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Post by zootmoney on Jan 6, 2011 0:45:10 GMT -5
I opened Windows Media Center on my computer, found the first film on the guide, and clicked "Record Series." All recorded directly to my hard drive.
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Post by RJH on Jan 6, 2011 1:16:14 GMT -5
I managed to record them all and watch a few. It was great seeing more complete versions of shorts like The Cobbler, One Wild Ride and Seeing Things, and then frustrating to realize there's so much more out there I may never get to see. I could tell much was missing from Olympic Games, Fast Company, and even a little from the end of the Fourth Alarm. Some had intertitles new to me, and others had them missing. The quality was usually better than what I have, except for that logo that extended way left toward the middle of the screen. The music also got very repetitive, and didn't always seem to match the action to me.
Still, it's very good TCM aired these and I hope it spurs enough interest for someone to produce DVDs of all available existing footage. I wouldn't want to pay for anything less than that.
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Post by stymiefan on Jan 6, 2011 1:25:29 GMT -5
It was amazing, I got them all on my DVR, I've been watching them nonstop
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Post by robertmarcl on Jan 6, 2011 15:23:58 GMT -5
I just wish they might have added some 20s ragtime music, like they did for The Champeen and Olympic Games to give it some authenticity. I am glad to to have both the 88 Little Rascals collections as well as the Grapevine video of 1922-1923 "Our Gang" comedies. Though I am glad to have tape some of the silent gang era in on my DVR...some I haven't seen at all.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jan 8, 2011 9:38:10 GMT -5
A few things I've noticed:
"Fire Fighters" has a few seconds at the very end missing from most prints.
Some of the shorts have very brief, incomplete scenes cut altogether. Evidently, Makinac's print of "Shivering Spooks" was one without the two second clip showing Farina protesting to leave the cave first. Makinac simply deleted the brief jump cut in their copy. They did the same thing with the normally incomplete scene from "Olympic Games" in which the Gang beat up the second kid that 'gives them the razzberries'.
I also noticed something else about "Fire Fighters". During the scene where Ernie (a.k.a. "Booker T. Bacon") is being chased by the goat, if you look closely, you can see an adult inside of the barn before Ernie runs in there. It's probably Tony Camponaro.
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Post by rascaLee on Jan 10, 2011 12:13:23 GMT -5
Here's something I thought about as I watched the silents. I wondered if these silent Our Gang Comedies had any influence on the Three Stooges. As I saw Jackie Condon's hair, it dawned on me that this was 1922. The act that would become the Three Stooges did not form until 1925. Could Larry Fine have been inspired to do his hair like Jackie Condon?
I also noticed in "The Cobbler", Farina eats some tacks, and Sunshine Sammy gets them out by putting a horse shoe magnet down his throat. The Stooges would use that same joke a few times. Then in "A Pleasant Journey", at one point one of the Gang steps on a man's broken foot, and he starts hopping around. The Rascals then think he's dancing, and start clapping and dancing. That became a regular bit in the Stooges' act. Just some things to think about. I do know many Roach alumni went to work on the Stooges' shorts at Columbia. The Stooge short "Mutts To You", directed by Charley Chase, is about as close to a Hal Roach style comedy as the Stooges ever made.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jan 10, 2011 13:07:21 GMT -5
Here's something I thought about as I watched the silents. I wondered if these silent Our Gang Comedies had any influence on the Three Stooges. As I saw Jackie Condon's hair, it dawned on me that this was 1922. The act that would become the Three Stooges did not form until 1925. Could Larry Fine have been inspired to do his hair like Jackie Condon? I also noticed in "The Cobbler", Farina eats some tacks, and Sunshine Sammy gets them out by putting a horse shoe magnet down his throat. The Stooges would use that same joke a few times. Then in "A Pleasant Journey", at one point one of the Gang steps on a man's broken foot, and he starts hopping around. The Rascals then think he's dancing, and start clapping and dancing. That became a regular bit in the Stooges' act. Just some things to think about. I do know many Roach alumni went to work on the Stooges' shorts at Columbia. The Stooge short "Mutts To You", directed by Charley Chase, is about as close to a Hal Roach style comedy as the Stooges ever made. According to Larry, he didn't start to wear the whacky hairstyle until around 1929. One night, shortly before the Stooges (and Ted Healy) went on stage, Larry had taken a shower. While he was letting his hair dry out, it stood up in an unusual way; a fellow performer came to his dressing room and suggested that Larry wear his hair like that during the stage performance. As for similarities in gags, like you said, many gag writers who worked for Roach later became gag writers for Columbia.
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Post by rascaLee on Jan 10, 2011 16:50:59 GMT -5
The story I heard was it was Ted Healy who told Larry to keep his hair like that. I just wonder if Ted was thinking of Jackie Condon when he saw Larry with his hair like that.
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Post by crabby on Jan 11, 2011 14:59:10 GMT -5
Some of you Ebayers might have seen a silent Our Gang set boasting 72 episodes for a very reasonable price. Well, I find it no coincidence that a few months ago I bought a 6 disk set from a guy who told me the material had been sitting in his basement all these years. How many episodes you ask? If you guessed 72 you're right. I have a feeling these are the same prints I have extended to 9 disks instead of the 6 that I have. They have also been put in order of release starting with a print of Our Gang, which of course is not complete to Saturdays Lesson.Yes there are multiple problems here. Some heavily edited, title cards missing, some renamed probably for TV use. I do not pretend to be an expert but there seems to be some worthwhile stuff here. Quality varies from downright bad to very watchable.I will be Emailing this guy and ask him about his sources. I will also try to post a link to his listing which has all the films in the set. If the link does not come through, just go to Ebay and check it out. He is also selling an 11 disk set of the talkies. Sound familiar?
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Post by OPT on Jan 11, 2011 20:20:18 GMT -5
many of those on his set are bad transfers of 100' toy films. But in the case of Gimme a Ride, it is at least a glimpse of One Wild Ride. Don't expect to get anywhere with the ebay seller, except maybe some wild story.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jan 12, 2011 20:23:23 GMT -5
From Paul Gierucki at the Nirateville forum: "Just viewed the first silent OG short on TCM, FIRE FIGHTERS, and it appears that Mackinac Media decided to move forward with production of at least some of the materials created by Laughsmith Entertainment in 2005 / 2006 for the aborted OUR GANG: BEFORE THE LITTLE RASCALS SPOKE DVD collection.
The raw, unedited, unrestored, unscored HD film transfers for that set were turned over to Mackinac (following a lengthy legal battle concerning rights, royalties, contractual issues and a host of other disagreements) and Laughsmith Entertainment was released from all obligations regarding that production. The unfinished works appear to have been cobbled together by Robert A. Blay of Mackinac Media. "
Later: "I have seen enough at this point to say that the material looks nothing like it would have if it were produced by Laughsmith. Prints are used which never would have made the cut, reference copies are being used as the lone source, the scores (or score) are canned, there is no reconstruction, no original title recreation, and no stabilization or digital cleanup of any sort. There is no need for further dissection on my part. Mackinac's work speaks for itself.
This said, kudos to TCM for securing / airing the Our Gang and other Roach comedies! I am looking forward to seeing many of the other titles, particularly the L&H material."
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Post by fourlittlerascals on Jan 15, 2011 17:11:54 GMT -5
I still don't get, (or maybe I did and I forgot......) if the Pathes are in public domain, how why is there such a battle over them? AREN'T they in public domain? I found the scoring of these to be atrocious. The same three or four songs, in the same order for every film. It really distracts from a fast paced scene when you have this really slow guitar music. Maybe I'll try to rescore one or two just for fun.......Good Cheer is horrendous with that music! The Mischief Maker copy is a little strange with all the cat noises and such, but at least the "jingle bells" type music is more appropriate than what TCM came up with. I'm still glad they aired them - it's about time somebody did!
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Post by littlerascal4891 on Jan 15, 2011 18:21:15 GMT -5
I've watched some episodes, and was very pleased that I haven't seen of them before (the ones that I watched, that is). I could tell that the music from the silents was added recently though (I think it was the Olymipics one that was very obvious, or the one when Chubby and Joe fight). By the way, up until a few days ago, I've never seen a talkie with Joe Cobb. It was cool to hear him speak for a change.
And I think every episode I've seen from the marathon so far has featured Wheezer. I forgot that he was in the Gang for so long.
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Post by antifrodis on Jan 15, 2011 19:31:59 GMT -5
I still don't get, (or maybe I did and I forgot......) if the Pathes are in public domain, how why is there such a battle over them? AREN'T they in public domain? We believe they are. However, some European company shut down all of my Our Gang Pathe silents on Youtube awhile back and claimed copyright infringement. I'm not interested in fighting their claims, but everything I've ever read points to most of those films being in the public domain. The real problem is FINDING all the films! You can get a cheap set from Ebay, but expect to see films that are missing a lot of footage, and are poorly transferred. Some silents, such as "Dogs of War" and "Derby Day" were released by Cabin Fever on VHS and Laserdisc back in the 90's. Those look great. If you can find all the public domain Pathe's complete and in nice shape, and if you have them transferred to DVD, I don't see why you couldn't release them. Just expect all your efforts to go down the tubes when everyone and their mother starts copying your public domain set and selling it cheaper on Ebay.
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Post by antifrodis on Jan 15, 2011 19:35:00 GMT -5
Some of you Ebayers might have seen a silent Our Gang set boasting 72 episodes for a very reasonable price. Well, I find it no coincidence that a few months ago I bought a 6 disk set from a guy who told me the material had been sitting in his basement all these years. How many episodes you ask? If you guessed 72 you're right. I have a feeling these are the same prints I have extended to 9 disks instead of the 6 that I have. They have also been put in order of release starting with a print of Our Gang, which of course is not complete to Saturdays Lesson.Yes there are multiple problems here. Some heavily edited, title cards missing, some renamed probably for TV use. I do not pretend to be an expert but there seems to be some worthwhile stuff here. Quality varies from downright bad to very watchable.I will be Emailing this guy and ask him about his sources. I will also try to post a link to his listing which has all the films in the set. If the link does not come through, just go to Ebay and check it out. He is also selling an 11 disk set of the talkies. Sound familiar? It would seem that everybody's different sets of these silents are all sourced from the same material. They're always missing the following films: "The Cobbler", "Jubilo Jr", "Sunday Calm", "Bring Home the Turkey", "Your Own Backyard" and "The Smile Wins".
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