|
Post by antifrodis on Apr 22, 2011 16:04:29 GMT -5
I've been collecting those 'complete' Peanuts volumes that have come out in recent years, but so far, I've only read up through 1959. While the strip was a bit overly childish for the first few years, I think it became quite classic by the middle of the '50s. My recollection as a youngster is that it kept a high standard up until around 1980 when it kind of became senile for the rest of its run (even though Shultz himself was sharp as a tack otherwise). I was a huge Peanuts fan as a child and collected close to 100 of those Fawcett Crest books that came out. I have the new "complete" volumes as well. I feel that the strip hit its stride in the late 60's and lasted that way until the early 80's. I stopped following the strip as I grew up, but I would occasionally read a comic in the paper and scratch my head and wonder what happened to Schulz. I figured he had lost his mind. They made no sense and were downright bizarre at times. Of course, the drawing was very shaky towards the end as well. All understandable, but I did think it was kinda sad. My favorite storyline of all time still has to be where Charlie Brown takes a bite out of the kite-eating tree.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Apr 15, 2011 10:58:21 GMT -5
My favorites are Crybaby Boobie and 5.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Feb 3, 2011 11:43:53 GMT -5
Here's my latest "restoration" of an Our Gang silent, "No Noise". I used 4 different sources to piece the film together. It's nearly complete, minus the original opening credits (which I hastily recreated). The version of this film shown on the TCM marathon was only about half the length of the original film. This is the longest version of the film available publicly. Special thanks to James for providing the footage as well as to Richard for providing one of the transfers. Enjoy!
|
|
|
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".
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 12, 2011 14:02:58 GMT -5
A few things here and there. Most notably the scene where Jackie Condon sees a man trimming his beard with scissors. He takes the scissors and does a hack job on William Gillespie while he's sleeping. Also, the ending punch line is totally missing. There was a sizable jump cut from when William Gillespie is bouncing Farina on his knee to the scene where they're putting him in the ambulance. He's supposed to get a telegram saying that he has to bring the children back.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 10, 2011 0:48:34 GMT -5
There are currently only 6 Our Gang shorts that are considered totally lost. If you can play PAL dvds, you can purchase a German DVD set with restored versions of the MGM silents (minus the 6 lost shorts + two more that were thought to be lost). These look pretty good, but have German subtitles anytime there is text on the screen. They can not be turned off or removed. So that's a bit annoying. Otherwise, they're worthwhile. A few of the Pathe silents have seen legitimate release. Most are only available on those bootleg dvd sets that you mentioned. The quality is not too good on those sets and the films are mostly shortened, edited versions of the films. Still, it's about all you can get if you want to see these films. There are a handful of Pathe films that aren't currently publicly available. They do still exist though.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 9, 2011 21:44:49 GMT -5
As I got older, I sort of lost interest, but I remained fascinated by the silent Our Gang films. The recent TCM marathon resparked my enjoyment of the Gang. Currently I have to say I prefer the silents to the talkies, even though prior to the marathon, I had only seen about a dozen of them (I have the 4 "Video Yesteryear" VHS tapes with the Wurlitzer organ score, and I have "Uncle Tom's Uncle", "Baby Clothes", and "Back Stage" on Super 8 film). I think in many ways the silents are much funnier than the talkies, and they have a special quality to them that the talkies don't have. My favorites would be Jackie Condon and Mary Kornman. I really like when they have great scenes together, like in "The Cobbler" ("Wanna see me eat nails" cracked me up!) and "A Pleasent Journey" (which I thought was much better than its talkie remake "Choo Choo"). You would have enjoyed "A Pleasant Journey" even more, had they shown the whole film! I enjoy the silents more than the talkies as well. If I do watch the talkies, it's usually the early ones. The later ones with Alfalfa, etc. aren't as funny as they are cute. They've got nothing on Jackie Cooper, Wheezer, Chubby and Farina as far as talkies go. As for the silents, I enjoy Mickey Daniels and Farina the most.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 5, 2011 14:26:52 GMT -5
Reading on another board, it sounds like Laughsmith was far from finished with their material, but Mackinac, who now owns the rights to the films, just patched together what Laughsmith left them with. Ah well. At least they're being shown on TV for once.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 5, 2011 13:22:25 GMT -5
Still haven't watched that marathon (though I'm recording it). How did "Saturday Morning" look? "Saturday Morning" is the same intertitle-less print you've already seen. The transfer is better tho'. It's missing the footage of Farina and Ernie at home (among other things). "Dog Days" did have the beginning footage with Pineapple and Farina that is missing on most prints, but it was missing a bunch of the party footage later in the film...and the intertitles weren't original. The quality on a few of the films is pretty nice ("High Society" for example). "No Noise" looked horrible and was probably from a Mischief Makers print. I've seen the full film, sans opening credits. I wonder if this is all that Laughsmith had for their project? It's certainly better than what you see on all the "bootleg" sets available, but it's still far from what I was hoping to see.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 5, 2011 10:30:52 GMT -5
Well, so far with this Our Gang silent marathon, I've only seen a few things worth noting. The original title screen for "Fire Fighters" was shown. "The Cobbler" is a nearly complete version. "Seein' Things" contains a whole lot of footage not found in the common version, although it was missing the beginning.
Everything else I've seen has been derived from the same ol' prints that we've seen from the various common sources for the silents. The transfers have been better, but with the TCM logo plastered all over everything, it's kind of like breaking even. The opening credits are almost all remakes, and the other credits screens were removed or not recreated at all.
More complete versions of these films are available. It's a shame they didn't take the time to find them. The credits for each film list "Mackinac" as the company responsible for the films. I belive that's the same company that now owns whatever footage Laughsmith was working on for their now defunct dvd set.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 5, 2011 10:22:36 GMT -5
I really liked the music in Saturday Morning, especially the version of Bicycle Built for Two that was played. Was the music in the short taken directly from the original film, or did it have to be redone in some way due to the age of the movie? These films never had soundtracks originally. What you're hearing was added very recently.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 5, 2011 2:45:29 GMT -5
The only downfall will be that TCM will probably plaster their logo in the corner of the screen at all times. A small price to pay for seeing (hopefully) restored, uncut Our Gang silents. I'm not positive, but I think TCM only keeps the logo on shorts when they're being shown as fillers. During marathons (IIRC), they keep the logo off, outside of the usual pop-up every twenty minutes to remind viewers what channel they're watching. Well, I guess the logos stay. TCM-HD has a smaller logo than the standard def channel. Hopefully these will show up on DVD someday soon.
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Jan 4, 2011 11:13:31 GMT -5
This info was posted by someone on the OurGangFollies Yahoo group in reference to the TCM Our Gang marathon.
"On a side note, the Silent Our Gang films to be broadcast is part of a collection that is supposed to be released on DVD. In a several cases, film material was supplied by N.Y. Founding Tent Grand Sheik and Our Gang film archivist, Jack Roth."
|
|
|
Post by antifrodis on Dec 31, 2010 9:45:22 GMT -5
So are we all getting geared up for this barrage of Our Gang silents coming our way? I sure hope they're all complete versions of the films.
|
|