Movies of the 30's and 40's

[zelda_pinwheel]

oh, i was just looking at that list, we MUST watch kind hearts and coronets with alec guiness, alec guiness, alec guiness, alec guiness, alec guiness, alec guiness, alec guiness, alec guiness, and alec guiness at some time !!! that film is sheer genius !!!!!

[zelda_pinwheel]

if i may suggest this, i'd like to start with a comedy and a mystery (and why not a musical, although i don't know many of them)... times are hard and i'm not sure i'm in the mood for much drama.

[Moejoe]

His Girl Friday is a brilliant comedy, one of the best in my opinion and sees Cary Grant at his finest. Also, bonus, it's PD

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

His Girl Friday is a brilliant comedy, one of the best in my opinion and sees Cary Grant at his finest. Also, bonus, it's PD

cary grant... :swoon: let's add "the awful truth" to the list too !! god i love that movie. also cary grant at his finest.

[zelda_pinwheel]

hey moejoe, thanks so much for the list of pd films !! i think you should move it to the first post of this thread, so we can find it more easily.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

hey moejoe, thanks so much for the list of pd films !! i think you should move it to the first post of this thread, so we can find it more easily.

Will do. There's tons more. I'm not even at the end of the Comedy section yet. I'll move onto crime next

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Will do. There's tons more. I'm not even at the end of the Comedy section yet. I'll move onto crime next

brilliant !!!! thank you !! karma to you for that.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

excellent ! i was just wondering to myself how public domain works for films, and whether there were some kind of database for them like gutenberg for books. maybe we could start with a pd one, so we can be sure everyone can get it ?

I will be honest, I don't know the copyright laws for collaborative works as well as I do for straight author works.

In the US., up till 1976, the same copyright law applied for collaborative works (i.e. movies, orchestra recordings) as did for individual copyright. That was 28 years, extendable once for a maximum of 56 years. Each work had to have a separate extension applied for. As with every bureaucratic organization, somtimes things slipped through the cracks. All the P.D. titles you see are movies/shorts that somehow not renewed properly and fell into the public domain. 1978 (when the 1976 law went into effect) - 56 = 1922. So everthing before 1922 went into public domain. When the latest extension went into effect (I believe) the was a year slippage, so the P.D. date slid to 1923.

This is why Hollywood (genericly - although certain movie houses have been more agressive than others) is always pushing copyright extension. Talkies came into existance in the US in 1929. Hollywood will lobby, cajole, bribe, threaten, whatever it takes, to keep the talkies from ever going public domain en masse.

I'm not familar with the Berne convention for collaborative works, you'll have to check it out. How ever Great Britain only allows 50 years for a performance copyright. (Harry T is more knowedgeable on that than I am). Which means any recording made before 1958 today is P.D. for the recording. So, for music no under a writer's copyrigth, you could have free downloads in Great Britain. Example, Beehtoven'd works are P.D. so a recording released in Britain of Beehtoven's Symphonies in 1958 would be P.D., while a recording of Cliff Richards from 1958, while the performance is P.D., the songs recorded would not be, so the results are not P.D.

Got to tend to business, back in a while.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i should have guessed it would be even more complicated than for books. good thing i have many dvds, i guess. and a library...

[montsnmags]

I've heard this one's good. Can we add this to the list?




(Which is to say I'm interested in the idea of a Movie of the Month Club)

Cheers,
Marc

[Greg Anos]

I guess I'll take the bull by the horns... Let's start with Topper. Book is on MobileRead and the title is in the public domain, and has Cary Grant in it...
(You can lust for Cary Grant, too Marc. He swung both ways...)


Now, what day should we target for the thread????

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

...
(You can lust for Cary Grant, too Marc. He swung both ways...)
...

I don't ever see the need to allow possibility to get in the way of fantasy. After all, gay, straight or bi, he's dead, which kind of precludes it all anyway.

(FWIW, I prefer Rock Hudson to Cary Grant, though my inclinations are more along the angle of preferring Sam to Rick, Poitier to Curtis, and Fishburne to Sheen )

Cheers,
Marc (...while loving both Hepburns to pieces)

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

I don't ever see the need to allow possibility to get in the way of fantasy. After all, gay, straight or bi, he's dead, which kind of precludes it all anyway.

(FWIW, I prefer Rock Hudson to Cary Grant, though my inclinations are more along the angle of preferring Sam to Rick, Poitier to Curtis, and Fishburne to Sheen )

Cheers,
Marc (...while loving both Hepburns to pieces)

i'm thrilled you prefer rock hudson to cary grant : i don't particularly want to share him.

(although i admit to drooling a bit over fishburne, so that could be a problem... )

[Moejoe]

I have a man-crush on Cary Grant, does that count?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I guess I'll take the bull by the horns... Let's start with Topper. Book is on MobileRead and the title is in the public domain, and has Cary Grant in it...
(You can lust for Cary Grant, too Marc. He swung both ways...)


Now, what day should we target for the thread????

i think starting with topper is a great idea, whether you mean to start the list or to start the film club. i love that film. although i read the book recently so i'm not sure i'll read it again right away (but don't let that stop you).

any day to start the thread is fine ; the sooner the better !