Warner Archive Discussion Thread (The Announcements/The Films) (1 Viewer)

[Van594]

A while back I caught Key to the City on TCM and liked it so much I looked for the DVD...glad this fun little movie finally made it.

 

[JoHud]

Warner are now handling Paramount product. Do they have access to any of the old Paramount shorts or are they owned by Universal?

The shorts are another matter altogether. They were initially snatched up by U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. and ended up in the Republic library. On top of that, U.M.&M. let many of the shorts lapse into the public domain during that time, diminishing their overall worth as assets. Allied Artists snatched up Popeye, which ended up with WB. The Superman shorts, though entirely public domain at the moment, was reverted to a comic company and eventually ended up with DC and through them WB. Right now, all other Paramount shorts are in the hands of Olive Films. They intend on releasing a Betty Boop set, but otherwise don't have any of the shorts slated for release.

 

[Essanay Paul]

The shorts are another matter altogether. They were initially snatched up by U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. and ended up in the Republic library. On top of that, U.M.&M. let many of the shorts lapse into the public domain during that time, diminishing their overall worth as assets. Allied Artists snatched up Popeye, which ended up with WB. The Superman shorts, though entirely public domain at the moment, was reverted to a comic company and eventually ended up with DC and through them WB. Right now, all other Paramount shorts are in the hands of Olive Films. They intend on releasing a Betty Boop set, but otherwise don't have any of the shorts slated for release.[/quote Actually the Popeye Cartoons went to Associated Artists Productions (not Allied Artists). Associated Artists got bought by United Artists, who merged with MGM, who got bough by Ted Turner, who sold the assets to Warner Brothers. The Paramount shorts that went to UM&M-TV ended up at NTA when UM&M went under. NTA became Republic Television in the 1980's, they got purchased by Spelling Productions in the 1990's. Spelling Productions became a part of CBS-TV at the end of the 1990's, who is now owned by Viacom Entertainment, who also owns Paramount Pictures. Olive Films is selling the Paramount features that Paramount did not retain ownership of after their theatrical release. In some cases Hal Wallis, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Alfred Hitchcock, and other producers owned the rights to their movies that were released theatrically by Paramount Pictures. Olive Films is also looking into releasing some shorts owned by Viacom. The ownership of films released by Paramount Pictures is a convoluted topic because of the different contracts that Paramount created for their various features. Some features they only controlled for five years of theatrical release then the rights went to the producer. Other films that they sold to TV are even more confused. The features were sold with both TV & Theatrical rights, but the cartoons & shorts just sold the TV rights and Paramount held the theatrical rights. The Popeye Cartoons were a big mess to clear for DVD release. Warner Brothers owned the old AAP-TV television contract, but not the Theatrical or Home Market contracts. Paramount still held the theatrical rights, and King Features (owner of the Popeye character) had to give permission for the Home Market. When Paramount originally contracted with King Features to produce the Popeye Cartoons at the Max Fleischer Studios, they only had the theatrical rights to Popeye. Around 1950 Paramount decided to stop licensing characters owned by other companies for their cartoons and cancelled all but the Popeye & Casper cartoons. Little Lulu got replaced by Paramount owned Little Audrey. Well, that is probably much more than you cared to know about Paramount Pictures.

 

[revgen]

I took a quick peek at the W&W discs that came in the mail. 1) These are MOD discs. Not pressed. 2) While WAC officially lists this product as not being remastered, I think many of the movies in this collection went through a recent complete or partial remastering/restoration process. However, some of the films like Hook, Line, and Sinker (1930) appear to be very soft transfers which probably came from old laserdisc masters.. I can understand why WAC wouldn't spend the money remastering a title in the public domain like Hook, Line, and Sinker (1930). 3) The color levels on all the films are a little dark. Which I don't mind too much because it's pretty easy to tweak the brightness and contrast. It's better than releasing them too bright.

 

[JoHud]

I don't think Hook, Line and Sinker was a laserdisc master. Looked more like it was sourced from dupe elements to me. WAC remastered the PD MGM Buster Keatons, which looked very good compared to previous 3rd party releases. I thought all of them looked quite good, with a few such as Mummy's Boys, looking near pristine. Caught Plastered also was a bit on the weaker side of the set in terms of video quality, though that also looked like it owed to the elements at hand. Its seems like some of the early 30s prints are either in very rough shape or that WB no longer has the OCNs to some of them and has to substitute with the best alternative elements available. Seemed to be true regarding the single W&W releases where Diplomaniacs has some print issues whereas The Rainmaker and On Again-Off Again looked great. Moreso I'd say its an issue with their RKO library in general.

 

[Randy Korstick]

The shorts are another matter altogether. They were initially snatched up by U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. and ended up in the Republic library. On top of that, U.M.&M. let many of the shorts lapse into the public domain during that time, diminishing their overall worth as assets. Allied Artists snatched up Popeye, which ended up with WB. The Superman shorts, though entirely public domain at the moment, was reverted to a comic company and eventually ended up with DC and through them WB. Right now, all other Paramount shorts are in the hands of Olive Films. They intend on releasing a Betty Boop set, but otherwise don't have any of the shorts slated for release.

While good information the original poster was actually asking about Paramount comedy and musical shorts and not animated shorts or cartoons. I'm sure Olive has no rights to these.

 

[JoHud]

U.M.&M. T.V. Corp. (and eventually Republic) got both the live action comedy/musical shorts and animated shorts from Paramount prior to 1950 copyright. MCA got the sound feature films also pre-1950, barring a handful of exceptions. I mentioned those two cartoon properties because they were the only exceptions to the acquisition, though I suppose they didn't touch any of the silent shorts Paramount owned at the time.

 

[Lou Lumenick]

The Paramount live-action musical shorts from the early 1930s are owned by Cohen Media, which purchased them as part of the Raymond Rohauer library. Shields Pictures controls Paramount's Popular Science, Unusual Occupations and Speaking of Animal shorts series.

 

[JoeDoakes]

The Paramount live-action musical shorts from the early 1930s are owned by Cohen Media, which purchased them as part of the Raymond Rohauer library. Shields Pictures controls Paramount's Popular Science, Unusual Occupations and Speaking of Animal shorts series.

Lou since you seem to know something about early 1930s shorts, I was wondering if you know much about whether elements exist on many of Bing Crosby's early appearances in shorts (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001078/). Some of them were repackaged in the 1940s feature Road to Holywood, and Kino released two of those (Dream House and Blue of the Night) on their Jazz and Big Band Compilation. However, as far as I can tell, others have never been released in any format and are unavailable on the internet.

 

[JoHud]

The Paramount live-action musical shorts from the early 1930s are owned by Cohen Media, which purchased them as part of the Raymond Rohauer library. Shields Pictures controls Paramount's Popular Science, Unusual Occupations and Speaking of Animal shorts series.

Interesting. Thank you very much for the correction. Looks like the live-action shorts were divvied up quite a bit over the years. I knew the Rohauer library had prints of these, but didn't know they were actually copyrighted (knowing of Rohaur, I really should know better)

 

[wa099ooo]

Anyone get their copy of Help It's the Hair Bear Bunch yet ? If so are the discs pressed / silver or burned / purple ?

 

[Essanay Paul]

To add a few more names to the owners of Paramount Features: Sony Entertainment holds the television & 16mm film rental rights to some BOB HOPE films that were turned over to him after the theatrical run. These same films were licensed to Brentwood Entertainment for DVD release by the Bob Hope Estate. Viacom Entertainment held the Television & Home Movie rights to the Hal Wallis produced Paramount Pictures, including Jerry Lewis' Visit To A Small Planet, The Sad Sack, and Don't Give Up The Ship. Viacom sold Super 8mm film prints of these in the 1970's for home use. I was expecting these to turn up on DVD when Viacom bought Paramount, but these titles are missing from Paramount's Jerry Lewis DVD releases. Also missing are some Martin & Lewis comedies from the 1950's.

 

[ahollis]

To add a few more names to the owners of Paramount Features: Sony Entertainment holds the television & 16mm film rental rights to some BOB HOPE films that were turned over to him after the theatrical run. These same films were licensed to Brentwood Entertainment for DVD release by the Bob Hope Estate. Viacom Entertainment held the Television & Home Movie rights to the Hal Wallis produced Paramount Pictures, including Jerry Lewis' Visit To A Small Planet, The Sad Sack, and Don't Give Up The Ship. Viacom sold Super 8mm film prints of these in the 1970's for home use. I was expecting these to turn up on DVD when Viacom bought Paramount, but these titles are missing from Paramount's Jerry Lewis DVD releases. Also missing are some Martin & Lewis comedies from the 1950's.

Shout! Factory released the Hope titles also with a deal made with Hope Enterprises. As did TCM for the IRON PETTICOAT. .

 

[Doug Bull]

WOW! "Popular Science" and "Speaking Of Animals", I'd forgotten all about those ones. I'm sure they played regularly on TV many years ago. If memory serves weren't the Popular Science shorts in Cinecolor? While funny at the time I would imagine the Speaking Of Animals would have dated rather badly. Not sure I remember the unusual occupation series of shorts. Still I would love to see them all again. Thanks Lou for the memory trigger. (p.s. I enjoy reading your column) Doug.

 

[Bob Cashill]

A sixth "Forbidden Hollywood" set will be available Apr. 2.

 

[Jobla]

I do hope that VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET will come to DVD someday.

 

[Marcel H.]

A sixth "Forbidden Hollywood" set will be available Apr. 2.

Wonderful news. Keep those Forbidden Hollywood sets coming.

 

[borisfw]

The WBA have a 3 film set of Nick Carter up for sometime in April .

 

[JoHud]

I don't like what they did to the cover art of Vol 6. Really sticks out compared to the previous volumes. I'm guessing it's because titles like "Massacre" don't really fit the past marketing for this brand.

Speaking of Forbidden Hollywood, George Feltenstein spoke of other titles like Employee's Entrance and other long-awaited precode films coming this year. Could it be that Vol 7 is not far behind?

 

[Mark-P]

In today's Warner Archive podcast they announced their new streaming service: instant.warnerarchive.com however the site still says it is Beta by invitation only. The announcement can only mean that they are going to open it up to the public soon.