Distribution Denied! 25 Films You Can’t Get on DVD

Oops! My brain was thinking Blu-Ray & not DVD. Thanks for the correction!

 

Fair enough!

 

Doc Savage is available from Warner as a DVD R

 

Electric Dreams was a great film. I suspect that it's just too outdated on the technology.
TAG - The Assassination Game can be seen of You Tube. The game becomes real when one of the players begins playing for keeps.
Joe Panther. - I like this movie - still do. It has the song "The Time Is Come" by England Dan and John Ford Coley" for it's theme song.
I suspect that the Seminole tribe did not like the way the Indians were portrayed and have kept it from being released.
Skulduggery was a Burt Reynolds film. This delved into some controversial issue with both sex and the definition of what constitutes a human being if I remember correctly.

 

Angelo My Love (1983) is still missing in
action on DVD. Robert Duval must not
have the rights to this because it's availability
would only enhance his status as a director.

 

No need for 'silly me'. You said you didn't see a link, and I was helping you find it.

You did a very good job posting the name of the magazine site on which the article is posted. Thank you.

S'cool.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Several movies mentioned in this article and thread did make it to laserdisc which in most cases was a big step up from VHS or broadcast. "The Keep" which was released first as cropped 4:3 and later 16:9 on laserdisc still commands decent prices around $50 - $100 among the reseller/eBay market. "It Came From Hollywood" can often be found for less than $15 on LD. "Looking For Mr Goodbar" which was only available on fullscreen LD (and VHS) is somewhat rare but can be found usually under $30.

Also noted, the American version of "Godzilla 1985" (with Raymond Burr reprising his role as "Steve Martin") never made it past a fullscreen laserdisc release. Only the original Japanese language/cut has seen a release on dvd and Blu-ray in Japan. "Let It Be" and "Song Of The South" on laserdisc still command upwards of $150, although the much rarer Hong Kong SOTS laserdisc without the burned in subtitles as seen on the Japan release goes for far higher, really outrageous prices.

On thing I just discovered was that the disastrous 1981 "comedy" featuring John Belushi, "Neighbors" which was another "lost" film actually was released on DVD last year by Mill Creek as well as broadcast on various pay-tv/streaming outlets.

 

How about Middle Age Crazy (1980).


A married man is turning forty and that's when the midlife crisis hits him. He becomes obsessed with young women and fast cars.



Director:
John Trent
Writers:
Carl Kleinschmitt, Jerry Lee Lewis
Stars:
Bruce Dern, Ann-Margret, Graham Jarvis

 

So let me get this straight - Releasing Let It Be on DVD would hurt The Beatles reputation, while releasing Magical Mystery Tour does not.

Got it.

 

Song of the South is not in the least obscure, nor is it that it would be unprofitable to release. Disney admits they get a large number of requests every year. They have made a decision to not release it and they will probably be able to get copyright law extended yet again to keep it out of the public domain by the time copyright would run out on it.

Whether their decision is good or bad is a matter for others to decide. I do believe that copyright needs to run out in a reasonable length of time.

 

The Grey Fox.
The best film ever to come out of Canada, one of my Top Ten.
Released on VHS (terrible video quality) and Laserdisc (only slightly better video than the VHS). Thank goddess I copied my LD onto DVD before my LD player died. Bad as looks, it's better than nothing.

 

Song was out in a few countries on VHS as well as the well known LD.

 

Did "One Trick Pony" ever get officially released and or Remastered to a pressed DVD?

 

Would love to have "Daytona Beach Weekend" from 1965 released. Its a cheap, quick Beach Type movie knockoff but it features Del Shannon in his only movie role. Color, too!

 

You would that people know and argue about the Beatles breakup for 45 years. But 20 years ago I worked with somebody who also had a job as a college radio station DJ. He said he knew about this but recently saw "Let it Be" and was shocked at the tension and hostility on film. "if this is what they released, imagine what they cut".

 

It looks really good too. I know some people are against dvd-r's but if the alternative is no release at all I will take it.

 

Song of the South is a unique case, and I've talked about it quite a few times. We once got a legal letter from Disney demanding information on where we got the "bootleg" laserdisc of this title that we reviewed in the late 1980s. I called them and they were chagrined to discover that their own Tokyo division had released it legitimately, with their copyright intact.

I think the copyright will run out on the film itself, but they might be able to prevent it from being released due to the music copyrights. "Underlying rights" are a big legal maneuver many studios use to stop their films & TV shows from being released by public domain video companies. Star Trek is a good example: the image of Mr. Spock, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and the music are all still protected, even though the first couple of years of shows are not copyrighted due to clerical errors.

 

Nowadays, if one of these rare movies pops up on a cable channel, people will capture it and distribute them via torrents, etc. Many of these movies have not even been shown on cable in a decade. Very odd that Looking for Mr. Goodbar has not been shown in forever.

Also, The Wild Life is out on DVD. Good movie if I remember correctly. I did a quick search and some of the original music by Prince, Billy Idol, Madonna, and Van Halen has been replaced or tampered with.

http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Life-Chr...UTF8&qid=1435946966&sr=1-1&keywords=wild+life

 

Not sure what the issue is with Goodbar , but I do know that Tuesday Weld was the subject of an unofficial "ban" where various newsmedia simply did not acknowledge her existence because she sued some publication for something or other. Don't know if there is any relationship.

 

So what's the big deal? Every male on the planet -- no matter what age -- is obsessed with young women and fast cars.

 

You mean the straight ones. There are gay people out there, ya know.

Fast cars, we can all agree on.

 

Oops. Forgot about that. What happens when a gay has a mid-life crisis? Oh, I know, "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert!"

 

Yes, that's exactly what happens to "a gay".

 

We buy more Blu-rays and haunt the used CD section at the music store.

 

Gay people are no different than anybody. There are all kinds of wealthy people who run out and ditch the wife/partner and hookup with a hot model and buy a Ferrari. The tabloids are filled with this stuff.

I've believed all my life that people are essentially the same, and everybody wants the same things, but the window dressing is often different.

Getting back to these unavailable films, I think if anybody digs deeper, you'll find there's often pretty good reasons why they aren't out. I'm kind of puzzled by the absence of Mr. Goodbar, but I can remember seeing the movie on cable in the 1980s and thinking, "man, this is an unrelenting downer." Paramount is one of the prime studios guilty of sitting on thousands of films and TV shows and not releasing them. They also went way down in terms of gross income for their home video division, which has led to a revolving door of executives over the last 7-8 years. I have no idea why they run their catalogue department so poorly; it's like they have almost zero interest on anything made before 1988.