Café Roxy

My Youtube Channel - Video Surprises!

2011-12-25T09:49:00.001-06:00

Yes, I have a Youtube channel. I never planned to have one. I don't promote it. It's just kind of there. Where? Well, let's see, it seems to be exactly HERE! It was started April 18, 2009 and currently has 69 videos. The videos were put up for various reasons:

To promote series like the Saturday Matinees.
To illustrate topics discussed in my blog.
To post videos that Matinee at the Bijou could embed in their blog.
To post to my Facebook page.
A few copyrighted shorts just for fun.
For future projects not yet announced (and maybe never will be)
As Movie Memories sample pieces.

The most watched video may be First Buck Rogers Film with over 3,100 views. This 8 minute film is embedded on one of my web pages that promotes the free sample DVD, but most views likely come from Youtube searches for Buck Rogers.

Second most watched is amazingly a copyrighted Screen Song cartoon Candy Cabaret that I only put up on Aug. 5, 2011 when I was researching the color bouncing ball cartoons. It's a lot of fun so go and watch it! 1954 Paramount "Noveltoon" cartoon. Although no longer called a "Screen Song" cartoon, it does feature a Sing-Along with the Bouncing Ball to the 1927 song "Ain't She Sweet." The final Bouncing Ball came along in 1963: "Hobo's Holiday." I believe it has gotten so many views because some other cartoon sites on Youtube have linked to it. They "monetize" views thru their site and so make money off my posting. Hey, folks, it's copyrighted and youtube or whoever owns the cartoon or the music could take it down someday.

I won't rewrite the above so you can see my surprise here when I just noticed that another Screen Song -- The Circus Comes to Town -- has had 4,250 views! 1947 Paramount/Famous Studios cartoon is the first official entry (of 38) in the revived "Screen Songs" series. It was preceded by five color Bouncing Ball sing-alongs. The song is "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze." Same story as for Candy Cabaret. I found I had and posted on Youtube for fun and it turns out the cartoon was not up there already so other sites linked to it.

It is inscrutable - beyond reason -- why this has been watched 1,140 times Main title Only to Paramount's color "Screen Song" series, with the Paramount Mountain with clouds background logo. I thought I was re-creating the original opening, but the only comment I got was from a better expert on the subject who has a youtube channel called Paramountcartoons, who said I got it wrong. I wrote him, but received no reply. So perhaps I should have taken the video down, but left it up and all those folks have watched it since August.

Recent videos put online at youtube:

Most Boring Scene Ever that was filmed for a Hollywood movie, from "Mystery Liner." This is for a DVD project of boring scenes to be marketed as a sleep aid -- "Sleeperzzz - Guaranteed to Put You to Sleep!" More about this later, or maybe not unless I can find someone to promote it in a big way as a Christmas present with the same camp appeal as that old Pet Rock!

Our Gang in "Good Cheer." The only Christmas themed Our Gang short was this gem from 1926 about a gang of thieves dressed as Santas. Where did Hal Roach get all that realistic looking snow? I put my copy of this up so I could share on Facebook. I just watched it again last night and see that some footage is missing that explains why or how a gang of crooks are dressed up as Santa Claus. Our Gang expert Dick Bann wrote me that this one is very hard to get a good copy of. So if he doesn't have a great one, probably no one does.

A number of recently posted videos are for a Matinee at the Bijou webpage that will discuss a typical sample show in a planned revival of the 1980's PBS hit show. Much more on this as it evolves. The four pieces of film I put on Youtube for this purpose are:

Roy Rogers & Serial Trailers
Edgar Kennedy short Hold Your Temper.
First 15 minutes of the Joe E. Brown feature When's Your Birthday.
Joe E. Brown in drag from the same film.

Also for Christmas is Rosemary Clooney sings for Christmas Seals was posted for Facebook friends. Please take a look if interested! And finally I only recently became aware that I had an Abbott and Costello Christmas show on Colgate Comedy Hour.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

2011-11-26T12:27:00.000-06:00

It's that time of year again, a joyous time to bring back holiday memories by showing the old films. Christmas really is a time to recall childhood and happy times, and what better way for the older generation than to re-watch TV shows you might have seen in the 1950s? For all you youngies, take a chance. They still offer timeless entertainment and holiday spirit that never ages.

Virtually every TV series in the 1950s created special Christmas themed shows year after year, including Robin Hood, Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, Four Star Playhouse, Racket Squad, Burns and Allen and more. The TV shows that I offer can be found on various DVDs HERE or on posters that promote Christmas Programs for movie theaters, TV stations or home viewing.

The poster on the right gathers the very best of the best, or ones guaranteed to entertain and uplift today. A Howdy Doody Christmas is silly but short -- Howdy and Buffalo Bob fly to the North Pole to rescue Santa, all in 8 minutes. Santa's Surprise is the first Little Audry cartoon; she and some ethnic friends from around the world stow away in Santa's sleigh and give him a big present back at the Pole. Betty White always delights, and in this 1957 episode of "Date with the Angels" she works in a department store where the aged Santa starts giving away all the presents. In a rare episode of Ozzie and Harriet from 1953, The Miracle, Ozzie recalls a childhood Christmas incident. Ricky plays Oz in the flashback while Ozzie and Harriet play his parents and David is his brother. Um, don't try to figure that out, but do try to see it someday. "Christmas Shopping Show" is a hilarious Jack Benny Show in which he shops for a present but sends clerk Mel Blanc to the loony bin. In "Cop and the Anthem," Red Skelton as Freddy the Freeloader tries to break into jail Christmas Eve to get a good meal.

All of these are included in the 13 DVD volumes listed later on the page, so get one for the best shows or get em all like a small TV station did this past week. They plan to run a segment of TV shows, cartoons or features every day until Christmas, starting as soon as they get them this coming week.

Lots of other good shows are on the other discs like Our Gang in "Good Cheer" (1926) on Volume 13:

On Christmas Eve, it's bitter cold in a raging snowstorm. (How did they do that on the Roach lot?) Poverty and misery are shaking hands. The gang enjoys what they can: watching a Santa in a toy-shop window and smelling bread baking. But hope is in short supply when Joe says that all Santas are fake. The kids ask the shoemaker who tells them Santa is real, you just have to wish hard enough. Mickey and Jackie want to make the younger kids' Christmas happy; the Spirit of Santa helps them out by giving them an idea to sell hot bricks to peddlers, beat cops, and others stuck outside. With the money, they buy presents to distribute that night. Meanwhile, the Mob is using a dozen fake Santas to steal toys; the police force them down a chimney right where the Gang lives, so....

Also on this disc is a DuPont Theater episode from 1956 "Three Young Kings." As part of the Christmas festivities in a Latin-American village, 3 youngsters dressed as the Magi traditionally distribute gifts to other children whose parents purchased the presents. But one year passing through the poor section of town they give all the gifts away to the truly needy.

You can watch all of these and more for free soon -- hey, it's Christmas time -- on Flictopia.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Lines & Fines & Sid Melton

2011-11-19T23:49:00.001-06:00

Beloved character actor Sid Melton died on Nov. 2 at the age of 94. I heard about Sid's death a few weeks ago while listening to the "Alex Bennett" radio show. Alex mentioned that celebrities always seem to die in 3s, and the current deaths were Andy Rooney, Joe Frazier and Sid Melton. Who doesn't fit in this group? The first two!

Yup, that's Sid on the left. If you ever enjoyed 1950s TV, then you often spotted Sid and said something like, "Oh, there's that guy again!" I first knew him as sidekick "Ikky" on the Jet Jackson show. Sid can be spotted unbilled from 1941's "Shadow of the Thin Man" to "White Heat," "Knock On Any Door" and "On the Town." Features in which he did have a part were Sam Fuller's war classic "Steel Helmets," the sci-fi clunker "Lost Continent" and "Lemon Drop Kid" with Bob Hope. His salary in all three of these was $140 per week.

"For years I auditioned for producers and directors who would fall on the floor laughing, but then I'd never hear from them again. Go ask them why I'm not working. Believe me, there's a lot more to working steadily than being a name and delivering the laughs. There's a certain--let's call it kowtowing--that I'm not prepared to do." -- Sid Melton

Sid was short at only 5-4, and remarkably ... remarkable looking, but we loved him anyways. He provided long-standing comic relief for Danny Thomas on his classic TV show as Charlie Halper, owner of the Copa Club where Danny performed. Eventually Pat Carroll was added to the cast playing Halper's wife Bunny. Frequently kidding with the press, he told reporters he got the part of Charlie because Sid was the only person Thomas could find that was homelier than he was.

So Sid has passed on. Name another character actor from the 1950s who is still with us. OK, how about Frank Cady at age 96. Frank played Doc Williams on Ozzie and Harriet and had numerous appearances on Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. But I defy you to recall the image of Frank Cady as easily as Sid's unforgettable kisser, so back to Sid...

I have a pretty incredible TV show called "Lines and Fines" thanks to my friend Derek Myers. At first glance it seems to be a game show similar to "I've Got a Secret." Then you think it's a spoof when they say at the very start, "The greatest brains in show business" which turn out to be Sid Melton, Mike Mazurki, Gretchen Wyler, George Tobias and quiz mistress Pat Tillman. But no, it's really the world's first infomercial. Every single question is about Admiral Refrigerators. The inane questions and fake answers will leave your mouth agape. Here is a short sample:

We sold the one and only episode of "Lines and Fines" to Alpha video some time ago, so look for it to someday appear as a bonus on some release or other.

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com

Surprising Stuff!

2011-11-05T12:05:00.001-05:00

So, B-Western fans, do you ever wonder why you have seen lots of Buster Crabbes and Bob Steeles but very few Lash LaRues or Tim Holts? The answer, other than that perhaps I have no western readers, is that many films starring the first two cowboys are in the public domain, while no Tim Holts from Columbia are PD and only one Lash LaRue from PRC. I knew about the Tim Holt films, and saw a few of them on TCM a few years ago. They are just inexpensive B-westerns like so many others and not as enjoyable as many, though that could be because of unfamiliarity.

I was surprised this week to discover that "Law of the Lash" starring guess who is the only PD Lash cowboy film. I did not happen to have it, but do now. I also found out that Lash had a short-lived TV series in 1953 called "Lash of the West." I screened one poor quality chapter that seems to have survived. It opens with Lash discussing one of his adventures with two guys, who may have acted in the films with Lash, then cuts to highlights from one of his Columbia films, who knows which? They are 15 minute segments so you can't cram in as much as the half-hour Gabby Hayes Show managed. At the end of a chase they return to talk, but the show is about over.

Codger with mustache: "I'm sure glad that Trader Joe got what was coming to him, but what was on that stagecoach the outlaws wanted?"

Younger guy: "I want to find out what Lash did with the man behind it all. I think he knows too."

Lash: "Yes, I'm sure he does, but I'll have to tell you all about it next time. I'll see you all real soon."

*****

Switching gears radically, the very nice, original German still, from Metropolis shown here just sold at auction by www.emovieposter.com. How much? $6,820. Now that surprised me? What is the top price paid for any 8x10" glossy still? I will close with their lengthy description of this rare and pricey item:

"Note that this is an extremely rare "country of origin" still for this German movie! It has the UFA logo at bottom right, the "Parufamet" logo at lower left, and a faint embossed German "approved" stamp in the top right! Also note that this German still measures 9 1/4" x 11 3/4" [23 x 30 cm]. Also note that original German movie paper of any kind from this classic movie is incredibly rare and ultra expensive (the most expensive movie poster ever sold is the original German three-sheet from this movie!).

On November 2, 2010, we auctioned four other original German Metropolis stills, and they auctioned for $4005, $585, $545, and $310, and on September 18, 2011, we auctioned five additional stills (one of them was a duplicate of the one we auctioned for $310) from the same consignor (who has had them for many decades) and those five auctioned for between $311 and $881. Now, our consignor has given us their remaining 12 stills, and we are auctioning six of them (in separate auctions) in these Halloween auctions, and the final six of them will be auctioned in our December Mini/Major Auction.

Note that of all the 21 Metropolis stills owned by this collector, only TWO showed an image of the iconic robot (the one we auctioned on 11/2/10 for $4005, and the one we are auctioning in this current Halloween set of auctions!)."

In the same auction they sold an original German program for Metropolis for $3,105. One of the interior pages is reprinted here.

From Lash LaRue to Metropolis, always something old that's new comes to light. Love it!

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

-- Ron Hall

Black History Month -- Every Day!

2011-10-29T09:11:00.000-05:00

Introducing ToonWhiz Pictures, a great idea with a promising future. First off, Toon-Whiz has an illustrious past before the new venture I became involved with about three weeks ago. You can read about founder and CEO Troy Walker HERE and follow the link on that page to his listing on Wikipedia where it says:

Troy Walker is an American cartoonish, toy inventor, creative producer and founder of TWP Cartoon Studios. Walker is best known for creating off beat cartoon characters. He got his first commercial break with the wacky children's novelty fad, Hairy Pops finger puppets, used for promotion by the Supercuts chain of hair salons.

Troy Walker's mother Williejean was the young black girl eating a watermelon in an iconic advertising image from the 1940s. When Troy described it to me, the picture came right into my head:

I know ToonWhiz Pictures as a storefront theater at 155 Filbert Street in the tourist section of downtown Oakland, CA. I have never walked around that area, but I get the impression it is the Oakland equivalent of Hollywood Boulevard or San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. In other words, large crowds of tourists visit the area shops and restaurants and take in tourist attractions like Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

ToonWhiz offers something unique -- a rare chance to watch vintage African-American / Black Heritage films from Hollywood's golden era.

The theater has been open a short while on weekends and does get walk-in customers. It is currently expanding from something like 20 seats before a large-screen TV to 80 seats watching projected films. Admission is inexpensive. While the details are sketchy to me, I do know the films well because I am supplying them, posters and DVDs to sell.

For the walk-in tourists they wanted a short show that has quickly evolved into the one on this poster. The Puppetoon "Jasper in a Jam" opens, followed by Soundies with Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole -- then a Popcorn Intermission break where they make the real money -- Cab Calloway doing "Minnie the Moocher" and closing with Lena Horne's two-reeler "Boogie Woogie Dream" with Teddy Edwards Orchestra. It runs about 45 minutes with the Intermission.

That show is designed to run during the day when they can usher in a new audience every hour, or folks can enter in the middle of the show, I guess, if it isn't full. Then in the evening ToonWhiz plans longer programs with shorts and features. I have already prepared these shows:

1) Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho with "Jasper in a Jam" and Duke Ellington's "Symphony in Black."
2) Paul Robeson's "Emperor Jones" with cartoon and Bessie Smith in "St. Louis Blues."
3) Louis Jordan's "Reet, Petite and Gone" with cartoon "Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat" and Cab Calloway's "Jitterbug Party."
4) Lena Horne in "The Duke is Tops" with cartoon "Inki and the Minah Bird" and Ethel Waters in "Bubbling Over."
5) Black Toon Festival.

I am also preparing the last one as a Festival Films release that will appear in my Cartoon Section soon. Some of the cartoons do contain offensive images by today's standards, so I put the following statement at the head of my program: "Some black caricatures in cartoons of the 1930s and '40s may be offensive to some today. The images of mammys, spooks, watermelons, Uncle Tom and Little Black Sambo were neither true nor funny. However, the cartoons are presented here for their perspective on a part of black history that society has moved far beyond."

Troy Walker, definitely black and proud of it, has a more liberal viewpoint that requires little apology. This is expressed in the foreword to each ToonWhiz program, as you can see in this video. The music selection is Paul Whiteman conducting his orchestra in "Mammy."

Visit my website at Festival Films

Supreme Court Ponders On....

2011-10-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

The ten-year lawsuit I have been a part of, now called "Golan Vs. Holder," was argued in the Supreme Court on Oct. 5. To recap briefly, in 1995 Congress passed a law that allowed foreign countries to restore copyrights to films that were in the public domain in the USA, films I had been selling from Metropolis to Grand Illusion to Seventh Seal. The Constitution says that once works fall into the public domain they can not be removed from it.

Ten years later, the ultimate hearing. I knew Oct. 5 was the date, but had heard nothing from Stanford Law School on or afterward, so I finally searched for news on the Internet. As I should have known, legal arguments take place at that level on one day and decisions are announced some time later. We are still waiting. Here is an excellent summation of what took place that day:

Alex Wong/Getty Images

The United States Supreme Court today considered arguments in Golan v. Holder, one of the most important copyright cases in the country's history and a case that will decide whether millions of creative works, including early-to-mid 20th century foreign masterpieces from H.G. Wells, Fritz Lang, Frederico Fellini, and Igor Stravinsky, will be copyrighted or in the public domain.

The issue presented in the case is whether the U.S. government wrongfully took many foreign works out of the public domain and violated the free speech rights of the American public by joining an international treaty.

The named plaintiff in the case is an orchestral conductor named Lawrence Golan, who wished to create a derivative work based on compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich, but found himself out of luck after the U.S. led a new international treaty signed in Uruguay in 1994 that harmonized many intellectual property laws around the globe.

The moves established copyright protection in the U.S. for some foreign authors who either never enjoyed it or whose initial copyright term had elapsed without renewal, which upset many educators, performers, publishers, film archivists, and some motion picture distributors, who joined with Golan in fighting the removal of important works from the public domain.

At the hearing today, Anthony Falzone of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society represented the petitioners and argued that Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) violated the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Copyright Clause ("to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts...") and the First Amendment.

"The progress of science corresponds roughly to the creation and spread of knowledge and learning," said Falzone today. "A statute that does nothing, like this one, does nothing but take old works out of the public domain without any impact or prospective incentives, cannot stimulate the creation of anything...All it can do is restrict the spread of things."

Advocates for the other side argue that Congress was perfectly within its right to ratify the treaty, and many interested parties including large Hollywood companies and trade associations believe that the URAA went a long way to bolstering copyright protection around the world.

At the hearing today, representing the side of the respondents, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verilli told the justices, "The policy-making branches of our government decided we needed to be, and was in the national interest, to be part of the international copyright system."

Verilli argued the treaty was merely intended to "rectify a problem" for foreign authors -- not establish perpetual copyright terms or make new protection on terms that had run its course.

But Verilli encountered deep skepticism from several justices who questioned whether extending copyright protection backwards offered real incentives for artists to create.

Talking about foreign authors who come to the United States to market works already created, Justice Scalia mused, "It makes more money for the guy who wrote it, but doesn't incentivize anybody."

Justice Roberts also admitted that he found the petitioner's arguments to be appealing on an "intuitive level."

"One day I can perform Shostakovich," he said. "Congress does something, the next day I can't. Doesn't that present a serious First Amendment problem?"

Verilli answered that it wasn't so simple, and that Congress had made changes to the copyright system before that may have interfered with speech once freely enjoyed.

For his part, Falzone also was peppered with tough questions, particularly from Justice Ginsburg, who seemed to accept the viewpoint that the treaty was meant to rectify a problem. The justice wondered whether the copyright term ever really began for foreign authors and questioned why they shouldn't receive the same protections that American authors get.

Justice Ginsburg asked: "We are talking about Shostakovich, Stravinski, and I say: Well, what's wrong with giving them the same time that Aaron Copland got?"

During the hearing, Falzone warned that if the Supreme Court upholds the treaty, it could potentially open the door to more actions from Congress.

All Congress would need to do to move Alexis de Tocquieville's 19th century books out of the public domain, he argued as an example, would be to extend existing copyright terms 100 years and apply it retroactively.

Falzone warned about the consequences of such an event. "Then you never know if you've reached the limit or not," he told the justices.

Lotsa Ideas! Lotsa Projects!

2011-10-08T10:19:00.001-05:00

I have been pretty silent on this blog the last six weeks. To anyone who has checked in to Nothing New, my apology. I've just been busy with a lot of diverse projects. No time! I'm late! Ta, ta, I must be going. OK, here's just a bit about a lot, and more cookin' in the oven, with further reports when each project gets a goin'.

I met with a man who wants to start an All-Comedy Internet site. When his father was dying with cancer over an extended period his main relief was watching vintage comedy, so the son would like to make laughter more available to hospitals. I found out about "Laughing Rooms" in hospitals, still experimental, where patients can gather together to laugh at videos. The same idea might be popular with retirement homes so I put together 4 programs I currently call "Lotsa Laffs!" Each 2-hour DVD has one hour of short comedy highlights designed to be a single movie session for seniors. One hour at a time seems to be ideal for this audience. The second hour is composed of two classic comedy TV shows from the 1950s. You can see the complete line-up of the four volumes HERE.

I have a new plan for creating the next volumes of Movie Memories, which is to first find and gather short segments along a theme, then turn into MM segments and lastly put together balanced programs. So operating helter-skelter like I often proceed, I put cars, trains, travelogs and small town documentaries from the 1940s and 50s onto 3 DVDs that I call "See the USA." It is ready to sell on its own if I ever put it on my website, or the segments are ready to have questions added to become Movie Memories.

I have turned most of the Paramount Color Screen Song cartoons into Movie Memories with the 4 questions at the end. I did not bother with a few that would be deemed racist today. "Camptown Races" features the all-star animal case of hippos, elephants, dogs, etc. in black face putting on a minstrel show! "Jingle, Jangle, Jungle" also has black stereotypes and you can imagine the jokes in "Heap, Hep, Injuns."

I also started a new project of collecting Musical Soundies from the 1940s. These are 3-minute musical films that were played on juke boxes called Panorams, as per the charming photo on the left. Major swing and jazz musicians like Jimmy Dorsey, Stan Kenton, Gene Krupa, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Cab Calloway made Soundies. Doris Day, Alan Ladd and Cyd Charisse made their first film appearances in Soundies. Anyone interested in Soundies sinply must get "The Soundies Book" by Scott MacGillivray and Ted Okuda. Try Amazon.com!

Some I have so far are merely copycat Soundies that probably played in the same machines. Rudy Valle sings "Lydia, the Tatooeed Lady," for example. Another I particularly like is "At Your Service," 1941 by Featurettes, Inc. Three lovely carhops at a drive-in sing as they serve burgers to attentive male diners. Since over 1800 Soundies were produced, this is a long range project to get a lot of the best ones I am still missing.

I have a new partner who thinks he has an outlet for selling DVDs. I supply the films and ideas and he will do packaging, manufacturing and sales. To keep the costs down, each release must run under 3 and 3/4 hours. We want to offer a variety of features and shorts so the buyer gets a lot for their money.

A wrinkle on B-westerns is to take the intros and exits from "The Gabby Hayes Show" and wrap them around B-westerns that star Gabby. You can see the cover here. The first volume will contain these: "Ridin' Down the Range" with Gabby and Roy Rogers, "In Old Santa Fe" with Gabby and Ken Maynard and Gene Autry and "The Star Packer" with Gabby and John Wayne, plus one complete episode of the real "Gabby Hayes Show" where he presents a Buster Crabbe western.

However, our first release is called "The Wicked Road to Ruin" and contains 3 short exploitation features:

"The Road to Ruin," (1934) little seen and the inspiration for the title name.
"Reefer Madness" (1936) being the most seen as well as most famous exploiter. I recall seeing this in a packed movie theater revival in the 1970s, and I was never into the marijuana scene. I made a poor hippie!
"Maniac" (1934) by Dwayne Esper is a special favorite that I find as funny and jaw-dropping awesome as Ed Wood's "Glen or Glenda."

A few JD (that's Juvenile Delinquent) shorts and trailers like for "Marijuana, the Weed with Roots in Hell" will round out the depravity... which I hope sells, though I don't know where yet!

I coulda, shoulda written about one of these ideas each week over the past months. I planned to talk about even more today, like offering just the chapter endings from serials. Not all my ideas are winners, but a web surfer might prefer to see the last 3 minutes over a complete chapter. Hmm...

Visit my website at Festival Films

The Ultimate Silent Movie Presentation!

2011-09-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

My wife Chris and I go back a long way with Kevin Brownlow's restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927). Here's a mini-history of Mr. Brownlow's lifetime labor of love:

The first major Brownlow/BFI restoration culminated in a screening at the Telluride Film Festival in 1979, with 89-year-old Gance watching from a nearby hotel window. Under the auspices of Francis Ford Coppola and Robert A. Harris, a version of this restoration, accompanied by a score composed by Mr. Coppola's father Carmine, was presented to great acclaim at Radio City Music Hall and other venues in the U.S. and around the world in the early 1980s. Mr. Brownlow and the BFI did additional restoration work in 1983.

Left out is mention of the American premier of the restoration with the tryptych (3 projector) finale, which to our great amazement and joy was held at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It was co-ordinated by the Walker film curator Rich Peterson, who was a good friend. The projectionist was another friend, Rich Landry, who showed us in advance how he planned to synch the three 35mm projectors for the finale. Piano accompaniment was by Arthur Kleiner, former head of the music department at MOMA, who had retired to the Twin Cities.

My time guess for the event is January, 1980. I know it was winter because a blizzard was in full flurry. Abel Gance had been invited but the storm delayed his appearance at the screening itself. We met Mr. Gance at a reception in the Walker the next day. Film restorer Robert Harris attended, as did composer Carmine Coppola who saw the film he was about to score for the first time. We were enlisted to drive Carmine and his wife back to their hotel after the showing, things being a bit frantic what with the blizzard.

The film and event were unforgettable, which is why I have never re-watched Napoleon on video or TV. It did come out on VHS, but due to some rights disputes over that particular restoration with Coppola's score, it has never been issued on DVD.

Now Napoleon is coming back in what promises to be the cinematic event of a lifetime. Four performances only will be held in Oakland's Paramount Theater next March 24-25 and March 31-April 1. The screenings sponsored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will also mark the U.S. premiere of the renowned orchestral score, written over 30 years ago (and twice expanded since), by Carl Davis, who will conduct the Oakland East Bay Symphony. Full details of this once-in-a-lifetime event are HERE! You can also pick your own seats and order tickets today!

Fans from around the world have already made plans to attend. A late winter trip to San Francisco is not hard to take either!

Visit my website at Festival Films

A Monstrous Success!

2011-09-03T09:22:00.000-05:00

It's always gratifying to hear about a Café Roxy series finding an audience that likes the programs and builds from week to week. That's the way it is supposed to work, but I don't often get feedback unless the customer wants more. Such was the case this week in a phone call from one of the programmers at the Hollywood Theater in Dormant, PA.

The Hollywood Theatre, one of two theatres in the Pittsburgh suburb of Dormont, stood closed and shuttered in 1998 after screening Paul Newman and Susan Sarandon in “Twilight”. After nine years it re-opened on 30th March 2007 with “Night at the Museum” and “Dreamgirls”.

For many years in the 1950’s and 1960’s the Hollywood Theatre, with its seating capacity of 980, was one of Stanley Warner’s main second-run neighborhood houses in Pittsburgh, and even enjoyed a spell as a first-run house in the late 1960’s. Later on, Associated Theatres bought S-W’s holdings in the area, which were then sold to Cinema World. The Hollywood Theatre was closed on May 25, 2008.

On June 27, 2009, the Hollywood Theatre reopened for monthly classic movies. Motion Picture Heritage are the new operators. Their successful programming mixes the old and the new. Some films shown in August were The Perfect Host with David Hyde Pierce, Beat the Devil, Lee Van Cleef in Day of Anger, To Catch a Thief and Munster Go Home!

The Café Roxy success they reported on was for our "12 Nights of Horror" series, which has been running every Wednesday night for $7 admission. It seems they added a few wrinkles. When they showed "The House on Haunted Hill" they flew a skeleton over the audience. That's what William Castle told theaters to do back in 1959, but who has done it since?

Then a few days ago they showed "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" and recreated the head and lab setting onstage. Whenever the head appeared in the movie, a spotlight came up on the body-less actress. I forgot to ask if she spoke the lines in the movie. It's gimmicks like this that will garner local publicity and larger crowds.

The Hollywood plans to run horror all through October and plans to include our "Turkeys in Space" series of sci-fi clunkers. This week they ordered the 2-hour "Monster Mania" collection of classic trailers and spooky cartoons and the 1950s Space TV program from Matinee series #2.

I included a free DVD of the just finished "Spoooky Stuff" Volume 1. This is a refinement of Monster Mania that includes excerpts from features, anything spoooky like a scene from the 1926 The Bat. The one-hour of clips is followed by the "Thriller" TV show "The Return of Andrew Bentley." This show is not yet on my website, but is finished. On to Volume 2!

I suggested that the Hollywood re-create a "Spook Show" onstage for Halloween itself with a magician act and running "Monsters Crash the Pajama Party" where the gorilla and other monsters come off the screen into the audience to select a girl victim. They liked that idea and may use a rising horror host on Pittsburgh TV, Mr. Schlock. Sounds like a team-up born in Hell.

It's never too early to plan on a Spoooky Halloween. (Adding the extra "o" makes it 3 times spoookier!"

Visit my spoooky website at Festival Films.

No Holiday Too Small!

2011-08-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

I started the week looking for some 10 second video horror clips to turn into introductions for "Spooky Stuff!" Why I am stuck on that silly title, I really don't know. The idea is to make short sequences from horror movies and trailers for Movie Memories and another project still in development. I found some perfect bits I had forgotten I had. These were movie trailers for special horror shows on Friday the 13th (how else could you turn it into a holiday) and of course Halloween.

The film titles are not given so theaters could use the same trailers year after year. Since all the films were revivals from years before, the specific titles did not matter much. More important, and lest we forget, is the "suggestion" to "Bring your date and have a party...!" What better opportunity ever presented itself for necking and making out in the dark. You can watch two of these trailers that run 50 and 32 seconds in the video below and then see how I turned them into "Spooky Stuff" intros, or I should say "Spooooky Stuff!" since the word is spookier with extra "o's" in there.

This got me remembering newspaper ads in the 1950s for horror revivals I would have killed to have seen as a kid. Never got to any. We had no movie theater in Deerfield, Wisconsin and excursions to Madison were rare and NEVER for any midnight show. I never even asked since I wasn't allowed to see horror films on TV or stay up late. In 1962 we moved to Madison and I could go to movies on my own, but not at midnight. I recall an all-afternoon quadruple feature that included "It Conquered the World" and I have no idea what else. I did attend one live Spook Show when I was in high school and wrote about it HERE. I also went to all the Edgar Allen Poe Vincent Price films, Ray Harryhausen films, etc.

I just looked for some of these ads on the Internet and could not find much at all. If anyone knows of a website showing thousands of movie newspaper ads, please let me know. You sure had a choice on this one Halloween in Appleton! 3 Theatres! 9 Horror Hits!

A further re-watching of my forgotten video reminded me that movie theaters used any Holiday as an opportunity to celebrate it with them -- Father's Day, Mother's Day, a Valentine's Day cartoon matinee, New Year's Eve and even New Year's Eve Matinee. I put some of these brief trailers into the video below. Amazingly, one is for a series of Roy Rogers matinees at the Majestic Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, where I did watch movies in the 1960s, but was not around when the trailer advertised them in the 1940s. Kids could get free tickets from a bank; all the theater wanted was their concession money. I bet the place was packed week after week.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Tarzan Escapes - Bat Bait

2011-08-20T10:23:00.009-05:00

"Bat Bait" refers to advertising a movie scene with giant bats. I would watch a film just to see Tarzan fight bats. Wouldn't you?

To summarize past posts, in 1954 at the age of eight I saw the national reissue of Tarzan Escapes in a movie theater. In the intense and scary climax the safari enters a ju-ju cave where they are attacked by giant vampire bats. I never forgot but I have never seen this lost horror sequence again. I have been on a six year quest collecting info and trying to alert people to look for the lost footage, which may well survive in prints of the film residing in foreign archives. Most foreign posters from both 1936 and 1954 mention the bats, so the prints must have had the elusive scene. If you hold such a print deep in a Mexican or Italian vault, look at the last ten minutes of it!

The half-sheet movie poster shown here is from this 1954 reissue, and is the only USA poster that shows the bat scene. It was up for auction at emovie-poster.com this past week. I bid $90 but lost out to $99. I might have bid more except I forgot about the deadline! A few years ago I missed out on the same poster that I believe sold in the $190 range. The owner of the highly reputable and long-standing auction house emovieposter.com is Bruce Hershenson. I got Bruce interested in the lost film aspect such that he discusses it like this whenever a Tarzan Escapes item is up for auction:

Tarzan Escapes, the 1936 Richard Thorpe & William A. Wellman African jungle adventure fantasy horror action thriller ("It's NEW! It's AMAZING 2 years to produce"; the second sequel to the hugely successful "Tarzan the Ape Man"; "Based upon the characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs") starring Johnny Weissmuller (in the title role as Tarzan; the 1924 Olympic swimming champion who is best remembered for playing Jungle Jim and for his role in this series), Maureen O'Sullivan (as Jane), John Buckler, Benita Hume, William Henry, and Cheeta (the chimpanzee).

Note that I thought that I knew a lot about early Tarzan movies, but it turned out I did not know any of the important facts about this movie! Unknown to me, the movie was actually filmed in 1935, and there is a major subplot involving Tarzan, pygmies, and vampire bats, basically making it a horror film! The studio hated the movie, and hired a new director to re-film it in 1936, and they junked all of the 1935 movie EXCEPT for the major vampire bat scene in the cave at the end, and they made drastic changes to the plot (added the tree house home, no great apes, no Jane rescuing Tarzan at the end, etc)! The 1936 version was previewed and mothers complained that the movie was too violent and scary for their kids, so the sanitized version that exists on video today was released to some 1936 theaters. However in 1954, when the movie was re-released, MGM used the uncut negative with the vampire bats. Sadly, when the film was made available to TV and for 16mm rental in the 1960s, MGM again used the censored negative, so there is now no complete print of the 1936 "director's cut" (and of course, the 1935 version is lost as well). But this is just a summary. You should read the collector's entire blog on this at http://caferoxy.blogspot.com/2010/10/still-batty-about-tarzan-escapes.html

It's an accurate summation of my researh. Thanks, Bruce. So what is new with my search?

I occasionally check Tarzan Escapes items on ebay and was surprised to find two original newspaper ads. I could "Buy It Now for $25 each" but capturing the images onto my computer suits me just fine. Both are included in this post.

They advertise showings at Loew's State Theater in Providence, RI starting Nov. 6, 1936. Both ads have tiny images of the bat attack. This is further proof that the un-cut bat prints were widely shown in the original 1936 release, along with the censored prints elsewhere. Tarzan had never fought giant bats before or since. No movie depicts such a scene. Bats were a big draw and distinguished the film from other Tarzan films. I assume that no theater could advertise vampire bats and then show a film without any bats. Audiences would have gone wild.

Emovieposter.com has a helpful feature whereby one can sign up to get notices of any auction items on your favorite film. This alerted me a few weeks ago to the auction of a "Herald" for Tarzan Escapes, which I did bid on and get for under $20. A herald is a promotional insert that newspapers can include if a movie theater pays for them. MGM sent out sample heralds in their publicity kit, which this was, as opposed to one actually distributed in a newspaper. It makes more sense that such a fragile piece might survive for years in a pile of press books, etc., from some movie theater than that some fan would save one from a 1936 newspaper.

"This Space Reserved for Theatre Imprint" on the back cover of the 4-pager includes an order blank to order the things from Post Publishing in Appleton, Wisconsin, with the theater playdate info, at a cost of $3.50 per thousand. It points out: "This tabloid on TARZAN ESCAPES will bring many extra dollars to your office."

Note that the cover has a large picture of Tarzan and Jane in a tree fending off lions. This scene does not exist, but was part of the lost 1935 version of the film! A brief shot from the cut and lost "dozens of lions" scene does show up in the opening montage right after the credits of other Weismuller Tarzan films like Tarzan's New York Adventure. Look fast for the lions next time you watch this one!

The inside two-page, newspaper-size spread also mentions the bat battle in tiny print: "See! See! The giant vulture bats swoop from the sky in a vicious air attack!"

Lastly, I ran across this clip on Youtube from the excellent TCM documentary about the MGM Tarzan films. Maureen O'Sullivan discusses filming the dreadfully uncomfortable swamp/bat scene. She concludes that the scene was cut from the film. Not true! I saw it and hope to again.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Farewell to the Bouncing Ball!

2011-08-13T12:15:00.001-05:00

I have learned so much about Screen Songs in the last 3 weeks that I have written another blog article about it for the Bijou Blog and am considering starting a new website. This entry may be short, as I will send you to the other blog down below.

Paramount made 5 Screen Song color cartoons before they were called that. Then from 1947 to 1951 they made 38 in the Screen Song series that opened with this title card and music (although that Paramount Mountain is incorrect). In 1951 the series name suddenly changed to Kartune Musical Shorts producing 12 under that banner through 1953, then two late entries again called Noveltoon:

Candy Cabaret, 1954, was directed by Dave Tendlar who had animated Betty Boop and Screen Songs for Fleischer from 1932, and ranks among the most charming Screen Songs. A sugar cube leads the orchestra in a night club where the patrons, band and dancers are all pieces of candy. The girl singer is a cute candy heart, and the catchy song "Ain't She Sweet" is a real crowd pleaser. You can enjoy it HERE.

Then out of the blue nine years later (1963) came Hobo's Holiday, directed by Seymour Knietel, an equally experienced animator who worked on the first Popeye cartoon in 1933. The animation is "limited" like the Popeye, Casper and Beetle Bailey TV cartoons that Kneitel also directed. The single gag involves a hobo stealing a fresh pie from a bulldog. "Big Rock Candy Mountain," about a paradise for hobos, is fun to sing but many audiences may have gaped in silence, not knowing they were supposed to unite in song after so many years. Let's say kids might have been in the dark; adults had long memories and still join in on sing-alongs at select revival showings today. The tradition of the hobo hopping on words that turn into animated images remained. You can pay a fond farewell to the Bouncing Ball HERE.

I put a few Screen Songs and Kartunes on Youtube and found there is a fan following. This gave me the idea that a website devoted entirely to Screen Songs might be useful to fans. I could send out an SOS looking for original 16mm and 35mm prints, from which better video transfers might be made. I could list them all and post a link to the best quality versions currently on Youtube. One goal would be to find all of them. The 1948 color Screen Song "Readin', Writin' and Rhythmetic'" seems to be missing at the moment even though it is in the public domain, and there must be many of the 108 Max Fleischer sound ones currently unavailable for viewing. Any encouragement out there?

Take a look at Time on My Hands from 1932. Ethel Merman sings the title song, but the main attraction is a comely but topless Betty Boop (voiced by Mae Questel) as a mermaid. Also the first color Paramount in the Screen Song series -- The Circus Comes to Clown. Then one of the Kartune series from 1951: Fresh Yeggs with the theme of animals in prison.

To read more from me about Screen Songs, plus a list of the 12 Kartune Musical Shorts, please visit The Bijou Blog. I have been associated with the Bijou folks for the last 6 or 7 years. Among many active projects, we are trying to bring back the hit 1980s PBS series "Matinee at the Bijou" in new episodes in Hi-Def or in DVD releases of the original series only with the complete features re-mastered. We hope to announce concrete plans soon!

Visit my website at Festival Films

Sing Me a Thousand Screen Songs!

2011-08-06T09:16:00.001-05:00

Everyone uses Wikipedia as a quick source of information. Everyone should know they don't know everything. It says so right on the site. Thus last week I wrote there were around 40 color Screen Songs made by Paramount from 1945 to 1951, which is true, except this week I found more of them. The history of Screen Songs at Wikipedia is well written:

The Screen Songs are a continuation of the earlier Fleischer series Song Car-Tunes. They are sing-along shorts featuring the famous "bouncing ball", a sort of precursor to modern karaoke videos. They often featured popular melodies of the day. The early Song Car-Tunes were among the earliest sound films, produced two years before The Jazz Singer. They were largely unknown at the time because their release was limited to the chain of 36 theaters operated by The Red Seal Pictures Company, which was equipped with the early Lee DeForest Phonofilm sound reproduction equipment. The Red Seal theater chain -- formed by the Fleischers, DeForest, Edwin Miles Fadiman, and Hugo Riesenfeld -- went from the East Coast to Columbus, Ohio.

Between May 1924 and September 1927, the Fleischers released 36 Song Car-Tunes series, with 17 using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The films included Oh Mabel, Come Take a Trip in My Airship, Darling Nelly Gray, Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?, and By the Light of the Silvery Moon. Beginning with My Old Kentucky Home (1926), the cartoons featured the "follow the bouncing ball" gimmick, that lead the audience singing along with the film. The Fleischers were ahead of the sound revolution, and just missed the actual change when The Red Seal Company filed for bankruptcy in mid-1927.

The Fleischers signed a new contract with Paramount Pictures in late 1928. Beginning in February 1929, the song cartoons returned under a new name, Screen Songs, using the Western Electric sound-on-film process. The first was The Sidewalks of New York (East Side, West Side) released on 5 February 1929. In the 1930s, the shorts began to feature such musical guest stars as Lillian Roth, Ethel Merman, Cab Calloway, Rudy Vallee, the Mills Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, and others. The series, which eventually focused on many of the "big bands" of "The Swing Era" continued until 1938.

In 1945, Famous Studios, successors to the Fleischers, revived the Screen Songs as an all animated series in color. The earliest color Screen Song part of the Noveltoon series, "When G.I. Johnny Comes Home Again." was released on February 2, 1945.

*****

The Wikipedia entry goes on to list all of the Fleischers and the 38 color cartoons that were in the official "Screen Songs" series from 1947 to 1951. The title screen as shown up above and the opening credits all include the catchy tune:

"Start the day with a song, and sing the whole day through.

Even while you're busy working, do just like the birdies do.

Though the day may be long, you never will go wrong.

Off key, on key, any old key, just start the day with a song!"

However, several Bouncing Ball sing-alongs appeared in the Noveltoon series before the SS series started: "When G.I. Johnny Comes Home Again" (1945), "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" (1945), "The Goal Rush" (1946), "Madhattan Island" (1947, with two songs "Penthouse Serenade" and "42nd Street") and "The Mild West" (1947). All five are in the public domain. I have the fascinating "Madhattan Island," but the current quality is too poor to do anything with it.

Last week I borrowed a nearly complete collection of Paramount cartoons from 1943 to 1967, minus the Popeyes and George Pal Puppetoons, but with Little Lulus, Little Audreys, Caspers, Buzzy Crows, Herman and Catnips, etc. Some were poor quality, a few were black and white and some had great color. Many were transferred from the 16mm prints distributed by U.M. and M and NTA TV in the 1950s and 60s. I really don't know where this massive library came from. (Before I forget, the images in this blog came from Jerry Beck's superb Cartoon Research site.)

I had wondered why the popular Screen Songs ended suddenly in 1951. Turns out they didn't! The series stopped, but Paramount kept making them through 1954, except the cartoons fell back into the Noveltoons series. Did audiences start going to the concession stand if a cartoon song came on, but stayed to watch a normal cartoon? It is impossible to tell in the first half if the Bouncing Ball will make an appearance. I can't list all of these "extra" Song Cartoons because you can't tell from the titles listed in Len Maltin's "Of Mice and Magic" (1980) and I could not view one of the discs due to damage. These 1953 cartoons include Screen Songs: "Philharmaniacs," "Aero-Nutics," and "Invention Convention" where the audience can sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."

Right here and now you can enjoy "Candy Cabaret" from 1954, which just might be the last Paramount Screen Song ever made! Sing along at home to "Ain't She Sweet!"

Visit my website at Festival Films

Sing-Along With Screen Songs!

2011-07-30T13:27:00.001-05:00

Audience Sing-Alongs to words projected on a screen go back before 1900 using magic lanterns. The famous "Bouncing Ball" debuted in 1924 in the Max Fleischer "Ko-Ko Song Car-Tune." The first song was "Oh Mabel." A superb discussion is in this Nov. 2007 entry in the Bijou Blog (that I may have helped write, not sure). Fleischer made many sing-along cartoons in the silent era with a seamless transition into the sound era up through 1938.

In 1945, Famous Studios, successors to the Fleischers, revived the Screen Songs as an all-animated series in color. The earliest color Screen Song was part of the Noveltoon series -- "When G.I. Johnny Comes Home Again" -- and was released on February 2, 1945. This series produced around 40 cartoons thru 1951. Both the Fleischer and Paramount sound ones are listed by title at Wikipedia."

Audiences singing out loud and together in a movie theater was tremendously popular, which may be hard to believe by anyone who did not share the experience. The words appeared onscreen as the Bouncing Ball bobbed from one word to the next so the audience was never in doubt just what to sing, in case they were not familiar with the song. Over 25 of the color ones are in public domain and I include them in volumes of Movie Memories. Seniors sang along way back then in theaters in the 1930s and 40s and they sing along today.

Although the cartoons are clearly in the public domain, some of the songs are still copyrighted. In most cases you can use films (with © music) as public domain without paying royalties to the owner of the music. The theory goes that the music was paid for when the film was made and when the entire entity goes into public domain, then you can show, sell, broadcast or use the complete film anyway you want. If you take an excerpt out of a film to use in a documentary, then you need to separately clear rights to any music involved. Most TV stations still have an arrangement with ASCAP that allows them to show any films without clearing music rights. I don't know what rules might apply for using public domain films with music on the Internet.

The only time I recall being contacted about music was 30 years ago re. the score by Virgil Thomson on "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936). I offered it for sale on 16mm at the time, which rarely sold. I don't recall what I wrote back, but never heard from them again, not even when I began selling it on video and now DVD. If I tried to sell this or any film with music to Turner Classic Movies, then I would certainly clear music rights if needed to be completely safe.

Today I am considering turning more of the color Screen Songs into Movie Memories for a situation that might request either song clearance or assurance that the song was also in the public domain. The series used familiar standards so many of the songs were written before 1923. This is the magic cut-off date for songs, films and books: all written before 1923 are public domain; most made in or after 1923 are copyrighted as long as they were properly renewed. So here is a list of the Paramount Screen Songs that I have that are in the public domain along with the song included in each and the date it was written.

The Emerald Isle - "McNamara's Band" (1945)
Old MacDonald Had a Farm - Title Song, of course (1917?)
Sing or Swim - "By the Beautiful Sea" (?)
The Mild West - "I'm an Old Cowhand" (1936)
Base Brawl - "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (1908)
Short-nin Bread - Title Song (1900)
The Big Flame-Up - "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (1896)

Helter Swelter - "In the Good Old Summer Time" (1902)
Comin' Round the Mountain - Title Song (late 1800s)
The Lone Star State - "Deep in the Heart of Texas" (1941)
Marriage Wows - "For Me and My Gal" (1917)
Little Brown Jug - "Little Brown Jug" (1869)
The Golden State - "California Here I Come" (1921)
Winter Draws On - "I'm Alabama Bound" (1909)
Snow Foolin' - "Jingle Bells" (1857)
When G.I. Johnny Comes Home - "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" (1863)
Win, Place and Show Boat - "Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee" (1920)
Spring Song - Title Song (1894)
The Funshine State - "Tallahassee" (1947)
The Stork Market - "Pretty Baby" (1916)
Gobs of Fun - "Strike Up the Band" (1927)

The Big Drip - "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" (1923)
Our Funny Finny Friends - "Three Little Fishies" (1939)
The Ski's the Limit - "Swiss Miss" (?)
Farm Foolery - "Shine On Harvest Moon" (c.1905)
Toys Will Be Toys - "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (1911)

Well, that was interesting research. To Me!

Visit my website at Festival Films

New (to me) tool for Researching Copyrights!

2011-07-17T09:39:00.000-05:00

I check and re-check the copyrights on films all the time, certainly every week. So it comes as a surprise that I have never blogged about the process before. Oh, yeah, boring.... The process may be but the results are often fascinating. For one thing I found this past week that the 1958 Steve Reeves film HERCULES is in the public domain. Everyone else knew it but somehow I though it was copyrighted although I've been selling the sequel, Hercules Unchained, for years. Now I can add the first film to my library.

Last week I got the notion that perhaps episodes of "The Howdy Doody Show" were indeed copyrighted although I had thought they were all public domain. Some research did not turn up any registrations or renewals, and many episodes do not have the © notice with a date on them.

Actually I am not looking for copyrights, but for the lack of an original or renewal copyright. For years I have used three rare and out of print books covering the years 1900 to 1939, 1940 to 1949, and 1950 to 1959. They list all original registrations with the Library of Congress in alphabetical order for those years. A typical short entry from the first volume is:

A BEDTIME STORY, Bluebird, 1926, 1 reel.
Credits: Director George Summerville. © Universal Pictures Corp.; 31Mar26; LP22565.

This is followed by the 1933 feature called "A Bedtime Story." The old rule was that each film needed to be renewed 28 years later, so the people compiling these books looked at renewal records 28 years later to see which films had been renewed (most were). The 1926 one-reeler was not renewed and so there is no notation after the title and it is considered to be in the public domain. The 1933 feature was renewed and so the book has the hand-written notation: R255994, 27Apr60.

This set of ten volumes is copyrighted 1973 by Walter E. Hurst. Thank you, Walter!

All registrations and renewals from 1978 to the present are online at the Library of Congress Website. There are perils navigating the thousands of entries. Be aware that "Type of Work: Recorded Document" is not a © registration or renewal. The 3 entries for Roy Rogers Show: "Ambush" are all Recorded Documents, meaning they are mentioned in some kind of document that was registered with LOC, but the TV episode itself is in the public domain. You see, you could produce a show and sell it and re-sell it without ever actually copyrighting it. You still owned it within the first 28 years, but by then a production company may have gone out of business and the film or series lapsed quietly into the public domain. Hurray for our side!

In 1964 the copyright laws were changed such that any film or TV show made in that year or later could be registered AT ANY TIME and did not need to be renewed. So some American movies made for TV in 1970 are sold as public domain today because they have never been registered with the Library of Congress. However, at this late date, they still could be registered by someone who had some connection to making the films in the first place. That's a little off my present subject, but films made in 1960 thru 1963 still needed to be renewed, and if they were not renewed 28 years later they are clearly and forever in the public domain. There is a 1960s film copyright book to match the earlier volumes, but I never got one.

So I had a gap in the research I could conduct myself for films 1960 to 1977. I just discovered a website with the Library of Congress records of registrations and renewals from 1950 thru 1978. You can peruse this website of The Hathi Trust Digital Library that scanned original LOC documents in University of Michigan collection.

Scroll down to one of the years, like 1961, and then down that page until you come to Motion Pictures. Under renewals you find listed Universal's "Air Mail," Paramount's "Blonde Venus," Columbia's "Bitter Tea of General Yen" and lots more films all from 1933 which were properly renewed 28 years later in 1961 and are still protected by current copyright law until 95 years after they were made. We can see those three films today, but we may need to wait until 2028 before enjoying Universal's 1933 "Afraid to Talk," a film picked at random from the list that I have never heard of in my life. The big question in 2028 will be if anyone has the film or if anyone wants to see it then!

Or you can click on New Registrations and will come to the page shown above. A few pages later I found listings for "Adventures of Jim Bowie" shows that first aired in 1957 and 1958. The Library of Congress used to require registration of feature films during the year a film was released or the next year. However, they started accepting late registrations for TV shows, so late that some were registered 28 years from when they were made and were renewed at the same time. Some episodes of Jim Bowie are public domain today, but most are copyrighted including the ones I just found.

Happy browsing! Remember that NOT finding any listing or NOT finding any renewal 28 years later is the prize discovery that means the film or TV show may well be in the public domain.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Court Countdown!

2011-07-09T11:12:00.004-05:00

I first wrote about this in my March 12 Blog. I am one of the "Petitioners" in a copyright case that will be decided by the Supreme Court in October. Stanford Law School has overseen and financed the case that has been ongoing about ten years now! It's been a long and colorful "Road" to the end. (Note the "Road to Bali" poster you can use to promote any showing of the film, and it comes with a cartoon and rare Navy short as well, all with Bing and Bob!)

Stanford filed their final brief in mid-June. You can read the Stanford brief RIGHT HERE!

The EFF filed a similar and supporting brief with the Supreme Court around the same time. Stanford is not alone in this very important constitutional matter!

JUNE 21ST, 2011

EFF Urges Supreme Court to Block Law That Erodes Public Domain

Law Hurts Libraries, Artists, and First Amendment Rights

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a federal law that erodes the public domain and hurts libraries, artists, and others who want to exercise their First Amendment right to share and receive information in an amicus brief filed today on behalf a coalition of libraries and other digital repositories.

The law in question is Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which takes potentially millions of works by foreign authors that were previously in the public domain and puts them back under copyright protection. Works affected by this law include Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, music by Stravinski, paintings by Picasso and drawings by M.C. Escher, and writings by George Orwell and J.R.R. Tolkien -- material that has been used and performed countless times. Now that the works are back under copyright protection, use of the works may require paying hefty license fees.

In the amicus brief, EFF argues that this law creates dangerous uncertainty about copyright policy, posing a significant threat to libraries, digital repositories, and others that promote access to knowledge.

"Libraries and digital repositories are using new technologies to make our cultural commons more accessible than ever, but they need a robust and stable public domain to be able to do that crucial work," said EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels. "Section 514 has up-ended a basic tenet of copyright law: once a work enters the public domain, it stays in the public domain."

"The public domain helps make sure the copyright monopoly serves its purpose: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "Congress should not have put a small potential benefit to some authors ahead of the public interest."

EFF represents the Internet Archive and the University of Michigan Dean of Libraries. Joining the brief are the Wikimedia Foundation, the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries.

For the full amicus brief:
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/golan_v_holder/236590_Brief.pdf

For more on this case:
https://www.eff.org/cases/golan-v-holder

Contacts:

Corynne McSherry
Intellectual Property Director

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Saturday Matinee to Matinee Classics!

2011-07-02T07:57:00.005-05:00

On March 5 I wrote about a new website that had just gone online -- Saturday Matinee. I mentioned it was in a test phase, had a lot more content to upload and planned to issue a press release in April. Four months later it still has more movies and radio shows to put online -- an unending process that will be good news to frequent visitors. I urge you to check it out! You will find many rare radio shows, movie posters, 1950s TV shows, shorts, serials, newsreels and feature films going back into the silent era, all tied together with over a million words and counting. No, I didn't count them yet.

The name change from Saturday Matinee to Matinee Classics was because a (fast-fading) video store chain (or is it a video releasing company?) had trademarked the name "Saturday Matinee." I have heard of the company but can't find anything about it online. I don't think it is "Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee," which is a famous Hollywood store that has been around forever. It doesn't matter; someone had a TM on the name so it had to change. The more generic "Matinee Classics" is actually working better with the search engines.

Here is the press release that went out on June 14, 2011:

Matinee Classics LLC today announces the debut of its new online entertainment presence. When completed there will be over 10,000 distinct videos (7,000 currently) with over 4,000 hours of viewing entertainment and many more thousands of hours of listening entertainment—more than an average person could possibly enjoy in a lifetime.

This unique online library lets you:

Watch streaming videos of more than 5,000 classic movies and trailers from as far back as the late 1800’s, including some of the best silent classics, numerous educational and historical documentaries and newsreels, and more than 4,000 classic television shows, cartoons and TV commercials from the earliest days of television
Listen to more than 40,000 Old Time Radio Show classics (6,000 currently)
View tens of thousands of movie posters, lobby cards and publicity photos
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This comment is posted after the press release online.

I have been on this site and it brings back so many childhood memories. Shows that I watched as a child, cartoons,commercials and movie stars from a diffrent a time of long ago. I will be on this site all the time. Today I watched Dick VanDyke classic. I read biographies on my favorite stars, things I never knew so it is thrilling to learn about all these amazing movie stars. great great site. Thanks.

Be sure to visit Matinee Classics!
Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Here are some short genre Introductory films you will soon find at Matinee Classics:

Jungle Drums, Jungle Memories!

2011-06-25T11:02:00.000-05:00

I have been fascinated by jungle movies since I was a child under ten. The interest was likely ignited by my Tarzan double feature at the age of eight when I saw the giant vampire bats in Tarzan Escapes, and fanned by reading all the Tarzan novels as a teenager. At the same time I grew up watching "Ramar of the Jungle" (1952-'54), the Gunga Ram stories on "Andy's Gang" and all the adventure serials I could find on TV.

The elements that still appeal to me are the wild animal fights, crocodiles and crocodile pits, boa constrictors, men in ape costumes, elephant stampedes, vine swinging and lost kingdoms -- action, adventure, thrills & horror! Lost in the deepest jungle of darkest Africa the resourceful hero always finds a way to save the heroine from the sudden danger that lurks behind every bush.

During the last ten years I have been re-watching films I remember from my youth like Francis the Talking Mule, Ma and Pa Kettle, Charlie Chan, all the serials, B-westerns and so on. I am still looking for some jungle serial that I recall clearly and think I even saw twice on TV. The first chapter ends with a plane crash in the jungle. The second chapter ends with the hero and heroine on a narrow ledge in a deep pit full of crocodiles. They need to walk along this treacherous ledge to reach an escape door on the other side. Their footing crumbles... do they fall among the gators? For a long time I was sure this was one of the two Clyde Beatty serials, Mascot's Lost Jungle or the early Republic Darkest Africa, except when I watched them, no crocodile cliffhanger. Both serials do have crocodiles in pits. Lost Jungle's first chapter ends with a dirigible crashing. A later ending has Clyde hanging from the rim of the pit as he grapples with a bad guy, but no scene of that ledge. Perhaps I dreamed it all and recall the dream???

They made dozens of serials set in jungles from the silent era thru the fist sound serial King of the Congo (1929) up to the 1952 Buster Crabbe Columbia also called King of the Congo! My favorite is Perils of Nyoka (1942) starring Kay Aldridge, Clayton Moore, Charles Middleton and Lorna Gray. Great plot that moves from one exotic location to another in search of a cure for cancer, slam-bang fights erupt in every new set with David Sharpe doubling for Nyoka, chases, imaginative chapter endings, a giant ape and more. The Nyoka character (created by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a female Tarzan) also appeared in the 1941 Republic serial Jungle Girl. I must confess I find the scantily-clad Frances Gifford the most fetching heroine in any serial. Let's not forget The Tiger Woman (1943) serial starring Linda Stirling.

Searching for my lost serial that may not exist, I've seen some real losers in recent years. Queen of the Jungle (1935) with Mary Kornman lost as a child and growing up to lead a jungle tribe. The main interest was stock footage from a silent serial. Jungle Queen (1945), with Ruth Roman battling Nazi invaders. Jungle Raiders, 1945 Columbia serial with Kane Richmond.

However, I have just seen a jungle serial that surprised me for being quite well made and entertaining: Call of the Savage (1935, Universal). Two competing teams of scientists search the jungle for a lost formula to cure infantile paralysis. The secret was engraved on a wrist band given to the boy Jan who disappeared 15 years before and grew up to be Noah Beery Jr. Jan swings on vines like Tarzan, kills lions, tigers and leopards after wrestling with them, and is dressed like and talks faltering English like Tarzan, but he's still a boy (23) with an amiable smile and infectious laugh. It takes a bit to get used to him.

You will never get used to the heroine, Dorothy Short, who screams at anything and constantly wanders off so a ferocious beast can chase her. In the middle they dress her in a tiger skin to match footage from some silent serial. This changes to a leopard skin outfit without comment, as pictured in a chapter ending. While Jan grapples on a ledge with a lion, Mona backs to the edge and falls into a river infested with snapping crocs!

The jungle sets are well designed and alive with all imaginable animals: lions and tigers (yeah, together and fighting each other), crocs, tapirs, monkeys, giraffes, elephants, leopards, zebras, hyenas, gnus and some I can't identify. There's also a man in a convincing gorilla costume. Croc fights tiger, lion fights croc, Jan fights 'em all in hand-to-hand combat with a knife. The fights are as good as any Tarzan movie since some stuntman really roughs it with his arm in the lion's fanged mouth. Good animal photography of snarling tigers, etc., which may be from some silent serial.

It's a Universal serial so when they reach the lost city in chapter 10 action takes place on the Frankenstein castle set. They use the giant bells from the 1923 Hunchback of Notre Dame, but it is newly shot footage because the monkey climbs the rope and plays with the bells, the ringing of which saves all from being speared to death at the end of chapter 11.

You can order Call of the Savage HERE. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking for that crocodile ledge that scared me as a child.

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

FAQ - Why Café Roxy?

2011-06-04T08:45:00.001-05:00

I am probably asked one question more than all others. Even if new customers don't ask it, they may well be wondering, because they find my website by making a google search on "public domain films." They already know what public domain means, so the question is some variation on:

"If all these films are in public domain, why can't I show what I got from a dollar store?" Here is an exact quote from a small theater owner last week: "Why can't I just use my private copy of the Movie? If it's public domain? You have an excellent selection and was just wondering about this!"

When I started making Café Roxy "Programs" in early 2009, I asked myself exactly the same question -- Why Café Roxy? What could I offer special that no one else provided? The answers are on the website, but here is a chance to spell them out again. I explained it in an email to the above theater manager. The same answers apply to TV stations adding public domain films and TV shows. If you are starting to yawn about now, jump to the bottom of this post to see his reply to my reply. Yawn....

PROGRAMS!
Each Café Roxy Program starts with a brief "Café Roxy Presents" opening fanfare. You do not need to run this if you don't want to. The Matinee, Horror, Turkey, etc., Roxy series contain trailers, live shorts, serial chapters, cartoons and Intermission breaks so every presentation runs close to two hours. A Roxy logo with music concludes each show. The "Just Classics" section contains longer films and classics that have at least one cartoon added, like the Cat O' Nine Tails poster. The Classics have 3 minutes of exit music after a voice over says: "Thank you for coming. Have a safe trip home."

POSTERS!
I make my own posters that list both features and shorts and have a blank area to add your show date info if you print out the posters. You can also take the poster Jpeg off my website and put it on yours. If the poster design appeals to you, then chances are it will work the same magic on your customers.

QUALITY GUARANTEE!
Quality of some of those dollar bin discs is all over the place. My standard is acceptable (to excellent) viewing when projected in a 400+ seat movie theater. I constantly seek to upgrade each show. There are no annoying company logos or bullets in the corner of the picture like constantly show up on broadcast TV. There is also a quality guarantee that if you get a show you don't like, then no charge.

I also screen the films before putting them into a program with an eye toward what audiences will enjoy today. I am liberal about including westerns, B-pictures and golden turkeys, but I once discouraged a customer who wanted to buy and run "Sin Takes a Holiday" based on the title alone. This 1930 drama with Constance Bennett and Basil Rathbone is fine viewing for Cinephiles on TV, but no one would sit through it in a theater.

PROOF OF PUBLIC DOMAIN!
Are you really sure that DVD you picked up for a dollar is in the public domain? It says on the box and on the DVD that the FBI will pursue you for copyright infringement. The only thing really copyrighted is the art work on the box. I take the opposite and honest approach to inform exactly why a film or TV show is in the public domain. You CAN run them on TV or show the films in your movie theater. Won't you feel safer knowing why the films are public domain in case anyone asks, like the station owner?

I do put my own copyright notice -- © -- on each Café Roxy release to cover my openings and closings. This protection of new matter insures that no one can simply copy and resell the programs. (This is the furthest thing from my users minds!) At the same time I grant permission for theaters and TV stations to run the entire shows.

REASONABLE PRICE!
The Café Roxy pricing section had been saying $50 per program for movie theaters, with discounts for volume sales. Most theaters who try the shows will take at least 5, which qualifies for the discount to $25 per program. I don't want to scare you off with "$50." I want you to try showing vintage films to audiences. So the pricing page now reads: "For movie theaters and film societies where admission is charged -- $35 per DVD-R. Discount Price for all 12 programs of any series such as Golden Turkeys or 12 Nights of Horror: $25 per program."

FREE SAMPLE PROGRAM!
I almost forgot about this bonus. Just ask and I will send a free Café Roxy program with shorts, serial trailers, feature excerpts, the first episode of "Beverly Hillbillies," a silent Buster Keaton short and the 1934 "Buck Rogers" film. Run it in your theater to see how the films project. Prepare samples for Internet streaming or TV broadcast. Examine the range of quality.

So I told that theater owner: "Programs have cartoons, shorts and serial chapters added. I get the best quality films, and ones without any company logos over the picture, and you can use my posters to promote your showings, and I include copyright info in case it is needed. That is particularly useful to TV stations. Yes, you could put your own programs together if you prefer."

And he replied: "Oh, okay, now I understand that will be well worth the price then. I will defiantly keep you guys in mind when the time comes. Your set up sounds fantastic and will pass your site onto others."

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Roy's Comical Sidekick -- Pat Brady!

2011-05-28T11:02:00.005-05:00

In a follow up to last week's post, I offer some comments on the curious case of Pat Brady. From their first meeting in 1935 when Pat was only 21, up until Pat's early death in 1972 at the age of 57, Pat and Roy Rogers enjoyed a lifetime friendship while working together many times. Pat appeared in 36 Roy Rogers features from 1941's Red River Valley until the last Rogers feature in 1951, Pals of the Golden West.

The curious part of these screen appearances is that Pat's roles alternated from unbilled extra as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers singing group, to second sidekick, to #1 sidekick, but not in ascending order. One would expect him to move up to the #1 job and keep it, but he had a bigger role in Red River Valley with lines and musical numbers than as a border patrolman in Pals of the Golden West, where Pinky Lee filled the comic relief. Pat does ride to the rescue with the "Roy Rogers Riders" while Roy and Pinky hold off the bad guys.

Born in 1914, Pat Brady first set foot on-stage at the age of four, in a road-show production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. From that moment he was hooked on showbiz for life. While appearing as a bass guitarist in California in 1935, Pat struck up a friendship with a young country western singer named Leonard Slye, a member of the popular The Sons of the Pioneers. When Len Slye was elevated to screen stardom as Roy Rogers, he recommended Brady as his replacement in "The Sons." However, since Bob Nolan, an original member of The Sons, was referred to as "Bob," the group thought one "Bob" was enough, so "Bob Brady" became "Pat Brady" from then on.

As a member of the Sons of the Pioneers, Pat appeared in 27 Charles Starrett westerns from 1937 to 1941. I have seen none of these even though I taped many Starretts off the western channel about ten years ago. Then the Sons moved up to Republic to rejoin Roy, who had been an original member. Pat stayed on when Foy Willing and his Riders of the Purple Sage replaced the Sons. Pat's character was sometimes called Sparrow Biffle and other times he was not even billed in the credits!

In Roy's 1942 film that was titled "Sons of the Pioneers," Pat Brady and Gabby Hayes get equal screen time as "dual sidekicks," as shown in the picture on the left. They appear in every scene together as pals and best friends of Roy. In a charming scene they ride together at night believing that Roy has been killed, singing a mournful song. When Roy yodels the song in the distance Pat screams "It's a ghost!" and they hightail it. They shared the comedy in at least two other Rogers westerns of the period, and seemed comfortable doing so.

In King of the Cowboys (1943) Pat sings a comic song with The Sons, just before Roy rides off on an undercover job with sidekick Smiley Burnett! That's it for Pat until he rides as an extra in the finale.

In Bells of Coronado (color, 1950), Pat is billed third and is Roy's one and only sidekick -- riding, fighting, getting shot and providing comedy. But in Trigger Jr. (1950), Pat is again a comedy co-star with sidekick Gordon Jones.

In 1951's South of Caliente Pat has little screen time opposite burlesque comic Pinky Lee (who went on to a career as TV kid show host in the 1950s). It is fortunate for Pat's dignity that he was not asked to dress up like a gypsy or take pratfalls like Pinky was made to do. The fact seems to be that Pat was by then part of Roy's stock company and performed whatever the script asked of him, sometimes a lot but other times little.

His loyalty and flair for comedy paid off. When Roy moved to television from 1951 to 1957 he took Pat with him, now permanently billed as "himself" or as The Roy Rogers Show put it: "...and Pat Brady, Roy's comical sidekick." Brady enlivened over 100 episodes, happily driving about the sagebrush at the wheel of his faithful jeep "Nellybelle." Nelly was Roy's jeep that he used on his ranch. He had noticed that kids expressed extra interest in the vehicle whenever they saw him driving around, so he ran the idea past Pat as his transportation in the TV show rather than riding a horse. The idea was a hit with Pat, who reveled in the comedy antics of the cantankerous prop, as was the entire show.

The Roy Rogers Show is where I first heard the term "sidekick" at an early age and where I first met Pat Brady. I had no idea Pat appeared in so many features with Roy ... 36 ... until today when I added them up!

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

More Roy Rogers!

2011-05-21T11:38:00.000-05:00

The more I see of Roy Rogers, the better I like him. While I don't specifically recall seeing Roy's features on TV when I was under ten, his TV show started in 1951 when I was six and is one of my earliest TV memories. I might have watched the first year at a friend's house since we did not have television that early.

I have previously blogged about the Roy Rogers Auction and about "Happy Trails Theater." What's new today is... more "Happy Trails Theater!" A 6-DVD set has been issued by Timeless Video, an excellent provider of classic TV and movies. Check out their numerous other offerings.

The set contains 19 episodes of "Happy Trails" plus the bonus film "Cowboy and the Senorita" (1944), which is the first film Dale made with Roy and is the only film shown complete at 78 min. All the others are abridged to around 62 min, which includes the credits and intros. Some comments at the IMDB say don't buy the set because of the massive cuts in the features. I sympathize because most of the films are copyrighted and these are the only versions for sale. Some of Roy's features like "Song of Texas" were cut for TV in the 1950s to 54 minutes and do not seem to survive anywhere in a complete form. Most of these are copyrighted films obtained from Republic in 1988 when the new intros were filmed. "Trail of Robin Hood" could have been preserved complete and in color in 1988, but where are those missing scenes today? Why do the shows run 62 minutes? Were they intended for a 90-minute time slot that would have included 28 minutes of commercials?

Forget the cuts, this is a wonderful set for the interviews and bonuses. Bonus films include a "Roy Rogers Biography," "Museum Tour," and documentary on Roy's many sidekicks. The guests include 5 segments talking with Gene Autry and Pat Buttram, 5-time co-star leading lady Penny Edwards, Iron Eyes Cody and Roy Rogers Jr. Roy Rogers (78 at the time) and Dale Evans (75) are charming hosts and interviewers. Their lifelong friendship with Gene Autry and Iron Eyes Cody is quite apparent. Discussions about Gabby Hayes are fascinating. They appear much as they look in this photo from 1985.

There is plenty of variety in the plots of the films. "Sunset in El Dorado" was written as a solo starring Dale, until V-E Day changed Roy's draft status and he did not enter the army after all. Dowager Margaret Dumont plays Dale's Aunt who proves no match for Gabby Hayes. In "Trigger Jr." (1950, Trucolor) Roy is hooked up with a circus and a killer horse named Phantom; he even goes to prison to save Trigger from a murder charge. In "South of Caliente" (1951) Roy transports horses to Mexico, aided by dual sidekicks Pat Brady and Pinky Lee. In "Spoilers of the Plains" (1951) Roy works for an oil company but comes to the aid of experimental rocket scientists when foreign spies steal secrets. Penny Edwards is his co-star in this one. Watch the chase/fight scene between two wagons full of men when one of the stunt men falls under the wagon and is run over.

Just get this set from Timeless, or watch "Happy Trails Theater" from Netflix.

Switching gears a bit, I sell 58 public domain Roy Rogers westerns on DVD on my website. That may be all of them in public domain; I should check. For quite awhile I did not offer "Song of Texas" (1943) because the only copies I could find were pretty terrible in quality. A few months ago I got a call from Tom Connor who has a theater in Stockton, CA. Tom likes to run B-westerns once a month and was looking for "Song of Texas." When he heard my report it came out that he had an original 16mm print of the film but that he no longer ran film, only video projection. I connected Tom's print with Derek Myers to transfer the film and we all have nice video copies now.

"Song of Texas" is a terrific Roy Rogers film! Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers work the rodeo circuit for bad-guy Barton MacLane. When they try to quit to start their own rodeo group, Barton tries to put their ranch out of business. Sidekick Pat Brady has more to do than usual with his own romance. Although unbilled, Yakima Canutt must have staged the two spirited stagecoach races since he has a short dialog scene with Roy. The first scene in the picture shows Roy and the gang, even Trigger, performing for sick children at a hospital, thus capturing a true event that Roy repeated many times for his fans. Watch it right here!

Roy Rogers -- the greatest cowboy hero of all time to millions of kids!

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Rare Robert Benchley Film!

2011-05-14T09:42:00.001-05:00

Before I get to Mr. Robert Benchley, here's an inspiring picture someone posted on my Facebook group this week that harks back to the golden era of movie palaces and theater going in the 1930s. I have seen similar old drawings that glorify the Paramount Theater, some of the interiors of palaces, and have always been moved by the nostalgia they evoke for an era I never really knew.

Ah, the thrill and expectation of seeing Marlene Dietrich first run with a full house. I know it's a thinly disguised ad for Paramount theaters and pictures, but so what?

I have quite a few films I can never find -- piles and piles of DVDs everywhere -- and other gems I have yet to watch. I don't know they are gems until I actually find the time to watch them but the discovery is always worth it. Last night I got around to looking at a most interesting film sent to me last year by the real hero of this find, Derek Myers.

Derek has kind of a dream job and dream hobby to my mind. He has programmed public domain films at WGGS-TV in Greenville, SC, and for a sister station in Atlanta for close to twenty years. His continuing hobby is acquiring 16mm film prints of public domain films from ebay and private collectors and making new transfers.

The rare film that I had never heard of before is "I'm a Civilian Here Myself" produced by the U.S. Navy in 1945. When World War-II ended all servicemen were brought home, but before they could step off the ship back into civilian life they had to enter separation centers for a few days. This instructional film was probably shown to them on the ship home!

The Navy had a similar film for sailors out at the same time: "The Road to Home" in which Bing Crosby and Bob Hope told sailors not to jump ship. While we would not think of it today, apparently there was a real problem with returning servicemen feeling they had served, the war was over and they could go AWOL right off the boat. Bing and Bob entreated them to wait a few more days for their official discharge. I have sold this rare and highly entertaining short for some years in "On the Road With Bing and Bob" DVD.

Highly entertaining best describes "I'm a Civilian Here Myself." In fact it is an absolute must-see film for fans of Robert Benchley, the reason being that he must have written most of it and plays many parts! The film was made in 1945 and Benchley died in November of that year at the young age of 56. It is probable he wrote his own dialog in one of his last films "Road to Utopia" released in 1946, but this Navy film may be the last free-wheeling, no-insanity-barred excursion into Benchley mania. You can judge for yourself when he tries to explain to Hugh Beaumont his job before the war as a putty patterer. The depiction of the separation centers as posh resorts with girls, girls, girls all in swimsuits could only have come from his mind as well.

The actual film runs 24 minutes. The main title was missing so I labeled it: "Going Back to Civilian Life." (I only just now found the correct title at IMDB under Hugh Beaumont, since there was no reference to the film under Robert Benchley.) Because of the time limitation set by Youtube, only nine minutes of the film is presented here for your enjoyment.

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Me & the Disney Ducks!

2011-05-07T12:10:00.002-05:00

Since December I have been reading through about 4 boxes of Walt Disney Comic Books featuring the art and stories of the master Carl Barks. My appreciation of Barks has only increased to the point I would not hesitate to call him the greatest comic book writer and artist (yes, both) anywhere in the world at anytime. At the rate of two or three comics a day, I still have a few to read but not that many.

I own the hard cover compilation "Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life & Times," which is on ebay for $600, but I have not read the stories in there. I prefer reading the original comic books that are either reprints or poor condition and so are worth very little. The reprint on the left with two classic tales currently sells for only $7.

By accident I have a poor condition issue of Barks' very first Donald Duck story -- "Victory Garden" -- from Walt Disney's Comics and Stories No. 31, April 1943. Some pages are missing but not from the Barks story.

When I was growing up in the 1950s my father owned and ran a drug store in the small town of Deerfield, Wisconsin. A population at one point of 710 sticks in my head. Deerfield served farmers in the area and, being a half hour from Madison, is today a thriving community of commuters to the big city. Way back then the main street was one block long with a bank, drug store, grocery store, doctor's office, hardware store, insurance office and single restaurant on that one block. The family of mom, dad and 3 kids lived in a tiny apartment above the store. My father bought the building next door and turned it into a larger drug store shortly before he died of a bad heart in 1958. It is still there but the original store with upstairs apartment was torn down for a driveway for the bank on the corner.

Many features of the first drug store are burned into memory. Soda fountain where I could make myself any sundaes, phosphates or malts I wanted. Candy that I did not have permission to eat but that I occasionally pilfered. Patent medicine bottles leftover from the 1920s -- not for sale, I hope, but hanging around for some years. Mogen David wine on one shelf. A few shelves of toys. Girlie and stag magazines that turned up in the back room with covers torn off when I was around ten. Yes, I remember those. Storage in the basement that was spooky with the lights out. A little work bench back in a corner where I played with a chemistry set and built model planes.

Last but not least, the store had a well-stocked rack of comic books and magazines. I swear the store did not carry Superman or the other super heroes. I only read those off the racks at a drug store in neighboring Cottage Grove or the Madison bus station. My brother swears the store had super heroes. One early memory was the horror comics. I recall being scared by one where a man digs up a coffin to steal a jewel only to find rats pulling the corpse into a tunnel, so he follows them in.... Suddenly, one day, no more horror comics, but the E.C. science-fiction ones continued for awhile.

I did read every comic that came in. I did not buy them or save them, just read them off the comic rack and put back -- Archie, Fox and the Crow, Little Lulu, Porky Pig and friends, Roy Rogers and lots of westerns, Classics Illustrated, etc. My favorites of all were the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge adventures. But one grows up and like many others I put comics behind when we moved to Madison for my high school and college years.

When I moved to Minneapolis in the 1970s I became friends with David Mruz and other comic collectors. There was a comic book store and comic conventions. At some point I bought a lot of Disney comics at cheap prices and continued buying the early years of Gladstone Comics reprints in the 1980s, and hence the 4 boxes I have held onto.

For about five years I owned the Carl Barks lithograph "In Uncle Walt's Collectory" shown here. Bought it for around $500 and sold for $600 or so, as I recall. You can get a mint one on ebay for $850 so they have not gone up that much. My wife Chris always commented that the weird eyes on the ducks kind of creeped her out.

Most of the epic Barks adventures have been re-printed again and again, so I have acquired reading copies of all the major epics going back to "Pirate Gold" in 1942. That is, all except for the 1946 story "The Terror of the River" that I don't recall ever reading. I'd like to borrow the Gladstone reprint from someone.

Favorite stories among hundreds.... "The Old Castle's Secret" from 1948 with Donald, Uncle Scrooge in his second appearance and the nephews -- for sheer spookiness in a great castle. Funniest Duck story ever: "Letter To Santa" (1949) in which Huey, Dewey and Louie want a toy steamshovel for Christmas but Donald and Scrooge get them real ones instead. After a battle, Donald disguises as Santa to tell the boys he is out of steamshovels, then the real Santa enters to clear it all up. Favorite Scrooge adventure: "Seven Cities of Cibola" (1954) for the fabulous trek thru the desert to untold riches.

So nothing about movies today, just about what I've been doing. Reading comic books. Think I will go read another tale or two about Donald and the boys.

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Blog It Once, and Blog it Twice and....

2011-04-30T11:27:00.000-05:00

I just started a Movie Memories blog that you can check out HERE. I started the second blog so I could include the link on my Movie Memories home page. I can also include it in emails to activity directors. I have a Linkedin account and the link is in my profile. (Linkedin is kind of like Facebook for professionals in a field.)

Activity Directors do not particularly know or care about films being in the public domain. It seems unlikely they would have time to read about a lost James Mason film or the giant bats I saw in Tarzan Escapes as a kid. Hence a blog for just Movie Memories Activity should be useful.

The blog spot name http://moviememories.blogspot.com/ was already taken by someone named Rustie who has nothing at all on the page! Put in a hypen as in "movie-memories" goes to a Japanese page with nothing there. So I had to settle for "senior-movie-memories." That doesn't really matter since no one will type that on their computer, they will just click the link I supply.

There are some websites for Movie Memories that are not me! MM is a rather generic term. We all have memories of great films and times spent in a theater. I hope in time to establish my Movie Memories as a reminiscing activity for seniors.

Moviememories.com is a British website that sells original movie posters and memorabilia. Hollywoodmoviememories.com is a high quality blog/labor of love in which Carl DiNello discusses favorite classic movies. Yahoo search also found Movie Memories Hub Page by Bob Ewing -- a single blog about seeing films in the 1940s that was written two years ago. There are links to several Japanimation films called "Memories," which are also "Movies" and so come up in a search. Currently the Festival Films Movie Memories link is at the top of page 2 in a Yahoo search. My Movie Memories for Seniors is not yet a concept more than a few have heard about, so at the moment no one is going online to search for me under the key words "Movie Memories."

Have I put you to sleep yet? Here is some feedback I did not expect: "Patients with Alzheimers may not know what is real and what is not. Therefore it might be dangerous to show them the trailer for The Giant Claw." At first I panicked and thought I needed special Alzheimer volumes with all westerns, sci-fi, horror and action films removed. But wait a minute, might they also get spooked by animals on a beach in a cartoon? What might they make of a Busby Berkeley musical with girls used abstractly? Facilitators should know their patients well enough to NOT show Movie Memories to any who could not handle them. Think I will go with that theory for now!

The poster at the top rather disturbs me. It will not become my logo just because the film is called "Memory." It will never appear on my website or in a Movie Memories blog.

My first Movie Memories blog is a re-write of my Feb. 12 blog post. Check It Out!

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Rare James Mason film!

2011-04-22T22:58:00.005-05:00

There are many odd films out there that you never heard of or completely forgot about starring famous people -- public service films, commercials, industrial shorts, cameos on 1950s TV before they were famous, etc. It's always fun running across these.

A few examples I have seen recently: "Driver's of Tomorrow" is a late 1940s Jam Handy short narrated by Jimmy Stewart about a driver's ed program for grade school kids that uses miniature electric cars we all would have died to have. A Harpo Marx commercial for Pepsi that runs a minute and a half. He chases a girl offscreen only to return lusting for the bottle opener she had. A spooky Boris Karloff TV ad for Ronson lighters. "Your Hit Parade" from the early 1940s shot as a commercial for Lucky Strike but featuring Frank Sinatra singing "Stardust" and a number by Kay Kyser. George Reeves as Clark Kent selling Kellog's cereal.

A friend and associate recently acquired a fascinating film that I had never heard of. It is not listed at the IMDB, yet it was produced, directed by and features the one and only James Mason. "Star of Bethlehem" relates the birth of Christ from scriptures. It must have circulated widely to churches since there was a network of such religious films from the silent era up until home video in the 1980s. Many such as the "Christophers" shows were intentionally put into the public domain. There is a 1954 copyright on this film by "Portland Productions," but it does not seem to have been registered. The 16mm print acquired has several sections that say "Sponsor Message," leading one to assume it was shown on television.

The film was made in 1954, which is rather astounding since James Mason was at his peak as a Hollywood star appearing in A Star is Born, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and also Prince Valiant that year. He made no films in 1955, but in 1956 he made the rarely seen or even heard of "James Mason Show" on TV. I'd like to find a biography on Mr. Mason to understand this period of his career, because he went on to make dozens of other fine films like North by Northwest.

The film is obviously a labor of love, a family affair and an expression of Mason's Christian faith. It opens with James reading from a Bible the events that lead up to the Nativity. The lengthy reading is mesmerizing because of his deep, melodious voice. When the scripture calls for Mary to speak, his wife, British actress Pamela Mason, joins him to read that section.

The film then cuts to the bedroom where their six-year-old daughter Portland Mason, who was named after the wife of Fred Allen (!), is singing "Away in a Manger." Portland turns in a credible performance exuding natural innocence. James joins her and they talk about a bright star in the sky that might be the Star of Bethlehem. The Nativity scene with shepherds, wise men and a chorus of angels is then acted out by a cast of very young children ages 5 to 10 or so, with Portland playing Mary. You won't believe which future child star plays the part of Joseph, but you can watch a four minute clip for yourself right here that includes the closing credits:

The complete film runs 30 minutes. I wonder if Turner Classic Movies might like to show this unique film at Christmas time? TCM certainly loves James Mason, as well they should, and it never hurts to present a Christian story at Christmas time. You don't see overtly religious stories much anymore on TV, but host Robert Osborne could present the film in context. Any fan of James Mason would be grateful to see another aspect of him regardless of their religious convictions.

Visit my website www.fesfilms.com.

Youtube and Public Domain Music???

2011-04-09T09:21:00.006-05:00

The most basic and the simplest principle of Public Domain is that everything created Before 1923 is in the public domain. That means all books, fictional characters, plays, music and movies made before 1923 are free and clear to use in new projects. That's the law, but some robotic computers that oversee Youtube would like you to believe otherwise. Software scrutinizes the music on all videos put on Youtube trying to match with some music company's claim of ownership.

Quite awhile ago I tried to put up a video with a copyrighted track and Youtube said no. That's fair. They gave me the option of using one of their music tracks at no charge, but if you accept their offer then "ads may appear with your video." It was easier to add public domain music.

Movie Memories uses music for the introduction and later for the questions, all taken from a library of about 20 public domain music pieces written and performed before 1923. It's mostly ragtime, which goes with the nostalgia theme of Movie Memories. Sounds safe, but I got a copyright warning when I uploaded "In My Merry Oldsmobile" claiming that some company owned "Pickles and Peppers" as performed by Max Morath. The song was written in 1906, so where is the violation? They allowed the video to stay as is pending further review, but I replaced with different music.

Who wants to butt heads with Youtube? If they warn you three times to take down a video, and you ignore it, then they take down everything and cancel your site. Or that is what they used to do. With music they may have changed to the policy of video up OK / music not OK so silent video. It's such a joke, of course, because millions of videos on Youtube are copyrighted film excerpts from MGM, Warners, etc. I have never been told to take down a video.

I had more trouble uploading a segment of Betty White's "Life with Elizabeth" because I used the music "Joplin Ragtime Dance" over the questions. The song was written in 1902 but it was recorded in recent times by Josh Rifkin. I will admit they may have a copyright claim on a specific version recorded for a record album and later CD. The entire video did upload to Youtube with absolutely no sound track. I quickly discovered how to delete videos from Youtube!

I had more trouble uploading "The Giant Claw" for a project-in-development called "CineQwiz," because I was using 3 or 4 different pre-1923 music pieces. I kept uploading silent videos with a copyright warning but no list of what the offending piece was. I finally changed all the music to the 1921 "Wabash Blues," which is too repetitive but it was only a private demo sample. You might be happy to learn that "Stars and Stripes Forever" (1896) is acceptable to use on Youtube!

I currently have two warnings on older Youtube videos. Oct. 2009 I put up "Matinee Jr. for Libraries" and am warned that Craze Productions claims visual content. I have left it up because it's fun. Go watch it. I used Hal Roach music over the opening, and that is copyrighted but no warning on the music. All the films clips are public domain ones I have used often. Perhaps Craze put out one of them on a DVD???

The other warning is on Star Reporter in Hollywood. The film is in the public domain, clearly, but the theme song may have been copyrighted separately and may indeed be owned today by EMI Publishing. It is legal to show and sell this public domain film in its entirety, music included, but I don't want to debate the point with EMI and I have not heard from them. Why should I? There is no money to make and they don't monitor millions of warnings some computer spits out.

Here is the Movie Memory of "The Giant Claw" with PD music acceptable to Youtube:

Visit my website at Festival Films

Deeper Into Movie Memories

2011-03-19T10:58:00.004-05:00

The four initial volumes of Movie Memories are finished, plus additional programs of Musical Memories of the 1930s and Musical Memories of the 1940s. Each has onscreen questions at the end of the film segments. This forces a halt to movie viewing and a start to discussion of what has just been watched. Show a 1942 cartoon and ask "What do you remember of the war years?" The answers can be about the films or about the viewers' lives. Seniors love to reminisce and this gives them a "Memory Hour" in which to do so. Study Guides aid the group leader in coaxing out memories. You can view all the contents and Study Guides at the Movie Memories Website.

From visiting the Activity Director at Minnesota Masonic Homes I learned there is no product like this out there, and that there is a great demand for it. Nicole Will tried it in a number of sessions and gave a glowing review, plus a few ideas for improvement.

I see myself creating more programs and fine-tuning the current ones. The field is wide open and I want to find my audience before someone else "borrows" the idea and beats me to them. I will have a lot more to say in the future about the film segments and the programs. For today I offer my latest re-write about what Movie Memories are and how they work.

Movie Memories is a new Retirement Community Activity for seniors who grew up in the 1930s through the 1960s or who raised families during those years. Each DVD volume includes nostalgic TV ads, vintage cars, newsreels, musical numbers, action trailers, TV quiz shows and comedy, Sing Alongs and excerpts from classic films.

However, Movie Memories is more about reminiscing than watching movies. While seniors enjoy the films of their youth, they will also revisit the cars and trains, homes and schools, cafés and drug stores, hairstyles and fashions, toys and sports of that era -- and memories will flood back. Movie Memories is about sharing those memories! Responding to the films and sharing can become a fresh tool for both therapy and social interaction.

Movie Memories has been tested with excellent results: “The assisted living group really LOVED it. They were engaged, had a lot of discussion and said that it reminded them of the past. They are looking forward to doing it again and would like to do it monthly. I think the new music programs will be great for Alzheimers Unit, they respond better to music.” (Minnesota Masonic Homes)

Here is how it works. A facilitator shows short films one at a time from a DVD player connected to a television or projection TV system. Four onscreen questions after each segment kick off the topics to remember and discuss. The leader then re-asks those questions or reads others from the Study Guide related to the film just screened and the era it came from.

Discussions may go in any direction they want and take as long as the participants desire. For instance, “The Fifth Freedom” could spark a discussion of favorite Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies or how they enjoyed Arthur Godfrey and Perry Como on TV. It could also remind viewers of towns they grew up in, family life, first TV sets or how so many smoked during the 1950s. Thus several shorts can easily fill an hour with lively talk.

The purpose of Movie Memories is to open doors to the past and share what we recall. We all have memories of growing up and raising a family. What better way to revisit those days than by watching films from our formative years to jog memory and reminiscing with friends?

Please contact me if you know any Activity Directors in senior retirement communities, or ask them to visit my website.

Go directly to Movie Memories

Visit my website at Festival Films

Supreme Court Showdown!

2011-03-12T07:37:00.004-06:00

Do you remember when "It's a Wonderful Life" was in the public domain? It was making money for a lot of people. Republic Pictures wanted all the money for themselves so they bought rights to something that might have a connection - either music rights or a short story published when the film came out. Then they told the world: "We now own the film. Stop using it as public domain or we will sue you." Their ownership claim was shaky, but no PD dealer wanted to invest $100,000 or more to contest, because all they could win was the right for everyone to again use it freely. That is the eternal plight of the little man vs. the corporation.

But we do have a champion who will fight for even bigger issues, not just copyright issues, but basic human rights when they are usurped by corporate powers. That hero is the Stanford Law School.

In the mid-1990s two changes to the US copyright laws were railroaded through by the big corporations. The law at the time allowed one year of music, books and films to enter the public domain each year, 75 years after originally published. Works from the early 1920s had started going PD. This could not be allowed to stand because soon sound films would become PD and even Mickey Mouse. A copyright extension bill, called the Sonny Bono bill, was rushed through that extended copyright terms to 95 years from the death of the author. Since movies are made by studios it generally means 95 years from the year of release. All films made in 1922 or earlier were frozen as being in the public domain, but 1923 films, which were still under copyright because of being renewed, would not become PD until 2018.

The Stanford Law School was unable to overturn the copyright extension law. Let's hope they can halt any further extension in a few years.

The other copyright change was messier and very possibly unconstitutional. A large number of foreign films had fallen into the public domain in the USA because they had never been registered, or registered improperly or without © notices or not renewed. Major films include Kurosawa and Bergman films like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and also Breathless, Last Year at Marienbad, Buneul's Viridiana, Hitchcock's British films, Metropolis, Passion of Joan of Arc and many more. All of these I sold on 16mm in the 1970s before the advent of home video.

In 1994, Congress adopted legislation to move these works back into copyright, so U.S. policy would comport with an international copyright treaty known as the Berne Convention. The new law gave foreign companies two years in which to file new ownership papers with the Library of Congress. Most filings contain wording like:

	Reg. under GATT/URAA restoration

The companies were supposed to have something to do with making the films in the first place. There was, in my opinion, massive abuse of the filings by companies that had no involvement. But the main point is that congress should not have the right under the constitution to remove any works from the public domain once they have fallen into it.

Stanford rightfully and to their great credit took up this cause on behalf of the public. Before proceeding Stanford needed plaintiffs or petitioners to work for. The first one was Lawrence Golan who conducted the Denver Symphony Orchestra (I think). They were suddenly asked to pay large amounts of money to conduct Russian compositions from the 1920s which had been in the public domain.

A lawyer called me one day around 2000 and asked if I wanted to be part of this lawsuit. I readily agreed. Over the years I have supplied lists of foreign films that I used to sell as PD, but don't anymore. Stanford does all the rest. Months and years have gone by between contacts. One day someone called and said, "Hi, I'm your lawyer." I replied, "What lawyer?" The conversation improved after that.

After ten years of ups and downs in court rooms, the case will be heard by the Supreme Court! This is a major milestone! Please go to the blog of the lead attorney, Anthony Falzone, and read Details Here.

There will be more to this story!

Visit my website at Festival Films

Saturday Matinee Online!

2011-03-05T10:00:00.008-06:00

The long-anticipated (by me) Saturday Matinee website is now online at (where else?) saturdaymatinee.com. This is the culmination of a life-long dream of its creator, who first purchased the web domain name (saturdaymatinee.com) more than ten years ago!

I need to point out that while you can explore the site now, March is a test period to add more content and iron out bugs. A major press release in April will alert the public at large. Eventually you will find: "...no less than 10,000 videos, including more than 3,000 movies (including over 100 of the best silent movies), about 1,000 movie trailers, 1,000 or so cartoons, and 100’s of educational and historical documentaries and newsreels, plus over 50,000 old time radio episodes, and over 50,000 still images." I counted 49 episodes of "The Shadow" that you can listen to today, and the quality is excellent.

The full scope of the undertaking is discussed at the About Us section. To quote a bit:

"Saturday Matinee is about recorded entertainment. Here you will find the entertainers and artists whose work spans the decades, and what they produced, from the earliest days of the “Golden Age” of radio, from the earliest movies made by the pioneers of the industry, and from the birth of the phenomenon that is television. People have always needed entertainment, a means to learn more about the world around them, and a way to escape for a while into the world of imagination.

"Saturday Matinee is also about education. As you search through the immense library of images and programs you will see and hear and learn who the pioneers were, and how their art was produced and the way it has progressed through evolving technology.

"Saturday Matinee is also about nostalgia. It is about reliving the early days of radio, film, and TV, whether you are old enough to remember them or not. Be transported to a different time. For those who do remember the early days, it will spark memories of evenings at home with the family gathered around the big radio to hear the news and to be tantalized by the radio programs that brought comedy, romance, drama, mystery, cowboys and even monsters right into your living room.

"Viewing the original movies--the silents, the black and whites, the first 'talkies', the serial cliffhangers--will inspire memories of the theaters where you stood in line for your ticket, scanned the display cases in the lobby for your special treats (hard candy? chocolate bar?—what to choose?) and inhaled the aroma of freshly popped popcorn surrounding you while you found your seat as a hush fell and the lights dimmed. Where will the movie take you today? How will your hero manage to outwit the villains this week? And then later, watching the early television programs, in the comfort of your own home--cartoons for the children, documentaries for the entire family to watch and to learn from, dramas, comedies, variety shows, westerns--the world, brought right to you."

I have been working with this site for two years now. Eventually Saturday Matinee will carry online my Movie Memories in an area called "Community" where members may post memories of the films, the era, or past experiences that they recall while watching the film clips. They can also view other comments about the same films and post replies.

The success of Saturday Matinee will spur interest in the return of "Matinee at the Bijou." There is no competition since Bijou will be a series of DVDs or an eventual new series, while Saturday Matinee's exclusive domain is the Internet. We are all in this together for the same purpose -- to tell the world: "Hey! These old films are pretty darned fun and better than ever! Come take a look."

Click to visit saturdaymatinee.com

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Confession Time!

2011-02-26T08:15:00.008-06:00

February marks the two-year anniversary of getting the Café Roxy idea. In March of 2009 I met with my web-hoster friend, Andy Lehrfeld, at the Syracuse Cinefest and discussed opening a second website for the idea. I don't know exactly when it went online, but April 27, 2009, was my first blog entry. By that time I had a few programs ready, the free sample disc for anyone to try in their situation and early posters.

I always felt the poster idea was great. I make a poster to advertise each program to my potential customers, and they could use the same poster on their website or printed out to attract their audience. The early posters were crudely designed but I got better as I went along.

Anyway, as I embark on the new venture of "Movie Memories," it's a good time to be honest about the successes and failures of Café Roxy to date.

Café Roxy for Cafés -- BOMB!

To paraphrase the top of this page, the Roxy idea is that any establishment can show public domain movies at anytime. The ones I put into programs are ones that still entertain. I don't expect anyone to sit through Love Affair while eating a sandwich, even though it's an excellent film that is enjoyable watched on TV. So Café Roxy sounds like a good idea. It is a good idea. Everyone says it sounds like a good idea, which is why I leave the blurb at the top of my blog. The trouble is that no one wants to take a chance and try it.

It could be that restaurants and coffee houses are not adventuresome. Of course chains like Starbucks would have no interest and seem to be doing just fine as is. Independent dives would need to set up a viewing area, advertise, buy my shows and, uh... that doesn't sound that hard to do. The result would yield an experience no one else in town is doing and that should get some good press coverage.

More likely the fault is mine in not aggressively seeking out this audience. I explored it locally and found it to be too much work to promote on my own.

Café Roxy for Movie Theaters - Success!

Roxy Matinee programs are being shown in some movie theaters, and I hear constantly from new theaters thinking about trying them out. Many inquiries are from owners who have an old theater that they are refurbishing and want to try movies again as an addition to their live music and comedy shows. They do not want to compete with local theaters by showing the new films. Vintage films for a vintage theater is a better fit.

Festival Films has been in the search engines for years as a source for public domain films, so theaters thinking about showing PD films do find me. I have never done a publicity campaign or press releases for Café Roxy shows because I am also associated with a campaign to bring back "Matinee at the Bijou." The hit PBS series from the early 1980s still has a high name recognition, and will attract a wide audience when it comes back on DVD releases of the original episodes or as a new series in high definition.

Café Roxy for TV Stations -- Success!

I sell public domain films to independent cable and local access TV stations around the country. I offer all of the most popular PD films and TV shows. I can also offer the Roxy Matinees for the same price and they include cartoons, shorts and serial chapters -- an excellent value!

This past week I got a call from a Dallas TV station wanting horror films. They have a local "Count Dracula" host who wants to get back on the air and seemed excited about the "12 Nights of Horror" that includes "The Phantom Creeps" Serial. They would run it late Saturday night. If their time slot is open ended, the show with a host could run 2 1/2 hours, or if they need to fit into two hours, they could always cut a cartoon. I hope they follow through since the Twin Cities once had such a series hosted by our own "Count Dracula."

The Café Roxy Website -- BOMB!

My naive thinking was that a new website for a new idea would attract new business. The search engines did pick up on the website and if you type "Café Roxy" in... my site comes out on top! Yeah! #One! The problem is obvious -- no one knows about Café Roxy so no one searches for it. It is not a generic term like "Public Domain Films."

I thought perhaps I could make a big success Some Place, that would generate a major news article about vintage film revivals, and that would be syndicated around the country, and that would translate into hits on the website. That didn't happen.

Integration of Café Roxy & Festival Films -- SUCCESS!

I decided to switch back to one website in late March of 2010. You can see the home page on the left or explore the combined website HERE. My son Jeff who is a computer engineer and designer ran across a website design he thought would work well. (He once said about my old site: "I wouldn't buy anything from a website that looks like this.") Now an icon on the left directs one to a listing of public domain features and TV shows, while an icon on the right links to the Café Roxy Shows. The Movie Memories icon was just added two weeks ago. A selection of links on the left side and bottom appear on every page. I have had much favorable feedback over the ease of navigating the new site.

Fitting all the PD shows into the new format took several months, but I feel the results were well worth it. It now looks professional and fun for any new visitors who happen to drop in.

The Café Roxy Blog -- Big Success!

I don't think I have many regular readers since comments are rarely posted and Youtube videos I put up in connection with some article do not get many views. I never promote the blog other than giving it a link from my website. But it has been a huge success for me personally for these reasons:

I get ideas when I write about them for who knows who out there in cyberspace. I sometimes refer customers to specific blog posts to address questions.

The blog captures the evolution of ideas in time capsules, in case I ever need to prove ownership of an idea. So far no one is copying me that I know of!

Potential customers who find my site for the first time are likely to peek at the blog to check my credibility, and hopefully come away thinking -- This guy seems to know what he is talking about. One of my now-close associates, Jim Salmon, who opens Saturday Matinee website in March, contacted me in December 2009 after seeing my Matinee video promo on Youtube.

Much more on Saturday Matinee when it launches! Next week? Stay tuned.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Launching Movie Memories!

2011-02-12T08:45:00.009-06:00

On Jan. 8 I blogged about "Ideas to Launch a Scheme On." On Jan. 22 I mentioned in "The Birth of Festival Films" how I stumbled into selling 16mm classics to colleges that needed prints to own rather than to rent. I sum up in both that the key to a successful business is 1) Don't copy others. 2) Find a new audience. 3) Create a new product for that audience. They probably teach that the first day in Business 101, but I never took a basic business course in high school or college.

Around the first of December I put on my thinking cap to find that new product for a new audience. I found it in the shorts I have been collecting for Café Roxy Matinees and Cartoon Brunches. I found it in an old project from 1998 that I failed to pursue properly - "The Remembering Series." My sell sheet is on the right. Click to enlarge if interested. I sent out a few of these to retirement communities in Minnesota, made a few sales and then decided it was too hard to reach this audience.

I spell out the basic idea well: "This unique video series is designed for the entertainment and enjoyment in retirement and nursing home facilities. Your residents will revisit moments from their past that made them laugh, cry, tap their toes and sing their hearts out. These professionally produced, quality presentations are absolutely guaranteed to delight or your money back! We can make this guarantee because the contents were selected in consultation with leaders in the Senior Activities field. The videos have been tested on audiences with overwhelming acclaim!"

One problem was that the short films were on VHS and could not be accessed easily. Another problem was they were just a collection of films to watch. Retirement homes all have Activity Directors, whose job is to supply activities. I found a way to turn old movies into activities: Watch them one at a time as a group of friends. Pause the show. Ask questions related to the film just seen. The questions stir memory and spark discussions that can go in any direction. Music can even reach alzheimer seniors. I explain it further on the DVD covers:

Movie Memories are nostalgic films from the 1930s through the 1960s. They may be watched for historical interest, as time capsules into eras long vanished or for pure enjoyment of the music, stars and family-friendly stories.

Movie Memories are designed to be shown to seniors who grew up in those years. Watching the films they enjoyed in their youth -- as well as the television shows and newsreels, the cars and trains, homes and schools, filling stations and drug stores, hairstyles and fashions, toys and sports -- will serve as a catalyst to reminisce about their pasts.

Movie Memories work well with small groups of friends who enjoy talking together. A moderator or group leader shows films one at a time from a DVD player connected to a television or projection TV system. After each segment is screened, they read trivia about the film and ask questions from the study guide. The discussion should be encouraged to go in any direction it wants and take as long as the participants desire. For instance, “The Fifth Freedom” could spark a discussion of favorite Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies or how they enjoyed Arthur Godfrey and Perry Como on TV. It could also lead into small towns they grew up in, or happy memories of family life, or how everyone smoked during the 1950s. One short could thus fill an hour with lively talk.

Not every film will have a direct connection to normal lives, since few have been astronauts, cowboys or big game hunters, but every vintage film will stir memories of a way of life through the images frozen in time. Every good story will touch on the universal themes of good and evil, conflict, goals, success, love and friendship. Discussion can always return to the movie-going experience: “The popcorn was so good and only cost a dime.” “Roy Rogers was my hero.” “We took a streetcar to the Roxy every Saturday afternoon.” “I got my first kiss watching Tarzan.”

The purpose of Movie Memories is to encourage discussion of any topic. We all have memories of growing up and raising a family. What better way to recall our pasts than to revisit those days on film and reminisce in the company of friends?

Movie Memories has been launched on my website! You can peruse the contents of the first two volumes and the Study Guides that a moderator reads from to spark discussions.

Launching in March to great fanfare will be "Saturday Matinee" website. This is not mine, but I have been contributing. I will have much more to say about it soon. An online version of Movie Memories will be included. Watch the short films, then write about your memories of them or of incidents in your life that the films brought back.

You can watch the first Movie Memory right now and right here:

Now I just need to find out how to reach thousands of activity directors for seniors! Visit my website at Festival Films

The Last Post ... About Posters!

2011-01-29T08:08:00.010-06:00

I have become a bit addicted to movie poster auctions when I have one up for bids. Especially on the last day I check ten or more times, maybe even ten times in the last five minutes, because I have been rewarded with big leaps. Each higher price means more in my pocket. It's a game, and I am the winner.

Last week I auctioned this lobby card for Dial M For Murder with Grace Kelly (or her stand-in) back to the camera. I didn't realize what an iconic image it was when I consigned it to the auction. Tuesday at 1:30pm it had a bid of $170. Eight bids later it closed at $387!

I recommend www.emovieposter.com. They answer queries about posters you are thinking of sending to them. They take care of all problems. There rarely are any! They pay promptly. Emovie has an archive of 363,658 posters they have sold in the past. Go to their Image Archive to research the value of your poster collection. Simply type in a title to see what various size posters have sold for in the past. Emovie pays the most for posters auctioned with a sliding scale that keeps 20% for items that sell for over $1,000 and 28% for those selling between $100 and $300. At 26% for the Dial M lobby card, I should get a check for $287. I am very happy about the arrangement since Emovie does all the work and I could never reach every serious poster collector in the world by auctioning it myself on ebay.

Here are the benefits of consigning to emovie.com in their own words:

The only work you do is getting your items to us. We do everything else!
No hidden agenda. We stand by what we say and will never mislead you.
We NEVER buy items from you because that would put us in direct conflict with our consignment based business, and we would be on "the opposite side" from you, needing to buy your items for a low price. When you consign to us, we are "on the same side" so if your items sell for more, then you get more and we also get more. This means we are highly motivated to get the most for your items.
You get an audience of 8,236 movie paper collectors who know us (many have been buying from us for 20 years) and who know that we always describe everything honestly and usually send purchases out within two business days of receiving payment, very securely wrapped in specially made extra-strong boxes and tubes. This makes bidders more likely to bid on an item we're offering than one offered by someone unknown to them (like you!).
Since we auction on a regular schedule every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday offering 1,000 to 2,000 items a week, bidders are more inclined to look over our auctions because we will probably have something to interest them. There are thousands of people who check our auctions every single time, and who would probably miss your item if it is auctioned any other way, because they simply don't have the time to check out other auction sites on a regular basis!

I recently auctioned the above poster for Ministry of Fear and it sold for $415. I don't even remember how I acquired the poster. I once owned a 16mm print of the film and the poster might have been included free, or I might have picked up the poster cheaply because I owned the print. I also sold a lobby card from the film last week for $112, and I am keeping another lobby card because I don't think it would sell for much.

My Dirty Harry poster sold for $333. It's a striking image and a landmark film in the career of one of the greats, but the poster was not in the best condition. No one-sheets from this film are in great shape because they were printed on a kind of glossy paper that picked up wear along the folds as soon as they were folded, and all one-sheets were folded. In the weeks after mine sold, two others sold for $205 and $249.

Apparently poor condition does not hamper the sale price of the rarest of rare posters. I could not believe how poor this lobby card for Frankenstein was or how much it sold for. It was found in a barn! Anyway, the final selling price this week was $4,608! Some restorer has a lot of work ahead of them.

How do I feel about selling posters I have owned for many years? Just fine! The reason is because I kept them in boxes and never displayed them on walls so that they had a chance to become part of my life. Yes, I sure wish I had bought more posters over the years ... so I could sell them now! I do feel good about spotting quality posters that I could not walk away from. I mentioned in my earlier post about auctioning posters, that a lobby card for Lady from Shanghai sold for $900.

Why is this my last post about posters? Because I have sold all the good ones in my collection. I am keeping a few, but no more big auction deals will be coming up for me, at least not from the ones I bought years ago. I guess I need to look through old barns for more!

Visit my website at Festival Films

The Birth of Festival Films!

2011-01-22T08:10:00.007-06:00

Two weeks ago I wrote about ideas for using public domain films. Nothing much is ever new NEW, but put together in creative ways one may find a profitable market. In brief I said: 1) Don't copy others. 2) Find a new audience. 3) Create a new product for that audience. This reminded me how Festival Films started 35 years ago following those same principles. It all began way back when...

I bought my first 16mm film in 1968. Not sure which feature I got first, but Goldiggers of 1933, the 1949 Mark of Zorro and Bride of Frankenstein were among the first acquisitions. Oops, off track. I moved to Minneapolis in late 1969 to work at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater. I ran the "Xanadu Film Festival" film society from 1971 to 1974 on the University of Minnesota campus. I invested that added income in more 16mm films, which we showed again and again at the society.

During my film buying of the early 1970s I came across several companies that openly sold 16mm films through catalogs -- Griggs Moviedrome (run by Robert E. Lee), Thunderbird Films (Tom Dunahoo), Em Gee Film Library (Murray Glass), Niles Films, Wonderland Films and of course Blackhawk Films. Wonderland sold a lot of copyrighted films they did not have the rights to sell, and some private individuals did that as well. Blackhawk had licensed films of Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang. But those other companies, particularly Griggs and Thunderbird, sold the same films month after month from negatives and they added to their catalogs with new releases. That is how I discovered public domain films.

On a parallel track and because I showed films on the University campus, I came to notice that many colleges taught film making or at least had basic film history courses. I had taken a few at the University of Wisconsin from 1964 to 1968. They used the same classics year after year like Birth of a Nation, Potemkin, Grand Illusion, The Great Train Robbery, A Trip to the Moon -- but they rented them with mixed results from Budget Films, Films Incorporated, Audio Brandon, Kit Parker Films and Swank Films. Before Video this was the only way to show films. However, prints were often scratched and worn out or incomplete or of poor quality.

After a few years of groggy awareness of the situation, the big idea finally permeated my skull -- I could sell new 16mm prints from the film companies I had a relationship with direct to colleges who were unaware that they could OWN films they were currently RENTING. When I went to the 16mm suppliers I was delighted to find that would not only work for them but they could offer me an additional discount. Therefore I could retail the films for the same price they sold them for and make a good profit off my discount.

My wife Christine and I began selling to colleges in 1975 via small lists. It was successful enough to issue a 32-page catalog in 1976 that is dated 1977 -- the one shown here with Peter Lorre from "M." The text was typewritten with larger film titles in press-on lettering. The prices of brand new lab prints was absurdly low, with the price of a two-reel Chaplin at $50 and a two-hour film like Paisan at $225. A few years later Eastman Kodak doubled the cost of raw film stock but in the 1970s it was quite cheap.

In the catalog introduction I say: "Welcome to our third year as 16mm film distributors! All films listed in this 1977 catalog are FOR SALE. All films are out of copyright and so may be legally purchased. They may be used for most public and private screenings by film collectors, film societies, schools, libraries and art museums. You may charge admission for the showings. Some of the silent films are available with newly-recorded music tracks which have been copyrighted, and so these prints may not be shown theatrically or on television without permission. All films are in new condition and are printed at professional film labs."

The idea of selling a new product to a customer base who needed them ... worked incredibly well! In retrospect I could have quit my day job, invested $10,000 to reach every college and library in the country, hired people and made my fortune before I was 30. Actually someone else did this. About two years after we started, Reel Images showed up doing the same thing. The two owners were Jon Sonneborn and Marty Kearns. One summer on a trip to Hollywood we visited Marty in a little office where he and three hired assistants were processing orders by putting 16mm films on reels and boxing them up to ship. Four guys, as I recall, and Jon had another operation on the East coast. That's when it hit me. I could have been big. But I did not have the business training to know how to build on my success. I did not strike while the old iron was hot.

The catalog at the top is our last 16mm film catalog, dated 1988. The one at the bottom is our last printed film/video catalog from 1993. A lot happened in between and since.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Must Read P.D.!

2011-01-15T11:53:00.004-06:00

Most of my business involves the sale and use of public domain films. I advise new customers to familiarize themselves with the PD concept -- how, when and why certain films become public domain and can therefore be re-sold, shown on TV, the Internet or almost any use you want to do with them. It can be confusing, so to clarify it in my own mind I wrote up a discussion of copyright and public domain about 8 years ago and posted it on my website. While I may generalize a bit attempting to make it understandable, it is worth reading. If anyone is aware of gross errors, please let me know!

I am happy to report that two law schools have written up the subject far better and more thoroughly than I could ever attempt. Yes, law schools, whose students and faculties are fighting for our rights to use our own cultural and artistic heritage in new works, or simply to read, see or hear them. I could go on and on, but I won't because they have said it better.

First is the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Website. Go to their home page and click on "Overview" in the top bar, which will lead to dozens of links about Copyright, Fair Use and Public Domain. I have had some contact with Stanford these past ten years since I am one of the plaintiffs in the ongoing "Golan vs. Holder" case. The latest setback was in June 2010 as you can read about HERE. I should devote a column to this. In brief:

Plaintiffs brought this action challenging the constitutionality of Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (“URAA”), Pub. L. No. 103-465, § 514, 108 Stat. 4809, 4976–81 (1994) (codified as amended at 17 U.S.C. §§104A, 109), which granted copyright protection to various foreign works that were previously in the public domain in the United States.

We did not feel it was constitutional for the copyright law to be changed retroactively so that older films which we had been using as public domain, like "Triumph of the Will" and "Metropolis," were suddenly again protected by copyright. For the record, I do not think that was right! The next and final route for the appeal to repeal is the Supreme Court. Stanford Law School and students, to their great credit, do all the legal work at no charge to the plaintiffs since they feel it is a right fight for the good of the public.

More recently I have become aware of the superb website of the Duke Law School Center for the Study of the Public Domain. This is the "Must Read P.D." I refer to in my title. Go to their site. Spend hours. Read much. Learn more.

Here is an excerpt from "Public Domain Day, 2011": On the first day of each year, Public Domain Day celebrates the moment when copyrights expire. You can read more about Public Domain Day around the world at Communia's excellent site here. The films, photos, books and symphonies whose copyright term has finished become “free as the air to common use.” The end of the copyright on these works means that they enter the public domain, completing the copyright bargain.

Except this refers only to copyrighted works becoming public domain in Europe. In the USA, nothing ever changes. The corporate powers keep changing the copyright laws so they will own everything forever. Seems like it anyway. There is a whole lot more at the site, hours of reading, including a 75 page comic book that goes into the intricacies or making a documentary film these days because of all the rights, incidental logos and music and ringtones and on and on that might show up in the real world you are filming.

Anyone interested in public domain should explore this wonderful resource.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Ideas to Build a Scheme On!

2011-01-08T07:48:00.007-06:00

My topic title derives from the great Louis Armstrong standard "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," which he sings in the Mickey Rooney film The Strip, that I enjoyed on TCM last month. The song, according to the film, was written by the character played by William Demarest. This tidbit of Hollywood lore may be the only thing of interest in today's ranting, which is as dry as The Road to Morocco's desert (tonight on TCM).

I should really write about the wonderful job Turner Classic Movies performs year after year for film fans everywhere. The Star of the Month for January is a producer for the first time -- Hal Roach -- and TCM already ran ten or so hours of silent Our Gang comedies, most of which I had not seen. The weeks ahead promise rare Charlie Chase, Thelma Todd, Harry Langdon and the Taxi Boys. If you haven't enjoyed Ben Blue and the Taxi Boys to date, don't feel left out. No one has ever enjoyed them.

I digress. Quite a few people have come to me over the years looking for public domain films. Ah, the glamour and thrill of it all! If they are a small TV station, a movie theater, an internet site looking to add free movies for viewing, a film society or any bar/restaurant venue that wants to add films, then my Festival Films website can guide them to public domain films, programs and hints for using them.

However, some don't have a specific use and aren't quite sure what to do. They just like the idea of movies you don't have to pay for and can do almost anything you want with. I first ask: "Who are you planning to sell to?" and "How do you plan to reach them?" Line up a few customers before you invest in masters. Have a business plan. Talk it over with friends and family first.

I have been pondering my own additional advice the last two weeks in order to add a web page of ideas. Here are some general principles to consider if you want to make money with public domain films.

#1 Don’t copy others.

Forget retail and internet sales of single PD titles, 2-paks or 10 westerns for $10. Companies like Alpha, Mill Creek, Movies Unlimited and Timeless have cornered this market for years.

If you want to try retail, then develop new concepts with a catchy name like “Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll” or “Prehistoric Television.”

#2 Find a New Audience.

Sell PD films where they are not now being sold. Target a specific audience and advertise where they buy non-film stuff related to their hobby. Find a printed mail order catalog (of anything) that is not already selling DVDs, then get them to carry popular PD films like Lucy, Beverly Hillbillies, WW-II documentaries. Sew up these deal before investing in DVD masters, packaging or advertising. Here are some specific ideas:

>> Sell war films to WW-2 veterans. A great idea 25 years ago when it was tried to death. You can't do it now because too many vets have passed on, but I just saw a TV ad for "Dogfights of World War II" so war interest remains.

>> I sold exclusive Bing Crosby films to Crosby fans for years through their magazines. This business has died back due to using up all of Bing's PD films and few new fans surfacing.

>> Market Black heritage films to schools that teach black history.

>> Create a “Legends of Golf” video to sell only in golf course golf shops or in golfing magazines.

>> Sell westerns in tack stores that cater to horse owners.

>> Create a baseball video to sell in Baseball Hall of Fame or thru sports venues.

>> Create a Circus DVD to sell at circus museums in Baraboo, Wis., and Sarasota, FL.

>> Sell Jazz films to colleges with music studies.

>> Religious Book Stores. Sell “Crossroads” TV shows labeled as “Stories of Faith.”

To be a success selling special videos to target audiences, it helps to be inside that specific hobby world and to have experience selling to colleges and to golf, tack, religious, etc., shops.

3) Create a New Product made from Public Domain Films.

Think outside the box. Create a new product that you can copyright and own. Some ideas:

Make documentaries. Even today simple documentaries could be made on JohnWayne, Gary Cooper or Cary Grant, using trailers from their major movies plus public domain film clips from their few PD movies. Naturally you should find a buyer before making your film!

Create DVDs to be given away free as premiums inside another product, like sports clips inside a Wheaties box. I considered pitching this to Act-II Popcorn to give away inside boxes of microwave popcorn. They could give free discs of "An Old-Fashioned Christmas," "Color Cartoon Festival" or "Saturday Matinee Memories."

Saturday Matinees for movie theaters or TV stations. I do this now at Café Roxy and have been working to bring back the hit PBS series from the 1980s -- Matinee at the Bijou -- on a national platform.

Sell movie trailer discs to sports bars to run when no live sports are on. While I offer these, I have not actively pursued sports bars. Someone who already sells them large-screen TVs might have some luck.

Produce TV series with a name host who introduces PD features, shorts, TV, etc. I recently became aware there is such a series of PD horror films hosted by the ever-popular (at least you've heard her name) -- Elvira. Go check out Elvira's Movie Macabre to see if it plays in your area and for this week's show.

Dub PD films into Spanish. Find where and how to sell them first!!!

Add comment track to films based on books, then sell to a book company to include with sales of the same book.

*****

I have been pondering these and similar ideas for my own future projects, and it worked! I did come up with some new ideas to develop. Exactly what, I'm keeping to myself, but the thought process might work for you.

New product for a new audience = new business venture.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Quest for the Lightning Warrior!

2011-01-01T00:23:00.011-06:00

The Lightning Warrior is a 1931 Mascot serial starring Rin-Tin-Tin. The mysterious, black-cloaked "Wolf Man" leads a band of Indians in terrorizing settlers in a western town. With the help of Rinty, young Jimmy Carter unmasks the Wolf Man and foils his evil plot. Jimmy is played by 14-year-old Frankie Darro who made 6 Mascot serials. The hero, Alan Scott, is actor George Brent in his first film and only action film. George spent the next 20 years in Warners dramas opposite Bette Davis and the like. Aging dog star Rin-Tin-Tin, who is doubled in some scenes, died a few weeks after completion.

I have always felt The Lightning Warrior is one of the best Mascot serials. Other serial fans don't agree with me, which could be because they never had a chance to properly see it like I did as a child. The film needs a major restoration. I have been looking. The following dates are approximate.

1953. At the age of seven I watch The Lightning Warrior one chapter a week on TV. It captures my imagination as few films had up to then due to the chapter endings, stunts, location sets and horror elements. Yes, horror. The mystery villain is cloaked like the Phantom of the Opera with a wide black hat that obscures his face. His every appearance is forewarned by howling, shadows and darkness. He hangs out in caves where he meets his minions. Many are suspected, but no one knows his identity.

Location filming was done in rugged mountain terrain on real sets of sawmills or mining camps. The second chapter ending is one of my favorites from all serials, partly because of the mining setting. Small ore cars suspended on cables like a sky ride in an amusement park transfer ore across a gorge. Jimmy and Alan chase the Wolf Man to the actual location but Alan is delayed by henchmen. The Wolf Man climbs into one of the ore cars to escape and young Jimmy leaps as it leaves the station, catching and dangling from the rim. Rin-Tin-Tin jumps into the car and battles the cloaked villain. The bottom of the ore car opens and Rinty plummets. Jimmy lunges for his pal....

In the 1950s the Mascot serials were distributed to TV stations around the country on 16mm prints that were newly struck from the original negatives. They got a lot of use!

1971. I spend 3 weeks in New York City. Courtesy of Leonard Maltin I am introduced to "Joe's Place," a weekend film club run by Joe Judice. It's a real hole in the wall a few blocks from Times Square, maybe 16 foot square where 20 fans could crowd in. Film buffs who frequented the place that I later came to know include John Cocchi, Alan Barbour, Rick Scheckman and Ed Hulse. They often watched triple features of B-westerns, but on the Saturday afternoon I came they showed the complete serial "Daredevils of the Red Circle." Joe had a large serial collection including one of the TV prints of The Lightning Warrior.

1986. (That's a jump, isn't it!) My wife and I host Cinecon 21 in Minneapolis, and select some of the films. I heard that Joe Judice would attend and I asked Joe to bring the first three chapters of The Lightning Warrior since I had not seen any of them since I was a kid. We scheduled them for midnight, then find I don't have the energy I used to for late night showings, and so have to stand during the screening to stay awake. Through dozing on my feet I am still impressed by the serial, especially the endings of chapters 1 and 2.

Joe Judice moves back to Puerto Rico. He and his films disappear.

2003. I watch The Lightning Warrior on VHS from VCI Video, who no longer sells it. l am sorely disappointed for two reasons. First, pretty lousy quality. You can make out what is going on and follow the plot, but it is just below a standard I can enjoy. I understand why no one else is much excited by the film. I try different versions from Alpha Video and Mill Creek Video, but all came from the same poor film transfer.

Even worse, the last five minutes from Chapter #1 is missing! This terrific action scene with great camera and stunt work sets the tone for the rest of the film that anything can happen. Some of the settlers try to escape in covered wagons but are attacked by Indians in a running chase battle that Republic did so well a few years later. The heroine gets knocked out back into the wagon. Alan Scott transfers to the horses to control the wagon. An Indian also jumps to the horses and they grapple on the wagon tongue. They fall between the horses and hang under the wagon until Alan kicks the Indian away. Yes, it is Yakima Canuut, the king of stuntmen, doing his most famous stunt that he performed so many times like in Stagecoach. This is the very first time Yak ever fell between horses under a wagon and yet managed to get back up!

When Alan gets back in the wagon with the heroine they are far from safe. The horses run off, the wagon stalls and begins rolling backward down a long hill. Escape seems hopeless with the Indians in hot pursuit, especially when the wagon rolls over a cliff and crashes below for the fade out. How could they possibly escape? Although missing in all current DVDs, I knew this was the chapter ending because it shows up in the re-cap to Chapter #2. I recalled the under-the-wagon action from having seen it myself though quite a few years earlier.

2004. I go to a friend's house (Dan Bursik) to watch films. Among others we screen the 1936 Gene Autry film The Big Show. Gene plays a stunt man in B-westerns and in the first scene a Hollywood camera crew films the lost action footage, the Indian attack, from The Lightning Warrior! It is stock footage with close-ups of Gene replacing the close-ups of George Brent. Mascot producer Nat Levine also produced The Big Show for Republic.

I take this scene, the head of chapter two and the Indian attack on wagons footage that is repeated in Chapter 12 to recreate the lost footage. My version runs just over two minutes.

c. 2007. I become friendly with Bruce Cardoza who has a company Restored Serials. Please check out his site since his serial quality is excellent. After awhile I tell Bruce about my quest to find the lost ending to Chapter #1 of The Lightning Warrior.

Bruce finds it!

He obtains a VHS copy from a long time serial collector who does not recall where or when he got it, but the ending is all there. Bruce times it at about five minutes but reports the VHS quality is not good enough to warrant restoration efforts. However, he could insert the missing scenes into a new film transfer if he could find a 16mm or 35mm print. On a related front, The Serial Squadron does have the 16mm print that the incomplete videos came from. They could obtain better quality with a new transfer, but don't want to issue one with such an important scene missing. Bruce and the Serial Squadron have not reached an agreement for working together.

And that's where the matter stands. If I visit Bruce in Hollywood he will show me the footage. If and when he can restore the film he will surely do so. Perhaps the footage will turn up somewhere else. Perhaps Joe Judice's print still survives and will surface. Perhaps SONY has 35mm material on the Mascot serials, since I have heard that they purchased the library years ago. All of Mascot's films are in the public domain.

The quest goes on. I hope to re-see The Lightning Warrior someday to re-live a thrill from my youth. Here is my Chapter #1 ending restoration plus the cliffhanger from Chapter #2:

Visit my website at Festival Films

1994 Hall Family Christmas Picture!

2010-12-25T09:49:00.005-06:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone! I just found the photo I referred to in my Aug. 22, 2009 blog. Since Santa Claus is also in the picture, it must be Christmas time! Or could it be the Mystery Science Theater 3000 costume ball at their first convention?

So I found the 9/19/94 New York Times in the bottom of a box of movie posters. The picture was not on the cover like I remembered but way back on page 2 of the entertainment section. I built the robot head out of fiber glass using techniques I had learned in the prop department at the Guthrie Theater. In retrospect, the head is too big for the rest of the costume since I am no giant, although it helped boost the costume above 7 feet. I won first prize, probably for strutting around in discomfort, and almost fell getting off the stage. The only video we have of the robot in the parking lot and entering the convention is incorporated into THIS VIDEO.

Click on the photo to open it full size. Besides me, the big tin one, Scott Johnson is a deranged Torgo from "Manos, the Hands of Fate." Scott is my brother-in-law. My son Jeff (age 13 at the time) is the short Torgo in the middle. My wife Chris is behind Scott with her back to the camera. Santa Claus is...?

So Merry Ho-Ho-Ho Christmas from the Hall family, 1994.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Spoooky Thrillers!

2010-12-18T11:49:00.008-06:00

I have always been fascinated by "haunted house" films and TV shows. The earliest one that made an impression was some version of Mary Roberts Rinehart's THE BAT glimpsed on a flickering TV. This might have been the "Broadway Television Theatre" version broadcast live in November of 1953 when I was 7. There is also a "Dow Hour of Great Mysteries" version from 1960, which I should have remembered more clearly being 14 at that time. It is unlikely either will ever surface for a re-see. My memory is people walking down dark hallways and stairs by candlelight. A masked madman stalks the creepy mansion. Suspense builds. The unseen in the shadows engenders fear until... something happens.

That pretty much sums up horror films! I always try to watch a haunted house film today, but mostly they put me to sleep. Seriously, most do not deliver and simply bore. What still spooks one today is a good question with a different answer for everyone. The 1927 Cat and the Canary superbly establishes mood with terrific sets and camerawork, but excessive comedy and unappealing stars Laura LaPlante and Creighton Hale weaken the second half.

The 1930 sound remake called The Cat Creeps is a lost film! I urge you to watch the fascinating 1 minute and 43 seconds that survive although without sound track here on Youtube. The 1926 version of "The Bat" succeeds with eerie shadows and real danger, as does the fascinating 1930 remake by Roland West shot in 70mm widescreen! I need to re-watch the 1959 version with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorhead though I've always felt it lacked shadows, dark camerawork and mood.

Other childhood horrors I remember fondly lurched through the gothic episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, all of which were released on video this year. I have been watching them daily for the past few weeks courtesy of Netflix. Half of them are merely crime stories and I skipped a few. Ah, but a lot of the scary shows are absolutely terrific with stories by Robert Bloch, direction by John Newland, Ida Lupino and John Brahm and starring William Shatner, Henry Daniell, Patricia Medina, Ron (Sherlock Holmes) Howard and Karloff himself. Better yet, the best ones still frighten. You can watch a six minute Promo Reel with highlights from the spookiest shows. One viewer commented the following, which is better said than I can:

"The horror episodes of Thriller are the best ever done. They are truly frightening - not the pathetic hack/slash/gore formula common nowadays, a poor substitute for geniune fear, which these episodes so convincingly convey. They are in a class by themselves, true masterworks of the horror genre. Beg, borrow, or steal a video copy of them. Wait until night, when things are still, then turn off the lights and watch them. You will not be disappointed."

The episode I remembered by title all these years since 1962 was The Hungry Glass with William Shatner. It unfolded a bit different than I recalled, but the scene of two ghosts pulling the heroine into the mirrors startled me. They all have outstanding sets, dark lighting, shadows and slow trips up stairs to the locked door. Some are half hour stories stretched to fill hour shows, but the padding creates suspense that today's TV has no patience with. The first horror episode is the seventh show in the series -- The Purple Room. A man must stay overnight in an eerie house in order to inherit. He is visited by a specter resembling the James Cagney make-up of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera for "Man of a Thousand Faces."

Karloff first acts in the tenth episode, "The Prediction," about a mentalist who starts seeing the truth about the future. A good show but not scary. "The Cheaters" features a decrepit house where spectacles are created that show the wearer the truth; years later a man returns to the even more run down place to see his truth, which naturally drives him mad. Don't miss "The Well of Doom" with Henry Daniell costumed like the vampire in London After Midnight and acting like the Devil himself. Don't miss "Parasite Mansion," "The Prisoner in the Mirror," "The Premature Burial" or "The Devil's Ticket."

Perhaps spookiest of all is "The Pigeons from Hell." Adapted from a Robert E. Howard story, taking place entirely at night, two brothers from up north whose car is trapped in the mud somewhere in the Deep South who take refuge in a deserted plantation house devoid of furniture surrounded by noisy pigeons who give off otherworldly vibes. As they settle down for a night's sleep, one brother ventures upstairs, only to return a few moments later with a split forehead, blood streaming down his face, hatchet in hand and looking ready to kill. The other brother flees the big house, runs into the woods, falls down, and is found by the local sheriff to whom he relates his harrowing experience. The investigation continues into the night and into the gloom of a forbidden room where the lantern keeps blowing out.

Watch if you dare....

Visit my website at Festival Films

What Are the 39 Steps?

2010-12-11T08:19:00.010-06:00

At the climax of Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 suspense classic The 39 Steps, hero Richard Hanney yells at the stage of the crowded London Palladium the enigmatic question: "What are the 39 Steps?" This is my favorite movie moment ever! These are my fond reflections on that oft-viewed scene that still stops my heart with anticipation of the answer.

The specific answer (revealed under the video below) really doesn't matter. In the John Buchan 1915 adventure novel from which Hitchcock borrowed the title and hero's name but little else, the 39 Steps refers to a specific location in Scotland where 39 steps lead down to the ocean. I read the novel as a teenager but don't recall details. I hated the 1959 color remake because it copied the original scene for scene but extremely poorly. The 1978 and 2008 versions go back to the book and I need to check them out.

Needless to say, do not read further unless you have seen the 1935 original. You can watch it online right this second if you subscribe to Netflix. A high quality six-part download starts here on Youtube. The last seven minutes that include my favorite movie scene and favorite moment are in the video below.

Let's back up. Many of these blog ramblings are about what films impressed me when I was young, because those happy times turned me into the raving cineaste who continues to watch away his life. Not a complaint, but that's who I am. I first saw The 39 Steps in 1964 when I was a senior in high school. I saw it in the small movie theater inside the University of Wisconsin student union in Madison. Though not yet a college student, anyone could walk in to see the films. Both my mother and father had attended the U. We lived about one mile from the western edge of the University and five miles from the student union on the eastern end, and I was comfortable going there on my own.

I had long been a Hitchcock fan from his 1955-1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show. I had lived through a solo theater viewing of Psycho (1960) when I was 14, and had seen The Birds first run in a theater only recently. However, I had never had the chance to see The 39 Steps or any of his other early films. They did not show British films on TV in those days. No video, either, though it's hard to imagine those dinosaur days before VHS came into common usage around 1980. Few film books had been written either. I had William Everson's "Classics of the Silent Screen" (1959) but his "Films of Laurel and Hardy" was not published until 1967.

I mention the dark ages of film scholarship and accessibility to explain one simple fact: when I walked into The 39 Steps screening that memorable evening, I had absolutely no idea what the film was about! I only knew it was an Alfred Hitchcock film about an innocent man on the run, pursued by both the police and a spy ring. I assume I knew that much, but I had read nothing more. The time, location, setting and viewing age can all affect one's reaction to a great film. Watching it for the first time today on Youtube you can see how good it still is, but you can't possibly share my emotional response.

I'll skip most comments about great acting, sets, camera work, ingenious plot and man-on-the-run theme that Hitchcock used many times. I do love that vintage helicopter! There is a big surprise right in the middle when Hanney is shot point-blank by the villain and crumples to the floor. You expect he will get out of his predicament in some manner when he walks into the lion's den, but not by being shot dead. Like the shower scene in Psycho, after this point the viewer can be led down any garden path the director chooses, or is it "up?"

One escape and adventure follows another with the hero and viewer wondering "What the heck is going on?" right up to the denouement in the London Palladium. The suspense builds by painting Hanney into an impossible trap. Wanted for murder, he is surrounded by dozens of police closing in. Only he and Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) are aware of a spy ring stealing secrets that day and that moment. Hanney connects the villain with a missing finger to the vaudeville act onstage, Mr. Memory who knows everything. The viewer figures it out at the same time, and yet how can Hanney possibly extricate himself? How? How? How? The question lingers as the suspense builds. There is no obvious way out.

The quick thinking of the hero saves the day, unlike conventional climaxes resolved by a bullet, fight or chase. Hanney turns the tables on Mr. Memory by challenging him in his own act with the question "What are the 39 steps?" In the brief moment that follows the viewer absolutely knows that Memory must answer, because his professional reputation is at stake. He knows everything and must answer all questions, even if the last question will lead to his own death. He answers, is shot, the bad guy is apprehended and the film fades out within three minutes. It's a surprise ending out of the blue and a most satisfying one. Partly because of when I saw the film in my viewing life, I count it as my very favorite scene and climax of all the movies I have seen. Ever.

Re-watch the climax of Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps here:

And what are the 39 Steps? Mr. Memory answers Richard Hanney's question from the audience: "The 39 Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of ...." A bullet cuts short the revelation.

A quick note on posters for the film. The color poster at the top is from the original 1935 release. One sold in 1992 by Christies for $14,300. The similar poster to the right was taken from the exact same litho plates, but with less color. Although undated it is assumed to be from the 1938 re-release. This poster sold in 2002 for $920. I have a near-mint example of this 1938 poster hanging on my wall, and have decided to keep it rather than testing the current market value at auction. Time may prove it to be more valuable. It is right now to me.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Misremembered Tide of Keaton!

2010-12-04T09:37:00.008-06:00

I recently ran across a DVD I had copied off Turner Classic Movies maybe 5 or 10 years ago, who knows? The 1929 MGM silent film with music and effects track is Tide of Empire. This fast-moving, large-scale A-western directed by Alan Dwan is set in the Gold Rush days. Having just scanned through it a few times I can highly recommend it. The ruggedly handsome hero is future cowboy B-star Tom Keene, here billed as George Duryea. So Tom started at the top with MGM but rode off to greener valleys, much like Johnny Mac Brown made love to Greta Garbo in silents until sound revealed his very southern accent and true calling in the West.

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 brings a tide of gold seekers to the area, disrupting the lives of the Guerrero family who have owned nearby Rancho Chico for generations. Among these are Dermod D'Arcy, in partners with a jailer, Bejabbers. At a fiesta where horse races are traditionally run, a stranger notices Dermod's exceptionally fast horse, Pathfinder, and urges him to enter the horse in the race. It becomes a three-horse race, with Don José Guerrero betting his ranch that his horse will win. When Pathfinder wins, Dermod takes the ranch as his share of the winnings and gives it to Don José's daughter, Josephita, with whom he had fallen in love earlier, when he met her. Dermod and Bejabbers leave to search for gold, and the town grows rich as more and more gold is amassed. Meanwhile, a bandit chief, Cannon, met Josephita's brother, Romauldo, and forced him to join the gang.

The female star of the surviving silent version is Renée Adorée, the French star of The Big Parade who is quite appealing there and in other late silent MGMs. Sadly she only made 3 more films after Tide before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 35. A curious credit appears on the IMDB that a second version of Tide of Empire was made with the same cast except that Joan Crawford replaced Renée. Is this a lost sound version, a lost Joan Crawford film, or a mistake by IMDB? I wonder because extensive Joan Crawford sites such as this one do not even mention the film. In search of one mystery I found another.

I recall that Robert Osborne said in his introduction that Buster Keaton was rumored to have visited the set with his wife Natalie, and that Buster appeared in the film in a cameo, but no one could quite find him in the film today.

Certainly Keaton would be welcome on any MGM set between his big hits The Cameraman and Spite Marriage. My wife and I took up the challenge and ran through the crowd scenes again and again until we thought we found him. This may have been ten years ago. My clear memory is that we found Buster in heavy disguise (mustache and beaver hat) but right up front in a wedding scene at the end of the film. My intention today was to put this scene on Youtube with a link so Keaton fans could see the lost scene. Much to my surprise today, there is no wedding scene!

Once more, where the heck is Buster? The IMDB lists him as uncredited as a character called "Bump." So I looked and looked and finally found two seconds of bonafide, I swear it's him, Buster Keaton. But look fast in the clip that follows. Right after the frog race is a brief shot of the fiesta party. Keaton's head is directly above Renée's in the top left quarter of the frame. He opens his mouth wide in a Buster expression and in two seconds it cuts to the title "Come Josepheta ... dance for us!" The next short scene before she dances is a continuation of the same shot. It is harder to be certain it is Buster, because the character is laughing. After the dance, I repeat the Buster cameo without the inter-title for a second look. Tune in the next time Tide of Empire is on TCM. I will. I need to make a sharper transfer!

If anyone knows of another Buster glimpse in the film, I'm all ears. Anyway, he was there that day and looks like he had fun! Viva Keaton!

Visit my website at Festival Films

A Viking Thanksgiving!

2010-11-27T08:23:00.014-06:00

But first lets get the "turkeys" out of the way. We live in Vikings country, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our turkey Viking is the NFL football team. Everyone knows the great warrior (no disrespect intended) Brett Favre should have retired at the top of his game ... last year. When they talk about going to the Super Bowl before the first game is played, you know it's about over. It's over.

Gathered in my home this Thanksgiving were wife, Chris, her brother Scott, her sister Nancy, husband Greg and two teenage sons Nick and Brendan. My son Jeff couldn't make it here from San Francisco. All of us have fun by making relatives sit through, or at least sample, really bad movies. If they are truly boring, I may walk out and go watch a western, which they may consider an equal waste of time. Some half-baked turkeys in our home are Anthony Adverse, Tender is the Night and the seasonal gobbler (wow, a bad movie with a turkey/thanksgiving theme) Plymouth Adventure.

We watched PA last year -- colorful but boring and unconvincing. I hope Spencer Tracy was well paid. Gene Tierney looked like no Pilgrim. Will they make it to the new world??? Yes, they do! So when it was on TCM this week I taped it for the guests. We only got around to running the credits as they were putting on their coats. The mere music sped them out the door. Mission accomplished.

Also on TCM last Sunday was a film we had missed in earlier showings -- The Viking, made in 1928 in full and still stunning two-strip Technicolor. I taped it and watched it on Wednesday night with Scott. After the big turkey dinner the next day, talk turned to the film because of rumors we had descended from Eric the Red or Leif Ericsson, plus a silent all-color film was pretty scarce. A suggestion to show a few minutes turned into re-watching the entire movie with two teenage boys who may have never seen a silent film before. No grumbling, no leaving the room and no fast forwarding. It entertained. I sat in the one big chair without a view of the screen and slept through the first half. After turkey I would have slept through London After Midnight.

So what the heck is so good or fascinating about The Viking? The blue-red color hues surely give it an ancient look.... Skip that, it's perky, pretty and busty Helga pictured here and played by Pauline Starke. Helga is the only woman on a long ocean voyage to uncharted lands ... some costume, huh?

From the IMDB: "Yes, it's true, an all color silent movie! The title refers to Leif Ericsson, who leaves Norway to search for new lands west of Greenland. On the way he vies for the love of Helga with his companion Egil and Alwin, an English slave. More conflict arises when he stops at the colony of his father (Eric the Red) in Greenland, for Leif has converted to Christianity, which his father hates. He also has to deal with the unrest of his crew, who fear falling off the edge of the Earth."

Director Roy William Neil helmed most of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films and Roy knew even in 1928 how to move a film right along. It's loaded with viking sword fight action. The young hero is played by Le Roy Mason, who went on to a long career in B-westerns as the head bad guy vs. John Wayne, Roy, Hoppy, Gene and more. Le Roy is right up there with Roy Barcroft and Douglas Dumbrille. The older hero who plays Leif Ericson is Donald Crisp, silent film director and distinguished actor from The Birth of Nation to his Oscar role in How Green Was My Valley. Pauline Starke appeared in Griffith's Intolerance (1916) and was 27 when she made The Viking. Alas, that's too old for a leading lady in Hollywood and Pauline's zenith was also her farewell to stardom. Here is a nice still of the three stars. Double click to enlarge the photo. They are all good, the many vikings are manly, and the largely true story of the first trip to America is convincing. The Viking was our Thanksgiving desert this year!

Be sure to catch The Viking the next time it is on TCM. If anyone would like to borrow my DVD (sending a copy would be an FBI violation!), then send me an email to fesfilms@aol.com.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Santa's Surprise!

2010-11-20T08:17:00.008-06:00

Quick, open the present! Santa's surprise is a brand new (old) public domain Christmas show that no one else has. Only me. Wow, what is it? Got your attention? We'll get to it shortly.

This column is mainly an ad. Buy my new Christmas DVD as a gift to your viewers. That's all. "A happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" says Santa at the end of "A Night Before Christmas." The end.

OK, I don't actually do ads in this blog. For specific "Buy this, it's good" ads, visit my website and check out the Festival Films/Café Roxy Christmas Programs. I only write here about films or projects that are new or of possible interest to others or have been consuming my week, and I try not to be boring.

This project started nine days ago when two active customers in Nevada wanted Christmas shows for local TV. They had shown the Beverly Hillbillies / Petticoat Junction X-mas shows last year and now wanted to get Scrooge, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, A Christmas Without Snow, Christmas Cartoon Festival and a special 2-hour compilation of the best of TV Christmas shows. This last program of shorts I would make up fresh. They asked for the Burns and Allen Christmas show, which I have but only in poor quality. One of them summed up their desire in a way I could not have written better:

"My thoughts are, back as a little kid and being born in 1958 we used to watch black and white TV, of course. The big thing was shows had audiences and loved the Christmas specials by whom ever. We knew when there was a show coming up in November and specially in December it would be a Chhristmas show. I am trying to wear the past time travel helmet and I know this new generation would get a kick out of it as us parents recite back in those days! Oh man, I am getting old, lol. So now you know my thoughts gentlemen. Retro blast of the past to the way it was, and now you too know how it feels."

Of all the 1950s popular TV series, none had more Christmas shows than "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" because they often worked in two each season as in "Boys' Christmas Money" (12/19/52) and "Late Christmas Gift" shown the next week of the first season on 12/26/1952. Season Two only had one X-Mas show -- "The Miracle" -- and this is the surprise I obtained recently and added to the new "Best of TV Christmas" show, as per line-up shown in the poster on the left (which anyone who buys the show can use to promote it in move theaters or on TV.) That's a plug, but try it, it works.

At first I had included the Captain Gallant Christmas show "The Boy Who Found Christmas" and called the program "Christmas Film Fun." Cuffy, played by Buster Crabbe's son in the series, runs away to find lost presents and during his adventure discovers the true meaning of Christmas. It's a good show and was the only "serious" episode among all the comedy, but a few days later it struck me (I'm slow) that few remember Captain Gallant while everyone loves Betty White. Her Christmas show, which I offered on another disc, is from her 1957 one-season series "A Date with the Angels." It concerns a department store Santa who gives away presents, thus thawing the heart of the Scrooge-like manager. So I replaced Betty for Buster and re-named the show "A Classic Christmas." You can even call it "A Classic Christmas with Betty White & Friends!"

Back to the Ozzie rarity. "The Miracle" is not only a good Christmas show that has not been on the market in any DVD collections, it is unique in the entire series of over 400 shows. It's Christmas at the Nelsons, natch, and Ozzie brings home a merchant gift of a barometer that says it will snow soon. This recalls a memory leading to a flashback of when Ozzie was a kid in around 1915. Ricky plays Oz as a kid while David plays his older brother Al. Ozzie and Harriet play their parents. The miracle in both the past and present stories is that the father promises snow when it isn't supposed to. (Ozzie's barometer is a fake that never changes its reading.) Guess what? It snows anyway.

See all my other Christmas Programs.

Visit my website at Festival Films

Happy Trails Ride Again!

2010-11-13T09:35:00.008-06:00

July 15, 2010: NEW YORK (AP) - Roy Rogers' stuffed horse, Trigger, has been sold at auction for more than $266,000 in Midtown. Christie's said Rogers' faithful companion was bought by cable's RFD-TV in Omaha, Nebraska, at an auction Wednesday of items from the now-closed Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri. Roy Rogers' stuffed and mounted dog, Bullet, fetched $35,000 on the second day of an auction of the movie cowboy's belongings in New York City.

The television network's chief financial officer says Rogers' reflects the company's values. The station calls itself "Rural America's Most Important Network." CFO Steve Campione says the company hopes to start its own museum. He said the company is looking to buy more Rogers items at auction.

When I heard this news back in July I said to myself I should contact RFD-TV to see if they needed any Roy Rogers movies. I didn't. But better yet, they contacted me this past week inquiring about the Roy Rogers TV shows from 1951 to 1957. All episodes are in the public domain except for some from the final season. I mailed off some sample episodes on DVD-R, but recommend they acquire on BetaSP for maximum quality because RFD-TV is a national cable company.

The big, big news is that RFD-TV has acquired 33 episodes in the "Happy Trails Theater" series and is currently airing them 3 times a week. Check out their schedule. Last week they ran Southward Ho. Debuting on Sunday is The Arizona Kid. So Happy Trails are back, only a bit different. In the original series an elderly Roy and Dale introduced each film and talked with guests like Iron Eyes Cody, Peggy Stewart, Gene Autry, their son Dusty and many more. Well, these intros are gone, but you can still enjoy them in the Happy Trails versions of Roy's westerns available from Netflix.

The new intros are by Dusty Rogers, aka. Roy Rogers Jr., and his son (I assume) Dustin Rogers. They give informative and professional insights into the film, then return after the feature to sing a song and tell stories. The time slot is currently 90 minutes. The original Happy Trails shows only ran about 65 minutes without commercials and in many cases the features were cut to fit this. I will be curious to see if they run full length features at times. If RFC-TV adds Roy's TV show, the slot could expand to two-hours.

The revamped Happy Trails Theater is the only vintage movies or TV shows currently on RFD-TV. As such it's a wonderful opportunity to attract new viewers and fans to B-westerns and to Roy Rogers in particular. I'm betting the popularity mushrooms.

Just in the last week I saw two of Roy's better films, courtesy of Netflix, that I had always wanted to see. Sons of the Pioneers (1942) co-stars Gabby Hayes and Pat Brady as Roy's sidekicks. They work well together a full 9 years before Pat became the "comical sidekick" on Roy's TV series. Roy pretends to be a milquetoast easterner so he can work undercover. His chemist training helps uncover the truth about fake foot and mouth disease. Go watch it!

Of greater interest, and far more fun than I expected, was Trail of Robin Hood, a Trucolor gem from 1950. Roy plays a forest ranger or something using his own name, of course. Jack Holt, father of cowboy star Tim Holt, plays himself -- a retired old time cowboy movie star. The story even works in a screening from one of Jack's silent westerns. Penny Edwards is the girl and Gordon Jones as Splinters McGonigle is Roy's sidekick.

The very best Republic western director, William Witney, put a lot of innovation into scripts and action in the waning years of the B-western. The basic plot concerns the dread Christmas tree syndicate??? Jack Holt wants to sell the trees on his land dirt cheap so that poor families can all have a tree, whereas a big businessman wants to corner the market and jack up the prices. The bigwig is Penny Edwards' father so you know he's not really bad, but his chief henchman sure is.

In 1945 Republic filmed another great Roy Rogers Bells of Rosarita with Gabby Hayes and Dale Evans. In that film Roy played a cowboy movie star for Republic. The studio sent over 5 other cowboy stars to help Roy in the climax: Don Red Berry, Wild Bill Elliot, Allan Rocky Lane, Sunset Carson and Robert Livingston. Studio girl on the phone: "I'm sorry but John Wayne is on location and can't make it."

In Trail of Robin Hood Republic repeated this formula of guest stars in the climax. The bad Christmas tree guys scare away all wagon drivers in the area. Who will get the trees to market? The little girl in the story sees a wall of cowboy photos in Jack Holt's bedroom and gets the idea to invite them all to help out -- Allan Rocky Lane, Rex Allen, Crash Corrigan, Monte Hale, Tom Tyler, Kermit (brother of Ken) Maynard, Tom Keene and two more. The first surprise is William Bill Farnum who started films in 1914. Bill rides up and says: "I want to help too. I'm Bill Farnum. I rode with Jack 20 years ago."

Another old timer who started in 1915 rides up: "Hi Boys, I'm George Chesebro." Now George was on the ugly and scrawny side, ideally suited for playing in henchmen in well over 100 B-westerns. He strides into the bunch of good guys who turn away and will not shake his hand! Finally the little girl says, "Hey, wait a minute. I know you. You're always a meanie." George: "I know, but after making 20 pictures with Jack Holt, he reformed me." Roy: "In that case we can use you." And everyone welcomes George to the gang.

Watch the scene and a bit more of the cowboy all-stars here:

Get the complete Trail of Robin Hood from Netflix, or watch for RFD-TV to air it on Happy Trails Theater shortly before Christmas!

Visit my website at Festival Films

The Bride of Frankie Posters!

2010-11-06T10:03:00.006-05:00

What will this poster sell for at auction on November 12? Follow the bidding and the suspense on the Heritage House auction site. 5,815 have already visited this page and two bidders have already placed their bids. If you would like to be the third, you better have half a million in your pocket.

Yes, a handful of movie posters rival the old masters in sales and future value, or at least that's buyer expectation. The Universal horror films will continue to rank at the very top. They have inspired so many kids over the years (me too!) and the gothic images are iconic, ultimate collectibles. People would pay to see these posters in museums, where many will end up if not already there.

This Bride poster is the only one known to exist! Here is much more from the Heritage web page: "To a new world of gods and monsters." With that toast, Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) begin the thrilling adventure of creating the mate for The Monster (Boris Karloff) in the critically acclaimed masterwork directed by James Whale, The Bride of Frankenstein, sequel to the smash hit from 1931, Frankenstein. Whale, insisting on complete control, delivered a triumphant sequel, surpassing it's original in almost every way, creating a sly and subversive work with its mix of dark humor, gothic horror, unspoken subtext and superb craftsmanship."

"Considered by many the greatest horror film of all time, The Bride of Frankenstein proved director James Whale's crowning achievement. Aside from cast members Clive and Karloff reprising their roles, the addition of Ernest Thesiger as the demented Dr. Pretorius and Elsa Lanchester in the dual roles of Mary Shelley (seen in the prologue) and obviously, as 'The Monster's Mate' proved a brilliant stroke of casting. Also contributing with excellent work was makeup genius Jack Pierce, luminous camerawork by John J. Mescall, stunning art direction by Charles D. Hall aided immeasurably by Kenneth Strickfadden's electrical lab equipment and design and of course, the extraordinary musical score composed by Franz Waxman. Such talent in front and behind the camera all helped to create a timeless classic selected in 1998 to be part of the National Film Registry, Library of Congress."

"Of the three one sheet designs originally produced for in-theatre promotion for The Bride of Frankenstein, this only known Teaser (Advance) poster boasts the most powerful image of the lot. With it's brilliant cherry red printing combined with the shocking image of The Monster in torn, burned clothing, shackled and chained to a heavy chair with rays of energy and light bursting behind, it simply does not get any better. The compelling tagline "I DEMAND A MATE" arguably provocative given the time, is further enhanced by challenging the reader with "WHO will be THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN" and "WHO will dare?"

This incredible Universal Horror one sheet from The Bride of Frankenstein, one of the most dramatic we have ever seen from any genre, from perhaps the greatest horror film of all time, is celebrating it's 75th Anniversary this year."

"Again, this is the only example of the Teaser one sheet from The Bride of Frankenstein ever to surface and after all these years, it's very likely there will never be another."

"The poster is unrestored with some border and interior pinholes, a few minor border chips and two clean tears that extend into the image, one at the top left and the other in the lower right. Paper tape supports both tears on verso as well as a tiny piece at each cross fold. The poster displays beautifully as is, or with the most minor restoration would present itself as virtually mint. The poster has been graded by MP Grading and the Certificate of Authenticity and Grading Document is included. From the collection of Todd Feiertag. Fine-. We invite everyone to come see this rare treasure in our Beverly Hills office. Estimate: $700,000 - $900,000."

The Bride of Frankenstein lobby cards displayed above were sold by Heritage House at prices of $8,365, $3,585 and $10,755, but are of course not the only ones in existence.

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

The Bride and Me!

2010-10-30T08:30:00.010-05:00

Up until I was 14 I lived in Deerfield, Wisconsin. We got mediocre TV reception from Madison 25 miles to the west and rather poor shows from Milwaukee 70 miles east, despite having a tall antenna on the roof that was motorized so it could rotate for best tuning. I always suspected it froze up during the dead of winter but never ventured onto the roof to unjam it.

By the age of 13 (1959) I got my first issue of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" and dove into the eerie world of classic sci-fi & horror films that I had never seen before. This magazine altered my life by opening worlds of excitement. Horror films were fun, mysterious, scary and forbidden by parents. Forry Ackerman's love of Lon Chaney Sr. also led me into the world of silent films. A good history of the birth of FM is on the official website.

The Universal horror package was released to most local TV stations in the mid to late 1950s, often with local horror hosts. They were either slow reaching Madison or I was forbidden to watch them. I know I was forbidden to watch horror films so I suspect they simply were not playing on local TV because I would surely remember missing them. I don't know what my parents had against the classic gothic horror films. Most parents of the 1950s seemed to oppose them on moral grounds or afraid their kids would be scared too much! That's not how it worked.

About the same time in my life I took on a newspaper delivery route that covered about half of the small town. I delivered papers for about two years and quit when we moved to Madison when I was 14. (I went to three years of high school and four years of college in Madison.) Am I boring, or are you wondering how a paper route connects with Boris Karloff?

I used earnings from paper delivering to order back issues of Famous Monsters from their sales branch, Captain Company. Often Captain Company took my quarters and dimes sent in the mail and returned nothing back! Eventually and after repeated orderings I obtained all the back issues, including #1 that sells for big bucks today, except for the elusive issue #4. I wrote to the editor, Forry Ackerman, about my problems and he mailed me an autographed copy, that I totally did not expect and which earned a lifetime of gratitude. I eventually stopped collecting FM with issue #100, but I have kept them all to this very day and they are not for sale.

A year before we moved to Madison a TV station finally began running the Universal horror films Saturday late night at 1:00 am. I delivered the Sunday newspaper starting at 6:00 am. In order to "not wake people up" I conceived and executed a master plan. I slept Saturday night on the couch in the living room... where the TV was. I set an alarm clock under my pillow to wake me at 1:00, I watched the horror films with barely audible sound, went back to sleep and got up two hours later for the paper route. Some nights reception was not that hot. I still recall trying to watch the mediocre, non-horror film Black Friday with both Karloff and Lugosi, and I mainly remember because I have never seen it since. They were slow to broadcast the real classics but eventually got around to House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Dracula's Daughter and most of the rest.

The family had made plans to move to Madison and a moving date was set, but I cared more about seeing the ultimate MONSTER film. I had read all about it, but had never seen The Bride of Frankenstein in its totally. I did own the 3 minute Castle Films 8mm silent version, which is entirely footage of the lab sequence, Boris meeting Bride and the end explosion. If you ran the projector at silent speed it may have played for five minutes. Or backwards....

I kept my paper route up until the last week in Deerfield, and the unbelievable did happen. The station showed The Bride just one week before we moved! It lived up to all expectations and is my favorite of all the Universal horrors. That's not too original as The Bride is many fans' favorite. I later owned a 16mm print of the film (I believe the first 16mm I ever bought) and showed it often to friends and my early-1970s film society.

I am partial to The Mummy as my second favorite Universal horror because of the terrific mummy-comes-to-life sequence and the superb make-up and acting of Karloff throughout.

I started this column intending to write about the rarest movie poster in the world that is being auctioned next month for a lot of money, one assumes. Yes, it's a Bride of Frankenstein one-sheet poster, but it is NOT the one shown here. This poster sold for a mere $334,600.00 in 2007.

Next time I will discuss the more valuable Bride poster.

PS. I won't be bidding.

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

The Perfect Spook Show...

2010-10-23T09:12:00.007-05:00

... was sure not the one I saw in high school around 1963!

It's Halloween again, which brings back childhood memories of canvassing every single home in the small town of Deerfield, Wisconsin, or rather the houses with lights on, in the mid-1950s. The small town of 700 or so still had quite a few houses for an 8 year old with a pillow case to cover. I must have been under ten because the town soon initiated "parties" in the high school gym. I remember those as well, but without the darkness, the cold, the running from house to house and the heavy bag of candy by night's end.

I also recall with envy the newspaper ads for Halloween horror movies in nearby Madison, reprisals of Frankenstein/Dracula double features and who knows what else. The ads always looked great, likely better than the films if it was "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" meets "I Married a Monster from Outer Space." Similar horror midnight shows surfaced every Friday the 13th as well, but I never got to any because movie trips to Madison only took place during the day, and horror films were strictly taboo until I got into high school and could watch any films I could get to on my own.

Horror film revivals were also featured from the 1930s through the mid-1960s in SPOOK SHOWS. After a chilling double feature, these live stage shows featured a magician and real, live, famous movie monsters who came into the audience when the lights blacked out. They were promoted (between the lines) to bring a date and sneak in some smooching between the screams.

You can read all about this lost era in "Ghost Masters" from Amazon.com. "This is a book that makes me want to don a gorilla suit and rip apart a blonde with my bare claws. It's a true history of my artistic idols: the mad doctors and maniacal magicians who toured with live midnight fright shows, and scared the bejeezus out of hormone-pumped teenagers on dates. In my opinion, an absolute must-read for horror and magic fans." --Teller of Penn & Teller

Some fun movie posters like the two above can be viewed Here.

There's a wonderful video compilation about these shows called Monsters Crash the Pajama Party. "Grab the kids, lower the lights, and turn every night into Halloween with the Monsters Crash the Pajama Party Spook Show Spectacular! It's a Spookaroo Whoop-de-doo with this Terrorific 3-hour-plus Spooktacular containing everything you need for your very own Spook Party! First, join some terrified teens who spend a night in a haunted house and get spooked by a mad doctor and his ghoulish gang when the Monsters Crash the Pajama Party, a hilarious 1965 theatrical featurette complete with werewolf, gorilla in a fur coat, and goofy gimmick! Then, feel your eyes pop out of their sockets when you check into The Asylum of the Insane, a startling short subject with monsters in 3-D Spookarama (3-D glasses included)! But that's not all! This scary, screwy, chill-arious fright show includes bonus shorts, Spook Show previews, audio commentaries, How to Put on Your Own Spook Show, music by The Dead Elvi, and much more--plus the bonus feature-length chiller-diller Tormented!"

My family moved to Madison in time for me to attend high school. I could see lots more movies in theaters, about anything I wanted as the bus trips were short and direct, and yes, I caught one of the last Spook Shows. Anticipation high; packed theater; hopes dashed. I can't remember the double feature for starters, so likely no monsters -- maybe some British film like "Burn, Witch, Burn!" The stage show was a hypnotist who took volunteers from the audience. This went on forever. Only one teenage boy really went under, ha-ha, a plant and the climax of the act was when his pants came off! Then Frankenstein's monster came onstage, the theater went pitch black, lots of screaming, houselights on and go home. Mainly I remember the disappointment. In retrospect, no wonder -- I did not have a date to make out with!

I had not thought about my Spook Show experience in quite awhile, not until today. I realize it may be behind my desire to show young people a good time with the old horror films in a theater. I got the chance this past week when a new customer, the Arabian Theater in Alabama, asked for a horror show for next Saturday, Oct. 30. Since Halloween proper is on Sunday this year, Saturday is the best day for a film show. After some discussion, we settled on a 3 to 3 1/2 hour show from 6 to 9:30 pm or so that kids could come or go to throughout the evening. I came up with a two-disc show. The second part is "White Zombie" which is genuinely spooky with lots of zombie monsters but no blood or brain-eating. Moody but a bit slow, which is OK since if anyone doesn't get into it and leaves in the middle they will have already seen 90 minutes of cartoons and classic monster trailers.

The first half of the show contains:
Sure-Locked Homes -- Felix the Cat, 1928
The Mechanical Man -- Oswald Rabbit, 1932
Is My Palm Read? -- Betty Boop, 1933
Gypped in Egypt -- Tom & Jerry, 1930
Superman Cartoons -- Underground World & The Mummy Strikes for a little color.
The Mad Doctor -- Walt Disney Mickey Mouse, 1933
The cartoons are interspersed with horror trailers for: Robot Monster, White Zombie, The Giant Claw, King Kong, Dracula, Frankenstein and others, plus Buster Keaton in “The Haunted House” (1921). The Keaton short is not spooky, but is a perfect chance to expose kids to silent comedy. I suspect it will be the big hit of the evening!

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

Still Batty about Tarzan Escapes!

2010-10-16T08:09:00.015-05:00

As this recently unearthed Czechoslovakian poster for Tarzan Escapes illustrates, the Czechs got to see Tarzan fight giant vampire bats in 1936. All of Europe probably saw the same version. The Bat Attack was the best scene in the film and is highlighted on this poster (which I got in a poster auction last week).

Yet this action/horror/mayhem scene that was the climax of the entire film has not been seen since the 1950s. I can never forget seeing it in a movie theater as a kid of eight, especially the shot of a giant bat picking up a native and flying him off to a fate worse than death. My childhood memory and quest to find this elusive scene somewhere in the world is documented at the Edgar Rice Burroughs website in an article I Saw the Giant Vampire Bats.

In 1954 MGM re-released a double feature of Tarzan, the Ape Man and Tarzan Escapes to theaters in new 35mm safety prints. I had never seen a Tarzan film before and had no idea (no one did) that the bat scene would disappear from all subsequent showings. The newspaper ads promised "SEE! ... The giant vulture bats swoop from the sky in a vicious air attack!" The MGM Press Book for Tarzan Escapes, also in my hands, describes the thrills:

"The story takes its characters into a country of giant vampire bats, and its thrills include a battle between an army of elephants and savage warriors, the routing of lions by an elephant stampede, a dash through a crocodile-infested river, the rescue of the white party from the wild Ganeloni (sic., should read Gaboni) tribesmen, and Tarzan's escape from a cage in which he has been imprisoned when he hurtles the cage over a cliff."

Interestingly, the elephants attacking lions scene was filmed for the 1935 version of Tarzan Escapes that was never released! So this scene and the entire 1935 film are completely lost! MGM had entrusted Tarzan Escapes to director James C. McKay who had never directed a sound film and never made one later. McKay had directed some action scenes in Tarzan and His Mate but apparently had no story sense. Tarzan Escapes was finished and scheduled for release in 1935 with an advance trailer mentioning the bats that you can watch here. However, studio bosses were appalled at a preview showing when they found the film absolutely terrible, in fact un-releasable. The costly decision was made to re-write and re-shoot the entire film under director Richard Thorpe, keeping only the attack of the vampire bats.

The lost 1935 film is preserved in a "Big Little Book" that recounts the plot with about 100 photos that are NOT in the 1936 release. A few changes: in 1935 Tarzan and Jane lived in a cave while in the 1936 film they lived in their tree house. The 1935 film has the Great Apes (men in gorilla costumes); in 1936 no apes. In 1935 Jane rescues Tarzan at the end instead of him saving her! In 1935 the bats attack in a swamp at night; in 1936 the scene full of dead trees is set inside a cave. In 1936 comic relief Herbert Mundin was added to the safari.

The 1936 film was previewed to audiences to more woes. Some mothers complained of the extreme violence so loudly that MGM hastily edited a sanitized print that eliminated the intense vampire bats scene. They also cut a scene of Tarzan fighting and killing two lions with his knife. The scene is set up in the surviving version when Jane tells Tarzan to go get food. He slays an antelope, is menaced by a lion but escapes without a fight. The missing fight was actually stock footage lifted from Tarzan the Ape Man, so that scene can be reconstructed today.

A minor censored scene is illustrated on this 1936 lobby card. Evil Captain Fry captures Tarzan and dispatches the cage back to civilization with a group of his natives so that Jane will not see Tarzan captured. The violent Gaboni warriors, shown here, slaugther these natives by shooting arrows into their foreheads in the deleted scene and then carry Tarzan in cage back toward their village. He escapes en route. The grisly slaughter was a simple cut for violence, but an important one that added to the suspense when all are captured and tortured.

For the 1954 Tarzan double feature reissue, MGM had two negatives in their vault of Tarzan Escapes -- the censored one and the far better one that they wisely chose to release. In the 1960s when they made prints for TV, for 16mm rentals and for eventual video release, they picked the censored version in error and that is all we can see today. I don't for a moment believe it was 1960s intentional censorship. I suspect the person in charge had no idea there were two versions and may have picked the negative that had seen less wear.

It is my strong feeling that the Vampire Bats version was widely shown in Mexico, South America and all over Europe in 1936. This Spanish lobby card shows a pygmy tribe in the cave/swamp after they save the safari from the bats. Of course there are no pygmies in the surviving film.

This lobby card mentions the film is "En Espanol" or Spanish language version. MGM probably archived this Spanish dubbed version of the film, and may well have re-released it on safety film to Mexico and South America in 1954. If the film survives in any foreign archive from the 1936 or 1954 releases, then the bats may be waiting for discovery. The problem in the past is that nobody knew they should look for the bats because Tarzan Escapes seemed to be well preserved on DVD with occasional showings on Turner Classic Movies. Archivists today are aware of the lost bat scene and are in the process of examining MGM prints in foreign archives.

You can help spread the word! Alert film archives! Anyone, anywhere ... watch the last ten minutes of Tarzan Escapes to see if anything happens inside that ju-ju cave. Somewhere the Vampire Bats are lurking to attack!

If you too recall seeing the vampire bats in a movie theater in the mid-1950s, please write to Ron Hall at fesfilms@aol.com.

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

Gabby Gab!

2010-10-09T16:55:00.002-05:00

Well, pards, Gabby Hayes has been on my mind the last few weeks, as expressed in recent entries.

First I created a Gabby Hayes DVD that contains two episodes of "The Gabby Hayes Show" and his feature with Roy Rogers - Southward Ho! I haven't advertised it, I haven't been asked for it and I haven't sold one yet. I just made up the disc and DVD jacket. In the first TV show Gabby tells how his ancestor Bullwhip Hayes whipped boulders into Pike’s Peak. The exciting western that follows features Tex Riter and Dave O’Brien as Texas Rangers. In the second episode Gabby tells how Uncle Flapjack Hayes created the first flying saucers. Then Hoot Gibson rides into action against cattle rustlers.

Southward Ho! (1939) is one of Roy's early "historical" westerns set in the old west, as opposed to most of his later films set in the present (i.e. 1940s). In post Civil War Texas a former Union officer is the government's chief law enforcement official and tax collector. Roy discovers that the man is also the head of an outlaw gang. Gabby is head sidekick #1 through every scene except the love making.
Next I won the lobby card from Night Rider with Harry Carey, or stole it for only $6. That seemed a steal to me, or is it a sign of the decline of interest in B-westerns. Just scroll down to last week's notes to see the card. As far as I know, it is the earliest known lobby card or poster to display George Hayes in his soon-to-be Gabby character. A good western expert might be able to pull out other posters, but the only earlier Gabby I have seen is Hidden Valley starring Bob Steele, in which Mr. Hayes plays the 4th heavy as an extra.

A better role for Gabby than the one in Night Rider is as Dude Saunders in Border Devils, both in 1932 and both with Harry Carey. I feel this is the earliest prototype of the bewhiskered "Gabby" codger with a sense of humor and the ability to make us laugh. See if you agree. I put together a little highlight reel from this film and posted it on Youtube, which means you can watch Gabby & Harry right now!

Struck by Gabby Mania, I finally bought the book by Bobby J. Copeland and Richard B. Smith, III -- "Gabby Hayes, King of the Cowboy Comics" from Amazon.com for $20. Since it came Thursday, I haven't had a chance to read much, but I recommend it for all the Gabby talk. The earliest photos are with Hoppy in 1935, and they don't even mention Border Devils other than the filmography where they call his character Duke instead of Dude, so maybe the authors never even saw it!

Go have yourself a Gabby old time! Watch my video, buy the book, buy the DVD and spread the word. Do it ya' young whippersnapper!

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

Posters -- Buy a Few, Sell a Few!

2010-10-02T08:28:00.008-05:00

I have become an avid follower of the 3 weekly auctions at Bruce Hershenson's emovieposter.com auction site. I enjoy browsing the hundreds of movie posters and related material put up for sale each week, finding images I have never seen before and lots of bargains. I bid on occasion, and a few weeks ago won reissue press books for Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Tarzan Escapes.

The top posters still fetch high prices. Interestingly (to me only), I had auctioned this Lady from Shanghai lobby card in early August and it went for $901, while another identical one sold this past week for $854. Emovieposter.com has over 7,600 registered bidders, all of whom are movie fans and most of whom check in weekly to see which of their special wants or interests might be on the block. Around 2,000 items are auctioned weekly, so many sell for under $5.00. This is truly a great time for acquiring rare posters at low prices and I encourage all movie fans to check out the site.

The 1962 Jason Robards Sr./Jennifer Jones film Tender is the Night is a joke in my household. My wife, her brother and sister discuss it endlessly as an atrociously BAD, yet interesting, film from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and sometimes they even watch it together to ridicule the acting. We have taped versions off TCM over the years that are flat and letterboxed and once they even showed a longer, uncut version. Imagine that excitement! Anyways, I found this lobby card up for auction last week and thought I would buy it as a joke gift at Christmas, giving it to all 3 relatives in order, none of whom would really want it.

So I put in a bid for $5.00. Each buyer of any poster in the Thursday all-lobby card auction would also receive a free poster book of "John Wayne Posters," a $20 value. Shipping was an additional $10, but it still seemed like a good deal. It was indeed a very good deal if I got the poster real cheap. However, a few days later the idea crept into my head that the shipping charge would cover any number of posters, so I looked at every lobby card and put $5 bids on 20 more. I knew that $5 was way too low on the 3 that eventually sold for $46, $58 and $95. I did raise my bid on a few and ended up winning 7 posters:

2 lobby cards from The Joe Louis Story (one would have been enough) cost me $3 and $2. I bid because it is a public domain film. That's why I bid on 2 cards for Tulsa with Susan Hayward. The better one went to someone else for $10; I paid $5. The Adventures of Gallant Bess (public domain film) cost me $5. Outrages of the Orient is a public domain exploitation film that I had recently sold to Alpha Video. While I don't need the poster for anything in particular, I have a 16mm print and now have the poster for only $13. I bought Strike Up the Band as a Christmas present for a Paul Whiteman fan for $13. I don't think Paul is featured on many posters.

The last one I never thought I would get but am most happy that I did. I had seen the film The Night Rider in the past year and thought it was the very best early performance I had seen by George "Gabby" Hayes. I like Harry Carey a lot and watch as many of his films as I can. There is real chemistry between the two, and some good comic exchanges when George keeps calling the older Harry "Young feller." I should put some clips up on Youtube, now that I think of it. I bid $10 initially on the lobby card and got it for a mere $6. Anyone writing a book on Gabby, contact me....

I have consigned six minor items to emovieposter.com and will comment on them later. Two of them should appear in the Tuesday auction: 4 lobby cards from Last Year at Marienbad and the 8 lobby card set from the 1954 reissue of Dead End. Even though they are reissue cards, the first screen appearance of the Dead End Kids, and with Humphrey Bogart as well, should do well at auction. The other major, weekly auctioner of movie posters -- Heritage Auction Galleries -- sold 2 of these cards in 2006 for $431! I doubt I get close to that for all 8, but we'll see.

And what about that Tender is the Night lobby card? I forgot about the auction on the evening it was closing and someone else outbid me at the last minute and got it for $6! I would have gone as high as $8.

Visit my website at www.fesfilms.com.

Customers Outside (Da Box)!

2010-09-25T08:57:00.006-05:00

My Website gets over 90 hits a day and 78% are new visitors. This seems huge because I am oriented to selling movies that are in the public domain. Rabid movie fans are welcome, but they generally don't care if a film is in the public domain, they are just looking for rare films or their favorites. As someone wrote me this week, "I have been collecting the Laramie episodes for 35 years, and am looking for the few I don't have." I don't have any Laramie because they are all copyrighted, but that's an example of the earnest collector I usually do NOT get.

Of the many who visit my site thru links or googling Public Domain Films, a few do contact me each week and usually with specific uses in mind for public domain films like showing them on their TV station or in their movie theater. A few have unusual ideas.

Check out Old School Horror website to watch a horror film every Saturday late night with two Horror Hosts harking back to the 1950s "Shock Theater" that played in most cities with local hosts. A new show debuts every Saturday night, but is then archived so you can watch it anytime, forever. The Dead never sleep. They will soon be adding the Boris Karloff TV show "The Veil."

Walking Shadows is another horror website showing films and selling films, some of which are their own releases. The DVD boxes are well designed and have appealing bonuses. I can vouch for the quality and contents of Reefer Madness, which includes the second dope film Marijuana and some weed shorts I have not seen before. The big challenge to any website is to attract traffic. It can be done. Good luck!

Rodeo TV on the Internet. Coming soon to your own computer. I just googled Rodeo TV and found 3 or 4 sites already operating. The one I am working with has big plans like connecting horse and steer owners with rodeos who need a large yearly supply. They plan to host a live hour Rodeo show every week and then archive them. They want to offer B-westerns and TV shows on the site as well to attract people back or give them more to do once they are there. I was surprised to hear there is a large audience for all things rodeo.

Saturday Matinee Website, again coming soon. In preparation for over a year now, this ambitious site will revive interest in the Saturday Matinee with hundreds of hours of programming.

Comic book videos in comic book stores. A long-time wholesaler with a link to comic book stores plans a new line of DVDs with comic connections, to be sold in comic book stores which currently do not sell DVDs. While the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons are easy to buy online, a young comic fan may not know this and buy a $5 DVD when he is in the store. I suggested Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and just put one of her comic book covers on the DVD case. TV Sheena's Irish McCalla does not disappoint in the scantily clad department.

Brainstorming, I pointed out that all the cowboy stars had their own comic books in the 1950s, but rather than offering Roy Rogers, etc., why not try Gabby Hayes? Once you get going in a local comic store, I said, try putting a few Gabby Hayes DVDs out for sale to test interest. Gabby had 59 comic books from 1948 to 1957. Hence I found the comic book here, which is the start of a DVD cover.

Others come to me with vague ideas about wanting to do something with public domain films. I advise them to think outside the box and find new ways to market or new audiences to market to. You can't sell to Walmart no matter how nifty your packaging is because others have cornered that market long ago and the prices are too low anyway. So think. I have lots of ideas to get you started. Next time.

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Keen(e) Stuff to Watch!

2010-09-19T10:21:00.008-05:00

I have a YouTube channel and post occasional videos with links from this blog or from my Festival Films Website.. Last week I talked about the First Buck Rogers film and so could post a link to go watch it! It's very useful to be able to talk about movies and show them at the same time. Duhh, makes sense. In the last few days I have posted 4 films that link to archived blog posts for Matinee at the Bijou. You can go watch the videos I am about to discuss and then read the blogs. Argggh! It's talk like a pirate day, so Arrr, why do you need me when I'm just sending you elsewhere?!

While you are going elsewhere... that's mutiny, me maties... check out Movie Unlimited's Movie Fanfare daily blog about new news about old movies. Movie Fanfare has reprinted a number of the older Bijou blogs, including the ones that I posted videos for.

A Bijou Flashback: Remembering Will Rogers
The life and film career of legendary actor Will Rogers is remembered. I love the Will Rogers features from Fox in the early 1930s up to his untimely death. Judge Priest is one of the best, directed by John Ford, and also is the only one in the public domain. However, we enriched the Bijou article with a complete 2-reel Rogers comedy from 1924: Big Moments from Little Pictures. Will lampoons films of the day and stars like Fairbanks and Valentino. Why sit through the whole thing when there is only one good scene? You can watch the first half of Big Moments HERE, and then PART 2.

A Bijou Flashback: Forgotten Hollywood Treasures
Guest contributor Bob Campbell writes: Where on television today can you find short subjects starring Betty Boop, Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang or Flash Gordon? The short posted that you can view here is Star Reporter in Hollywood from 1936, that consists of 3 screen tests -- a young boy that never made it singing opera, a dance duo .. if you want to know who they are, go watch the film, cause I don't recall ... and then a long song by Dorothy Lamour in a glamorous dress and setting, miles from her sarong debut films. Well worth a look-see, and a link from the video will direct you to the article.

A Bijou Flashback: The Three Faces of Cowboy Star Tom Keene
Guest contributors Bob Campbell and Victoria Balloon write: Under the old studio system movie moguls groomed promising new stars by first creating for them ... Read the entire article after viewing an extended clip from Our Daily Bread. Tom Starred in this major depression era classic directed by King Vidor, as well as the star of a series of B-westerns through the 1930s and 40s, plus ... well, read the article.

Lou Gehrig Rides Again: Baseball Legend to Movie Star
Believe it or not, baseball great Lou Gehrig made one movie in 1938, a B-western in which he co-starred with obscure singing cowboy Smith Ballew. You can watch all the highlights right here, then link from the video page to the blog discussion. This is becoming a worn record stuck in a groove, but who's reading this far anyways! Arrgh! Go watch Lou, Tom, Will & Dorothy!

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Oh, Buck! Wasn't that a battle!

2010-09-11T10:32:00.008-05:00

This article first appeared in the Bijou Blog on May 16, 2008. I have just re-uploaded the First Buck Rogers film to the Cafe Roxy Youtube channel and you can view it HERE, right after you read about it below. The film is included on the free Café Roxy Sampler disc. It is on the show last, so that you don't need to show it if your audience is not hip enough to enjoy "campy" fun.

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In 1934 an obscure movie short called Buck Rogers in the 25th Century -- An Interplanetary Battle with the Tiger Men of Mars was released, but not in theaters. David Stelle accurately describes it in the IMDb: “A signal from Buddy Deering on Mars warns Earth that the Tiger Men of Mars and their cruel king have broken their treaty and are attacking. Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering go to rendezvous with the Earth battlefleet before setting off to fight the tigerships. Baldpated genius inventor Dr. Huer uses the ‘cosmic radiotelevision’ to watch the space battle. Which side will be victorious? The tigerships and their paralysis ray? Or our Earth forces, armed with the flash ray and Dr. Huer's new magnetic ray?”

You might well ask -- “What the heck is this anyway?” -- either before or after you watch it. While not exactly a Hollywood movie, it is a jaw-dropping curiosity.

The first Buck Rogers film was shown to the public during the second year, 1934 edition, of the Chicago World's Fair. The Century of Progress International Exposition was held in Chicago in 1933 and 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation. Its motto was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms" and its architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one end of the fair to the other. After a winter break, the 1934 Fair ran from May 26 through Oct. 31 and included a new Island Midway area that faced Lake Michigan. The "Buck Rogers Show," as it was called on admission tickets, was located on the Enchanted Island playground for children, at #125 on the left hand section of the 1934 Fair Map. It is unknown whether this film was the entire show, or if fans were treated to some live action event as well for their dime. It is certain that after watching the movie, visitors could purchase the very same toy spaceships and ray guns they had just seen. Pretty tricky, huh?

Buck first appeared as Anthony Rogers in an issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories in August, 1928. John F. Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate, saw the potential of the futuristic adventure and arranged for the author, Philip Francis Nowlan, to turn it into a comic strip for Dille's syndicate. The strip was re-named "Buck Rogers," inspired by the name of cowboy star Buck Jones, and that name was used for the character from then on. Dille assigned staff artist Lt. Dick Calkins (shown here) to the project, and he successfully drew the strip for the next 18 years.

The 1934 film on a zero budget resembles a “home movie” hastily thrown together with lots of spirit but little skill by amateurs. It was in fact produced by the John F. Dille Co. and filmed in the studios of the Action Film Company of Chicago. Dick Calkins appears briefly at his drawing board. The actor playing Buck is John Dille, Jr., the son of the strip’s owner! While Junior looks the part, his, um acting, um, speaks for itself. The actress playing Wilma Deering was Junior’s girlfriend when the film was being shot. Their onscreen chemistry hints at the length of the relationship. The listless delivery of her last line -- “Oh, Buck, wasn’t that a battle!” -- is priceless. Dr. Huer is played by Harlan Tarbell, a stage magician and illustrator, who also “directed” the film but never directed or acted in any other film. His baldpate make-up positively flops around on his head. The sets and special effects are equally impressive. This camp classic must be seen to be believed, so we won’t give away more of the fun!

The film may well have thrilled fair goers, particularly young kids who had never seen anything quite like it. The futuristic serials The Phantom Empire, Undersea Kingdom and Flash Gordon did not hit movie screens until 1935 and 1936, while the Buck Rogers serial with Buster Crabbe came later in 1939. Also keep in mind that Buck’s fans in 1934 avidly listened to his weekly radio exploits. The narrated space battle sounds much like a radio show and is actually more exciting, though far less funny, with your eyes closed! If the spaceships in the big battle look like toy models, that’s exactly what they are, and darned good ones we all wish we had today. To top it off, the show neatly fit into the futuristic theme of the Century of Progress.

There is no indication this first Buck Rogers film was ever shown in movie theaters, where even matinee audiences might have found it laughably amateurish. The June 1936 issue of the trade magazine “Toys and Novelties” reports that the film had a second life by being shown in department stores to promote Buck Rogers merchandise. More Buck toys were sold in the 1930s than Mickey Mouse, with countless games, puzzles, figurines, Big Little Books, ray guns, spaceships and even a full costume for boys. Toy stores devoted entire sections and Christmas displays to Buck and the film doubtless attracted even more customers.

A granddaughter of John Dille discovered a 35mm print of this forgotten film in her basement around 1983 and donated it to UCLA, who struck a new print. It was unleashed on the modern world at the 1984 Cinecon convention in San Francisco. The auditorium rocked with laughter. Despite the copyright notice at the head, the film was never registered with the Library of Congress and so is in the public domain for all the world to enjoy.

Enjoy the film now by Clicking Here. Then blast off to my website at Festival Films and request the Free Roxy Sampler DVD.

Still Tweaking 'Em Up!

2010-09-04T09:44:00.009-05:00

In July I filled an order for the "12 Nights of Horror" and took the opportunity to spiff-up each program. This mainly entailed modulating the volume levels so the sound doesn't jump between shorts or the shorts and features. I also added a few trailers I had acquired that promoted the show next week. The 12 nights should be run in order because of the serial chapters. When I later created the 3 Saturday Matinee series I either found or made trailers for each upcoming show, which is why I now had a trailer for Vampire Bat to add into the horrors.

In August I took the same revision approach before filling an order for 12 "Turkeys in Space." Since this series was put together later the sound did not need adjusting and I only re-did 4 of the programs. Several of them included 7-8 minute segments I called "Godzillathons." These were trailers for the many Japanese Godzilla movies -- in Japanese with the colorful Japanese lettering onscreen. It didn't matter that you can't understand the voice over narration. All the plots are the same -- Godzilla, other monsters, big fights & mayhem! However, I had initially inserted two Godzillathons in one of the shows and now felt 15 minutes of Godzilla was too much in one sitting. 8 minutes = fun; 15 minutes = deja vu.

This past week a satisfied customer in Wisconsin ordered three more shows for their small movie theater. Whenever I get orders for theaters I "Roxify" the features into programs. This means adding an opening Roxy montage that runs 16 seconds to the tune of the Universal Pictures 1930s music as the airplane circles the globe. I also add a closing montage that says "This Concludes Our Show" and has about 5 minutes of exit music. Mainly I add trailers, shorts or cartoons like an old-time movie show. Then I make a poster.

The first show they requested was The Angel and the Badman, which is certainly one of my top-ten favorite John Wayne films because of the presence of Harry Carey, stunt work by Yakima Canutt, a superb story and lovely Gail Russell. This is not a plug for the remake which opens next month and that I likely won't see until Netflix has it in March or so. The film runs 95 minutes, so not much room for extras on the disc. I added the western-themed cartoon The Mild West, a color Paramount "Screen Song" from 1947, and a trailer for Roy Rogers' "King of the Cowboys." In retrospect, I should have looked for a trailer to Stagecoach or some other John Wayne.

I already had the full one-sheet poster shown here on my website to advertise Angel and the Badman, and I did not alter it to say "Plus Cartoon." The posters serve two purposes: 1) To sell the film or program to my customer, and 2) For the buyer to download, print out or post on their own websites.

This is the second time I have sold Our Town (1940) this year to a movie theater that commented: "We are a small town, and we thought people would like to see the film." I heartily agree! Thornton Wilder wrote the screenplay after his celebrated broadway hit. Change comes slowly to a small New Hampshire town in the early 20th century. People grow up, get married, live, and die. Milk and the newspaper get delivered every morning, and nobody locks their front doors.

The program was already Roxified by the addition of two shorts. Happy Days is a 1936 UB Iwerks cartoon set in a small town: A group of boys plan to go fishing. They don't want Pinhead to come along, but he's the only one able to find any worms for bait. On the way to the fishing hole, the other boys bully Pinhead into chipping in to buy a used car. When Pinhead fills the car's tires with air, it begins floating. The boys finally land in the fishing hole, where Pinhead catches a fish.

The second twelve-minute short is called simply "The Town," a documentary look at Madison, Indiana, directed by the same Josef von Sternberg who made The Blue Angel and 6 other early Marlene Dietrich classics. I'm not sure why he made this film, but I recall it had something to do with the war effort to show soldiers the American values and home towns they were fighting for.

Finally, for Halloween they wanted The Night of the Living Dead, a great choice since it still shocks. I remind every buyer that there is one long shot of a nude female zombie. No one has ever asked for a censored version, though it would be easy to make. I just noticed the film was rated "X" when it came out, which must have been for zombie-bashing violence that looks tame today, and that one nude shot. There is no suggested sex in the film; too busy fighting zombies. I had a program for this already made up that included a trailer to White Zombie and the cartoons The Mad Doctor and The Magic Mummy, but this show was misfiled. When I didn't find it at once I remade the whole thing and feel the new version is a tad more fun with two trailers and one cartoon.

The first trailer is for the infamous turkey Robot Monster. It's campy and quite funny, both the feature and the trailer. The second trailer is for the classic King Kong and is loaded with action and the great music score. I also added a TV ad for a Shrunken Heads toy kit. Turn out heads in a mold, paint and add hair and the next they have shrunk down. Today it feels like a ghastly pastime for kids and so is pretty funny. The Mad Doctor is the only Mickey Mouse cartoon that was never renewed. Why? Possibly it proved too intense for young audiences and was shelved and forgotten. The sight today of a madman trying to cut out Pluto's heart may upset young viewers, who should not be allowed to see Night of the Living Dead anyways!

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Most Memorable Viewings!

2010-08-28T09:09:00.006-05:00

I woke up recently thinking about the most memorable movie moments in my life. They weren't necessarily the best movies, but ones that nonetheless stick in my head forever. In fact most of the happy memories from before I turned ten are about the movies I saw, good or bad.

At the top of the list would be the first movie I ever saw, or that I remember seeing, at the age of 5. It is impossible for anyone under 60 to recall their first movie ever because they would be watching TV before they could walk or talk. With no TV or movie theater experiences, I recall sitting on a park bench watching a serial in 1951 and being too scared to look at the screen when the Dead End Kids got killed at the end of each episode of Jr. G-Men. Chapter One ends with a fight on a runaway elevator that crashes; chapter two with them hiding in a building that blows up. They didn't even know there was a bomb inside, so how would they know to get out? Too intense for a first timer, I really thought they got killed at the end of every episode. I can recall other serials over the next 7 or 8 years of "Free Movies in the Park" in Deerfield, Wisconsin -- Lost City of the Jungle, Mystery of the Riverboat, Gang Busters -- but none had the impact of that first summer of thrills.

Just a year or two later the Tom Mix serial The Miracle Rider suddenly started showing on television late Sunday morning. It had a science-fiction element of a flying projectile in which Tom is stuck for one of the cliffhanger endings. I particularly recall an ending in which a gun is rigged to fire when Tom enters a room. This may have been the first serial I saw on TV, but the main reason it impressed was that it was on right after getting back from church! Boredom turned into excitement.

Those summer free movies in the park of course had features -- projected outdoors on 16mm and sometimes in the rain. I recall the occasional umbrellas more than most of the features: Francis the Talking Mule in the Haunted House, Destination Moon, The Deadly Mantis and particularly The Mole People, which may have been my first monster film. The familiar theme of an archeology expedition finding a lost civilization may have sparked an interest in our lost past and Atlantis that remains with me today.

When I was 8-years-old my mother dropped me off at a movie theater in Madison by myself to see a Tarzan double feature of Tarzan the Ape Man and Tarzan Escapes. It was intense at the time but mainly has been on my mind the last five years as I have researched Tarzan Escapes still looking for the lost Vampire Bats scene. For more on my quest, check out this earlier blog. The only development is that I will be getting a pressbook for the 1954 reissue of the film in a few days. I already know that it talks about the bats.

The most memorable movie experience of my entire life occurred when I was 14. You can imagine it took more thrills than giant bats to make such an impression. My mother again dropped me off at a theater in Madison. I remember standing in line to get a ticket for the sold out afternoon show, which must have been the first Saturday that it opened. The film -- PSYCHO. No one in the theater knew what was going to happen, and it sure happened. I had been primed by being a fan of Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show. I couldn't tell you which if any Hitchcock features I had seen before, but none was like Psycho anyway. I recall where I was sitting in the middle of the theater surrounded by tension, totally at the mercy of the filmmaker. At the climax someone actually screamed at the screen: "Don't go in the basement!" She did.

I often ask people what movies they saw as kids that they remember most vividly. Try it. One gets strange and fascinating replies.

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Trailers Galore!

2010-08-21T09:21:00.007-05:00

Over the years coming attraction prevus or "Trailers" have done more to bring audiences back every week than movie posters. As evidence I give you television today. You even need to watch the ads so you don't miss a few seconds glance at next week's explosion or face-off on "24," or you need to sit thru the credits to watch a gag set-up for the next episode of "Entourage." You may leave a movie theater talking about all the terrible movies that are coming soon, and yet you enjoyed seeing two minutes of them now so you don't waste a second on them next winter. Then a year later some image may have lingered enough for you to get the film from Netflix or start watching it on cable. Or not. My memory of Transformers trailer is enough to keep me from ever watching it.

Unlike commercials, Trailers are ads you want to see. I don't need to describe what trailers are. Everyone knows! Their promotional value is beyond question, so what's new with trailers and me? Thanks for asking. A couple of things.

In a conversation with a new movie theater who bought the 12-part horror series and "Turkeys in Space," the owner commented that he planned to promote them all of August before running them in the fall, and he planned to run promos on 3 TV monitors in the lobby that ran continuously. I said many of the programs included trailers for the next week's show and he could pull clips off that. On second thought, why should he need to do that work? I put them together myself and included these trailers on a separate DVD that runs 28 minutes: Phantom Creeps, Dementia 13, Carnival of Souls, House on Haunted Hill, Little Shop of Horrors, Gypped in Egypt cartoon clip, White Zombie, Brain That Wouldn't Die, Giant Gila Monster, Teenagers from Outer Space, Ghosts on the Loose, Vampire Bat, Horror Express. The last two were trailers that I made up for the Matinee Series from key scenes and "Coming Soon" wording.

28 minutes is just a scratch on all the trailers I do have or have made for public domain films. Why stop there? Why not give away with every request for the Roxy Sampler Show a second disc which is two hours of trailers? Consider it done, or as soon as I put it together. This disc can serve multiple purposes. First, my buyers can see what is available and what looks exciting or funny to them. Second, they can run trailers as part of the pre-show or in the lobby. In the case of bars and cafes, trailers are wonderful filler to run all the time, either with or without the sound turned up.

This ties in with another email I got last week that asked: "We would like to put a series of grindhouse/horror/b-films together. Do you also have any trailer compilations?" The answer to that is yes, but I haven't been advertising them other than the Horror Mania poster and program shown here. I have an excellent collection of Film Noir trailers from Crossfire to Sealed Lips to Kiss Me Deadly, and since I made a poster for them today, I am now in the business of selling that DVD. Visit the new Trailer Page.

I have three DVDs I call "Trashy Drive-In Prevus" and can sell them soon as I make a poster and put on the website. After that it's a matter of coming up with themed ideas such as "Babes, Beaches and Bikers." The poster is finished and will go on the website shortly. I have the trailers but don't need to put them all together until I get my first order.

Remember that if the poster can sell a program to YOU, you can put the same poster on your website to sell the show to your customers. "Sell" in this case means getting them to watch and enjoy, because if it's only trailers you better give them away. It's your best way to learn which films they would pay $2 bucks to come see.

Visit my website at Festival Films.

Matinee #3 - Final Four!

2010-08-14T08:17:00.006-05:00

Missile to the Moon is the featured attraction for installment #9 of the Saturday Matinee Series #3 at the Parkway Theater in south Minneapolis. Needless to remind, this series is available for anyone to show in their movie theater or as a 12-part TV series. One of the regulars commented about Missile on Facebook: "This was one of the few "bad" SF movies from the 50's that I hadn't seen yet (or, if I did, I had completely blocked it from my memory). Man, what a stinker! But it was still worth watching." He also added that no one walked out! The film is also in the Roxy "Turkeys in Space" series. I put the highlights into the trailer that appeared in the previous week's Matinee, and those highlights are 1) A moon woman hypnotizing the hero, 2) A giant spider attack, and 3) Brief glimpse of the Rock Men threatening one of the teenagers who is about to expire due to greed and the script.

The shorts were at least entertaining. "Dancing on the Moon" is a Max Fleischer color classic about a nightly honeymoon flight to the moon on board a rocket ship. The passengers are pairs of animals -- 2 bears, giraffes, elephants, etc. Mr. Cat screws up and gets left behind while his new bride goes lunar by herself. Naturally she returns to earth fuming and the stork does NOT bestow on them a blessed event. All the other animals get stork-delivered babies but the cat stork only lands and shakes his head. Also featured were trailers to "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars," "Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers" and other vintage 1950s Sci-Fi.

Program 10 was all Gene Autry, what with the serial chapter from the Phantom Empire and his best film from the 1930s, The Big Show, which I feel can be enjoyed by non-western fans because it is a contemporary film about Hollywood and fame. Gene plays two roles, the first as a haughty cowboy star making B-movies for a Republic studio look-alike. He also plays the amiable stunt man for the star who can ride, fight and sing. When the prima donna takes a walk, Gene is enlisted by the studio to impersonate him at the Texas Centennial celebration. Spectacle scenes were actually filmed at the Centennial, and are fascinating for preserving that history. Lots of music and guest groups. In one scene these four stars appear together: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Roy Rogers as one of the Sons of the Pioneers, and 3 Mesquiteers ventriloquist Max Terhune.

Many of the Matinee programs are not really aimed at kids and are not true recreations of the Saturday Matinee Experience. I aim for variety and to entertain the older audience that just enjoys following the serial, cartoons and seeing vintage films in a movie theater. Hence I took a chance and featured Tod Slaughter in program #11 -- Crimes At the Dark House (1940). A madman kills a man who has just inherited a large estate, then impersonates his victim to gain entrance to the estate so he can murder his enemies. Mr. Slaughter portrays a Victorian villain out of an old-fashioned melodrama, that I find delightfully tongue-in-cheek. In the first scene he puts a chisel to the head of the sleeping villain and pounds away. The cartoons feature this kind of stereotype villain in Chukc Jones' The Dover Boys and Cubby Bear in Sinister Stuff. I got the idea to include this film when Johnny Legend told me he saw Tod Slaughter films as a kid in Hollywood at matinees and also when I acquired a better video master.

The Matinee series closes out with Buster Keaton in Speak Easily (1932). Naive, bookish Professor Post (of Potts College) inherits a huge amount of money and decides that now he can afford to go out and enjoy life. He falls for a dancer in a bad stage show, and with his new money decides to buy the show and take it to Broadway. Will the Professor prove too nice to succeed in show business? Or will he triumph over bill-collectors, critics, and sexy vamp Eleanor Espere? The MGM features that Keaton made with Jimmy Durante are universally despised by Buster's fans, but I kind of like it. How bad can it be with Thelma Todd and Sidney Toler in the supporting cast? In a great scene, Buster gets trapped onstage during the musical he financed and his unwitting blunders add the needed comedy that saves the show.

Plus the final chapter of The Phantom Empire in which the underground super-city of Murania melts into nothingness. The melting scenes totally astounded audiences of the time and are still impressive in their "special effects," as in how the heck did they do that.

Visit my website at Festival Films.