Post by Mister LevityPost by Jim ReidPost by wa2oosyAre all these Little Rascal films public domain or
did Legend Films make deal with the devil
I don't think they are PD, but Hallmark doesn't own them anymore. It's
RHI.
Did Legend Films make a license deal with RHI?
I seriously doubt it. This is probably unauthorized. I know there are
more than just the "usual suspects" on here, but I also have a few
DVDs released by Goodtimes with some of these same titles. The
Goodtimes DVDs I have include the three usual PD shorts (Follies Of
1938; School's Out; Bear Shooters) and a bunch of other shorts, but
while those three have original M-G-M titles, the rest are either
Monogram/Allied Artists or Official Films reissue versions...or at
least the titles are...I suspect they are just cut onto dubs of the
Cabin Fever versions. I can't fathom how that makes them fair game,
but I believe Goodtimes dots their Is and crosses their Ts with what
they release...anyone know any more? I wonder what to expect on these
discs. They did a really nice job on the "Three Stooges In Color" DVD
they released...I am not a fan of colorization, but the B&W versions
of the shorts on that DVD look and sound great.
We shall see...
By the way..."Me TV" in Chicago isn't showing the Rascals any more.
They were airing them as part of "Sunday Funny ME" for the last couple
years. They were colorized versions with the color turned off. (The
first week or two, they were aired colorized.) On a few occasions,
they'd leave on the closing copyright notice for the colorized
version. Some had some weird stuff going on, like additional music
dubbed on them...99% of them had original titles, but a few had
altered title cards with the "Hal Roach Studios" logo (that is, the
"current" HRS) and the "Little Rascals" name in place of "Our
Gang" (otherwise original and correct for the specific short).
Unfortunately, I can't remember at the moment which shorts they aired
like that (I'm sure I recorded them) but it was only a couple of them.