The Bootleg Files: Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

Posted on January 6, 2023 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 824: “Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel” (1967 special for British television).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Rights clearance issues and a perceived lack of commercial viability.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

In March 1967, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel traveled to England for a brief concert tour that included London’s Royal Albert Hall and venues in Birmingham and Manchester. While in Manchester, they taped a television special at Granada TV where they performed their songs before a small audience.
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The Bootleg Files: The Hero

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 823: “The Hero” (1917 short starring Billy West and Oliver Hardy).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A blatant (if effective) rip-off of Charlie Chaplin’s act.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: There is no great call for a Billy West revival.

When Charlie Chaplin’s popularity exploded into superstardom status during the mid-1910s, the demand of his films became greater than his ability to create original new works. To fill the void, a number of comic actors began to dress up in Chaplin’s distinctive Little Tramp costume and make-up and churn out short films of a Chaplinesque nature. Most of these imitators were not that special and their work has been lost to oblivion. But one copycat created a near-perfect facsimile of Chaplin’s act, to the point that his films were occasionally marketed as being genuine Chaplin films.
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The Bootleg Files: John Denver and the Muppets – A Christmas Together

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 822: “John Denver and The Muppets – A Christmas Together” (1979 television special).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It was never made available on any home entertainment format.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe next Christmas?

When I was kid in yesteryear, every Christmas season would bring a surplus number of television specials tied to the holiday. Some specials became annual events, such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas” or “Frosty the Snowman,” but most seemed to be one-and-done affairs that might have been lost to obscurity had it not been for the prescience of pop culture vultures to videotape those shows and save them for future viewing.
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The Bootleg Files: The Farmer Brown PSAs

Posted on December 9, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 821: “The Farmer Brown PSAs” (a series of late-1970s public service announcements produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Old PSAs that have been out of release for decades.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not on their own, but maybe in an anthology collection.

During the late 1970s, there was a growing level of concern among pediatricians, nutritionists and parents’ groups regarding the diet of the average American youth – that generation was raised amid a proliferation of fast-food eateries and an endless bombardment of advertisements for low-nutrition food and beverages, and the threat to the well-being of the nation’s young people was considered to be significant.
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The Bootleg Files: Windy Riley Goes Hollywood

Posted on November 25, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 820: “Windy Riley Goes Hollywood” (1931 short starring Louise Brooks and directed by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle under a pseudonym).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels and as a special feature on a Kino Lorber Blu-ray offering.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright enables endless dupes.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It was already on a commercial label, but the public domain dupes never stopped.

The 1931 Educational Pictures short “Windy Riley Goes Hollywood” is not remembered today for its content – which, quite frankly, is terrible – but as a low point in the creative lives of two iconic talents of the silent screen who came into the talkie era with their respective careers in shambles.
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The Bootleg Files: Easy to Get

Posted on November 18, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 819: “Easy to Get” (1947 U.S. Army educational short).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The film has some serious issues.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Perhaps in an anthology of military-produced films.

You may have noticed that there are relatively few films beyond the pornographic genre where men freely and fully exposed their penis on camera. One of the first – if not the first – non-pornographic films where the penis gets front-and-center exposure is a strange short educational film called “Easy to Get,” which was produced by the U.S. Army in 1947 for exclusive screening for its Black soldiers.
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The Bootleg Files: In the Devildog House

Posted on November 4, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 818: “In the Devildog House” (1934 short starring Clark and McCullough).

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.

Yes, the spotlight is back on the comedy team of Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough – and why not? For too long, their films have been overlooked – to the point that many of them are either lost or are in archives and cannot be easily accessed.
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