Movies not on DVD caught in 'rights hell' (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Newcomb]

Warner claimed at a chat a couple of years ago that they no longer have the rights to Buddy Buddy.

 

[Patrick McCart]

It might be a mistake on Warner's part concerning Buddy Buddy. The theatrical poster clearly says it's from MGM, but distributed by UA. Network was in the same position and WB obviously released that.

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

SPLIT IMAGE was actually produced by Polygram, during their first stab at financing films in the '80's. Those films seem to be in a limbo - the video rights at one time were divided among Embassy video (IMAGE, KING OF THE MOUNTAIN, DEADLY BLESSING), Columbia (SIX WEEKS), Universal (ENDLESS LOVE, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER), and later Vestron/Artisan (reissues of the Universal titles). Polygram even had a short-lived TV division that was later sold to King Features/Hearst Entertainment, and TV rights to those movies went with them.

So far, the only film from that package to reemerge on DVD is AMERICAN WEREWOLF, which somehow reverted to John Landis and George Folsey, and was relicensed to Universal. I had believed that the remaining films would have gone to MGM along with the whole pre-96 Polygram library they bought, but a theater-operator friend who miraculously found a print of SPLIT IMAGE to screen for a festival said he got it from Universal. I haven't been able to investigate this any deeper though.

My speculation on BUDDY BUDDY is that the rights may have reverted back to producer Jay Weston - another film he produced, NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER, is no longer owned by its original studio of release (Columbia) either.

 

[JulianK]

I don't know if it will help you pin down the US owners, Mark, but Deadly Blessing has been recently been released on DVD in Australia (by Umbrella Entertainment) and the UK (by Arrow Films "under exclusive license from Hollywood Classics Ltd, on behalf for Universal Pictures International, BV"). The UK box carries the Universal logo, too.

Incidentally, I always enjoy reading your bloodhound analysis of who owns what movies, so thanks for your contributions to this thread (and elsewhere)!

 

[Roger Rollins]

An understandable confusion, but not the case............

MGM withdrew from film distribution at the end of 1973, and signed a 10 year deal for domestic theatrical distribution with United Artists. (Int'l went to CIC).

The company was scaled back to making only 3-4 movies per year, and those went through UA domestically.

NETWORK was a special case. It was a co-production between MGM and United Artists. MGM had domestic rights, and UA had foreign. That still is the situation today, except that Warner Bros. is the successor-in-interest to old MGM, and "NEW MGM" owns the UA holdings.

MGM decided to take a stab at getting back into full scale film production, and prepared an ambitious, and star-laden slate that looked great (on paper).
BUDDY, BUDDY was one of those films, and it was set for a Xmas 1981 release. Meanwhile, post-Heaven's Gate, United Artists went down the tubes, and its parent company Transamerica, was hungry to get out of the movie business. Kerkorian ended up buying UA and merging the two companies. By the time BUDDY, BUDDY came out, MGM owned UA, but most of the ads and posters of the era still had a UA logo on them.

Meanwhile, back to the rights issue...my guess is it could be related to the French play and 1973 film called "L'Emmerdeur" (by Francis Veber) which was the source material on which BUDDY, BUDDY was based. The original French movie starred Lino Ventura and was called "A PAIN IN THE A**" when released here in the states.

A remake of that film is due out this year, so this underlying rights trail may be the reason why BUDDY, BUDDY is in limbo.....

 

[Dan McW]

Sergeants 3, I'll Never Forget You/The House in the Square, and It Ain't Hay have made it out of rights hell since this thread began. Is there any hope for some of the other unreleased titles mentioned above? I don't know whether some of the films (such as The Cat and the Canary '39 or the Ladd version of The Great Gatsby) have fallen into rights hell or the equally hard-to-escape-from realm of Universal/Paramount Purgatory.

 

[Charles Ellis]

I'm holding out hope for Berkeley Square, since its color remake I'll Never Forget You just came out. I wonder what Warner Home Video will do about Letty Lynton and Beyond The Forest- since previous Davis and Crawford sets have been successful, there should be a movement by the WB legal department to clear the remaining rights hurdles.

 

[Mark Oates]

Resurrecting The Cat And The Canary (1939) - I've noticed a comment on IMDb about a legal complication that stopped it being part of the job lot of Paramount movies bought up by Universal in 1958. Is it possible that the movie is part of the same copyright cock-up that dumped Road To Rio and Road To Bali into the public domain?

 

[Jeff_HR]

It seems to me that a favorite film of mine falls into this catagory, "Looking for Mr Goodbar"!!!!!

Keaton SHOULD have won the Oscar for this film, not "Annie Hall"!

I'll have to keep holding on to my P&S LD for who knows how long.

 

[Bruce Morrison]

Warners released the 1981 version of 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' on DVD in the early days of DVD, but it was a technically inferior release in full-frame. They have never re-released it, and it seems that they may no longer hold the DVD rights. The Lorimar company was involved in the original production as well, so that seems to be the source of the problem. So does anyone know who currently holds the DVD rights? We badly need a high quality DVD (and BD) of this excellent film.

 

[ahollis]

Concerning the film ABBY, the lawsuit brought on by Warner Brothers was settled in AIP and the producer’s favor in 1978. The film’s rights belong to MGM, through their purchase of Orion, and the estate of William Gridler, the producer. While the film has been released three times on DVD there has not been an official release, and I understand this film is not in rights hell, but not released due to non-interest by MGM. It would have made a great Midnigte Movie Collection.

 

[kingfish]

I am wondering if Tobruk has some sort of problem since Universal has never released it.

 

[JulianK]

Odd that Day of the Triffids doesn't seem to have had a proper DVD release.

There was a non-anamorphic disc released in the UK, which appears to have been mastered from a copy of the US laserdisc. Although it was on a legit label, I'm not sure it was properly licensed.

 

[Bob Cashill]

Well, RAID ON ROMMEL, which recycles the best TOBRUK footage, is on DVD.

 

[Flamenco]

I'm new to HTF. Could you please tell me how to post my first message in forums? Thanks

 

[Bob Cashill]

You just did.

Welcome.

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Some reliable sources on other boards have occasionally said that DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963) is privately owned these days (as opposed to it being part of a major studio's library), and has been undergoing restoration, for eventual SE DVD release. However, this has apparently been going on for at least a couple of years already, and the name of the current owner (individual or company) is never mentioned, nor what progress is being made in the restoration.

 

[kingfish]

I remember reading one of Warner's chats that stated Dark of the Sun was coming to DVD over a year ago. I wonder what happened?

 

[Fabian Kusch]

BUDDY BUDDY is out in Spain (by an obscure company named "Creative Films", probably a sub-label of Suevia).
It's uncut and in 2.35:1 widescreen but not anamorphically enhanced. Image quality is really bad, dark, muddy, showing little detail. Spanish and original English language tracks are available, no subtitles nor extras (apart from Spanish language text pages).

Aquí un Amigo - Comprar películas en dvd de Todo Comedia

A pretty bad release, still the only way to own it on DVD as of now....

 

[CineKarine]

Just wanted to share the good news about the Warner Archive reply that I received on Facebook upon my asking about The Constant Nymph (43).

and, we can't really believe it ourselves, but The Nymph will soon be flying out of her Burbank cage....The rights issue...s have just been resolved!

This is the best DVD news ever as far as I am concerned. Such a supremely beautiful movie.