The Bootleg Files – The Batman: Deadly Madness

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 796: “The Batman: Deadly Madness” (2022 Russian film).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None (hey, it just came out).

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unauthorized production that borrows copyright protected material.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nyet.

This week marks the debut of two new films inspired by Bob Kane’s Gotham City-based superhero. There is the big Hollywood film that everyone is waiting for – do I really have to identify it? – and there is the tiny Russian film that no one is waiting for but everyone should see, if only to learn an invaluable lesson on how not to make a fan film.
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The Bootleg Files: Duck Amuck Reanimate Jam

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 795: “Duck Amuck Reanimate Jam” (2020 fan film that reimagines the classic cartoon “Duck Amuck.”).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unauthorized remake of a copyright-protected work.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nil.

In 2018, an unlikely project caught the fancy of animation addicts: a group of 90 animators were gathered together to reanimate the 1942 Warner Bros. cartoon classic “The Dover Boys at Pimento University.” Each animator was given a small slice of the cartoon to reanimate – the soundtrack of the original film remained and the scene had to adhere to the basics of the sequences’ actions, but the animators were able to redesign the characters and animation style in any manner they desired.
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The Bootleg Files: Der Januskopf

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 794: “Der Januskopf” (1920 unauthorized version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” directed by F.W. Murnau).

LAST SEEN: When it was theatrically released.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Murnau did not clear the rights to the Robert Louis Stevenson source material.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Excellent, provided that someone finds a print of the film.

In the early 1920s, the great German director F.W. Murnau made back-to-back horror films based on popular books from his era: “Der Januskopf,” based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and “Nosferatu,” based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” There was just one problem: Murnau never bothered to secure the rights to these books and tried to get circumvent copyright laws by making slight adjustments to their respective stories and changing the names of the characters.
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The Bootleg Files: Ouanga

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 793: “Ouanga” (1936 horror film starring Fredi Washington).

LAST SEEN: On Vimeo.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On cheapjack public domain labels.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No one is rushing to get it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: The film has been restored, but no one is rushing to put it out on Blu-ray.

Fredi Washington earned a degree of cinematic immortality for her startling performance as Peola, the light-skinned Black woman who is repeatedly thwarted in her attempts to transcend the racial barriers of Jim Crow America by passing for White in the 1934 classic “Imitation of Life.” This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime role for Washington, both in terms of the quality of role and the exposure it afforded her – at a time when Black women in Hollywood studios were either cast as maids or nightclub singers, Washington found no offers to score a dramatic encore.
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The Bootleg Files: Half Baked Alaska

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 792: “Half Baked Alaska” (1965 animated short in the Chilly Willy series).

LAST SEEN: On B98.tv.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Included in an anthology of Walter Lantz cartoons that is now out of print.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No one is rushing to get it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It was briefly available, and hopefully it will come back.

Among the cartoon characters from the Golden Age of animated short subjects, Chilly Willy occupies a strange niche. This Walter Lantz-created penguin was cute and mischievous, but the character’s films were rarely laugh-out-out hilarious and Chilly Willy never truly occupied the iconic status of other creations of that era. Most people would point to the Oscar-nominated, Tex Avery-directed 1955 short “The Legend of Rockabye Point” as being a peak in the Chilly Willy series, although most of the humor in that short does not come from the penguin himself.
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The Bootleg Files: The Big Fisherman

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 791: “The Big Fisherman” (1959 Biblical epic starring Howard Keel).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No one is rushing to get it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely.

During the 1950s, Biblical epics came back into vogue with a vengeance. Some of these films were monster box office hits – widescreen epics such as “The Robe” (1953), “The Ten Commandments” (1956) and “Ben-Hur” (1959) generated millions of dollars in ticket sales.
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The Bootleg Files: New Year’s Eve

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 790: “New Year’s Eve” (1948 Soviet animated short).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Not that I can determine.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe in an anthology collection of Soviet-era cartoons.

Here we are at the end of another year, and to say goodbye to 2021 I decided to lean back into the Cold War era and dig up a wonderful but obscure animated short from the Soviet Union that takes place on New Year’s Eve. The film, not surprisingly, is called “New Year’s Eve” and it is one of the most delightfully odd relics of the house that Lenin built.
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