The Bootleg Files: The Awful Truth

Posted on April 24, 2026 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 936: “The Awful Truth” (1956 made-for-television production starring Bob Hope and Greer Garson).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It is probably a case of clearing the rights to the source material.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe someday.

As a comedian, Bob Hope was always a case of extremes. Either he was laugh-out-loud hilarious or groan-out-load awful. To be honest, I approached this 1956 made-for-television version of “The Awful Truth” with Hope playing opposite Greer Garson expecting the groan-out-loud version of the funnyman. After all, “The Awful Truth” is a classic 1937 screwball comedy that helped secure Cary Grant’s stardom. Hope starred in a radio version of “The Awful Truth” in 1941, so he was clearly familiar with the material. But, hey, Bob Hope doing a Cary Grant role?
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Shishkabugs (1962)

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Phil Hall

Shishkabugs (1962)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Gerry Chiniquy, Virgil Ross, Bob Matz, Lee Halpern, Art Leonardi
Music by Bill Lava

Yosemite Sam is the overworked and underappreciated cook for an obese, ill-tempered king who looks and sounds just like Charles Laughton. When the monarch demands hassenpfeffer for his meal, Sam is perplexed – he is unfamiliar with the dish and consults a cookbook that lists rabbit as an ingredient. When Bugs Bunny turns up at the royal kitchen looking to borrow a cup of carrots, Sam tries (and, of course, fails) to incorporate him into the royal meal.
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Big Timers (1945)

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Phil Hall

“Big Timers” is a cheaply-made featurette of the “race films” genre that created productions with all-Black casts that were released exclusively to the racially segregated theaters of the Jim Crow era.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bill of Hare (1962)

Posted on April 15, 2026 by Phil Hall

Bill of Hare (1962)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Ted Bonnicksen, Warren Batchelder, George Grandpré, Keith Darling
Music by Milt Franklyn

The Snodgrass Scientific Expedition has returned by cargo ship from Australia with the Tasmanian Devil in a crate. However, the net that holds the crate breaks during the offloading process. The crate smashes open and the Tasmanian Devil is free to sink to the ship. Once on the land, Taz comes across Bugs Bunny preparing a meal. Taz tries to make Bugs the main course, but the rascally rabbit continuously outsmarts the antipodean omnivore.
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Three Loan Wolves (1946)

Posted on April 13, 2026 by Phil Hall

Pawnshop owners Moe, Larry and Curly share fatherhood duties for 10-year-old Egbert, who returns home from school one afternoon demanding to know the origins of his peculiar family structure. Moe begins a story that launches an extended flashback on how a gangster’s moll “borrowed” her sister’s infant to throw the police off her trail. This hard-boiled dame’s boyfriend runs a shakedown racket that tries to pressure the pawnbrokers into giving him “protection” money. When the pawnbrokers refuse, a fight breaks out in the store between the owners and the hoodlums. The moll flees and never returns for Egbert, who is adopted by the trio. But Egbert rejects this surrogate family and goes off to find his mother, leaving his would-be fathers to abuse each other in frustration.
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The Bootleg Files: Gugusse and the Automaton

Posted on April 10, 2026 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 935: “Gugusse and the Automaton” (1897 short film by Georges Méliès).

LAST SEEN: On the Library of Congress website.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It was one of many films from the late 19th century that were bootlegged.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe someday in an anthology of rediscovered lost films.

During the height of his film production career, the pioneering French producer/director Georges Méliès fought a losing battle against miscreants who made bootlegged copies of his films and profited in selling these unauthorized prints. The bootlegging was particularly acute in the American market, where Méliès was forced to set up a sales office to fight against the characters who were pirating his work.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Wet Hare (1962)

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Phil Hall

Wet Hare (1962)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by David Detiege
Animation by Keith Darling, Ted Bonnicksen, Warren Batchelder, George Grandpre’
Music by Milt Franklyn

Bugs Bunny lives at the base of a waterfall that he uses as a shower. When the French-Canadian roughneck Blacque Jacque Shellacque dams the river and declares ownership of the water source, Bugs engages in an ongoing effort to destroy Jacque’s dams and let the water flow.

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