Van594
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2006
- Messages
- 164
- Real Name
- Scott
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.
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.Doug Bull said:Warner are now handling Paramount product. Do they have access to any of the old Paramount shorts or are they owned by Universal?
JoHud said: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.
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 said: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.
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.Lou Lumenick said: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)Lou Lumenick said: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.
Shout! Factory released the Hope titles also with a deal made with Hope Enterprises. As did TCM for the IRON PETTICOAT. .Essanay Paul said: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.
Wonderful news. Keep those Forbidden Hollywood sets coming.Bob Cashill said:A sixth "Forbidden Hollywood" set will be available Apr. 2.