[78-L] 78-L missing movies

[William A. Brent]

At 01:29 AM 3/23/2009, you wrote:
>I have a real crappy bootleg DVD of The Third Voice...from a non-widescreen
>16mm print.  From what I can tell,  it's a good movie!

most of the films mentioned here are circulating on the
bootleg market - Forgotten Hollywood in MA. sells many of them -
and quality varies - but nothing (from a video point of view) beats
it when TCM digs up the original negative and does a top
notch clean up and transfer.
Of course TCM buys a good many of their PD titles from a clown up in New
England called Taylor - so many of those titles look and sound like dupes
of old TV prints (which is what they are). And even some of the turner owned
titles look weak, as they have never re-mastered them.

Turner does have a silent scoring contest every year, and while the
scores in most cases are very nice to listen two - they don't always
fit the scenes they are paired with.

Pity TCM doesn't fully fund the Vitaphone project - Get Feldenstein to
pull out all the stops and find any elements that exist - even if 
Judy isn't in them,
and work with these people to restore the discs and films.

as an aside: the 1943 Desert Song was on TV in the 1950's - though 
all the TV prints were B&W.
It does exist in color, but the current videos in circulation are 
weak. I think the 1929 was all
color, but only part talkie (similar to Show Boat). Again, videos of 
the 1929, and the TV production
vary.

If they hadn't mucked about with the copyright laws - there would be 
no right issues with
The Desert Song - or many other early films - but it went from 28 to 
56 to 75 to eternity. -
and as a result, many films - both in studio AND private hands will 
not see the legal light of day.