When Jack Skellington, King of Halloween Town, discovers the existence of Christmas he embraces it as a breath of fresh air and attempts to make it his own. This spells uncertainty for the monstrous citizens who idolize Jack, and for Santa Claus… Who’s holiday is about to look very different than usual.
BOOTLEG FILES 913: “The Lambeth Walk” (1939 British feature starring Lupino Lane).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the proverbial cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
Comedies that thrust earthy working-class characters into snooty high society settings might be among the most predictable pieces of entertainment, but they often produce the best results. Chaplin plumbed this concept as a disguised convict mixing with the wealthy in his 1917 classic “The Adventurer,” George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” and its musical successor “My Fair Lady” uneasily turned a Cockney flower seller into a lady, Abbott and Costello were crass plumbers mistaken for well-heeled guests at a Long Island estate with “In Society,” and the Three Stooges often ran amok through the mansions of the hoity-toity, leaving the residue of pie fights along the way.
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Every time I try to watch “South Pacific,” I attempt to coax myself into believing that I will fall in love with the film before the closing credits. And after every viewing, I wind up sighing in disappointment.
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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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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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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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“Magical Mystery Tour” could arguably be considered as both The Beatles’ worst and best film.
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