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: Understanding Stresses and Strains

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 782: “Understanding Stresses and Strains” (1968 animated Disney short for the educational market).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A film that fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely, unless it is part of an anthology of Disney’s non-theatrical films.

During the 1960s, Walt Disney Productions began to curtail its output of animated short films for the theatrical market. From a commercial viewpoint, this made perfect sense because fewer cinemas were including animated shorts as part of their exhibition slate.
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The Bootleg Files – Energy: A National Issue

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 721: “Energy: A National Issue” (1977 educational animated film narrated by Charlton Heston and starring Fred and Wilma Flintstone).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It seems to have fallen through the proverbial cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely.

Last week’s column served up the worst production in “The Flintstones” canon. This week, we serve up the second worst.
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The Bootleg Files: Patriotism

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 684: “Patriotism” (1972 educational film starring Bob Crane).

LAST SEEN: One YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: As part of a grey market DVD anthology of educational films.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A fuzzy question of who owns the rights to the film.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not as a standalone film.

In 1972, the United States was not in a good place. The Vietnam War was still dragging on, despite endless attempts by anti-war forces to hold multiple rallies demanding the end of the military conflict, and the push for socioeconomic racial and gender equality created significant social upheavals in the nation that delighted many and upset others. The presidential campaign magnified the political divisions that ruptured in the mid-1960s and had yet to fully heal.
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The Bootleg Files: Disney’s 3 Days in the County Jail

Posted on March 22, 2019 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 677: “3 Days in the County Jail” (1976 nontheatrical short film distributed by Walt Disney Educational Media Company).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On a gray market DVD with other imprisonment-related short nonfiction films.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Never made available for commercial home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nope.

Back in the mid-1970s, when Walt Disney Pictures was stuffing theaters with such happy nonsense as “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “Escape to Witch Mountain,’ the company’s nontheatrical subsidiary Walt Disney Educational Media Company was attempting to convince America’s youth that crime didn’t pay. Through a four-part series called “Under the Law,” the sons o’ fun at the mouse factory offered a grim and gritty – at least by Disney standards – view of the mishaps that befell naughty young people who thought they were above and beyond the reach of law enforcement.

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The Bootleg Files: Care of Hair and Nails

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 649: “Care of Hair and Nails” (1951 educational film about good grooming).

LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube and Archive.org.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: In anthologies of old instructional films.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The copyright may have expired.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

From the late 1940s into the 1970, American schoolchildren were bombarded with a series of 16mm educational films designed to encourage proper behavior. By contemporary standards, the films are rather hokey – and one would imagine that the smarter kids of a distant era were quietly snickering at these well-intentioned but daffy cinematic efforts.

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The Bootleg Files: Halloween Safety

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 611: “Halloween Safety” (1977 educational film).

LAST SEEN: A copy can be found on several online video sites.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely as a standalone work.

It’s a little easy to dump on the old-time educational films. These works were shot on shoestring budgets and aimed at school children in a less sophisticated era, so the financial and intellectual poverty of these productions immediately disqualifies them from being taken seriously as cinematic art.

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