MGM’s 1930 film “The Rogue Song,” an adaptation of the Robert Bodansky-A. M. Willner operetta “Gypsy Love,” was the only sound-era production included on the American Film Institute’s 1980 list of the ten most wanted lost films. The inclusion of this title on the list was peculiar at many levels. For starters, its presence as the sole post-silent era entry, it inadvertently gave the wrong impression that few sound-era films were lost.
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BOOTLEG FILES 904: “The Entertainer” (1976 television film starring Jack Lemmon and Ray Bolger).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
Earlier this week, I received an email from New York City’s Film Forum announcing an upcoming retrospective series honoring Jack Lemmon on his centennial. While I surmised that the usual round-up of Lemmon classics would be screened, I wondered if Film Forum was able to secure a print of his most elusive work – the 1976 made-for-television adaptation of John Osborne’s “The Entertainer.” Alas, “The Entertainer” is not on the Film Forum schedule.
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No Parking Hare (1954)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by Sid Marcus
Animation by Charles McKimson, Phil DeLara, Rod Scribner, Herman Cohen
Music by Carl Stalling
Robert McKimson’s “No Parking Hare” is a reworking of Chuck Jones’ 1950 “Homeless Hare,” with Bugs Bunny pitted against a burly and surly construction worker trying to evict the rabbit from his subterranean residence so he can complete a major construction project. Jones’ film takes place in a urban setting, with Bugs being removed from a high-rise development site, while McKimson’s film takes place in an open environment where a freeway is being built.
If any film deserves a remake, it is “Boom!” Not a scene-for-scene remake of the infamously ghastly 1968 Joseph Losey film, but in a production that is aligned with the source material, Tennessee Williams’ short story “Man Bring This Up Road” that was later adapted as the Broadway drama “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.”
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When Brigitte Berman’s “Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got” won the Academy Award as Best Documentary Feature Film for 1986, the Canadian production had yet to secure a theatrical release. Unfortunately for Berman, the film’s subject – clarinetist and band leader Artie Shaw – sued her to secure a greater share of potential box office profits. Due to the litigation, the film never played theatrically after its Oscar win – Shaw died in December 2024 and Berman’s production didn’t have its theatrical premiere until January 2024.
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BOOTLEG FILES 903: “Monteith and Rand” (1979 Showtime special starring the comedy team of John Monteith and Suzanne Rand).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
Last week, I saw a headline in the New York Times that said: “Suzanne Rand, Half of a Once-Popular Comedy Team, Dies at 75.” And my reaction to this news was: “Who?” I am not trying to be snarky or cruel, I honestly had no idea who she was. Upon reading the article, I discovered she was part of Monteith and Rand, a comedy team that was active in the late 1970s and the 1980s. But even though I was an active consumer of entertainment during those years – yes, I am that old – for the life of me I could not remember a comedy team called Monteith and Rand.
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Bugs and Thugs (1954)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Music by Milt Franklyn
Animation by Manuel Perez, Ken Champin, Virgil Ross, Arthur Davis
Friz Freleng’s “Bugs and Thugs” is a reworking of his 1946 “Racketeer Rabbit” that pitted Bugs Bunny against the bank robbers Rocky and Hugo, which were caricatures of Edward G. Robinson and Peter Lorre. In this 1954 film, the criminals are originals – Rocky, a diminutive, stone-faced tough guy with a cigarette hanging from his lower lip and an outrageously oversized vertical fedora that obscured his eyes, and his large oafish partner Mugsy. Rocky had previously been used in Daffy Duck’s “Golden Yeggs” (1950) and the Sylvester and Tweety “Catty Cornered” (1953) with different (and more competent) oversized sidekicks.
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