[78-L] films you don't see

[William A. Brent]

At 12:11 PM 3/22/2009, you wrote:
>The President's Analyst" was held up for years because of music rights. And
>once in the 90s, I saw "The Great Gatsby" televised minus its entire music
>score and with vaguely reminiscent background stuff substituted.

I'm guessing you mean the Robert Redford version - I think the Alan 
Lad version hasn't seen the
light of day since the early 1970's.

For years Laura was not available in its complete form because of a 
music rights
problem. The most successful (financially)* motion picture up until 
Gone with the
Wind took top honors was The Singing Fool - while the soundtrack is complete -
the film is not - because the only print that survives was a UK 
release print, that
had the Spaniard who blighted my Life cut (as it was still being performed
on stage in London at the time).

Lillian Gish pointed something out to me, she said that Birth of a 
Nation was the
most successful film of all time, because more people paid to see it 
than any other movie.
and certainly a larger percentage of people who could go to see 
movies, went to see that
one (nowadays there are just more people, and they pay more to see, 
poorer films).

Music rights keep a great many films (and TV shows) off the pre-rec 
(DVD) market -
but they are still available for broadcast or theatrical showing - I 
think that's thanks to
Peggy Lee.