The Bootleg Files: So This is Africa

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 670: “So This is Africa” (1933 comedy starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No perceived commercial value.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at this time.

It is a common misconception that the Pre-Code Hollywood era was a period when almost anything was possible on the screen. And while the implementation of the 1934 establishment of the Production Code Administration brought a heavy-handed degree of censorship to film production, there was plenty of censorship going on at both a national, state and city level.
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The Bootleg Files: Report from the Aleutians

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 669: “Report from the Aleutians” (1943 U.S. Army documentary directed by John Huston).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube and other online video sites.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: There was no copyright filed.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Stuck in public domain hell, but it would be great if this little was digitally restored.

Everyone knows that the Japanese bombed the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. But few people seem to know that the Japanese invaded and occupied Kiska and Attu in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands in June 1942, which marked the only section of North America was taken over by the Axis forces in World War II.
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The Bootleg Files: Up in the Air

Posted on January 11, 2019 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 668: “Up in the Air” (1940 Monogram feature starring Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It would be great if this little film was digitally restored.

The 1940 Monogram Pictures feature “Up in the Air” may not be the best film of its era, but its surplus amount of ideas crammed into a compact 62-minute running time certainly makes it the busiest. Part-mystery and part-comedy, with musical numbers and a strange mix of egregious and progressive attitudes on race, this little B-level production has more pep than most A-grade flicks.
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The Bootleg Files: Confederate Honey

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 667: “Confederate Honey” (1940 Warner Bros. animated short).

LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On LaserDisc and in an edited DVD release.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Politically incorrect content.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not in its original uncut form.

During the past few years, there has been an uncommon degree of attention paid to the Confederate States of America, which died in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. On one side, a new wave of white racists is flying the Confederate flag at rallies where they spout their idiotic hatred. On the other side, left-wing revisionists are spending their time demanding the removal of statues of Confederate generals and the renaming of schools and streets named for the military leaders of that long-deceased secessionist nation.

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The Bootleg Files: The Norelco Santa Commercials

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 666: “The Norelco Santa Commercials” (long-running television advertising campaign).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No perceived home entertainment market for old TV commercials.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

Every Christmas season, certain programming is dusted off for an annual television broadcast. But for those of us who admit to being a certain age, there is one holiday favorite that always made the December television line-up worthwhile. No, it wasn’t a movie or a standalone special. Instead, it was a simple but effective 30-second commercial for a company specializing in electric razors.

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The Bootleg Files: The Man in the Barn

Posted on December 14, 2018 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 665: “The Man in the Barn” (1937 short film directed by Jacques Tourneur).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No commercial home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

On the evening of January 13, 1903, an elderly house painter in Enid, Oklahoma, named David E. George laid dying in a hotel room from an attempted suicide. Before he passed away, George told the few people gathered at his bedside, “I killed the best man that ever lived.” The man who was killed, according to George, was Abraham Lincoln – and George insisted that he was John Wilkes Booth, the president’s assassin. Before he could explain how he could be someone who had been killed 38 years earlier, George slipped into a coma before dying.
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The Bootleg Files: The Passion Play of Oberammergau

Posted on December 7, 2018 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 664: “The Passion Play of Oberammergau (1898 film at the center of a historic lawsuit).

LAST SEEN: The full film has not been seen since its original release.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASONFOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A landmark patent infringement case.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Too late.

Thisweek’s column is different because it does not involve a production that can only be seen in an unauthorized presentation. Instead, we are going to revisit a long-forgotten story about one of the first legal challenges of patent infringement connected to the film industry.

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