Heavenly Christmas in July!

"If you can't sleep, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk."  This award winning slogan in Preston Sturges' Christmas in July is the main joke because it's so terrible.  Worst slogan ever.  The running joke is that no one in the film understands it or likes it except Dick Powell, who thought it up and entered it in a slogan contest.  It's a fun film that I enjoyed again recently on Turner Classic Movies.  Dick wins (or does he?) a radio contest to invent a slogan for coffee.  He splurges the grand prize on presents for his mother, girlfriend and the entire New York tenement neighborhood.  The mayhem of rejoicing when all the kids get presents they never expected -- in July -- explains the title.

I won't explain the slogan, so watch it yourself!

It's the middle of July today and I don't have presents to give out, but planning for Christmas is very much on my mind, as it should be working on two DVDs that are primarily aimed at being Christmas gifts.  The first one is Golf Mania! discussed last week, or just below the way blogs appear online.  Since last week we have begun thinking of the DVD more and more as a holiday present that anyone can buy for the golfer in their lives, or you can buy for yourself if you spot it in a golf catalog or pro shop at your country club.  Consequently we are actively seeking a major golf distributor as a sales partner.  Projected release date for both holiday gifts is very tentatively set for October 2, with publicity going out in mid August so the DVDS can be included in any printed holiday catalogs.

The other Christmas release is currently called Heavenly Christmas Film Classics and the proposed cover is shown above.  This is still a work in progress because we have an excess of rare and wonderful Christmas related films that few have seen.  You can view some film clips and read about a few other possible releases at the Christmas Lost & Rare website, which is also a work in progress.  The page says Coming Soon, which is quite true but exactly what will come in October is still being considered.  The options are 1) The one-DVD release promoted by the sample cover, 2) a two DVD release at a higher price, or 3) two separate DVDs in their own boxes.  If we go with #1, then we will be able to release another Christmas disc in 2013.

A brief note about the effective modus operandi we are falling into...
1)  Assemble the films onto a sample DVD.
2)  Design the DVD box cover.
3)  Put up a "Coming Soon" page at www.lostandrare.com.
4)  Include video clips from the films.
5)  Show the sample DVD in box to others to test reactions.
6)  Set a release date and prepare publicity.
7)  Finally, and with great enthusiasm for the product and expectations for success, have Pete Bedell author the disc.  Authoring is the process of assembling the highest quality films available, adding the Lost and Rare logo and coming attractions and the DVD menu.

You can read about the films and see prevues now at the Christmas Lost & Rare website.  I will discuss them again when the DVD is released in October, but for today I would like to talk about Three Young Kings.  This 1956 episode of “DuPont Theater” is introduced by Thomas Mitchell.  In an unspecified Latin America country three young boys are chosen by the village priest to carry Christmas gifts to the mission church children dressed in the costumes of the Three Wise Men.  They take a wrong turn on their horses, enter the poor section of town and are followed by ragged children.  One young girl of great faith touches their hearts and they give her a doll paid for by one of the boys' family meant for his sister.  Soon they give all of the presents, which had been paid for by wealthy citizens for their sons and daughters, to the poor children.  This leads to a crisis in conscience in the community over the true meaning of giving.

The gift-giving scene reminds me of the similar scene in Christmas in July.  The simple story of Three Young Kings will move any viewer whether they are religious or not and regardless of church affiliation.  Many celebrate Christmas or the "Holidays" with Christmas trees, feasts and gift giving even if they are not christians.  Giving hope and joy to children transcends any specific beliefs.  Even in July.  Here are some clips to whet your appetite for the conclusion of Three Young Kings:





Visit my websites at lostandrare.com and fesfilms.com.

Goofy Golfing Mania!

In Hollywood's rabid thirst for shorts of any kind to accompany movie shows in the 1930s and 1940s, they produced a number of golf shorts featuring famous golfers of the day and Hollywood stars.  A focus on golf also appeared in many newsreels, cartoons, comedy shorts and features.  Many of these are lost, forgotten or never heard of today even by film fans and so they fit right into "Lost and Rare Film & TV Treasures."

The lost golf film I would most like to find is The Golf Chump (1932, RKO) starring Edgar Kennedy in one of his early "Average Man" shorts.  Bill Cassara was unable to find one when he wrote his book about Edgar Kennedy and he considers it lost, although Bob DeFlores says he has seen a poor copy.

In 1998 I issued a VHS tape called Golfing With Bing And Bob in collaboration with my friend and colleague Bob DeFlores.  We created an introductory, narrated montage with the same title about Bing Crosby's contributions to the world of golf, like creating the first pro-am golf tournament.  Most of the shorts were from Bob's collection and they all included Bing Crosby or Bob Hope in some capacity.  The most obscure was perhaps Honor Caddy, a local charity film to honor golf caddies in the Los Angeles area.  We obtained the rare Faith, Hope and Hogan direct from the Christopher's organization in exchange for a better copy of their early '50s film You Can Change the World with 10 Hollywood stars.   A few years later we issued the same films on DVD with the addition of Rough But Hopeful.  The release sold well to Bing Crosby fans who we had been releasing videos to for some years.

Much earlier Bob (DeFlores) had supplied all 12 shorts in the 1931 series How I Play Golf by Bobby Jones to a company that sold many thousands on VHS to golfers and brought nice royalty checks to Bob in return for about ten years.  That project had disappeared by 1998 and all of the Bobby Jones films were copyrighted so we could not use any.  We were aware of a huge audience of golfers out there, but we never had the time or know-how to find a major retailer to handle Golfing With Bing and Bob.

A bit off the subject, on the right is a recently discovered photo of Bing and Bob Hope playing golf together in 1937, a full 3 years before Road to Singapore.  They had first met in late 1932 in New York City and actually performed together onstage in the Capitol Theater for a week.  In 1937 they both had Paramount contracts and hence this publicity photo taken during a round of golf.  Their partners on the round of golf were Shirley Ross, who Bob was filming Big Broadcast of 1938 with and Mary Carlisle (still going at age 100) that Bing was filming Dr. Rhythm with.

With the continued valuable assistance of Bob DeFlores, who contributed two more films to the new project, Lost and Rare is preparing a "Special Edition" release to be called GOLF MANIA.  It is featured as a "Coming Soon" work in progress at the Lost and Rare website.  One partner on Lost and Rare is Bob Campbell, the producer of the original Matinee at the Bijou on PBS in the 1980s, and a longtime Bijou associate is Tom Winmill.  By happy circumstance, Tom is both an avid golfer and a terrific salesman, and he has begun to explore outlets for the DVD in golf stores, golf club shops, online and catalog golf retailers and the Golf Channel.

Our aim is to create an appealing, constantly entertaining package of shorts to golfers everywhere.  Consequently not all of them are rare.  Many golfers have enjoyed W.C. Fields' golf game in The Dentist and his complete The Golf Specialist.  The Larry Semon 1922 comedy Golf is not a lost film, although a good copy has not been issued by a major company before.  Here is a list of the proposed contents of Golf Mania:

Goofy Golfers Newsreel  (2012)  12 min.  A million strokes of mirth from President William Howard Taft, Felix the Cat, W.C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Jean Harlow, Larry Semon and more!  An original Festival Films production!

Golf Magic  (1948)  9 min.  Skiers golf on snow in the mountains.  Jack Redman shows off his trick golf clubs and strokes.  John Montague golfs with both ends of a shovel.  A baby sinks his first putt!

Follow Thru  (1940)  10 min.  Pros Jimmy Thompson, Dick Metz and Borton Smith demonstrate techniques.

Rough But Hopeful  (1946)  10 min.  Rare novelty newsreel with over 20 Hollywood stars on the golf course - Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Randolph Scott, Dennis O’Keefe, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope & more.

Golf  (1922)  19 min.  Silent comedian Larry Semon cavorts on the golf course as he matches wits and putts with the villain, played with great flair by Oliver Hardy. Goofy squirrel may have inspired the gopher sequence in Caddyshack!

Golfing with Bing and Bob  (1998)  8 min.  Montage of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope clowning on the links with their professional golf buddies, 1930s to 1950s.  Produced by Festival Films and Bob DeFlores.

Don’t Hook Now  (1943)  19 min.  Bing Crosby’s 6th annual pro-am golf tournament at beautiful Rancho Santa Fe, north of San Diego, Bing and Bob Hope clown around with golf greats Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Jimmy Hines, Byron Nelson and many more! From the Bob DeFlores collection.

The Golf Specialist  (1930)  20 min.  At a Florida hotel, the great W.C. Fields, goes golfing with the house detective's flirtatious wife and an incompetent caddy!

Faith, Hope and Hogan  (1950s)  25 min.  Episode of the Christopher’s Show with Father James Keller on the golf course with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Phil Harris and interviewing Ben Hogan about his remarkable recovery from an accident.

---

Goofy Golfer Newsreel is an original Festival Films production for collecting short golf snippets on the lighter side, like the W.C. Fields golf game in The Dentist.  Here are highlights from the newsreel:



Visit my websites at Lost & Rare and Festival Films.

What Kingdom Is This Anyway?

An interesting 1935 film came my way this week -- Thine is the Kingdom, Story of the Bible in Pictures.  The main interest is that no information can be found about it.  It is not listed at IMDB, nor is Centaur Productions or producer Pierre Arnaud, nor is there any info anywhere on the Internet or in J. Stephen Lang's book "The Bible on the Big Screen."  None of the actors are recognizable, so they are all amateurs or perhaps foreigners.  The hairstyles and make up of the women suggest 1920s.  It could well be a silent film re-purposed for sound since it is narrated with music but the illustrated scenes have no sound effects.  Research so far has not found any silent film from any country with scenes from the Old and New Testament.

Mr. Lang's book only covers Hollywood or foreign studio productions of films based on bible stories.  He states that no major bible films were made during the 1930s and 40s.  Thine is certainly not a major studio film.  It is mainly a curiosity.  Stories covered include Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, (not Moses), Lot and Abraham, Elisha raising a dead child, Good Samaritan, many more, and of course the life of Christ.  It is rather cheaply produced with a small cast and many settings being outdoors or in huts.  The main design is costumes, as shown in the picture below.

This boring, lackluster poster was auctioned last year for a whopping $11.  Adam and Eve might have sold more tickets.  What, if anything, will cover their nudity?  It is a standard 28"x40" theatrical poster, which implies the film was run in movie theaters.  The auction house, emovieposter.com, has an unusual request attached: "Thine is the Kingdom, the circa 1930s religious melodrama ("All - Thrilling - Singing - Music"). If anyone knows more about this movie, please e-mail us and we will post it here."  So they never heard of it before either.

Thine is the Kingdom might have been distributed in the manner that exploitation films were taken town to town by enterprising distributors, heavily advertised for a week in advance via posters, then shown for single nights to packed houses either in a movie theater or exhibition hall.  Wikipedia: Exploitation film is an informal label which may be applied to any film which is generally considered to be both low budget and of low moral or artistic merit, and therefore apparently attempting to gain financial success by "exploiting" a current trend or a niche genre or a base desire for lurid subject matter.   Except for this film the attraction would be the highest moral value.  The "Bible belt" might have jumped at any chance to see the Bible brought to life.  Showings might well have been presented on 16mm film.

Costumes & beards abound!

The film might have been produced by a religious group and distributed at a minimal cost to churches.  A number of independent companies specialized in such films, particularly in the 1950s for TV.  Cathedral Films produced the trend-setting The Great Commandment in 1939 and I Beheld His Glory in 1953 for TV, among many other projects.  Church-sponsored films are often in the public domain because the producers dedicated them to the public and hoped for as much exposure as possible around the world.  More info can be found at Christian Film Industry entry at Wikipedia, which notes that the industry only took root and took off in the 1940s.

So what exactly is Thine is the Kingdom, Story of the Bible in Pictures and where did it come from and does anyone want to see it today?  If anyone knows or hazards a guess, please contact me.  We can include it in a future Lost & Rare release, as it has been truly lost and rare, but first will give some thought on how to find an audience. Meanwhile, here are the opening scenes!

Visit my websites at Lost & Rare and Festival Films.

Felix the Cat & Me!

First TV image broadcast!

After Charlie Chaplin, Felix the Cat was the most famous icon in the entire world through the 1920s, and may still be the most famous cat in history.  Alas, Felix did not make the transition to sound.  He never found his voice and faded from the big screen in the 1930s.  It's a complicated story about Felix' owner, Pat Sullivan, becoming an alcoholic and dying in 1933 while Felix' creator and animator, Otto Messmer, went on to other projects.  Read all about it at Wikipedia or in John Canemaker's excellent 1997 book "Felix: The Twisted Tale of the World's Most Famous Cat."

Felix holds a unique spot in the invention of television.  Wikipedia: "Felix was one of the first images ever broadcast by television when RCA chose a papier-mache Felix doll for a 1928 experiment via W2XBS New York in Van Cortlandt Park. The doll was chosen for its tonal contrast and its ability to withstand the intense lights needed. It was placed on a rotating phonorgaph turntable and photographed for approximately two hours each day. After a one-time payoff to Sullivan, the doll remained on the turntable for nearly a decade as RCA fine-tuned the picture's definition."

The broadcast image is shown above and the studio set-up on the right.

The silent Felix the Cat cartoons flooded into TV stations in the early 1950s on 16mm prints along with Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol shorts, Soundies, B-westerns, syndicated series of live shows on kinescopes and anything else distributors could lease cheaply from defunct studios like Mascot, PRC and Monogram.  Outside of the network feeds still in their infancy, 16mm was the only format that local stations could use to expand their daily programming.

In 1953, Official Films purchased the Sullivan-Messmer shorts, added soundtracks to them, and distributed to the home movie and television markets. The films do not seem to have been sitting in some vault well preserved for re-release like at Disney or Warners.  More likely Official got whatever they could wherever they could from old exchanges, resulting in a great many Felix titles not being released to TV and many are still lost today.

As a young film collector in the mid-1970s, one of the rare deals I stumbled into was acquiring over 400 Felix prints that had been sitting in an Official Films warehouse in New Jersey.  There were many multiple copies of the same title and only around 40 different ones.  I put every one in a projector to check the quality and made a curious discovery.  Some were quite nice quality with sharp focus and good contrast; while others were dupes with lesser quality and a third generation were dupes of the dupes with poor, muddy quality.  I conclude that Official quickly wore out their original negatives and copied the positive prints they had.  They must have churned out thousands of them!

Many of the vintage Felix the Cats are in the public domain because their copyrights were not renewed or they were never registered in the first place.  However, a great many were renewed and are still owned by someone, though I am not sure who.  The original © was by Pat Sullivan.  Some good cartoons I once had but could not release are Felix Hits the Deck where he gets mixed up with a deck of playing cards come to life, a Halloween themed Felix Switches Witches where he gets chased by a witch who removes her costume at the end to reveal she's a hot number, and Felix in Romeow.

I did put 16 public domain cartoons from this collection into my first VHS exclusive release called Felix the Cat Frolics, Vol. 1 & 2.  My VHS box cover is shown above.  I do sell one collection of silent Felix today on DVD in my public domain cartoons.

From "Felix the Cat's Greatest Comic Book
Tails" by Craig Yoe at Amazon.com

Lest I forget to say it, most of the silent Felix the Cats personally animated by Otto Messmer are inventive surrealist gems that entertain as much today as the silent comedies of Buster Keaton.  My favorite public domain one is Felix in Comicalamities where the animator's hand helps Felix in a hopeless pursuit of a cute girl cat.  When she spurns him after he gives her a fur coat and necklace, Felix simply rips her off the sketch pad and tears her up.  Another great one is Felix Woos Whoopee, a 1930 sound one with a music track and mumbled voices but the style is exactly like the silent ones.  Felix gets drunk on New Year's Eve and is pursued by monsters on his trek home to wifey.  In Sure-Locked Homes Felix gets trapped in a spooky house pursued by monstrous shadows.

Because the original Felix holds a place in both the invention of TV and in 1950s TV programming, we plan to include one in the upcoming Lost & Rare Primeval Television DVD currently in preparation.  We are fortunate to have one that has been lost in its complete form for many years -- Felix in the Bone Age (1922).  At least it has not surfaced in any DVD collections to date.  IMDB only reviews a 3-minute excerpt: "Felix comes upon a caveman and his girlfriend. The girlfriend is crying, and when the caveman asks her what she wants, she points to Felix. The caveman chases Felix, who escapes by using the tails of some friendly monkeys to make his way down a steep cliff. Later he makes friends with a baby monkey, but winds up getting in a fight with a huge gorilla."  Here is a brief clip of The Bone Age that few have ever seen, followed by Comicalamities (1928).

16 mm film was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1923 as an inexpensive amateur alternative to 35mm film format.  Initially directed toward the amateur market, Kodak hired Willard Beech Cook from his 28mm Pathescope of America company to create the new 16 mm Kodascope Library. In addition to making home movies on 16mm, one could buy or rent films from this library, one of the key selling aspects of the format.  Many silent films only survive today because the Kodascope versions found their way into collections. Felix in the Bone Age is one such happy print that still runs after 80 years!


Visit my websites at fesfilms.com and lostandrare.com.

Testing! One! Two! Three!

Dear Friends, Fans and Readers,

I recently discovered that Google Analytics was keeping track of visitors to this blog on a handy graph and - surprise - I have a lot more readers than I knew about!  Thank you for checking back weekly!  I will endeavor to post something of interest every weekend, which won't be hard with all the rare films coming along.

My focus continues to be on the Lost and Rare series as discussed in recent blog entries, but there is always more to discover.  I now have DVDs of Lost TV Pilots and Sports Immortals in stock from our duplicator for immediate delivery.  These are not only authored DVDs with menus and introductions before the films, but they have bar codes and are shrink wrapped.  In short, professional in every sense.  They are for sale at Movies Unlimited, Amazon.com, my lostandrare website and will shortly be offered by Alpha Video.  We are looking for a sports retailer to sell Sports Immortals online.

I have a new Festival Films logo as shown above, designed by Pete Bedell, that is animated at the head of each DVD before the introduction continues into Lost and Rare Film & Video Treasures.  You can view this opening at beginning of the film clip below.  In fact, and I believe it's unusual, we have brief prevue films at the website of all 10 films on the first 2 DVDs.

Complete!

So far we are mainly collecting short subjects -- cartoons, TV shows, Industrial films, vintage documentaries, advertising films, theatrical shorts and commercials.  Collections of vintage shorts are relatively scarce on DVD.  "We" refers to me (Ron Hall), Bob Campbell and Derek Myers.  Upcoming films are so fascinating we feel putting them together in thematic releases will find a large and growing audience.

Lost and Rare are the key words.  We will include a few films each time that most fans have never seen or heard of before, like episodes of Top Secret (1954) that feature the first computer to play a role on TV.  Other criteria for inclusion are TV episodes that are not out on DVD, films with better quality or more complete versions of films presumed lost for years.  An example of rare TV is The Drug Pushers episode of Martin Kane Private Eye.  An example of better quality is a rare Kodachrome print of a Judge Roy Bean and a more complete film is Felix in The Bone Age.

While filling early orders for Volumes 1 and 2, we are conducting a beta test to answer many questions about where we are and what comes next.  We are asking questions such as...

● determine suitable amount of content for future volumes ­­ 5 films, 10 films, more? 

● decide if future volumes should remain single disc, 2 discs, more?  

● determine ideal price points? 

● decide the ideal release pattern – 2 volumes released monthly ­­ quarterly?  

● find wisdom and guidance how best to tailor the series for educational markets. 

● develop creative partnerships with existing archives that share a similar mission. 

● explore potential sponsorship branding opportunities.

● explore potential for grants or in­kind help with film restoration work. 

● explore how the DVD series might be adapted for a TV and/or Webcast market. 

● explore potential theatrical venues for some of the collections. 

● explore on demand and streaming video platforms. 

● develop distributor partnerships beyond Movies Unlimited and Amazon.com. 

Lloyd Nolan as Martin Kane
"The Dope Pushers"

In short, we are sharing the website, the Lost & Rare concept and video clips with all interested parties, asking them these kinds of questions and getting valuable feedback.  If you have any answers, ideas or guidance, please email me at fesfilms@aol.com.

One discovery last week was the need to change the name of an upcoming release.  While one can't copyright a title, I had overlooked that Bruce Simon at KineVideo already had an established series called "Prehistoric TV."  After ruminating a spell, Prehistoric transformed into Primeval Television, and primeval is actually a better word since it is more mysterious and does not conjure up dinosaurs or cavemen. Primeval: "...of or relating to the earliest ages."

Last week I added to the website descriptions and film clips for Primeval Television.  This page is a work in progress -- Coming Soon.  We have the films that we show excerpts of, but are working to secure others equally as exciting and rare.  Changes and additions will show up on that web page right up until release in the fall.

Enjoy this opening from Top Secret that we bet you have never seen.  These 12 minute stories (!) starring Gena Rowlands and Paul Stewart were designed so two could run in a half-hour segment.  Here is how the computer - AMIC - is used in a typical story - The Lost Child.  A grieving scientist who has recently lost her son disappears.  A BSI agent phones headquarters to ask AMIC where to look.  Later they ask AMIC how to restore her sanity so she can report to a conference.  The answers are surprising and the resolution is quick (remember, 12 minute shows).

Many pages at the website announce "If you have a lost or rare cartoon, short, newsreel, TV show, war documentary or movie on film (except 8mm), please contact us.  We may be interested in licensing your content for our series."  So if you do, then please do that!  Email me at fesfilms@aol.com.

Visit my websites at Lost & Rare and Festival Films.

Reviews of Round 1!

A few weeks ago Festival Films released the first two DVDs in our Lost & Rare series -- Lost and Rare TV Pilots and Sports Immortals.  Four specific new releases are in the active planning stage, to be discussed in the weeks ahead, but we are now in a "beta test" phase to determine how best to promote, price and improve the current format prior to beginning a monthly release pattern in the Fall. 


Here are Victoria's opening comments:


As a writer, it’s always fun to discover something new. In this case, what’s new is actually old but that makes it even more fun. A new series has been released on DVD called Lost & Rare Film and TV Treasures. The first from the series to be released is Lost & Rare Vol. 1: Television Pilots—five half-hour shows featuring some serious Hollywood talent from the 1950s golden age of television. For those who don’t know, a pilot is a sample episode shown to a potential sponsor or aired on a network to test audience response.


It’s hard to say which pilot is the biggest treasure—Maggie, featuring a 23-year-old Margret O’Brien in her fourth appearance with Leon Ames as her fictional father? Meet McGraw, with Frank Lovejoy delivering a snappy film noir tight enough to be a movie? The shaggy and bumbling Munroe is utterly unlike the suave Lassie and is a foretaste of other military/buddy sitcoms. Ed Wynn is also a bit shaggy and bumbling, which is what makes The Ed Wynn Show so appealing.

I can't recommend enough the fascinating film articles and lively discussions found weekly at Movies Unlimited's Movie FanFare.  This is basically a blog section written by an army of informed film fans and enthusiasts.  My Facebook friends often post a link to their latest article that has appeared at Movie Fanfare.  A week ago Victoria Balloon wrote a review of Lost TV Pilots for Movie FanFare that has received 32 comments so far.  One of the odd comments was that the writer could not find the DVD for sale on Amazon.com.  It is for sale at Amazon, but of course they read about the release at the Movies Unlimited website, and might have thought to look for it there!  Movies Unlimited does not use their FanFare section to blatantly promote videos they sell, but common sense says to check with them first.


Lost and Rare TV Pilots is also for sale at Amazon.com where it has received a favorable review especially for Munroe:  All of the shows were really good, but the standout for me was the episode of a show called 'Munroe'. Munroe is the name of a dog in the K9 corps, and I was totally impressed with this show. Why it was not picked up, I do not have any idea. If it were picked up, I think I would have preferred it to Gomer Pyle. 

A major review just appeared by Editor Jef Burnham at the highly recommended Film Monthly.  Please follow that link for the complete review.  I reprint here Jef's comments about 1936 Olympics Highlights:


Although I’m sure those four pieces will greatly appeal to serious sports enthusiasts, the final piece in the collection, 1936 Olympic Highlights (1936), is in fact a significant historical text outside of any athletic context and, in my eyes, fully worth the price of admission. If you don’t already know, the Nazi Party in fact hosted the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, a mere three years before the Invasion of Poland. Thus, this piece constitutes a significant historical record. 1936 Olympic Highlightsincludes footage from the opening ceremony, in which the German National Anthem played over the march of the United States’ athletes and the Hindenburg flew overhead, as well the games themselves, which prove to be quite amusing in context. For although the Nazis obviously intended the event to serve as propaganda for the Aryans’ superior athletic abilities, 1936 Olympic Highlights reveals that the good old U.S. of A. ultimately trounced the Nazi Olympians at virtually every turn.


Visit my websites at lostandrare.com and fesfilms.com.

A Few New Wrinkles!

Holiday Weekend!  A good time to remind about a few Café Roxy/Festival Films basics!

New Comedy Program for Theaters!
(Showtime info goes in box at bottom.)

My Festival Films website averages about 110 hits a day, and of those 77% are new visitors (info thanks to google analytics).  I do not advertise DVD sales to the general public, though I will gladly sell to anyone who happens to find me.  New visitors usually find me by doing an Internet search on "Public Domain Films."  A Google search just now puts me at #9 and Yahoo search on their first page in the #8 position.  I do not lobby to move up the list and believe I hold that coveted first-page position because I have been around so long.  The exact Yahoo listing is:

Festival Films | Public Domain Films | Home

Festival Films has been in business for over 30 years selling Public Domain Films, TV Shows, Stock Footage, 16mm Films, Movie Posters, DVDs and Video Masters.

www.fesfilms.com/public-domain - Cached

The public knows about Public Domain and so they search me out.  This results in weekly email or phone inquiries that start: "I just bought an old movie theater and am thinking about...." or "I'm starting a TV station and...."  That latter inquiry is not a joke.  I have recently entered a relationship with a TV station and I don't even know their name or location, but the owner is friendly and wanted 3 hours of public domain films a day and wants me to program them.  More about all this later if I get a link to their website.  Early results: "It seems the programming you have previously sent has been popular with our audience. We are getting positive feedback."


One new wrinkle I came up with for this station was an extended Saturday Matinee.  This involves running one of the Matinee Programs every Saturday, which with TV commercials comes to two hours, but then adding a second matinee feature to flesh out a 3-hour time slot.  The first Matinee feature that accompanies Chapter #1 of "Radar Men from the Moon" is "The Most Dangerous Game," and the logical second feature is a 53 minute Roy Rogers western.  In week 4 when the feature is a western -- John Wayne in "Hell Town" -- I sent an East Side Kids film (Kid Dynamite) to go with it so as not to have two westerns.  If they load up the 3 hours with commercials, and I have no way of telling if they do, then they can eliminate one of the cartoons to create more ad time.

Thinking of Roy Rogers, I recently obtained a number of new film transfers of his films (thanks to partner Derek Myers) that I simply did not have decent quality on previously, and I put these together into 4 double features for sale on Amazon.com.  As I say in a brief introduction I added: "You can finally see what's going on in all those night scenes."  Will advertising "New Film Transfers" resonate with fans who have been looking...?  I think perhaps it will at $12.95.

Red River Valley is a key Roy western as it is his first "modern" western set in the present with cars alongside horses.  It is also his first film with future sidekick Pat Brady, who made quite a comic foil to Gabby Hayes in this period.  Both films feature lovely Gale Storm as second leading lady.  First lead goes to a comic lady, Sally Payne, who goes for Pat while Gale and Roy connect for the fadeout.  Roy probably endeared himself to his young boy fans by rarely kissing in his movies, but in the second film, Man from Cheyenne, he kisses both Sally and Gale in the first five minutes.  What are you waiting for?  Go watch these films!

The Hollywood Theater in Dormont, PA, has been getting public domain programs from me for a year and mixing them in with shows they lease from others.  They added a little extra fun when they ran my 12 Nights of Horror and flew in a skeleton during House on Haunted Hill and recreated the body-less woman onstage during Brain That Wouldn't Die.  Last week they requested a special program based on "Lotsa Laffs" except with complete shorts.  I like filling special requests because if a show will work one place, then I can offer it to others on my website.

For those unfamiliar with programs offered by Café Roxy, or for a quickie reminder, I make a poster for every show.  The poster can be taken right off my website and either printed or the jpeg image can be used on your own website.  The empty rectangle is where you can put info about theater name, address, date and showtime.  I made the poster shown up top for the Dormont.  Here is how they are advertised in the Comedy section of fesfilms.com:

Lotsa Laffs! 105m. Hilarious shorts and cartoons in one giant laff-fest for movie theaters or Internet streaming. "Our Gang Follies of 1938," W.C. Fields in "The Dentist," 3 Stooges "Disorder in the Court" and Abbott and Costello "Who's On First?" -- plus cartoons "Arctic Giant" with Superman, Betty Boop in "Is My Palm Read?" and "Popeye Meets Ali Baba" and more! Check out these additional short comedy collections of Lotsa Laffs!

These are not new films.  They are not rare films.  But they are hilarious and good-to-go for movie theaters who want time-tested programs all put together for them.  Your audiences will thank you, and more importantly they will laugh loud and long!