Tag Archives: Musical

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The Bootleg Files: Disney’s Yellow Submarine

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BOOTLEG FILES 906: “Disney’s Yellow Submarine” (cancelled animated feature from the early 2010s).

LAST SEEN: Bits and pieces of the pre-production planning are on YouTube and Internet Archive.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Disney never made any of the material available for commercial sale.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely, unless a documentary on the subject is made.

Last month, this column shined its spotlight on “Strawberry Fields,” an aborted animated feature using covers of Beatles songs that was being produced in the late 1980s by Al Brodax, the producer of the 1968 classic “Yellow Submarine.” This week, we take a look at another piece of Beatles-related ephemera – a much-ballyhooed but quickly cancelled remake of “Yellow Submarine” that was planned for production and release by The Walt Disney Company.
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The Rogue Song (1930)

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MGM’s 1930 film “The Rogue Song,” an adaptation of the Robert Bodansky-A. M. Willner operetta “Gypsy Love,” was the only sound-era production included on the American Film Institute’s 1980 list of the ten most wanted lost films. The inclusion of this title on the list was peculiar at many levels. For starters, its presence as the sole post-silent era entry, it inadvertently gave the wrong impression that few sound-era films were lost.
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Sweet Charity (1969)

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I wanted to fall in love with “Sweet Charity” very badly. Every time it turns up on television, I patiently sit through it hoping that this will be the time when the film will seduce me and fill me with adoration. But every time, I leave unhappy that I could not give my heart to the film – I desperately want to embrace the film, but it always winds up clobbering me with its cumbersome production.
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The Bootleg Files: The Wonderful Land of Oz

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BOOTLEG FILES 886: “The Wonderful Land of Oz” (1969 kiddie matinee feature).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain-friendly platforms.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: This is just what The Criterion Collection needs!

On this particular day – November 22, 2024, to be precise – most moviegoers are fixated on the release of the big-budget musical “Wicked.” But since I prefer the rat-a-tat-tat from a different drum, I am venturing to a lower rent corner of the Yellow Brick Road to celebrate the no-budget 1969 feature “The Wonderful Land of Oz.”
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The Hobbit (1977)

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Although not as good or edgy as Ralph Bakshi’s more adult interpretations of the “Lord of the Rings” novels, Rankin Bass’s “The Hobbit” is a very good animated movie that gets about as dark and edgy as possible. The movie is a nice and swiftly paced seventy seven minutes, allowing for this single adventure to go from point A to point B without ever missing a step. Unlike the bloated trilogy we saw from Peter Jackson, “The Hobbit” gets the job done significantly better, even if the pacing is particularly rushed.

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Singapore Sue (1932)

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This 1932 short film from Paramount was designed to highlight the musical comedy talents of Anna Chang and Joe Wong, vaudeville performers in search of a movie niche. Instead, the film unexpectedly launched the career of an unbilled actor who stole the show from the two stars.
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