Cheap pump and dumps - About Horror Cash ins

 

It finally happened, I finally watched the Winnie the Pooh murder flick. The public domain has a reputation issue, especially in the United States of America, the registration and renewals system meant that a large proportion of the content in public domain were the works that were no longer commercially viable and forgotten. While that included some fantastic pieces of art like It's a Wonderful Life, it also included its fair share of cash ins and low budget-low effort schlock. Of course, the copyrighted material also included its fair share of rubbish too. 

Well, recent news hasn't done much to improve that reputation.

When Winnie the Pooh went public domain it was big news, and then news of a horror movie coming out, capitalising on the publicity and the lack of need to go past Disney for approval. I am of course speaking of Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey (BH). BH premiered in 2023, I've only just gotten around to watching it. The reason for the delay? It looks interesting enough to pay for and Whinnie the Pooh wasn't a big part of my childhood, I had one of the books, and I'd seen and been bored by some of the Disney cartoons. I wasn't offended by the idea of a homicidal yellow bear, I just wasn't that interested.

In fact, I'm not that interested in the film on its own merits, so I'll use BH as a springboard to a wider discussion on the film industry. A common question on film forums is simply, "why are only getting exploitation horror movies of characters that come into the public domain?" And the answer is simply capitalism. Film is art, but it is art created within a business, the reason we're getting so many horror movies is the same reason the Friday the 13th et al. are in their double digits. Movies cost money and investors expect that money back and with profit, horror is a genre that can be done quickly and cheaply and has a good track record of returning the invested funds and at least some profit. There are exceptions of course, there are horror movies that flop hard and movies that are expensive and take time to craft, but there is a blueprint for a quick return on investment. 

BH is just an excellent example of that blueprint with the added bonus of timeliness, lots of people were talking about Pooh Bear and friends and a solid marketing hook. It was quite controversial when it was announced and released, that raise attention and improved the odds of financial success dramatically. The film did so well it has a sequel and led to the greenlight of several other projects and the copying of the formula by other filmmakers. 

Reliable information on movie financials are hard to find, but the figures I did find are that BH had a $100,000 budget and made $7.3 million in profit so far. That's an excellent ratio and after watching I'm a little surprised the budget was that low. Technically speaking, BH is a perfectly competently made movie and doesn't look particularly cheap. It doesn't look expensive either, you can see the shortcuts, but I've seen movies with more budget look worse. There's location shooting, some practical effects work, the scenes have multiple angles to make them more interesting, the night scenes are well lit etc. There's even a short sketchbook style animated introduction that is genuinely creepy and does a good job of establishing the Why of the film. The actors aren't anything special, but they're all competently working with what little material they have before being beaten to death by two big thugs in masks. 

The fish rots from the head down

The main issue with BH is that it was created solely for making some money and exploiting a favourable market environment. Everyone is doing a fine job, but that's the problem, it's clearly just a job. If you've watched much horror, then you'll know where each scene will end shortly after starting. Once the creepy animation ends, it's a series of character encounters the murderers for some reason and will either be killed or chased a bit first and then killed. Repeat a few times until the credits roll. In principle this isn't an inherent issue, there are location slashers that are fun, creative and chilling, the issue again in the lack of interest beyond making a complete product. I'll give a spoiler free example of the problem here: the opening establishes that the reason Pooh and friends do not talk is so they can pay the actors a lesser rate is because they have sworn to cut off all vestiges of there humanity and become truly animal. That is an interesting premise and could make for an inventive film. Sadly, the execution is just that they don't talk. They wear clothes, use weapons and power tools and cars, they are just bad guys in masks. Retool the introduction to Christopher Robin was imagining his friends and years later a gang of sadistic killers escape to the woods and find the masks and other toys and you'd only have to change one flashback scene to get the same film.

The cast is fine, but it's quite clear that they're just doing their jobs, this is a pay cheque, a credit and something for their reels, nothing more. The nuts and bolts of filming is competent, everything that needs to be in frame is in frame, but there's a lifeless efficiency that never disappears, it feels like an assembly line production.

The only sparks of something beyond a business plan, this movie displays, are the aforementioned animation at the start and a repeated streak of meanness. That may sound strange, and It's difficult to describe without watching the film, but this film has multiple sequences where the killer has the victims at its mercy and then takes their time enjoying their helplessness before violently dispatching them. For the Christopher Robin character, this makes a certain narrative sense as the premise of the film is that Pooh and Piglett hold him personally responsible for their bad fortune and have deep personal grievances, but for the rest it's just violent cruelty for the sake of violent cruelty. I'm not sure if that's a hint at a darker theme, or just another marketing ploy to generate further controversy. 

I've seen cheaper films, I've seen less technically competent films, and enjoyed them a lot more than what BH is offering. Still, at least now the dam has been broken maybe we can get better material using Milne's creations, I'm not opposed to another horror movie so long as that movie has something actually worth making a movie about.

Part II - The Banana Splits Horror movie

No, the Banana Splits movie isn't in the public domain, nor to my knowledge are the original Banana Splits. The reason I'm discussing them here is:

1. It's the best example I can think of at present of a Blood and Honeyesque movie made out of a copyrighted franchise
2. It also exposes the failings of Blood and Honey in comparison

In 2019 the world was graced by frankly extremely odd news. The Banana Splits were back! You remember the Splits, right? Well, I did remember the Splits, a cable channel I sometimes watched in the 90s re-ran that show during its kids block. So I knew for a fact I was in the minority who remembered that show, and I was in the even smaller minority who was interested in seeing the movie based on the premise, they go crazy and attack people. It was such a strange sequence of events and frankly quite a rare and bold usage of an IP.

Despite remembering roughly who the Splits were like Pooh they weren't a cornerstone of my youth, I remembered the song, La la la, la la la lah, One Banana Two Banana Three Banana Four, etc. But that was just a fresh enough idea to intrigue me. If this seems hypocritical regarding what I've been saying about BH, well I'll admit that there are similarities especially around the desire to use controversy and media buzz to promote both movies, but, the Banana Splits were a completely dead and forgotten IP so the decision to move forward with the project wasn't a cash grab, though of course money was a goal. 

More importantly, it also had more going on than just exploiting marketing trends and reactive social media. The movie had things to say about fame and the entertainment industry and the disconnect between the image of media and the reality. By no means is it earth-shattering, but it was enough material to give the characters something to work on and conflict and tension at some points. I think the best way to explain the differences between the two movies is in this way; the killers of BH are animal/human hybrids who act like souless machines, the killers in the Splits are robots who act like animal/human hybrids.

They found a way to make a movie about the goofy Banana Splits costumed animals interesting to watch, Blood and Honey was just tediously mean.

Inkubo; or Incubus

 

 

Incubus is a fairly well known property, unfortunately its mainly known as a joke or the answer to a question in movie trivia game. As one of the few who has watched the film I think that's unfortunate, its by no means a perfect film but it does do some things very well. I watched Incubus for the first time on Halloween during the COVID-19 pandemic, I stumbled upon a promotional video for a marathon of public domain horror on Twitch. I joined the stream just as Incubus was starting. I was pleasantly surprised, I had known its terrible reputation but still had fun watching it.

Its reputation isn't entirely wrong, its more that it's reputation has been exaggerated over time. If you're unfamiliar I've included an upload of the film above for you to enjoy, but I'll also summarise here. Incubus was the creation of Leslie Steven's the showrunner for the original The Outer Limits, the film was produced in the 1960s, it had a very rough production and reception. The film stars William Shatner before he became known as Captain Kirk, its a black and white atmospheric horror movie, set in the vilage of Nomen Tuum, a vaguely Medieval rural location with a church and a well. The plot is concerned with corruption and damnation and the Incubus of the title is both metaphorical and literal.

Oh, and they decided to use Esperanto as the language of the film and Stephen's resisted dubbing into other langauges. None of the cast or crew were familiar with the language so they aren't fluent in it. William Shatner famously despises this film and is the source of some of the most negative stories about it including an allegation that a group of Esperanto speakers were so incensed at the bad pronounciation of the language that they gave him death threats, including throwing bricks with threatening messages throug his window. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether you believe that incident or not.

The odds were stacked against it, at one point after production but before a general release the reception to the film was so negative that the film stock was burnt and the film was considered lost until a print with hard subtitles was discovered in France in 1996. The version with English subtitles had to mask the French subtitles and write over them. In further bad news one of the cast members Milos Milos who played the Incubus took his own life and the life of his partner shortly the premiere. All of this created a mountain of issues that prevented the film being taken on its own merits. 

One positive aspect of this nightmare of a production was that the film entered the public domain, which meant that once the French print was discovered and shared it found a small lease of live amongst collectors of obscurities and curious Esperantists and has slowly grown in popularity ever since. I'm not calling it a cult classic, its still far too obscure for that label and many of the people who do collect are still doing "ironicly" though the film had a positive reception on the Twitch stream and it motivated me to watch the film again at a more reasonable time frame. 

So, having watched the film without the distraction of making jokes at its expense I think it deserves a chance. The Esperanto dialogue isn't good but it isn't incoherent, the main issues are pronounciation since they just used some reading materials and didn't get anyone from the UEA Universal Esperanto Association to check and feedback. If you'd like to see films where the Esperanto dialogue was supported by an Esperanto association I'd recommend the detective story La Angoroj (literally the Anxious ones but usually translated into Anguish or Anxiety) or some scenes from Antoni Ribas's The Burned City. I'm an Esperanto speaker but I wouldn't say I'm fluent and while I had to resort to the English subtitles for clarification on occasion there were times when I could follow the spoken dialogue. 

I also do think the decision to shoot in Esperanto was to the film's advantage and its a shame they rushed and cut corners on that aspect. The use of the langauge gives the film a sense of ambiguity, the village could be anywhere in Europe, and the shooting of backgrounds and establishing shots further cement this out of place and out of time vibe. And it helps to cement the antagonistic forces in the film as difficult to understand and predict. If it was shot in English it would lose much of its emotional impact and the plot would have to do the heavy lifting of carrying the audiences interest. And I think it would struggle as while there are nuances within the plot since it concerns temptation and the struggle for the soul of the Marc (Shatner) the protagonist this means the steps of plot repeat as the temptations seek to wear down Marc's resolve.

The extra ambiguity helps to mask this and keep you alert, trying to figure out what the angle of this sequence will be and how it will be resolved. The music is also a positive point in the films favour, I don't remember full tracks but parts of the score have stuck in my mind and they work to unsettle you and work well towards building up tension for the climax of the struggle.

The Other Showgirls Sequel; How Copyright can destroy Art

 

Before I get started, no Paul Verhoeven's Show Girls and its affiliated properties are not PD media, they're all intact on the copyright front. Something to keep in mind the next time someone tries to tell you only trash is public domain.

I stumbled upon an interesting story on r/lostmedia about another sequel to the infamous flop Showgirls, if you're not familiar with the other slightly more well known sequel which is either called Pennies from Heaven or just Showgirls 2, this was concerning a totally different even more obscure film.

The sequel that was the focus of the post is called Showgirls Exposed/Showgirls 2 the Story of Hope, which is not to be confused with the later re-release of the original film, which is called Showgirls Fully Exposed. It is a strange story, but the film is real and there is a trailer for it online which can be watched online.  Here's where copyright rears its ugly head, the film was produced in the 2000s-2010s but could only be seen in the United States of America, why you ask? Well, the film includes scenes from a little movie called The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Why is footage from a 1919 film an obstacle to wider releases? Because in addition to being old, it's also German. Germany like most of the world uses a life plus system, in their case 70 years after death of creators.  That meant that at the time of the film's release Caligari's rights were still owned by the Murnau Foundation, an organisation setup by the West German Government in 1966 to preserve and restore classic German cinema, it has since earned a reputation for censorship and abuse of copyright to control and limit the use of classic German cinema. The director and most of the backers for Showgirls Exposed are themselves German, so this is a bit of an odd oversight to say the least.

So, despite being a German production the film could only be released in one market, the United States which is still using a date of release system despite passing a law to overhaul US copyright to reflect the "normal" international version in the 1970s. Add to that SEO complications and competition from other related projects, and you have a perfect recipe for crippling obscurity.

But I have some good news! In Germany, copyright of motion pictures is determined by the Director, scriptwriter, dialogue writer and composer of original music for the film.

With respect to cinematographic works, the term of protection is the life and 70 years after the death of the longest surviving of a group of authors consisting of the main director, the author of the film script, the author of the dialogue, and the composer of any music created for the film.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5a9f6b59-1014-4d39-a4f0-7f83bb4428f9 

And the director of Caligari Robert Wiene died in 1938 and the scriptwriters Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz perished in 1944 and 1954 respectively. And as a silent movie, it had no credited composer. This means that by January next year the film will be in the public domain in Germany and possibly already is depending on whether Mayer was principle scriptwriter, the information I could find listed both as co-writers with no distinguishing between them. So, if Marc Vorlander, the director of Showgirls Exposed, is still active, perhaps the new year will finally bring some much-needed appreciation to his masterpiece. Time will tell, I guess.

 

Driller Killer and Drilling Down Public Domain Status

 

Public Domain and horror movies seem to go hand in hand, one of the most well known pieces of media in the public domain is Romero's Night of the Living Dead, whose status and what it meant for cultural expression have become legendary, Zombies as a concept predate Night but the popularity of Romero's work opened up an entire subgenre. 

And Night is not alone, the field of public domain horror is quite crowded. One of the latest entries to fall into the hands of the public is 1979s Driller Killer (DK). The late year of release tells us that this is a case similar to Romero's Night, failure to properly follow the copyright offices requirements. DK is an infamous entry in the slasher killer sub-genre of horror, and was given the honour of being included in the list of "Video-Nasties" in the UK. That designation was supposed to be a mark of shame and drive off consumers from indecent material, but often turned into a mark of fame that increased sales. 

 

Since DK is in the public domain it's very easy to find online, even the wikipedia page includes an upload of the film to view. However, despite or perhaps because of its popularity, DK is occasionally the subject of discussions surrounding the ambiguity of ownership. On trading boards I lurk on it, once in a while someone will pop up asking for confirmation, usually citing a copyright mark on the version they came across. 

I do understand where these questions come from, what these questioners are asking for is an authoritative figure to come down and declare one way or another Yes/No. And unfortunately that just isn't how it works, there is no such authority on the planet. The issue is that essentially when you ask if this thing public domain? You're asking for proof of a negative. And how exactly do you do that? It's easy in contrast to prove the opposite, owners go to court to prove their claim.

Even governmental authorities who oversee copyright and intellectual property legislation will not make such a distinction. I've communicated with the UKs copyright office on several matters, and while they are more than happy to answer queries, they repeatedly make clear that they will NOT under any circumstances weigh in on matters regarding specific works. The US Library of Congress has massive archives of material that are in the public domain, but even that material always carries this disclaimer:

The Library of Congress is not aware of any U.S. copyright or other restrictions in the vast majority of motion pictures in these collections. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to use and reuse.

In rare cases, copyrighted motion pictures are made available by special permission to the Library and may be used only for educational purposes. For example, the Gershwin home movies fall within this category. Rights assessment is your responsibility. No registration information exists for some titles, and reproduction of some titles may be restricted by privacy rights, publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Additionally, some works may still be protected by copyright in the United States or some foreign countries. The written permission of the copyright owners in materials not in the public domain is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.

Whenever possible, we provide information that we have about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. You should consult the catalog information that accompanies each item for specific information. This catalog data provides the details known to the Library of Congress regarding the corresponding item and may assist you in making independent assessments of the legal status of these items for their desired uses. You should also consult restrictions associated with donations to the Library.

Credit Line: Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division.

Bolding mine.

What that says is they don't know but assume that the material they're presenting is no longer under copyright restriction. This is legal cover designed to protect them in case a work is copyrighted, and they've hosted it and the rights holders are angry. And that's the Library of Congress, an institution attached directly to government and with an extensive staff of lawyers and researchers. 

So, if we cannot rely on our leaders for clarity who can we trust? Well, we have to trust ourselves. Intellectual Property is confusing and arbitrary, but there are things we can do to give us some idea. For an example I was once contacted by some documentary maker wanting to know if the 1935 British social film Housing Problems was public domain. To which I replied "there is no source, look at the UKs copyright legislation and its criteria for copyright protection". That's what you have to do in general, figure which is its country of origin, look at the copyright laws in place at the time and then look at current copyright laws in existence today and if the work is of foreign origin look at if your country has a provision like the rule of shorter term (whereby foreign works that are public domain in their home countries are also public domain in yours even if they would not be if they were domestic creations). And there you go.

For DK we have plenty of evidence that it is in fact public domain, DK was made and released at a time when US works required proper copyright notices and a registration that conformed to the requirements of the copyright office of the United States of America. Lots of people get this confused and think a c in a circle was all that was required but no, failure to put a correct notice on the work meant the work lost its copyright protection, but you also needed the correct registration, the copyright office can reject registration applications so it's the registration that is the key determiner. To complicate matters, there was an amendment to US copyright law that gave creators five years to retroactively copyright material, so we're looking at the years 1979-1984, if we look on the US copyright offices' database we do find records for copyright registration of the movie Driller Killer. 

However, the earliest of these is 1991, and there are multiple entries for that year and when we look at them the names of the registrants include Quigley Down Under and Butley who were VHS distributors, who worked internationally. The time span for registration has expired, and none of those entries are listed as renewals of an older copyright. Here, the years of registration count against the film having a copyright, as does the number of entries by different competing businesses. Generally speaking, when you see multiple competing companies offering the same product, that's an excellent piece of evidence that the work they are selling is out of copyright, if you're wondering why that is, there are too reasons. First, if the product is still in copyright these companies would be purchasing or licensing the IP and the whole point of IP is exclusivity, that's how you make money off a product, no one else is legally allowed to exploit IP you own. It just doesn't make business sense to license a product to then compete in a crowded market. Second, if the product is in copyright, what these companies are doing is illegal, and they've created a strong paper trial to the material steps they've taken in their crime. The man selling pirate DVDs in pub car parks can disappear when the heat turns up, but it's a lot harder to hide bulk orders and shipping of products you're actively advertising that you have.

 The above is good practice in general, but for Driller Killer in particular there is even more evidence we can look at. DK is an independent horror movie, now when we see the word independent or indie and the movie in question looks made on a limited budget we often assume It's made by an amateur on a shoestring and who may not have been aware of the legal niceties regarding contracts and rights, but that isn't so with DK. The Director and Driller Killer of Driller Killer is Abel Ferrara, Ferrara has made and released many films before and since DK and is still alive and working today. As far as I am aware, all the other movies in his catalogue are in copyright, if DK belonged to anyone it would be him, and yet there is no evidence that Ferrara has made even an attempt to prove that the film did in fact qualify for copyright, there is no court case nor press releases stating this. 

To compare this with another late 70s public domain slip up A Boy and his Dog, Harlan Ellison spent years trying to argue that the film was in fact copyrighted to him, but at no point did he provide any legal proof, and eventually he gave up talking about the film at all. If there is an owner of DKs IP out there, they've been quiet for decades and the onus is on them to prove their claims.

Returning from Cuba 1898

 

Tornant de Cuba by Ricard Opisso a Catalan artist. Painted in 1898 this image depicts two veterans of the Spanish American war, tens of thousands of conscripts were discharged and returned to Spain at the Barcelona Quays which is seen in the background. Many of these men were wounded, and malaria sickness was common, the Spanish authorities essentially abandoned these men after Cuba and Philippines and Puerto Rico were lost to the United States. 

The treatment of these men contributed to the growing atmosphere of hostility to the Spanish military in Barcelona and the wider Catalan region. I've been told that this defeat sat heavily on Spanish consciousness and that a saying "Más se perdió en la guerra de Cuba" (more was lost in the Cuban war) which means could have been worse.

The conflict between the USA and Spain occurred during the infancy of film and Edison was keen to film recreations of the fighting, if you've seen a documentary on this conflict you've likely seen some of this footage, I certainly have.

Cuban revolutionaries occupy a house and fire on Spanish troops.

Kurosawa and the Public Domain

 

This week I crossed another film off my to watch list, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. My Blu-ray was the release by the British Film Institute (BFI) and I cannot fault the production, the image was sharp and the sound clean. My thoughts on the film itself? Well, there are a thousand other places for that, the film isn't public domain, so this isn't the place for another one. The film opened with a little info title stating that the work was reproduced with the full consent of the copyright holders which surprised me a bit, Rashomon was released in 1950, and a court ruling in Japan concerning compliance with international standards on copyright law stated that all Japanese films and possibly all films worldwide released in 1952 or before are in the public domain. 

If, like me, you're curious, sadly Godzilla was released in 1954. I checked that premiere date the second I learnt about that fact. I have no evidence, but I doubt the cut-off date being set before the release of Godzilla was a coincidence, in addition to being a cultural icon and symbol of Japan's media industry Toho the studio behind the big lizard is extremely powerful, connected and super aggressive about protecting its commodities. 

But 1950 comes before 1952, so shouldn't that make Rashomon public domain as well? Sadly not, there's another caveat to be taken into account. In 2006 the Japanese courts passed judgement on making pre-53 films public domain as a way of simplifying the transition to the Berne convention life+70 years approach in regard to releases during the old copyright system, in particular there was controversy surrounding a law passed in 1971 that set protection at 50 years after release, whereas today the term is 70 years after release for cinematic works. However, this did not end the matter once and for all. 

In 2007 due to a lawsuit involving Toho (what a surprise) over non-Toho approved releases of Akira Kurosawa's early movies made for the studio the Japanese courts ruled that for works published up to 1971 the previous legal code on copyright applies which set protection for a work at 38 years after the death of the director. Akira Kurosawa died in 1999 so take that into account and his early works won't be public domain in Japan until 2037. This whole thing is frankly ridiculous, a law that was change in 1971 which itself was changed in the 2000s is still somehow legally binding. 

So, what does this mean? Well, another win for big studio companies and a massive headache for everyone else who wants to make use of Japanese cinema and still remain on the good side of the law. The only positive of the ruling is that it ruled that the director alone is the original copyright holder of pre-1971 films, so we don't have to waste time looking up score and writing credits. I've come up with a rough formula to help determine public domain work regarding Japanese cinema (not legal advice)

1. 1985 was 38 years ago, so find a director who died then or before that date
2. Once established looked through their catalogue of work and make two lists, one for pre-1971 works and the other for pre-1953 works
3. Obtain legal representation anyway, as Japanese copyright law is heavy-handed and actively hostile to concepts such as fair use and derivative work, as Shinobu Yoshida found out after receiving a 2-year prison sentence (suspended for five years) and a million yen fine for let's play videos and anime episode recaps.

Copyright is a confusing slog of arbitrary decisions by powerful entities to promote and enrich other powerful entities. Someday I'll write about the Soviet Union's copyright history, at present I'm still trying to work out the timeline.

Public Pride

 

It's Pride Month, so I'll take the opportunity to talk about a project I've been working on for a while, a Queer cinema playlist. There's still work to be done, but fret not, unlike the corporate media the playlist and the films on it won't be privated on the 1st of July, to hibernate until next year. No, I'll be adding to the list of projects I chip away at in my spare time all year round.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot of material in the public domain that subverts and even rips apart conventional attitudes regarding gender, sexuality and identity. The terminology was different back then, Homophiles, Uranians, and so on, but the intent and content is there. It can be difficult to find the material in the wild, though. This is for a number of reasons that for the sake of brevity I'll quickly list them.

1. Censorship: Many of these films and shorts were the victims of conservative authorities and reactionary movements. These meant that some important early works were cut up or physically seized and partially or completely destroyed. Infamously the German movie Different from the Others (Anders als die Andern) a very early movie about homosexuality made with the explicit intent of appealing for tolerance from the audience was nearly destroyed by the Nazi party, though it survives in an incomplete form.
2. Terminology: Times change and so does language, this can be a problem for an archivist as lots of content that should be included gets missed since none of the contemporary information uses any of the easy to locate keywords in a search. I've seen multiple 1910s-20s American films that depict a gay or at least non-conformist male character, where the only giveaway before you watch it is the usage of the word sissy. And did you know that in the USA in the 19th and early 20th century the preferred term for homosexual was homophilia? It largely died out amongst queer folk after WWII, but you'll still come across the odd usage into the 1970s. 
3. Lack of Interest: By which I mean lack of interest from the big, established archives and reference works. I know some people think it's rather odd that there are so many specialised archives, collection of "Black American Lesbian filmmakers" and lists of "Gay Russian Composers" and sure in a perfect world where everyone is equal the information in them would be included in the main archives. But, that's the point of things like Pride, isn't it. We don't live in a world where everyone is valued equally. The reason for these fragmented archives and collections is that you simply couldn't find any information in the larger archives because the people and subjects they cover weren't considered important enough to preserve and document. 
4. Discrimination: In addition to legal issues, we have to take into account societal opinion. Being queer in much of the world has been illegal for many years, and even in whens and wheres, that didn't have strong legal instruments against self-expression and behaviour that wasn't proper, society has its own courts and sanctions. So, this meant that works celebrating or just exploring these taboo topics were often done in a manner that provided as much privacy as possible for the creators. Pseudonyms, no registration information and limited production of works and public viewings. Think about the circulation of banned books in a dictatorship, these works still exist, and some few can access them, but until the regime collapses they're going to be scarce commodities, and sadly some regimes can live for quite a long time.
5. Copyright: At least how copyright works now. I discussed some of the ways that copyright law can cause issues for the sharing of and engagement with certain works in my essay on pornographic works. Well, the headaches of Intellectual Property as a concept is the reason this blog exists, but I think the issues with pornography are relevant here. Not that I'm equating pornography with being Trans or Gay, it's just that similar problems arise. In my country, anonymous works are protected for 70 years after release, so if you find some material that for one reason or another was released with no identifiers like a post card with two male models kissing as an example, you aren't supposed to do anything with it until you're sure 70 years have passed. Which has a lot of issues, but for the purposes of this blog a major headache is that works that have been discovered in an archive or private collection then there's a question mark over whether it is legal to take actions to make it more accessible like digitisation of photographs and film reel. Usually this will eventually be worked out after a lengthy process of legal consultation, but that is a slow process and the archive or museum has to be invested in the material to bother. That isn't a unique problem for queer studies either, lots of very interesting and important stuff is in this gray area, it's just one where the institutional biases can exacerbate the issue.

Still, there is some good news, things are slowly improving in an uneven fashion. Institutional programs are starting to care about minorities and are starting to sift through their massive collections. In 2018 I attended a screening of Queer films made in the United Kingdom organised by the BFI (British Film Institute) and shown in libraries across the country. If you've been to a BFI screening in a library, town hall or community centre then you'll know that isn't a mass audience, but it is a step on the road. Atleast they know they have material and are willing to show them to the public, or at least the public who bother to read coming soon boards in municipal service buildings. 

More, and more, relics are being discovered and slowly filtering to the masses. One of the reasons for the delay in making a public playlist was that I had assumed there would be several large master list of fictional films at least, which I could work through and check copyright status, but that didn't pan out. I did find many lists, but they're of the top 10 best style, not very useful for what I'm doing. It's a bit like films that are public domain in the United Kingdom, where I ended up making my own. I don't think I'm capable of doing something like that for this, at least not yet, but there are some fragments of information that I can track some work down, and I'm going to keep plugging a way at it. I think the list will grow and make it easier for others to find some of these works and take what they need from them.

Arles - Prisoner Statement

 

Link https://youtu.be/oXbyVHE57D8

Here's a short video recorded by three anonymous inmates of the prison in Arles. It details conditions and the grievances of the detained population.

Note: The transcription is of the translated subtitles from the video. Though some parts were confusing, so I re-worded some passages to make the meaning clearer. Though some references escaped me so I chose to leave them intact.

Arles, Prisoners Statement

2001

This video was released in October 2001 by 3 prisoners from the Arles prison in the South of France.

Translation was difficult as the statement often refers to French reality.

We hope it is understandable, and we hope this video will be played abroad as much as possible.





Statement

Before reading this statement we must clarify that we are hooded in order to avoid the personalisation of the current action.


We are just long sentenced prisoners among others. The message that we carry is the one of thousands of voiceless men and women locked up in the prisons of France.


Furthermore, we want to point out that it is for security reasons that we are hooded.


It would be useless to specify that the prison authorities won’t appreciate our initiative. And that the repression will strike after the public broadcasting of this document will be important.


The security measures that we took may not save us from sanctions, that’s why we ask in advance to the associations and citizens caring for the defence of human rights to be watchful regarding the Arles prison in the coming days and weeks.


This will prevent the violences or different types of abuses committed by the repression holders to occur.


Of course, we wouldn’t have been forced to carry out such an action if the prison world wasn’t this law free place where freedom of expression, freedom of association are denied to detainees.

It is the antidemocratic nature of prison that leads us to act this way!

At last we want to specify here that the equipment used to make this report was taken without anyone’s approval.


That is, the inmate responsible for the video workshop didn’t know that we embezzled the mentioned equipment.


The year 2000 has been, among other things the year of the public revelation of the prison horror in France.


“A shame for the Republic”, was stated by many. Many problems were raised, denounced.

From deputies to Church to various associations, all had the opportunity to express themselves on this subject with a clear unanimity.


We take note of that. But as always the main concerned didn’t have their say. Those whose daily life is the prison infamy, which means the prisoners themselves.


Word is not given to us. Never. That’s why we decided to take it, here and now. It’s especially in the name of “long sentenced” prisoners that we speak, we, the system’s left out. Those whose prospect is only despair and hate.


We are here in front of you to demand that just and fair measures are applied to us, that would allow us to believe that we have not been convicted to a slow death, to sentences that are just a substitute to the death penalty.


We are here to say, to say aloud that it is to no one’s interest if we turn into “human bombs”, because our day when we’ll be freed will come, when we’ll return to the social corpse.


What will happen if during the years the prison system kills us, debases us, wounds us dramatically and deeply. It is time that this reality stops.


It is a great time for this “cannibal prison” to become the subject of a cultural revolution that’d allow it to enter the third millennium with dignity.


From our experience, in the name of respect to the human dignity and to the inalienable rights of the human being, we demand that the French government takes the following measures:

First: Changing the punishment scale and lining it up to one of the countries with the less repressive penal conception. That means we demand the abolition of long sentences.


The abolition of sentences running consecutively, which leads men and women to serve decades of prison, but also the abolition of the unbearable life sentence.


All the specialists in this domain agree on the fact that the sentence doesn’t have anymore sense after a certain period of time. It becomes just fierceness, revenge, destruction of the individual.


The year 2001 will see the celebration of the 20^th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty. The opportunity is here to put an end to the long prison sentences, that are nothing else than a substitute for the death penalty.


Second: Immediate release of all prisoners that have incurable diseases.

Dying in prison is the worst fate a prisoner can experience. We demand the respect of the right to die in dignity, among our relatives, out of the prison context.


Third: Abolition of the isolation units and of the holes. Closing down these super repressive tools is simply what we demand.


In those situations the law is much too often the one of the strongest, where the officials turn into torturers, where suspicious deaths are numerous.

We must end with that!


This is where the most urgent measures to take, as we feel each new day is a day of social revenge applied to us and not a measure of justice.


But the current prison reality is made up of many other measures that we want to denounce and to see changing as soon as possible.


It deals for instance with the impossibility to have sexual intercourses, to have children, or just to have the right to tenderness. All those things are among the fundamental rights of the human being.

The extreme restriction of Family Life Units that would concern 3 prisons out of the existing 187 is an insult made to us.


As many countries already have equipped their prisons with special visit spaces intended for intimate relations, why does France carry out such a program only in an experimental thus restricted way?

How many more decades will we have to wait until those fundamental rights are recognised to us?

How many more families and couples will be broken until the political decision makers and other officials act in a responsible way, or just in a human way?


One other crucial concern is the transformation of prisons into unofficial psychiatric hospitals.

More and more prisoners have nothing to do in prison. Their psychological state is incompatible with prison.


We ask that they get a treatment in appropriate places. We want also to denounce the scandal of using products supplying drugs in the prison world.


Peace in detention much too often means maintaining detainees in a state of addiction towards substitution products.


Some prisoners even turn into drug addicts in detention while they were not when they were imprisoned.


What is to be thought of an institution that maintains and encourages men and women to drug addiction with the public money?

We demand the end of censorship measures as well. The endless violation of our mail, of our visits with families and friends only have but one aim:


Imposing on us a self censorship that leads to the alienation of thought and the anaesthesia of feelings, but also eventually to the disappearance of family relationship.

Who would believe they want to rehabilitate us when the prison authority never ceases to separate us from family?


By imprisoning us hundreds of kilometres from where our relatives live? When the whole institution’s running only leads to infantilising and taking away the responsibilities from detainees?

 How could we forget prison work while talking about outrageous realities?


Why is the labour law not applied to detainees? Why are the French bosses sometimes more interested in giving work in French prisons than moving to a third world country?


The answer is simple: because the prisoner is totally enslaved and any modern supporter of slavery would dream of the conditions offered by the prison administration.


Is it in those conditions that we are supposed to be encouraged to rehabilitate in society through work?


And what should be said of those ridiculous salaries that don’t allow us to reimburse decently the so-called party claiming damages?


The justice decisions in this domain are wiped out in the name of profit.


Another reason for our exasperation is the disinterest of the prison authorities towards culture, art, those things entertaining spirit and the senses.


How can we evolve or re-evolve if this crucial part of our being, our power of creating, our sensibility is denied to us, if culture and art are not within our reach?


We want to denounce here and with strength that the negative activities of an extremely active minority of the warden staff for whom the detainee is an enemy that must be killed.


Those officials refuse to respect the spirit of laws and even refuse simply to apply them.

They represent an ongoing danger for the institution in general, but also more commonly for the penal population and for their own colleagues.


Its great time that these people get contained by those whose mission is applying texts, and checking the running of the prisons.


Furthermore, we want to draw attention to the application of the so called “innocence presumption” new law.


We fear that once again the main part of the magistrates overseeing the terms and conditions of sentences keep on applying texts in a very restrictive way.


It has been years since the politic carried out regarding terms of sentences is a disaster. It must stop.

The harassment which long sentenced prisoners are undergoing from the most repressive part of the French magistracy must cease.


We refuse to be the victims of those sworn torturers any longer.

To put an end to this incomplete list, we wish to state how we feel it necessary and crucial that the prison authorities endeavour to fulfil their mission of support to the rehabilitation of detainees.

It is obvious that we, the detainees of French prisons, don’t enjoy measures following this line.

The political will obviously doesn’t exist, and the means necessary are almost nowhere to be found.

It sounds clear to us that we are sacrificed, that we are doomed to eternal subsequent offenses. We refuse to be used as scapegoats for the security politic of the state.


Of course, we greet all our comrades currently walled up alive in the isolation units, and all those undergoing the unbearable hole sanction.


Strength, courage and determination to all.


Greetings and solidarity also to all the detainees currently locked up in jails. The foul living conditions in the jails are now known to everybody.


Fast changes are imperative.


Finally we want to send a message to the youth of the suburban areas, to the children of the proletariat and subproletariat, to all those belonging to the sacrificed classes, of the system.


Yesterday, your parents and grandparents, our parents and grandparents were turned into cannon fodder. And sent to the front in order to die, defending interests they had nothing to do with.

Today, the future of prison fodder is offered to us.


Let’s refuse this tragedy, let’s refuse this logic. Let’s become aware of all that before it’s too late.

Because the prison gates are coming closer and closer, longer and longer.


Whereas the real criminals, those who live on the back of poverty, of our poverty, are guzzling in all their arrogance while laughing at our misery, at our sacrificed life.

1975: A Boy and His Dog

 

Video link

Don Johnson plays a young man in a post nuclear war world who has an interesting friend, a telepathic dog. The dog gives him an advantage in dealing with the barbaric world he lives in. When Johnson finds one place that has escaped the devastation of the war, he also finds some rather odd attitudes.

When I discovered a Boy and his Dog were listed in several collections of public domain works, I hardly believed it. Not only is it very recent, but it was an adaption of a novella by Harlan Ellison, who was actively involved in the film's promotion and reception. Ellison was notorious as a militant defender of author intellectual property rights, and wasn't shy about fighting against even the possibility of a violation of it. So to find out that no one on the production and distribution side of this movie bothered to officially register it is genuinely surprising. The earliest record of a copyright application is for the VHS release of the movie in the 1980s. So yes, the film is in the public domain, despite the attempts by Harlan and the studio to keep control of it, the film is out there and can be watched, edited, remixed parodied etc.

The film was released in 1975 which was just a few years before US copyright reforms made copyright automatic at the point of completion as in the rest of the world. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is a famous similar case, though Romero did register it for copyright, he forgot to attach the copyright notice to the film when he released it, which voided the copyright. There are quite a few American media projects that are in the public domain for similar reasons. And many works didn't have their copyright renewed for one reason or another. This is the first time I've encountered a major movie with serious backing that forgot to even submit the application.

As a result, the movie is easier to find than the original novella. The movie was a critical success but box office failure, but it did generate enough interest in the concept that Ellison launched several other spin offs. And like how sharing the Living Dead spurred on creative works involving zombies, a Boy and His Dog was very influential in apocalyptic science fiction, Mad Max and the Fallout franchise have clear connections to pick the most obvious. 

This poster owns.

1937: Juan García Oliver Speech About Durruti and the time of Pistoleros and action groups

 

 

 

I found this speech given at some point in 1937 by Juan Garcia Oliver while looking for public domain footage of the Spanish Civil War and the years that preceded it. Oliver had joined the CNT Anarcho-syndicalist union in 1919 and in the early 1920s took an active part in the illegal action groups. The groups carried out reprisals for the murder of Anarchists and union members and with the group Los Solidarios Oliver took part in some high profile assassinations. In the 1930s Oliver took part in several abortive insurrections in Catalunya and was in prison until an amnesty in 1936. 

During the civil war he oscillated wildly between posts and ideological positions, initially supporting the full implementation of Libertarian Communism and joining a column at the front in Aragon, before being called back to be a CNT representative and later joining the Caballero republican government. During the Mayday's clashes between the Republic and the more revolutionary elements, he urged a ceasefire and unity with the government. In his tenure as Minister of Justice, he was associated with abolishing court fees and destroying court records, but also had a role in the establishment of work camps and prisons.

 

 

Link  

 

Text of the speech.

 
Our anarchist group was founded in the year 1923.

In circumstances that were very bad for our movement, very sad for the whole working class,
The pistoleros of the "Sindicato Libre*", sponsored by the bourgeoisie, were almost owners of the city.
The police hordes contributed to the destruction of our organizations and our men.
Salvador Seguí, the titan of anarcho-syndicalism, had fallen.
Old militants, the first men of our so splendid movement today, had fallen.
When we thought that the moment of being completely defeated was probably coming,
We united, in that moment,  we who I have no shame in saying, we who I have pride in confessing:
The kings of the working-class, pistol of Barcelona!
We lived and acted disunited.

But we made a selection!
The best terrorists of the working class
The ones who could best return punch by punch and deliver the final victory to the proletariat
We split from the other comrades, we united, and we formed an anarchist group.
A group of action, to fight!
Against the pistoleros, against the bourgeoisie, and against the government!
We achieved our goal: we won!
Our punches were harder, more towards the head, than theirs.
And the group was formed, and it was an oath of those who joined it, that, from that moment on, our group "Los Solidarios" we'd continue the struggle, until the total triumph of the working class, until the triumph of the social revolution and that only death could separate us.
The first to fall was comrade Eusebio, in Asturias.
Comrade Torin also fell, in Barcelona.
The comrades Suberviela and Torres Escartín suffered in prison.
And when we, after the Republic was established, came out of the prisons, and united once again in Spain, we continued the group, and then, we renamed to, "Nosotros".

We (Nosotros), who have no name!
We, who have no pride!
We, who are a mass!
We, who will go one by one!
We (Nosotros)!
We have a debt.
Durruti paid it.
For the revolution and in honor to his commitment.
We who are, like Durruti, to show Europe we stopped at the last compromise.
Time has been proving it:
It is not a test of a day nor a year.
It is a test of (???).
It was paid.
It was accomplished.
Durruti did his duty,
and we, who are still here, will also do it.
Death is nothing!
Our individual lives are NOTHING!
That's why we are "Nosotros".
And while one of us is left, "Nosotros" lives on.
That's all.

* A labour union set up by the industrialists of Barcelona in an attempt to break the much more militant CNT Union. Its leadership was complicit in the Pistoleros campaigns, informing on CNT members.

UPDATE:

Found a youtube channel affiliated with the CGT union in Valencia which has the full recording of the film online. 

It also has more information,

Documental realizado por la CNT en homenaje a Durruti en el primer aniversario de su muerte y dedicado a su viuda Emiliana Morín y a su hija Colette Durruti.  Comienza con unas imágenes del cementerio de Montjuich tras lo que se pasa a un acto de homenaje anarquista en el cine Tívoli de Barcelona. Vemos la intervención de cuatro dirigentes anarquistas, entre ellos a Juan García Oliver, que hace un discurso sobre la importancia de Durruti y la CNT en la lucha revolucionaria.  De nuevo en el cementerio, un antiguo miembro de la Columna Durruti, transformada en la 26 División, se dirige a la multitud prometiendo seguir la lucha por las ideas del líder caído. García Oliver da un inflamado discurso en el que recuerda a Durruti y al grupo de acción anarquista "Los Solidarios", la muerte de Salvador Seguí al que aplicaron la "Ley de fugas", y la lucha que mantuvieron contra los pistoleros del Sindicato Libre. Este discurso está intercalado con imágenes de ficción entre las que destaca una recreación de la aplicación de la "Ley de fugas".

Translation

 

 Documentary made by the CNT in homage to Durruti on the first anniversary of his death and dedicated to his widow Emiliana Morín and his daughter Colette Durruti.  It begins with some images of the Montjuich cemetery after which an anarchist tribute act is held at the Tívoli cinema in Barcelona. We see the intervention of four anarchist leaders, among them Juan García Oliver, who makes a speech about the importance of Durruti and the CNT in the revolutionary struggle.  Back in the cemetery, a former member of the Durruti Column, transformed into the 26th Division, addresses the crowd promising to continue the fight for the fallen leader's ideas. García Oliver gives an inflamed speech in which he remembers Durruti and the anarchist action group "Los Solidarios", the death of Salvador Seguí to whom the "Law of Fugitives*" was applied, and the fight they waged against the gunmen of the Free Trade Union. This speech is interspersed with fictional images, among which a recreation of the application of the "Law of Fugitives" stands out.

* The Ley de fugas or Law of fugitives was a law that authorised the shooting of prisoners attempting to escape. It was widely used by the police to execute prisoners out of hand.

Public Domain Film's in the United Kingdom

 

As previously stated, copyright is a constant headache by design. One area of special pain is determining the status of motion pictures. Most nations set copyright as dependent on the year of passing of a handful of the creative types who worked on it. Usually the Director, Screenplay Author (principal if more than one) and the Composer for the soundtrack. 

For the UK according to the Office for Intellectual Property the standard is this;

• Films, 70 years after the death of the director, screenplay author and composer

So we have a framework, but it's a lot more work and potential pitfalls than the old American system, which was set at the year of release. Currently, in 2022 that date is 1926, so all motion pictures released in that year or earlier in the United States are in the public domain, so if we're not sure, we just have to look at its copyright date or if that's missing just check the registration year we think it was released, and we can find out.

For British films and other Berne Convention nations, we have to find out who occupied the director, screenplay author and composer of a film and then track down when they died. In the UK, the public domain date is set at 70 years after death, so for 2022 this means deaths up to 1951 count. So the author George Orwell who passed away in 1950 is in the public domain here, for authors it's a straight forward matter, but for film including some of the oldest and rarest films it's a bit more complicated. Some British film pioneers were surprisingly long-lived.

And while searching "Public domain movies" gives you hundreds of sites and lists for American motion pictures, I haven't been able to find a single one for British films or foreign films for any nation apart from the Soviet Union, which is a topic I'll cover another day. 

So to address that at least a little, I've decided to build my own list. 

 

Title of the film	Year of release	Director	Date of death	Screenplay author	Date of death	Author of dialogue(if different)	Date of death	Composer	Date of death	Other information
The Aerial Anarchists	1911	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent		Lost
The Airship Destroyer	1909	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
The Miser's Doom	1899	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
Upside Down; or, the Human Flies	1900	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
A Railway Collision	1900	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
The Haunted Curiosity Shop	1901	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
Artistic Creation	1901	Walter R Booth	1939	Walter R Booth	1939	Silent		Silent
An Over Incubated Baby	1901	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
Cheese Mites, or Lilliputians in a London Restaurant	1901	Walter R Booth	1939	Walter R Booth	1939	Silent		Silent
Scrooge or Marley's Ghost	1901	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent		https://youtu.be/j4kKIReFk0s
The Magic Sword	1901	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
Undressing Extraordinary	1901	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent		Also known as the Troubles of a Tired Traveller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undressing_Extraordinary
The Extraordinary Waiter	1902	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
An Extraordinary Cab Accident	1903	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent		https://youtu.be/c00r3pHmTVM
Is Spiritualism a Fraud?	1906	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
The Ariel Submarine	1910	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
The Waif and the Wizard	1901	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent
The`?` Motorist	1906	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent		https://youtu.be/4vNOJ4P-JWM
Willie's Magic Wand	1907	Walter R Booth	1939	Walter R Booth	1939	Silent		Silent		https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie%27s_Magic_Wand
The Automatic Motorist	1911	Walter R Booth	1938	Walter R Booth	1938	Silent		Silent		https://youtu.be/kAQoiItwBOc
À propos de Nice	1930	Jean Vigo	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	N/A		N/A
Jean Taris, Swimming Champion	1931	Jean Vigo	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	N/A		N/A
Zero for Conduct	1933	Jean Vigo	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	Maurice Jaubert	1940	https://youtu.be/G7eP0ufdFPM
L'Atalante	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	Jean Vigo	1934	Maurice Jaubert	1940
Little Nemo	1911	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
The Story of a Mosquito	1912	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
Gertie the Dinosaur	1914	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
The Sinking of the Lusitania	1918	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent		https://youtu.be/zXbpqr_By1I
Bug Vaudeville	1921	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
The Flying House	1921	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
The Centaurs	1921	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent		https://youtu.be/tRGLoUHQKXI
Gertie on Tour	1918-21	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
Flip's Circus	1918-21	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Windsor McCay	1934	Silent
The Great Train Robbery	1903	Edwin S. Porter	1941	Scott Marble	1919	N/A		Silent		https://youtu.be/VjDdPiOxwXY
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend	1906	Edwin S. Porter and Wallace McCutcheon Sr.	1941 (Porter) 1918 (McCutcheon)	Windsor McCay	1934	N/A		Silent		https://youtu.be/SRoHNdBQR60
The Seven Ages	1905	Edwin S. Porter	1941	Edwin S. Porter	1941	N/A		Silent
The Kleptomaniac	1905	Edwin S. Porter	1941	Edwin S. Porter	1941	Edwin S. Porter	1941	Silent
Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King	1901	Edwin S. Porter	1941	Edwin S. Porter	1941	N/A		Silent
The Count of Monte Cristo	1912	Colin Campbell	1928	Colin Campbell	1928	N/A		Silent		Lost
Major Wilson's Last Stand	1899	Frank E.Fillis	1921	Frank E. Fillis	1921	N/A		Silent		Lost?
A Primitive Man's Career to Civilization	1912	Cherry Kearton	1940	N/A		N/A		Silent		Lost?
Scrooge	1913	Leedham Bantock	1928	Leedham Bantock	1928	N/A		Silent		released in 1926 in the US under the title Old Scrooge
Called Back	1914	George Loane Tucker	1921	Comyns Carr	1916	N/A		Silent
She Stoops to Conquer	1914	George Loane Tucker	1921	Bannister Merwin	1921	N/A		Silent
Trilby	1914	Harold M. Shaw	1926	N/A		N/A		Silent
Iron Justice	1915	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
The Brass Bottle	1914	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		N/A		Silent		Lost
The World's Desire	1915	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		N/A		Silent
Auld Lang Syne	1917	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Democracy	1918	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Because	1918	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Sweet and Twenty	1919	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
After Many Days	1919	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
All Men are Liars	1919	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Lady Noggs	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent		Also known as Lady Noggs; Peeress
A Man's Shadow	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Robert Buchanan	1901	N/A		Silent
The Black Sheep	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Little Dorrit	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
The Woman of the Iron Bracelets	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
The Scarlet Wooing	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
By Berwin Banks	1920	Sidney Morgan	1946	Hugh Croise	1950	N/A		Silent
Moth and Rust	1921	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
The Mayor of Casterbridge	1921	Sidney Morgan	1946	Thomas Hardy	1928	N/A		Silent
The Lilac Sunbonnet	1922	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Fires of Innocence	1922	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
A Lowland Cinderella	1922	Sidney Morgan	1946	S.R.Crockett	1914	N/A		Silent
The Woman who Obeyed	1923	Sidney Morgan	1946	Alicia Ramsey	1933	N/A		Silent
Miriam Rozella	1924	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Bulldog Drummond's Third Round	1925	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
A Window in Piccadilly	1928	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
The Thoroughbred	1928	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	N/A		Silent
Her Reputation	1931	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	Sidney Morgan	1946	Silent
Scrooge	1923	Edwin Greenwood	1939	Eliot Stanard	1939	Eliot Stanard	1939	Silent
The Black Spider	1920	William J. Humphrey	1942	Carlton Dawe	1935	N/A		Silent
Thelma	1918	Arthur Rooke and A.E. Colby	1930 (A.E.Colby) 1947 Arthur Rooke	Marie Correlli	1924	N/A		Silent
God's Clay	1919	Arthur Rooke	1947	Arthur Rooke	1947	N/A		Silent
The Garden of Ressurection	1919	Arthur Rooke	1947	Guy Newall	1937	N/A		Silent
The Lure of Crooning Water	1920	Arthur Rooke	1947	Guy Newall	1937	N/A		Silent
The Mirage	1920	Arthur Rooke	1947	Guy Newall	1937	N/A		Silent
The Mirage	1920	Arthur Rooke	1947	Guy Newall	1937	N/A		Silent
Brenda of the Barge	1920	Arthur Rooke	1947	Arthur Rooke	1947	N/A		Silent
The Blue Peter	1928	Arthur Rooke	1947	E. Temple Thurston	1933	N/A		Silent
The Education of Nicky	1921	Arthur Rooke	1947	Arthur Rooke	1947	N/A		Silent
The Sport of Kings	1921	Arthur Rooke	1947	Arthur Rooke	1947	N/A		Silent
A Bachelor's Baby	1922	Arthur Rooke	1947	Lydia Hayward	1945	N/A		Silent
A Sporting Double	1922	Arthur Rooke	1947	Arthur Rooke	1947	N/A		Silent
The Gay Corinthian	1924	Arthur Rooke	1947	Elliot Stannard	1944	N/A		Silent
The Diamond Man	1924	Arthur Rooke	1947	Elliot Stannard	1944	N/A		Silent
Nets of Destiny	1924	Arthur Rooke	1947	Elliot Stannard	1944	N/A		Silent
The Conjure Woman	1926	Oscar Micheaux	1951	Oscar Micheaux	1951	N/A		Silent		Private film
Shanghai During the Japanese Attack on China	1938	Anthony Hastings George	1944	N/A		N/A		Silent