FATHER KNOWS BEST - Coming in April '08 (1 Viewer)

[MatthewA]

Collectors are reluctant to deal with the studios because they fear the possibility of prosecution. Just ask Roddy MacDowall (if he were still living). The FBI got a tip that he owned bootleg film prints and raided his collection. That tip may or may not have been true.

Also consider the fact that WB had to arrest a film collector to get the negative to a cut number from the 1954 "A Star is Born" when they were restoring the original cut. WB today does not allow theaters to run collector's prints of repertory titles, even in extreme cases where neither they nor an archive have a print (and this has happened on non-obscure titles).

One thing I find fishy is the idea that after the 1960s Columbia Pictures Television would have edited the negatives, especially in the 1980s when they were switching to tape distribution. Consider that 1960s Screen Gems shows appear to survive in uncut form as seen on their respective DVDs. Also consider that 25 1/2 minutes is pretty long for "syndicated edits" that were made in 1960 by Screen Gems. I have also come across numerous 16mm syndie prints (not of this show but others) that escaped editing and still have "place commercial here" tags. I wonder whether the edits relate to the removal of network sponsor material. It is also conceivable that the negatives to some episodes could be in too poor condition to use, and making new film-to-tape transfers would do further damage.

If they were going to restore it, I don't see why they wouldn't try to promote such a restoration at every available outlet. As I said, Shout! and Rodney Young may not be able to afford it, but Sony could. As they don't seem to stand to gain anything in the short term, they probably don't feel the need.

Bottom line: find out as much info as you can as soon as possible, verify sources, and think critically.

 

[Corey3rd]

It wasn't Bootleg copies of the films that Roddy was nailed for. They were actual prints that he had received from various sources. There is still plenty of bathtub dupes on the collectors market. What's amazing is knowing that a couple major universities were fooled into spending top dollar on these bootlegs in order to brag about their film archive.

You still are not supposed to own 35mm prints of films. The MPAA still sends its goons out looking for "stolen" films. In the eyes of the MPAA, any print that's not in a studio vault has been stolen.

 

[MatthewA]

Just think how many films would be lost or only available in shortened forms if it were not for "thieves."

 

[DeWilson]

Well, lets first remember that the whole situation with Roddy McDowell was back in 1975 - at the birth of the video age. The funny thing is, Roddy was so well liked, he never got any backlash from fellow stars producers directors and collectos who he 'informed' on. Funny that. Many films that Roddy owned were legal - and even came from the studios themselfs!

Ironicly, we wouldn't have the Revue/MCA/Universal releases from TIMELESS if it wasn't for the collectors and private archives having saved the 16mm syndication prints from destruction!

 

[RobertGr]

I believe the info my sources have relayed as major research went into getting the best materials for this release. A sad fact is we all cry for vintage tv releases but do not seem to support the release. I do not think HAZEL sold enough units for Sony to look at a possible restoration project on another vintage show even older, even if it was possible so to me I do not see anything fishy. My sources are the ones that would know the situation so I do not question the info. The set will be the best possible given the materials available and will be a wonderful set indeed. I am seeing every kind of reason why collectors should not help, I recently heard a great story about Ginger Rogers, her private print of ROBERTA was used and thanks to her the film exists did the MPAA throw her in the klink when her print was used. Nor did the MPAA send their goons to her house. I also seem to remember John Wayne's print of SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON is what is used for the film's video incarnation and again no Goons showed up at the Dukes house. So if any collector out there is in possesion of "uncut" material on FKB stand up and be heard!! By the way I met Roddy McDowell a couple of years before he passed away and had a long talk with him, he was quite the laserdisc collector and I had just gotten the brand spanking new laserdisc of HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and he was thrilled to see it even calling over his publicist to show her the cover and pointing out Maureen O'Hara and mentioning he had spoken with her that morning. He signed the cover to me and about 10 years later I got to meet Ms. O'Hara and she signed the other corner so on one laserdisc cover I have both their autographs!

 

[Corey3rd]

I speak of MPAA goons on a personal level. I worked at a major film archive. One day the goons showed up one day because they thought we had illegal print of Michael Mann's The Insider. We had run a DVD for a film class in our theater. They had flown across the country for a DVD. Luckily the student schedule had DVD printed on it and they were shown the DVD and told to go home. They were all set to camp out in our vaults and start grabbing prints.

They are still a threat to people who have 35mm and 16mm film prints.

and I bought the first season of Hazel and now all 4 DVDs have clouded up with Clear Case Residue.

 

[MatthewA]

The MPAA is a thugocracy. Plain and simple. It needs to be broken up.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

As I said above, and it's true, so you have no reason to disbelieve it -- in 1960, "Father Knows Best" didn't go into syndication -- it went into primetime network reruns. So if it had to be cut at all, it would be only a small amount, and 25.5 minutes makes sense.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I think the real problem is that those of us who cry for vintage TV releases make up a very, very small market. I cry for them and definitely support them -- I got HAZEL the first day it went on sale.

I was shocked they even released one season -- I'm not even remotely surprised it didn't make it to two (after all, even "Leave It to Beaver" stopped at two).

 

[RobertGr]

Joe you are totally correct, in fact I bought HAZEL the day of release and at Tower Records so when my HAZEL started to get the dreaded stains I of course could not return them to Tower as they are of course closed so I had to mail them back to Sony, luckily they e-mailed me a fedex return label so I hope my new set will not have the same problem. I have SHOUT's wonderful 2 YOU BET YOUR LIFE boxes and they are outstanding so I know FKB is in good hands.

 

[RobertGr]

Besides being a huge fan of tv, and movies I also do extensive research as an author of histories. So I decided to do a quick pass on the 1960 - 1962 timeframe on FKB. I found an interesting piece from 1960 in which Eugene Rodney was discussing the shows fate for the 1960 - 61 season. It seems there was talk of continuing the series with less new shows and a mix of "best" episodes as Eugene Rodney claimed that he disliked the phrase "reruns" the same piece mentioned that they he and Robert Young were getting a bit worn down. But there seems to be an interesting incident that might have sealed the end of the show, it was the on going writer's strike. So hmmmmm it is quite possible that Sony's records are correct, the show might have indeed been edited for syndicated reruns in 1960 but with the writers strike going unresolved CBS might have decided to use the series as a bankable proven rating winner because no new material was being written due to the strike. Hence no new shows, the planned syndication of the series being on hold a bit while CBS continued to use the series on the primetime schedule. Sure this is speculation but I tend to believe the extensive research recently done for the dvd release.

 

[RobertGr]

Hi

I spent more time researching the situation and things get a bit clearer. In April of 1960 Eugene Rodney was interviewed via telephone on the situation regarding FKB. The producers Young and Rodney needed to film 5 more shows for the remainder of the 1959 - 60 season, the delay was caused by the writers strike. Both Young and Rodney were thinking of the 1960 - 1961 season CBS offered them the prime slot they had already, so Rodney and Young were "considering" using "best of the old" shows airing the next season 1960 - 61 and possibly adding some new episodes mixed in. By doing this they would keep the show from going to ABC for reruns for the 1960 - 61 season. SO INDEED the show was scheduled for reruns in 1960 on ABC hence the info that the show was edited at that time is correct and Sony/Shout! has the correct info. What was cut might have been stuff re CBS or maybe next week FKB show previews that might have appeared for the episodes original run. Within a period of a few days Young and Rodney announced they decided to pull the plug because they felt in the show the oldest daughter would be ready to get married or move away, the son would have been ready for college or the military and this would have broken up the tv family ruining the premise of the show. Plus the producers were getting "tired."

Even though the show stopped production CBS ran the show resulting in stalling the plans for the shows being rerun on ABC in 1960 - 61!

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I also read an old interview with Robert Young which substantially said the same thing: the time had come for Betty to get married and Bud to go in the army, so they felt the time was right to end the show.

In her Archive of American Television Interview, viewable through Google, Jane Wyatt talks about this, and she also candidly adds that Lauren Chapin wasn't developing into a pretty girl, or words to that effect, which was also part of the decision to end the show!

And, for the record, the primetime reruns were two years on CBS (1960-61 and 1961-62 seasons) and one year on ABC (1962-63), and in late 1962 ABC also started daytime reruns, when the shows probably had at least three more minutes hacked out of them.

 

[Hank Dearborn]

What does Hazel doing poorly have to do with Father Knows Best? Hazel was a marginal show at best. Personally I think it's a pretty crappy show and I think Shirley Booth got on everyones nerves. It's basically a white version of Beulah. So, because a crappy old show did poorly means Sony had no interest in a classic old show that happens to be older? I'm sorry but the logic of that eludes me. That's like saying that if some movie from the 40s gets released and does badly then Gone With The Wind would do worse because it's older. That argument makes absolutely no sense.

 

[RobertGr]

Hank Hazel was not a marginal show, when Shirley Booth was announced for the role it got huge press especially since she signed a 5 year contract. The show was a sturdy perfomer for its first 4 years until they decided to switch famalies. On your other point you seem to profess knowledge in these matters but evidently you do not lnow how the video business works especially for the big machines that are the major studios. They look at dollars and from their point of view "sense" and looking at sales figures if they see a show - an old tv show in black and white does not sell the units they feel it should have they will not look at another show even older than that even if it is considered a classic. The would rather spend the time and release another version of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. That is why we should really find joy in companies like SHOUT because they can try to go for the releases that are classics and can make a profit on selling less than Sony wouid to make money - why because their business is not a large as SOny - less employees less overhead etc.

By the way the article I re: FKB referenced Hank appeared in the NY TIMES in early April 1960 that is the interview with Eugene Rodney which also mentions ABC was to get the show in 1960-61 season but by keeping the show on even with "best episodes" it would stall the shows being rerun on ABC. A couple of three days later the announcement came that the producers called it quits. It is there in black and white and hence Sony's records are correct, the show was to go to reruns in 1960-61 whcih is when the first edits did take place in anticaption of the shows ABC run. But that plan was put on hold when CBS decided to keep the show in its old slot in reruns.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

"Hazel" was not a crappy show. It was the highest-rated sitcom of the 1961-62 season; Shirley Booth was one of the greatest actresses of her generation; Booth won the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series twice; I know for a fact that she didn't get on "everyone's" nerves, because she sure didn't get on mine; and she made the role much more multi-dimensional than Beulah, or more than the original choice for the part, Thelma Ritter, would have.

It's difficult to explain peoples' antipathy to certain things. Maybe she reminded you of a teacher or an aunt you didn't like.

 

[Hank Dearborn]

No, just a busybody always in people's business. Anyway, to each his own. And I didn't mean to start a war about Hazel but my point was that this whole logic of x show is from this year (1961) and didn't meet expectations so therefore show y from an earlier year will do as poorly or worse. That makes sense I suppose if you are 30 years old and haven't the slightest knowledge of either property. Putting aside for the moment what either show rated when it originally aired, which as we have seen has little to do with a show's afterlife, FKB had far more exposure throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s and is a much fonder remembered series. It even spawned 2 reunion movies, which if I am not mistaken were the first such television series reunion films ever done (not counting the 3 Make Room for Daddy reunions which were actually specials, not films). On top of that, Robert Young had a continued television presence with Marcus Welby and his numerous commercials. Again, I didn't mean to pick on Hazel but just to point out how asinine it is to lump all old shows together. There are a hundred different factors which determine the success of a release, with the age of the series being just one of them.

 

[RobertGr]

Hank, you always post great stuff and I as a collector agree with what you say regarding releasing these great shows sadly the with all the closures of these great brick and mortar stores that were outlets to get the product to the publics attention are closing up making vintage product harder to sell when compared with the SPIDERMAN 3's, PIRATES OF THE well you get the picture. As collectors we all have friends who love collecting old shows if we all spread the word about stuff we buy and like maybe we can get these sales numbers up there and that might relate to more product.

Maybe a way to go would be to do something like Columbia House used to do release old shows but instead of best of tapes or dvd's do complete seasons.
By the way HAZEL here in NY was a fixture on NY channel 5 in reruns in the late 60's and early 70's then in the 80's it followed CBN's showing of FKB I think at 2:30 pm. In the early 70 Channel 5 had a great morning line-up of Green Acres, Hazel, Bewtiched, Andy Griffith, and Dick Van Dyke. Shows that never seemed to make it in NY syndication were Family Affair and The Beverly Hillbillies.

 

[Hank Dearborn]

Amazing what shows had long runs in NY. Patty Duke seemed to be on channel 11 forever. Girl from UNCLE lasted on channel 5 until the late 70s but Man was off by 1972. And then some shows were never even bought here like Doris Day, Gunsmoke, Ozzie and Harriet and Night Gallery.

BTW, how did you get CBN? I didn't get cable in my area until 1990, long after CBN's heydey.

 

[RobertGr]

Hank live in Long Island and got Cablevsion early on, CBN (The Family Channel) showed FKB, they showed Green Acres and they showed Hazel during the days, FKB aired at 2pm followed by Hazel then Green Acres. On Friday late night they showed You Bet Your Life, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny and The Bob Cummings Show. On FKB there was a couple of years they had a min marathon on Mothers Day with the cast sitting on a huge couch and talking about their favorite episodes - a big favorite of the enitre cast was the one where the Andersons were listening on a radio to a family stranded on a boat at sea during a storm. And the show was a standout episode, very well written and played perfectly by the cast.
You know if someone had the money and did a channel the right way and showed Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, FKB, Donna Reed, Superman, Sgt Preston, Rin Tin Tin, all th classics Sgt Bilko etc etc like what TV Land started as there would be a huge audience. Heck that is what helped launch Nick at Night too but then they sink to showing All in the Family, Good Times, Mash, The Jeffersons etc - now I admit I love those shows too but it is not really classic and vintage tv.