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10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD (1 Viewer)

Xenia Stathakopoulou

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For those that hate the platinum logo bug, here is a way to get rid of it. The logo on these dvds are encoded as if they were subtitles, so just turn it off with the dvd remote pressing the subtitle button, it worked for me.
 

Tory

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Doesn't work that way for me. The Platinum Logo does not read as being a subtitle track, even though it is. It does disappear if I pause and rewind for a second.
 

Xenia Stathakopoulou

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Im just saying that if you press it once when the movie starts , it wont appear at all through the end.Doing pausing and rewinding is a different story
 

Xenia Stathakopoulou

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I dont know if this is a problem on my volume 2 dvd, but ill describe it.On the blondie goes latin movie , in the first 20 minutes or so the picture is jumpy at random parts.It also does this later on in the film too.Does this happen to your copies too ? Every of the other movies was fine in this volume, havent gotten around to watching volume 1 yet.
 

booklover

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If the dvd is selling well, you would think that that would encourage Sony to release the films on DVD...
 

Will Krupp

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Does Sony even own them? I was under the impression that they stopped being Columbia property years ago.
 

booklover

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You could very well be right. Does anyone know who does own the rights so I can contact them and find out what's going on? Thanks!
 

ahollis

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I understand that the copyright for the Blondie movies reverted back to King Features sometime in the 60's, which is also the comic strip distributor. When they took control they cut off the original logos & titles and added their own logo and titles. They sold the 27 or so movies to local TV stations with cuts in any of the movies that could not fit into a 90 minute space with commercials. Which actually was not very many. Although in the late 90's AMC (in it's glory days) showed the series and went back and used the original beginnings including the Columbia Logo.

I would have to guess that King Features still holds what copyrights are in place, but may have lost those rights or least to the first 10 films since Platinum released those in their 2 DVD pack.

I also have the DVD's and while they are not top notch, they are enjoyable and still have a lot of laughs in them. I wish the others would become available.

On still another Blondie note, Columbia at the time did not respect the series, lost interest in it and even cancelled it in 1943 with Footlight Glamour supposedly ending the series. However they received so much mail and requests from theatre owners that they restarted the series in 1945 and continued it for another 14 films with the final being Beware of Blondie in 1950.

So here's to the postman and will he ever learn to stay away from that front door.
 

booklover

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Thanks to everyone for their help. One final question (I promise!)...if King Features owns the rights, that means a dvd distributor would have to request and pay a fee to release the films? King Features aren't dvd distributors, correct?
 

ahollis

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You are correct. Hearst Entertainment which incorporated King Features under their umbrella owns the over all distribution rights. After a little further investigation is seems that Platinum did get rights to release the first 10 films from Hearst. I would hope that if the set sold as well as we all claim, Platinum would go after the rest of the films.

Hearst Entertainment also features a library of more than 250 films. The Hearst catalog is distributed by Tribune Entertainment in the US to stations, and internationally through Lakeshore International. Hearst Entertainment was founded in 1981. It also owns or partially owns these cable networks, A&E, The History Channel, History International, Lifetime, and Lifetime Movie. The films that they own, other than the 28 Blondie films all seem produced for Lifetime. Interesting, and really not for this thread, but they own the Popeye, Krazy Kat and The Beatles animated shows that were shown on Saturday morning (I think I read that Warner's got the Popeye theatrical cartoons from Hearst-King Features). Not many of the Lifetime films are on DVD, but the ones that are range from Mandacy to MPI to Simitar Ent to Alpha Video. Not using any of the big ones so it would seem Platinum releasing the Blondies is fitting in with their over all plan. If I was Hearst, I would hook up with one coumpany such as Image or MPI and release the films in collections.

To get more Blondies would mean to talk Hearst into having it done.



.
 

Xenia Stathakopoulou

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Video eta.com shows a July release date for a Blondie box set by echo bridge entertainment.I wonder if its the same 10 movies being repackaged , or if its some of the unreleased ones ??? Id be all over this set, if its some of the 18 unreleased !!!!Unfortuneately, I doubt we will know till after they are released.
 

ahollis

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They are the same 10 from Platinum that were release a few years before. If they have taken over releasing the films, hope they are able to dig deeper and release some more titles. Does anyone know if Echo Bridge might have bought Platinum?
 

Eric Vedowski

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There's an announcement on the Echo Bridge website "ECHO BRIDGE ENTERTAINMENT SIGNS AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE ALLIANCE ATLANTIS INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION FROM GOLDMAN SACHS CAPITAL PARTNERS
Acquisition Would Add Distribution Rights to Over 5,500 Hours of First Run and Catalog Programming to the Echo Bridge Entertainment Library, Creating One of the Largest Independent Distributors of Film and Television Programming Worldwide, with a Combined Portfolio of Over 11,000 Titles"
Not sure if that includes Platinum or not. At the end of the piece it lists a whole bunch of movies & tv they now control. Link here:
https://www.echobridgeentertainment.com/news.php
 

Jack Cleveland

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Can anyone tell me if these films have ever been released with their original Columbia credits? VHS or otherwise?

Thanks-

Jack
 

ahollis

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No they never have. The rights to the films reverted back to King Features from Columbia in the 50's and they added the titles and trimed all the films that would not fit into a 90 min. slot with ads. This was done before VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc and DVD.
 

Jack Cleveland

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I knew that the cutting had been done back in the fifties, but are you saying that the original Columbia credits don't exist at all? I thought that the VHS copies had the restored original credits. So are they gone forever, or just locked up in a vault somewhere?
 

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