
> are WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991), and TOY STORY
> (1995), and two of those rate only because of animation gimmicks.
True.
> Silent love stories also are way ahead of anything in the sound era. Certainly
> SUNRISE, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, THE BIG PARADE, STREET ANGEL (just to name a few)
> are some of the greatest love stories ever made. The only thing close after
> WWII is BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946), LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (1957), and BULL
> DURHAM (1988).
Bull Durham ? I could think of a dozen sound era love stories better
than that film. It is probably the best film Kevin Costner starred
in,but is that saying much ? What about Dr. Zhivago ? Or Truffaut's
Jules and Jim or Missisippi Mermaid ? Or Claude Chabrol's Wedding in
Blood ?
> So there are good films made after WWII, and there are genres that just worked
> better in sound (and color, and widescreen, and high-tech) than in silents.
> This is not to denigrate the era we love, simply to point out that (IMHO) there
> are other marvelous films that built on the accomplishments of the silent era.
> ================
> Jon Mirsalis
> Chan...@aol.com
> http://www.sri.com/biopharm/misc/jonfilm.htm
I think dark comedy and political satire really needed sound as well.
And so did film noir. I admit though to being really weak when it comes
to silent crime films.