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The Bootleg Files: Let the Good Times Roll

BOOTLEG FILES 883: “Let the Good Times Roll” (1973 concert film featuring Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Music rights clearance issues are a big obstacle.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

During the early 1970s, there was a wave of nostalgia for the music and pop culture of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Broadway musical “Grease,” the movie “American Graffiti” and the sitcom “Happy Days” were the most prominent examples of this retro celebration of the era, while Sha Na Na kept the old tunes alive with their kinetic stage and television appearances, but a series of concerts dubbed “The Rock and Roll Revival” brought a number of the prominent music stars from that period to perform their old hits for admiring audiences.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bunny Hugged (1951)

Bunny Hugged (1951)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe, Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam
Music by Carl Stalling

During the early 1950s, professional wrestling enjoyed a flurry of popularity thanks to television. The Termite Terrace gang took advantage of this new wave of attention by dusting off the 1948 boxing cartoon “Rabbit Punch” and reimagining the action in a wrestling ring – with the musclebound pugilist Battling McGook brought back under the name Crusher.
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The Phantom of the Opera (1962) [Halloween Horror Month]

When I was 10 years old, I thought the 1962 Hammer Film Productions version of “The Phantom of the Opera” was one of the greatest movies ever made. Today – far removed from that 10-year-old version of myself – the slavish enthusiasm I once had for this flick has evaporated, but I still have a fondness for the film’s offbeat charms.
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