ClassicFlix Discussion Thread

[kvnbhovis]

Now I want someone to restore and release the Laurel And Hardy silents

[Rzzzz]

I'm still waiting for The Three Stooges shorts. The Three Stooges have been treated with disrespect by Columbia (despite making a lot of money for the studio) and now Sony. If Sony aren't going to do anything with the shorts then make a deal with ClassicFlix. I think they would sell better than The Little Rascals...

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by ClassicFlix

Thanks to all for your support of our Little Rascal (Our Gang) releases thus far and today I'm happy to share that work has begun on the silents.

We are exploring and test scanning all available 35mm materials from the surviving 88 silent Our Gang shorts for restoration and release on Blu-ray and DVD.

Dogs of War! (1923) RAW SCAN Clip - YouTube

In terms of timeline and how many we can restore and release: we're hoping for a release in the fall, but how many we are able to do and the level of restoration we can give them really depends on how our volumes of the sound shorts sell over the next few months. We've already spent well into six figures thus far to restore the sound shorts and, being a small company, cash flow of current releases will always dictate funding of future releases.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

The announcement I’ve been waiting for! I’ll buy all 88 if you put ‘em out!

[ClassicFlix]

Originally Posted by WaverBoy

The announcement I’ve been waiting for! I’ll buy all 88 if you put ‘em out!

Thanks all for asking as, yes, the silents are coming.

Update as of this morning:

- 88 were produced, but only somewhere around 80 survive
- of the 80, somewhere between 20 - 30 survive on 35mm
- We hope to put out as many as possible of the 35m on BD/DVD
- We may or may not get to the rest of the 16mm silent elements. If we do they'll only be on DVD.
- I cannot stress enough, as we are a small company with ZERO institutional backing on this entire Our Gang project, how the silent project shapes up in terms of number of titles released, quality of restorations and the accompaniments 100% depends on continued support of sound shorts for the next month or two.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by ClassicFlix

Thanks all for asking as, yes, the silents are coming.

Update as of this morning:

- 88 were produced, but only somewhere around 80 survive
- of the 80, somewhere between 20 - 30 survive on 35mm
- We hope to put out as many as possible of the 35m on BD/DVD
- We may or may not get to the rest of the 16mm silent elements. If we do they'll only be on DVD.
- I cannot stress enough, as we are a small company with ZERO institutional backing on this entire Our Gang project, how the silent project shapes up in terms of number of titles released, quality of restorations and the accompaniments 100% depends on continued support of sound shorts for the next month or two.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

I’m hoping there’s some way to put all of them out on Blu in chronological order, even the 16mm titles, which would still benefit from the higher resolution. Kickstarter perhaps? There have been a lot of successful silent film Kickstarters. I’ve backed quite a few myself. Spreading the word on Nitrateville would be a good idea.

[Hypnosifl]

Originally Posted by ClassicFlix

Thanks all for asking as, yes, the silents are coming.

Update as of this morning:

- 88 were produced, but only somewhere around 80 survive

Fantastic news! Quick question, when you say around 80 survive, which ones are you considering to be completely missing? There are apparently a bunch that exist only partially but from what I've read, these 7 are the only ones that can't be seen at all today (and 2 of them do apparently exist but haven't been released for home viewing or on the internet, so I suppose there's a possibility you could make a deal with the current owners):

Yale vs. Harvard

Heebee Jeebees

Edison, Marconi & Co.

Fair and Muddy (though the pages here and here say a print was found and restored in 2008, but not released to the public in any way)

Growing Pains

School Begins (though it says here and here that the Museum of Modern Art in New York has a copy)

The Holy Terror

[jkoffman]

Originally Posted by WaverBoy

I’m hoping there’s some way to put all of them out on Blu in chronological order, even the 16mm titles, which would still benefit from the higher resolution. Kickstarter perhaps? There have been a lot of successful silent film Kickstarters. I’ve backed quite a few myself. Spreading the word on Nitrateville would be a good idea.

This originally started with ClassicFlix doing an IndieGoGo crowd-funding project, but their goal was unsuccessful. Support their future efforts by preordering direct from them.

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by jkoffman

This originally started with ClassicFlix doing an IndieGoGo crowd-funding project, but their goal was unsuccessful. Support their future efforts by preordering direct from them.

I know, I backed it. But more people are open to backing Kickstarter projects than Indiegogo projects. And it’s not a zero sum game.

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

...The Three Stooges have been treated with disrespect by Columbia...

Why do you say that? A quite respectable set of DVDs covering their entire output was released in recent years. The quality was extremely good - new scans at least, restored at best.

[Rzzzz]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

Why do you say that? A quite respectable set of DVDs covering their entire output was released in recent years. The quality was extremely good - new scans at least, restored at best.

They should have been on blu-ray by now...

[314carpenter]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

They should have been on blu-ray by now...

I gave up on hope on The Three Stooges this year and bought the Stooges DVD's. At least I own them all this way. My thinking is that every single TTS title will probably not be brought to the blu-ray format, with many lesser titles not receiving significant improvements, so I could end up needing to keep the DVD's anyway.

[ClassicFlix]

Originally Posted by WaverBoy

I’m hoping there’s some way to put all of them out on Blu in chronological order, even the 16mm titles, which would still benefit from the higher resolution. Kickstarter perhaps? There have been a lot of successful silent film Kickstarters. I’ve backed quite a few myself. Spreading the word on Nitrateville would be a good idea.

It's possible, but not likely we'll be putting out the 16mm on BD. At this point we're looking at one BD collection with all surviving 35mm elements.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

[ClassicFlix]

Originally Posted by Hypnosifl

Fantastic news! Quick question, when you say around 80 survive, which ones are you considering to be completely missing? There are apparently a bunch that exist only partially but from what I've read, these 7 are the only ones that can't be seen at all today (and 2 of them do apparently exist but haven't been released for home viewing or on the internet, so I suppose there's a possibility you could make a deal with the current owners):

Yale vs. Harvard

Heebee Jeebees

Edison, Marconi & Co.

Fair and Muddy (though the pages here and here say a print was found and restored in 2008, but not released to the public in any way)

Growing Pains

School Begins (though it says here and here that the Museum of Modern Art in New York has a copy)

The Holy Terror

Trying to find all the surviving elements is a very lengthy and time consuming process and still too early to nail down, especially with all the private collector's that may be out there. We'll eventually post about our findings, but won't be for some time.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by ClassicFlix

Trying to find all the surviving elements is a very lengthy and time consuming process and still too early to nail down, especially with all the private collector's that may be out there. We'll eventually post about our findings, but won't be for some time.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

Paul Gierucki of CineMuseum was planning on putting the Our Gang silents out years ago but the project fell through; perhaps he might have some leads on film elements.

[DWeickerSr]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

So Volume 6 has been given a tentative release date. I thought I read that there will only be 6 volumes plus the silents. If there are 12 shorts on Vol. 6, then it will end at the Fishy Tales episode. What happens to the rest?

I'm just curious because I want to replace this....



So far I have the first 4 volumes. Maybe this has been addressed already and I missed it? Anyway, I am so thankful for these and they look amazing. I've been playing them for my grand kids and they are literally laughing out loud. I cant wait to see how the silents look.
Thanks again ClassicFlix!

The final volume will contain twice as many shorts as the prior five volumes. This is because the shorts changed from two-reelers to one-reelers at that time.

11-12 two-reelers use as much space as 23 one-reelers.

Apart from the three 'extra' silent shorts and other extras, you should be able to replace that set.

[Torgon]

I'm debating on what to do with this set. There are some nice extras, but I find it hard to believe I'll pull it out again just for that. It's easier to watch when already attached to the disc I am watching. I have a similar issue with 4K disc, no extras on disc? Not swapping out (90% of the time). Time will tell, lol.

[DWeickerSr]

Originally Posted by Torgon

I'm debating on what to do with this set. There are some nice extras, but I find it hard to believe I'll pull it out again just for that. It's easier to watch when already attached to the disc I am watching. I have a similar issue with 4K disc, no extras on disc? Not swapping out (90% of the time). Time will tell, lol.

I plan to either make a copy of disc 8 (the extras), or live without the extras (since I haven't watched them since I purchased the set)

The set is going bye-bye either way.

[Zygmunt22]

David,

I saw that Wellesnet.com posted here that ClassicFlix will not be renewing its MGM license, causing the following titles to be discontinued later this year. Is this correct, and are there any titles not listed that will also be going out of print? Thanks!

Along Came Jones
Casanova Brown
Crime of Passion
Down Three Dark Streets
Five Steps to Danger
He Walked by Night
It's About Time
The John Alton Collection
The Killer is Loose
The Noose Hangs High
Tomorrow is Forever

[jkoffman]

Originally Posted by Zygmunt22

David,

I saw that Wellesnet.com posted here that ClassicFlix will not be renewing its MGM license, causing the following titles to be discontinued later this year. Is this correct, and are there any titles not listed that will also be going out of print? Thanks!

Along Came Jones
Casanova Brown
Crime of Passion
Down Three Dark Streets
Five Steps to Danger
He Walked by Night
It's About Time
The John Alton Collection
The Killer is Loose
The Noose Hangs High
Tomorrow is Forever

There was this heads up:

Originally Posted by ClassicFlix

Great suggestions thus far, and I normally enjoy the discussion on this thread without chiming in, however, as our label (ClassicFlix) has titles going OOP I thought I would recommend them before they're gone.

Our official public announcement on the OOP titles will likely come later next month, but my #1 recommendation would be to pick up our John Alton Film Noir Collection which contains He Walked by Night, T-Men and Raw Deal. It's on sale for only $21.94 at Deep Discount.

John Alton Film Noir Collection (T-Men / Raw Deal / He Walked by Night) Compilation Trailers - YouTube

Other noir titles going out of print are:

- Crime of Passion (1957) - Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr
- Down Three Dark Streets (1954) - Broderick Crawford, Ruth Roman, Martha Hyer
- Five Steps to Danger (1957) - Sterling Hayden, Ruth Roman
- He Walked by Night (1948) - Richard Basehart, Scott Brady
- The Killer Is Loose (1956) - Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey

and the above mentioned Alton collection as it contains HWBN.

- David
ClassicFlix Founder, Producer

[Zygmunt22]

Originally Posted by jkoffman

There was this heads up:

Thank you! I missed that somehow...just placed an order for the ones I still needed.