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Who owns the licence to ONE MILLION B.C. (1940).... (1 Viewer)

Dick

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...and why hasn't this been released on DVD? The VHS from Nostalgia Merchant pretty much sucked. I know this was a Hal Roach production, and perhaps his estate owns this film, but there are many out here who would love to have a decent copy!
 

JoeDoakes

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Dick said:
...and why hasn't this been released on DVD? The VHS from Nostalgia Merchant pretty much sucked. I know this was a Hal Roach production, and perhaps his estate owns this film, but there are many out here who would love to have a decent copy!
Is it public domain? TCM shows it every now and then. I don't know what it's like in terms of print quality.
 

JoHud

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Hal Roach Studios released it, so it is easy to deduce that it is an RHI property. Since RHI has only released Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang DVDs and hasn't bothered with many of the other features it owns, the chances of any sort of release are slim unless RHI decides to license them to a 3rd party. It seems TCM is the only place to see a majority of these RHI Hal Roach properties for the time being.
 

Bob Gu

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Alpha released BROADWAY LIMITED recently, and has other Hal Roach movies, mostly other Zasu Pitts titles and a couple of the Joe Sawyer/ William Tracy comedies. The color print used for HERE COMES TROUBLE was pretty bad.
Alpha's oldies.com site, along with their own release of ROAD SHOW, also shows an authorized release of ROAD SHOW, from Image in 2004, that was done with HalRoachStudios.com. Were there more Hal Roach titles from Image or was that the only one?
 

JoHud

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"The Hal Roach Studios" Image releases were primarily public domain titles with the exception of the silent "Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy" DVDs, which were licensed by the private license holder that appears to be retained (Michael Agee).
 

Jay E

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I still have my Laserdisc of this film. Can't believe that it is still missing on DVD after all these years.
 

Dick

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Jay E said:
I still have my Laserdisc of this film. Can't believe that it is still missing on DVD after all these years.
Been a while, but I am occasionally seeing laser copies of this (on the 3M label) turning up on eBay, and want to know if you can tell me what sort of PQ this has...as in, would it look better than the Nostalgia Merchant VHS tape? Thanks.
 

Peter M Fitzgerald

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It was released on standard DVD in Japan a few years ago, 'Fantastic Films Collection #6: Hal Roach Presents ONE MILLION BC'. Hard for me to say whether it's a bootleg or not; it has a small copyright listing on the back of the case crediting 'T.C. Media Home Entertainment'.

It's a pressed Region 2 disc, but my Sony BDP-S5100 Blu-ray player, which isn't region-hacked, is running it just fine as I'm writing this. The print looks decent... comparable to the one TCM has been airing the last few years. There's a small 'FCC' watermark in the upper right hand corner of the screen during the opening credits. The print is English language, with optional Japanese subtitles (the default setting). The only extras are some cast & production notes, all in Japanese.

Here in the USA, CD Japan carries it (or special orders it), for about $14.00. Perhaps some other specialty multi-region vendors also carry it, but I haven't checked. Anyway, at this point, it beats waiting around for a U.S. company to deign to release it domestically, which I tend to doubt will happen, given the state and focus of the business these days.
 

Dick

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Peter M Fitzgerald said:
It was released on standard DVD in Japan a few years ago, 'Fantastic Films Collection #6: Hal Roach Presents ONE MILLION BC'. Hard for me to say whether it's a bootleg or not; it has a small copyright listing on the back of the case crediting 'T.C. Media Home Entertainment'.

It's a pressed Region 2 disc, but my Sony BDP-S5100 Blu-ray player, which isn't region-hacked, is running it just fine as I'm writing this. The print looks decent... comparable to the one TCM has been airing the last few years. There's a small 'FCC' watermark in the upper right hand corner of the screen during the opening credits. The print is English language, with optional Japanese subtitles (the default setting). The only extras are some cast & production notes, all in Japanese.

Here in the USA, CD Japan carries it (or special orders it), for about $14.00. Perhaps some other specialty multi-region vendors also carry it, but I haven't checked. Anyway, at this point, it beats waiting around for a U.S. company to deign to release it domestically, which I tend to doubt will happen, given the state and focus of the business these days.
Thanks for this, Peter. I just order the DVD.
 

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