[78-L] So what? was Re: Warner Home Video to release Shorts via Archive Series

[David Lennick]

You will of course forgive me for not believing a word of it. "Our Gang" will 
sell because it sells. The other stuff will be enthusiastically received for a 
few releases but won't bring in enough to make the beancounters happy at the 
end of the year and that'll be that. The ONLY way this could be viable would be 
for WB to license the material to a specialty purveyor (The Vitaphone Project, 
maybe?) or for a rich fairy godfather to underwrite it. It's business, pure and 
simple.

This isn't cynicism, it's the real world speaking. If I had a dollar for every 
series that started out with great promise and was discontinued after the first 
two releases didn't measure up to expectations, and I'm talking about video and 
CDs, I'd be a lot richer than I am today.

dl

Harold Aherne wrote (and I quoted it with the addendum):
> One of the stated purposes of the Warner Archive program, as I understand it, is
> to release *everything* in their library--well, with a few qualifications (e.g. titles
> that have problems with underlying literary or music rights, like Letty Lynton or
> Night Flight, won't be available until/unless the snags are untangled. And the creation
> of these DVD-Rs is predicated on having an acceptable video master prepared, so
> any titles that exist only in film prints will also take some time to appear). Notice
> the quote directly from George Feltenstein in the following piece (sixth paragraph):
> http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2009-03-22-classic-films-on-demand_N.htm
> Â 
> It's hard to say how market-driven the WA program actually is. Material that sells better
> *might* encourage similar films to appear more quickly...or perhaps they'd get released
> anyway. Since there is little to no unsold stock involved with producing on demand copies,
> the financial concerns that might exist with retail releases of the MGM Our Gang series
> or Vitaphone subjects doesn't really apply. It seems to me that WB is releasing these
> first because of the familiar brand name, the publicity value for their program, and the likelihood that media attention to this release might encourage Warner Archive 
> fence-sitters to jump off. 
> Â 
> In a quote published at http://tiny.cc/UYrde, Feltenstein says, “It’s our first of what will be very many short subject collections in our library from Warner Archive [...] We have a treasure trove of this type of short subject material. We have been beleaguered, in a good way, with consumer requests for all sorts of things.” 
> Â 
> And even if you're an Our Gang hater, I really do encourage you to look at some of the
> silent entries in the series with talented kids like Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman...
> they, at least, haven't become pop-culture clichés and their performances are very
> natural and unaffected. 
> Â 
> -Harold (who is, of course, keeping his fingers crossed for several Vitaphone sets, and
> who also wouldn't mind seeing more of the late 20s MGM variety 2-reelers).
>