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How Buster
Revolutionized the Business

People argue endlessly that Buster influenced film comedy. In my opinion, he did the best film comedy of all, but I don’t see any evidence that he influenced any other comedies. Yes, occasionally a comic will wear a flat hat or will use CGI to have a wall fall down, but those are mere momentary homages. Did Buster change the direction of cinema comedy? No, he didn’t, and he couldn’t. Nothing that anybody ever did even remotely resembles what Buster did. Buster’s imagination simply did not match anybody else’s. What Buster did influence, though, and he influenced it mightily, was film distribution. Yet he did so unwittingly, and he surely never even realized what he had accomplished.

Prior to 1962, there had been a few reissues of silent features. Several silents were converted to sound right at the time cinemas were installing sound. They were re-edited, some had dialogue dubbed in and a few of them had new scenes added. These were recent films that still had some commercial life in them: Ben-Hur (1925/1931), Wings (1927/1929), The Big Parade (1925/1931), The Godless Girl (1928/1929), The Man Who Laughs (1927/1928), King of Kings (1927/1931), Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927/1928), Abie’s Irish Rose (1928), and probably a few others.

Then I know of two oddballs. First there was The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 release that hit the screens again, highly abridged, in December 1930. Next came Way down East, a 1920 movie reissued in February 1931, with an orchestral score by Louis Silvers, surely similar to the original, on which he had worked a decade earlier. These latter two films were not major releases, but were made available for individual bookings. I doubt that there was even a poster for the American reissue of Way down East.

Epoch’s abridgment of The Birth of a Nation, with Louis Gottschalk’s rearrangement of Joseph Carl Breil’s 1915 score, appeared on Tuesday, 2 December 1930, and quietly knocked about here and there for more than half a century (re-edited in 1936 and again in 1938).


Reissue poster, Tuesday, 2 December 1930.
Distributed by the Epoch Producing Corporation.


Now, unexpectedly, it’s back again:


Chelsea Rialto Studios, BIRTH OF A NATION Talkie Reissue Blu-Ray Trailer,
posted August 15, 2022
If Vimeo ever disappears this video, download it.


As the years ground on, some minor distributors reissued some silents with soundtracks, and made a half-hearted attempt at legitimacy. For instance, in 1938 Artcinema Associates, Inc., reissued a Valentino flick called The Son of the Sheik with a music score compiled by James Charles Bradford. In January of 1939, Artcinema Associates distributed Astor Pictures Corporation’s new sound edition of The Eagle, “MODERNIZED WITH MUSIC AND SOUND,” though who was responsible for the music and sound I do not know. Probably Bradford. Such things did not get major releases at all.



Reissue poster, 10 April 1938.
Artcinema Associates, Inc.

Reissue poster, 14 January 1939.
Sound version produced by
Astor Pictures Corporation...

...but distributed by Artcinema Associates, Inc.


William S. Hart offered a spoken prologue to Tumbleweeds in 1939 synchronized by James Charles Bradford, produced by Astor Pictures Corporation.


Poster for the 1 May 1939 reissue.
Astor Pictures Corporation.


Not long afterwards came Goldwyn’s October 1940 reissue of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. As far as I know, the music score consisted of a bunch of royalty-free library recordings all spliced together.


I’m pretty sure this is the 11 October 1940 reissue poster.
Well, no, darn it, it isn’t.
This is part of the 1921 campaign.
No idea what the 1940 poster looked like.
Oh. I lied. I found a lobby title:





4 March 1942 reissue, “with MUSIC and WORDS” (and the left side lopped off)


When Charlie Chaplin decided to reissue The Gold Rush in 1942, he took some lessons from the above reissues, but did not follow their path. He composed a score himself and commissioned an orchestra to perform it. He added narration and dialogue, but spoke it all himself. He re-edited the film not for the sake of change, but because he thought it needed tightening. He insisted on a major United Artists release to major cinema chains as a new first-run deluxe attraction. He would not abide the idea of individual bookings. The result was a massive success, and yet others in “The Industry” were too thick-skulled to understand that other treasures could get a similar treatment and be similar successes.

There was also the Associated British Picture Corporation, which was a major distributor. In 1948 it reissued an unusual edition of Metropolis, which, amazingly, retained the entire image through optical reduction!!!!! That was a true a rarity, perhaps unique for the time. The music score, predictably, was spliced together, this time from the Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra’s royalty-free library recordings. This was shown only a few times in the UK and Australia and then quietly disappeared.


Australian reissue daybill, Thursday, 20 June 1952.
Distributed by National Films of N.S.W.
I have never found the poster for the British reissue of 1948.
If you can find it, please let me know. Thanks!



Michael Organ, Metropolis - Australian re-release trailer 1950,
posted on May 8, 2011.
This was not 1950. The British reissue was Monday, 5 July 1948, and the Australian reissue was Thursday, 20 June 1952. I’m pretty sure this was the edition that Janus Films later distributed to cinemas (but NOT to television or video!) from 1972 through 1982, and which has never been seen since, which is a terrible pity. It was not like any other available copy of the movie.


In 1950, Howard Underwood reissued the 1928 general-release edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, now with a new narration track, but he did this without any authorization. If anybody has a copy of this 1950 edition, I would love to see it, hint hint.



Window card from Underwood’s
unauthorized reissue of 1950–1953.
This particular window card,
of course, was for a 1952 booking.


In 1953, Universal successfully sued Howard Underwood and planned its own reissue, but instead sold all rights to Colorama Features, which reissued the film in 1958 with a new prologue and relentless narration featuring Raymond Massey. The film was slashed mercilessly to utter incoherence, and I had to stop watching after just a few minutes. It was a disgrace.



One-sheet for Colorama’s 1958 reissue.


Film Renters, Inc./Famous Films Productions, Inc., reissued Caligari and The Last Laugh as a double bill in September 1952. I suppose that the Caligari music was simply copied from the 1940 release. The music cues for The Last Laugh were likely also spliced together from royalty-free library recordings.

Why do these claim a copyright by “The Attorney General of the United States of America”? My guess is that the United States Office of Alien Property snagged these movies during the war and then cleared the way for public showings upon the signing of treaties. Note that the presenter was Film Renters, Inc., and that the distributor was something called Famous Films Productions, Inc. What, pray tell, were they? They both shared the same address, and so Famous was certainly the distribution arm of Film Renters, Inc..



Same address!


Sol Lesser’s Odyssey Pictures, Inc., produced a sound edition of Douglas Fairbanks Senior’s The Iron Mask, now with Doug Junior narrating. [Robert] Lippert Pictures, Inc., distributed in 1953, probably beginning 1 November (after a few tests), though the exact dates are difficult to pin down with certainty. It played apparently to no acclaim whatsoever. Greenbriar posted a page about this.


Poster for the reissue of maybe Sunday, 1 November 1953.
Odyssey Pictures, Inc., produced the new edition.
Lippert Pictures, Inc., distributed.



The Film Detective, The Iron Mask (1929) | Full Movie | Belle Bennett |
Marguerite De La Motte | Dorothy Revier

posted on Jun 11, 2021


Such modernized silents were offered on an individual-booking basis to a handful of neighborhood cinemas and then they vanished. We need also to remember the handful of cinemas in larger cities that would occasionally rent an antique print of a silent film and run it for a few days. That could only happen if an ancient print happened still to be collecting dust at the local exchange. Such revivals were relatively rare.

Other than the infrequent reissues and the rare revivals, silent films were treated largely as a joke, good for a few scornful laughs. That tradition began around 1930 and continued unabated for decades. The distributors abridged and excerpted silent films atrociously, took less than zero care to get acceptable image quality, added preposterous narration together with exaggerated sound effects, and a good time was had by all. Film clubs — and in the 1970’s Shakey’s Pizza Parlor — were somewhat more respectful, but their offerings were limited and their audiences even more so.

Buster would have none of that. He wanted his films presented with dignity, with appropriate music, no narration, no sound effects. Unfortunately, KirchMedia compromised his ideas, but nonetheless the reissue of Der General was a first: a full-length feature, essentially in its original edit, with a specially commissioned music score, without sarcastic commentary, and with a major international roadshow release. I imagine there were countless doubters who were convinced that this experiment would go over like a lead balloon, but, instead, it was a gigantic hit.

It was such a hit, in fact, that German distributors began to mine the old hills for leftover gold. Here are some releases that followed hard on the heels of Der General.


A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1962
Artists: Günther Rambow and Gerhard Lienemeyer


Goldrausch. Seemingly to capitalize upon the success of Der General, Atlas shortly thereafter issued a Charlie Chaplin movie called The Gold Rush from material that Raymond Rohauer had illegally supplied to Beta Film GmbH. To explain this story, sorry, will require a bit of a dive into the world of Chaplin v. Rohauer. There’s really no way to explain this without going on this unexpected extra journey. If you’re a movie buff, you’ve heard and read this story already, but you probably never encountered sufficient details to make sense of what happened. So read it again. Ready?

History lesson: The modern claim is that Charlie continued to shorten The Gold Rush during its Hollywood and NYC openings and only afterwards settled upon a definitive final 9-reel edition. I believed that. Then I read the newspapers and trade journals of the time, and I disbelieved that. Then I read the pressbook, and I believed it again, sort of. Precise details, though, still elude me.

Charlie sneaked The Gold Rush at the Forum after the last show on Thursday, 28 May 1925, entirely unannounced. It was TEN REELS long. Surely the accompaniment was an improvisation on the Kimball 4/37. I wonder who the organist was, and I wonder if s/he was given any prep for the performance, or just played it cold. Sid Grauman, who had contracted with Charlie to be the first to exhibit the film exclusively at the Egyptian, exploded in rage, and Charlie had to go to great lengths to appease him and rescue the contract he had breached.

The preview print that opened at Grauman’s Egyptian in Hollywood on Friday, 26 June 1925, was 9,760' (120 min. at the speed used that evening, but it would have been about 109 min. at 24fps). Rachel Ford (pronounced RahSHELL) later reported that it was about 10,500' (about 117 min. at 24fps), and she later corrected that figure to 10,250'. Impossible. (I bet she learned the running time and calculated it at 90'/min.) Carli Densmore Elinor hammered together the score from standard cues, and Belwin, Inc., of NYC published it.

Cues:
On the Bowery” (1891)
My Wild Irish Rose” (1899)
Auld Lang Syne” (1799)
Loch Lomond” (traditional, first published in 1841)
Waltz Me around Again, Willie” (1906?)
Pretty Maiden Milking a Cow” (traditional, 18th century)
Fascination Waltz” (1904)
A Thousand Kisses Waltz” (1910)
The Wandering Minstrel” (traditional)
When I Look into the Heart of a Rose” (1918)
Charlie was adamant about not wanting to use contemporary jazz music.


Gino Severi conducted the orchestra. Julius K. Johnston played the organ solos, which I presume were between the screenings. At the gala opening, the film was TEN REELS, which is consistent with 9,760' and is certainly less than 10,250'. Variety reviewer Wally (a misprint for “Waly.” whose full name is unknown to me) noted that the ten reels lasted precisely 120 minutes, consistent with Charlie’s favored projection speed of 81⅓'/min., or a little under 22fps. There is a story that Charlie chopped a reel’s worth of material out of it after the première (Matthew Solomon, The Gold Rush: BFI Film Classics, 2015, p. 12; referencing Wife of the Life of the Party, p. 64). This story comes from Lita Grey and is probably correct. I believed it. Then I didn’t believe it. Now I’m beginning to believe it again. Yes, Charlie could easily have trimmed the film. After all, the copy shown at the Egyptian was not a finished print, but was physically spliced together and likely was straight black and white. The negative would not be cut until a little after this preview opened, and that was because Charlie thought he might need to make changes before making the film final. Surprisingly, the booking at the Egyptian was not merely a preview; it became a true roadshow presentation, as it was popular enough to run for 18 weeks and 3 days! Back in those days, it was a rarity for a first-run film to play for more than a single week before being dumped off with the nabes.

The film was in its final form for its Manhattan première on Sunday, 16 August 1925, at the Mark-Strand. There is a claim that it was 8,498' (about 94½ min. at 24fps). Rachel Ford reported that it was about 8,900'. The New York Times, though, supplied its length as 9,700', which was surely a rounded figure, incorrectly carried over from the Hollywood opening at the Egyptian (“Here and There with Chaplin,” The New York Times vol. 74 no. 24,676, Sunday, 16 August 1925, sec. 7 p. 3). Carl Edouarde’s orchestra accompanied, and I presume the orchestra followed Carli Elinor’s cue sheet. The film had a 26-day run.



The print that Charlie’s people submitted to the copyright office was TEN REELS, which would accord with 9,760' or thereabouts. The Copyright Office granted it registration number L 21805 on Tuesday, 13 October 1925. There is a claim that the Copyright Office received a print of 8,555' (about 95 min. at 24fps), a claim I found preposterous, but which I am now beginning to suspect was correct, or close to correct. That would mean that the film was assembled onto ten short reels. The film was definitely on TEN REELS, despite everything you have ever heard and read to the contrary. The pressbook specified that it was TEN REELS. Countless reviewers of the time, all across the country, commented upon the length, and they all mentioned TEN REELS, which was unusually long for a comedy. Of course, Charlie wanted it projected a bit slower, somewhere around 22fps, and that would have lengthened the above running times somewhat. 9,760' is 118 minutes at 22fps but 109 minutes at 24fps. If projected at 80'/min., which had been a recommended speed beginning in about 1914 through about 1922, it would have run 122 minutes. (80'/min. = 21⅓fps.) So it seems that Charlie wanted it just a hair above 81'/min. Once sound came in, though, Charlie was perfectly okay with the movie being shown at 24fps.

Come 1931 the film was played out and nobody was booking it anymore. Charlie withdrew it from release in May 1933.

Now for supplementary evidence. The pressbook on page 20, in an article entitled “Chaplin’s Comedy Built on Tragedy,” mentions “the nearly nine thousand feet of film.” On the same page is another article, “Funniest Chaplin in ‘Gold Rush,’” which concludes: “there is a laugh in every one of the eight thousand or so feet of ‘The Gold Rush.’” Go down to page 23 and read an article entitled “Chaplin Makes Laughs of Heartaches and Tragedies,” which reiterates that “There is a laugh in every one of the nearly nine thousand feet of film in ‘The Gold Rush,’ says one of Chaplin’s close associates.” This is probably where Rachel Ford got her idea that the film was roughly 8,900' when it reached NYC.


Now, here are a few items we saw before, but we need to consider them again, this time in a new light.






As you will recall, Arctic Adventures was a pirated copy (abridgment?) of The Gold Rush. As such, it would have derived from a genuine copy. Alas, when Charlie brought suit against the suppliers, all copies vanished. If any copies still survive, it is of utmost importance that they be scanned and preserved. Even though this edition is probably an abridgment, it would tell us a great deal about which takes and camera angles were in the original domestic edition of the film, and it would also offer good evidence about the editing and pacing, and quite possibly would include the original titles.


At the pleading of Iris Barry, Charlie agreed to deposit a copy of all the films he controlled at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and yet, so far as I can tell, MoMA never made 16mm copies for educational institutions. That was in the second half of 1935. Then in 1939, Charlie gave Billy Gilbert a 16mm copy of The Gold Rush as a gift. Charlie afterwards set about revising the film for a reissue. He viewed it again for the first time in years and saw problems. “I thought I did a pretty good job of editing at the time. But when I got it out for reissue I took a thousand feet out of it. There was a subplot — something about The Girl sending a letter to another fellow — which got in the way of the story” (John Chapman, “Hollywood,” The New York Daily News vol. 23 no. 225, Final Edition, Saturday, 14 March 1942, p. 18). In my opinion, and in the opinion of pretty much everybody else on the planet, Charlie made a huge blunder by deleting that subplot. The story needed that complication. Simplifying the story ruined it.




Charlie’s 1942 revision, with dialogue and music, minus titles, with plentiful deletions and a few substitutions, was a mere 6,474' or thereabouts (about 72 min. at 24fps), and, predictably, the left side was lopped off. Charlie sneaked it on Monday, 2 March 1942, at the Fox Village in Los Ángeles and premièred it at the Orpheum in Montréal on Wednesday, 4 March 1942, where it ran 6 weeks and 1 day. What happened right after that, I do not know, but I do know that it opened on Sunday, 3 April 1942, at the Plaza in Vancouver, BC, and ran for 4 weeks. On Saturday, 18 April 1942, it opened at the Globe in Manhattan, where it ran for 6 weeks and 2 days. On Tuesday, 19 May 1942, it had a double première at the Paramount Downtown (formerly Grauman’s Metropolitan) and at the Paramount Hollywood (formerly and subsequently El Capitán). It ran 6 weeks and 3 days. By about 1947 it had played out and nobody was booking it anymore. In 1956, Charlie put it on the market again, but, as far as I can tell, no distributor in the US would touch it since it was political suicide. That’s when we need to segue into The Rohauer Story.

Rachel Ford explained to Chaplin’s lawyer, Rolf-Rüdiger Stroth, in a letter dated 15 October 1962 (page 1, page 2):

...In 1953, the Chaplin Studios were sold and a great many barrels of Chaplin films were sent to the American Film Recovery Company for silver recuperation purposes. When the representatives of the Chaplin Studios went to witness the destruction of the material, they found the American Recovery Co.’s premises locked and sealed owing to them having gone bankrupt. Subsequently, the Fire Department demanded that the material be destroyed, as it was mostly nitrate film. The trustee in bankruptcy then sold all the material for recuperation purposes, but... the buyer found that he had acquired Chaplin pictures...
It is presumed that the pictures were reconstructed fairly accurately, thanks to the multiple copies of each film, an immense amount of out-cuts, and also it appears that the material was insufficiently chopped up by axe before it left the Chaplin Studios.
Incidentally, Rohauer has openly boasted that he had prints or negatives of all the Chaplin films.
In order to give some substance to the story of true ownership of the material, somewhere along the line somebody had the idea of stating that Mrs. Chaplin had signed a Bill of Sale.
My reason for telling you all this is that I have recently heard a rumour as to the source of the Beta Films’s GOLD RUSH. It mentions “bought at an auction” and a “Bill of Sale signed by Mrs. Chaplin”.....
I would add that Mr. Rohauer has recently stated that he is leaving the States to take up domicile in Germany.


Rachel Ford’s surmisals were 100% accurate. That is exactly what happened, in a nutshell.

If you can find a copy of Kevin Brownlow’s The Search for Charlie Chaplin, grab it and read it. There are far more details in it than I can summarize or even memorize. Here is a passage, which quotes Rohauer:

There were no known prints of the 1925 version. Only the 1942 reissue. I just decided to go through all the reels and make it up from the outtakes. I had a few reels of cutting copy, and I worked with a professional editor, Irvine Dumbrille, nephew of the actor Douglass Dumbrille. I found the original titles. Where there was no cutting copy, we just had to take from these huge rolls scenes that we thought would match. If you really look at it, it doesn’t match. It probably doesn’t match the original film at all. But no one ever knew (p. 130 [English]; p. 140 [Italian]).


NOTE ON THE ABOVE: I can find no reference to any Irvine Dumbrille. Yet there was a film editor named Erwin Leon Dumbrille (1930–2013), but he began his film career in 1963, and there is no mention of his relationship with Douglass. This is why I get confused. The Traverse City Record Eagle published his obituary on Friday, 1 February 2013, on page 14, but that issue has been removed from the online archive.

Oh. It was Erwin. Take a look at Dorkay Productions, Inc. and Erwin Dumbrille. So, yes, Rohauer was telling the truth that he was “a professional editor,” but he did not bother to divulge that Dumbrille did not become “a professional editor” until nine years later. Dorkay was actually spelled Dor-Kay, and one of its owners was Ray Rohauer!


So, let’s restate this. Ray Rohauer and Erwin Leon Dumbrille (1930–2013), created a new version of The Gold Rush partly from outtakes. Portions of the cutting copy remained in those barrels of film, and Ray and Erwin used those to guide them in piecing together something similar from outtakes. Apparently much of the raw camera negative survived, or lavenders or copy negatives thereof. When Ray and Erwin had access to a cutting copy as well as to the corresponding negatives or close derivatives, they could exactly duplicate the 1925 film. As you will see from the visuals below, there is a shot of Charlie eating his shoe that is identical in the Rohauer edition and in the 1925 original. David Shepard had in his collection the final tenth reel of a 1925 print of The Gold Rush, and he maintained that it exactly matched Rohauer’s reconstruction. See “Greenbriar Picture Show blog on THE GOLD RUSH screeningsNitrateVille, 25 December 2007. As for the rest of the film, for which no cutting copy survived, or for which masters had vanished, Ray and Erwin guessed as they built the movie from outtakes. Their result did not entirely match the 1925 original. In addition to being built partly from rejected takes, it was also some 2,000' shorter than the original.


Here we see that Rohauer submitted a 16mm copy in order to lay claim to a copyright for his revised version. This would have no significant legal force. This is a perfect example of our love/hate relationship with Rohauer. He was sleazily underhanded, devious, and malicious, but it was by being so that he managed to rescue significant chunks of our cinematic history.


In mid-1958, a pirated copy of the “full length sound feature” of The Gold Rush was on a few movie screens, clandestinely, through Robert B. Fischer’s Artistic Films, Inc. Despite being advertised as “sound,” it was not. I learned from Greenbriar Picture Shows that it was actually silent and that it was Rohauer’s edition. Fischer also went by another corporate name, Film Masterpieces or International/Film Masterpieces. This was occurring as Chaplin’s lawyers had Rohauer in their crosshairs. As for the “sound,” what on earth could it have been? David Gill answered that question in the October 1995 edition of Griffithiana: It was an organ track, and to make room for that organ track, the left side of the image was lopped off. Who played that organ? My best guess is that it was either John Muri or Lee Erwin, but I really don’t know. I bet it was John Muri, I becha. Which organ? Where? I wish I knew. It is of the utmost importance and urgency to locate that organ score!!!!!

See the parenthetical note: “(Not available for exhibition or distribution in Va., Md., Penna. or N. Y.)” Well, if it’s not available in Pennsylvania, then how do we explain the advertisement below?
Do you see all the problems with this display advertisement? The graphic is unrelated to the film and it is not from Chaplin’s press materials. Official releases gave the name as Charles, not Charlie. We also see a slightly different parenthetical remark: “(Not available for exhibition or distribution in Md., Va., N. Y. or Mass.)” If it was not permitted in Maryland, then how do we explain the advertisement below?


The Gold Rush was also in Detroit at the Clawson Playhouse, in Cleveland at the New Mayfield Art, and probably in other places, too. My conclusion: The distributor was not authorized to distribute this film. Further, it seems that there was only a single print.


Incidentally, the above three cinemas, the Stanton in Washington DC, the Ambassador in Philadelphia, and the Cameo in Baltimore, were all run by Robert B. Fischer of Artistic Films, Inc. Apparently, this was the distributor, and it claimed to have distribution rights also to City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux. Charlie had none of those films in release in the US at the time. How do they get away with these things? I’d love to learn more about this story, yes indeed.


It was probably only to drive Fischer’s print off the market that United Artists’ new subsidiary, Lopert, reissued the 1942 edition in 1959. That is precisely why UA purchased Lopert: to take the heat for more risqué and controversial and unconventional releases. What to do about Rohauer, though?

Technically, it was only the 1942 edition of The Gold Rush that was copyrighted in the US. Any other edition was up for grabs, though the Chaplin team was finding powerful means of getting around the public-domain status, specifically by reference to an underlying copyright that had most definitely not expired. In Europe, though, the film in its entirety, in any edition, was still protected per the Berne Convention, unquestionably, unambiguously, demonstrably, definitively. So Rohauer decided to get even braver, if brave is the word. Maybe a better word is impudent. He took the battle to Europe.

Rohauer, through Paul Schmitt’s shell corporation, FilmArchiv Internationale of Vaduz, licensed the film to Beta Film GmbH of Munich. Beta, operated by Hans Andresen, sublicensed the film to Atlas Filmverleih GmbH of Düsseldorf, also operated by Hans Andresen. Never mind that United Artists had warned Hans Andresen to keep his hands off of that material. Beta/Atlas probably did not know that Rohauer was the defendant in a protracted lawsuit that Chaplin had filed over this film. After all, why would Rohauer be bothered to divulge such a picayune detail to a distributor? Atlas added a new music score compiled from previously recorded pieces by Konrad Elfers. One of Chaplin’s complaints was that the titles were not translated from the originals, but were instead translated from (Rohauer’s) rewrites. I am not convinced. I need more evidence before I judge one way or the other. This new edition opened no later than 2 April 1962, probably a month or so prior to that.


filmkunstgrafik, Goldrausch - Trailer, posted on Mar 26, 2010.
Left side lopped off as always always always always always and thus the height is lopped off as well for this transfer. If YouTube ever disappears this video, download it. I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison, showing the above frame next to the corresponding frame in the 1942 edition, and in David Shepard’s full-aperture DVD edition, as well as in David Gill’s 1993 reconstruction. Alas, they are from three different takes!


I would pay good money to get a copy of the Atlas/Elfers edition. Hint hint. It was apparently available in 16mm and at least one copy was offered on eBay some many moons ago, and a five-minute reel of excerpts was once offered on Super 8 mag sound through Video-Archiv – Film Produktion, FL 9490 Vaduz, Postfach, accidentally on purpose without the Postfach number, and certainly with no street address, because there wasn’t one. In later years, the incomplete address was supplied as FL. 9496 Balzers.



I have been scouring Google and have so far discovered several Super 8 items from Video-Archiv, of all manner of films from clips to full features, from children’s cartoons all the way to unmentionables, and in none of these images is the Postfach number supplied. All these films state something to the effect of “Allein vertrieb durch (Solely distributed by) INTERNFILM, 623 Frankfurt am Main 80, Bolongarostraße 141, Telefon (06 11) 30 40 43.” INTERNFILM also had a PO Box address: Postfach 800 732, as well as a different telephone number, (06 11) 31 64 38. Some of these reels, instead of listing the sole distributor as INTERNFILM, list it as Inter-Pathé-Film, with exactly the same address and telephone number. It turns out that INTERNFILM and Pathé-Film merged, becoming INTERNFILM-PATHÉ and later Inter-Pathé-Film. All three incarnations were owned and operated by Ing. (Doctor of Engineering) Paul Schmitt, Kommanditgesellschaft (Limited Partnership) eingetragener Kaufmann (sole proprietor). So, we can be pretty confident that Schmitt as sole proprietor formed a shell corporation called Video-Archiv – Film Produktion in Vaduz, which was a tax haven. Some of Schmitt’s editions claimed copyrights by various firms (Terrytoons, Ken Films, etc.), but others claimed that they emanated from Video-Archiv. It seems to me that Schmitt established Video-Archiv simply to claim copyrights. The indication is that Schmitt’s company had no relation whatsoever with Atlas Filmverleih, though, coincidentally, it did have a connection with a US company called Atlas Films, which was entirely separate. An entity called FilmArchiv Internationale of Vaduz had once attempted (very poorly and somewhat deceptively) to copyright the Atlas edition of Goldrausch as scored by Konrad Elfers. That is why I conclude that Video-Archiv and FilmArchiv were two names for the same shell corporation. What else can be the explanation? So, what must have happened was that Rohauer paid Schmitt/FilmArchiv to claim a copyright to the introductory material and to the German titles, which copyright claim he could then submit to Atlas/Beta in order to pretend legitimacy. Whatever the case, this fragmentary information makes this Super 8 edition of Cops particularly intriguing, yes?


An example of a Video-Archiv Film/Inter-Pathé Film VHS release.


Charlie sued Atlas for violation of copyright. The record is not clear, but it appears to me that Atlas sought an agreement and was willing to ditch Rohauer’s version and instead to release Charlie’s preferred edition, but whether prior contracts or smouldering resentment prevented that, I do not know. Atlas’s lawyers then went on the warpath, searching for every meaningless loophole they could think of.

When Rohauer had a quarrel with Atlas/Beta, he offered to switch sides and to assign his edition’s rights to Chaplin’s company. It appears to me that the Chaplin side did not respond to this offer, as Chaplin wanted to have no dealings with someone he regarded as a pirate.

In the meantime, in June 1963 the court agreed with Chaplin to have Atlas to destroy all its materials on The Gold Rush, positive and negative, including all publicity material. The court confiscated at least two battered 35mm prints, both of them composites, and those two prints ultimately ended up at the Deutches Institut für Filmkunde in Wiesbaden. Nonetheless, Atlas appealed the decision and continued to show the film. The case dragged on for years — and Charlie was largely to blame for dropping the ball. He was afraid to allow his lawyer to enforce an injunction, fearing that some technicality might cause the case to backfire, and then he refused to hear any more about the case for a full year as he was busy working on A Countess from Hong Kong. That is why he declined to appear in court for scheduled testimony. Nonetheless, Chaplin at long last won his case on 19 May 1972. So any stray prints, if there are any, would be invaluable documents, as they would contain a music score not heard since 1972. If this edition of the film still exists, I hope that the Chaplin executors will see their way to clear it for release, if nothing else as a Blu-ray supplement.

There is a claim that the 1962 Atlas/Elfers edition was 2,720m long, or about 8,924', which, at 24fps, would run 99 minutes!!!!! That’s according to one source, in a footnote. I entirely disbelieve that claim. According to Charlie’s German lawyer, though, Atlas’s edition was 2,134m, or 7,001' (about 78 min. at 24fps). Whenever you hear someone say, “The truth is somewhere in between,” the one thing you know for certain is that the truth is not somewhere in between. In this rare exception, though, I suspect the truth really is somewhere in between 8,924' and 7,001'. Both those figures seem awfully wrong to me, one far too long and the other far too short.

According to kinoart.net, Atlas reissued its 1962 edition in 1968. Since the appeals were continuing, well, why not? According to Synchron-Forum, the 1962 Atlas/Elfers edition was even broadcast on ZDF in 1969!!!!!


I wonder if this poster from Filmverleih Die Lupe GmbH,
which uses the same logo as Neue Filmkunst Walter Kirchner,
was used for the 1968 reissue.


For some reference points, you will want to read through the endless legal correspondence posted by the Chaplin Archive: Violation of Copyright: Atlas. I’ve just skimmed it so far. It would take days and days and days for me to plough through it all. Can I find the time? Yes, I can. Eventually.


Chaplin prevailed in his suit against Rohauer in 1966, and Rohauer was compelled to surrender all his materials. Curiously, it was also in 1966 that film clubs throughout the US began showing The Gold Rush. My best guess is that the film clubs were purchasing or renting John Griggs’s Moviedrome edition.

These are the presentations I have so far been able to discover for the year 1966. There were surely others:


• Tuesday, 1 February 1966: Robert E. Lee of Nutley, NJ, president of the Essex Film Club, presented a silent print of The Gold Rush at the Garden State Shopping Center in Paramus. Accompanying on piano was Paul Norman (12 Nov 1910 – 19 May 1969), “a resident of Jersey City, one of the metropolitan area’s few remaining silent film piano accompanists.” This must have been the Griggs-Moviedrome edition. Must have been!

• Friday, 15 April 1966: The Delaware County Evening Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom presented The Gold Rush at the Community YMCA in Lansdowne, PA. The source of the print? A private collector, Professor Peter van de Kamp. How, when, from whence did Professor van de Kamp come to acquire that print? I bet he simply purchased the Griggs-Moviedrome edition. Who did the music?

• Friday, 13 May 1966: The Gold Rush was presented at UC Irvine, with organ accompaniment by Chauncey Haines, “ last of the silent film-era organists.”

• Friday and Saturday, 15 and 16 July 1966: Union Movies, on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake, scheduled the “original, un-cut version” of The Gold Rush. Who did the music?

• Saturday, 17 September 1966: Tom Simone, founder of the Tempe Film Society, booked films solely through the Museum of Modern Art. Well, this night was probably the exception. Who did the music?

• Tuesday, 27 September 1966: The Menomonie Theater Guild presented a series called “The Nickelodeon Days” at the gorgeous 1889 Mabel Tainter Memorial Theater. On this night, the offering was The Gold Rush, “the complete and original version.” Don Mortwedt, president of the Guild, wistfully exuded, “The house lights are down, the pianist is tinkling out the theme melody....” Who did the music?

• Friday, 11 November 1966: The Memorial Junior High School in Fairlawn, NJ, presented The Gold Rush accompanied on the piano by (once again) Paul Norman.

• Saturday, 19 November 1966: An unnamed piano player accompanied The Gold Rush at UNM in the SUB Ballroom.

• 1966: Most confusing of all was a TV series called The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre. This was a 24-episode show that premièred on 1 September 1965 in St. Petersburg, FL. It was available only to local stations and was never shown on network. It consisted of semi-restored copies of Charlie’s short films from 1914 through 1917, slowed down (by stretch printing) and with Valentino library music and narration. Some of the shorts were slightly re-edited to fit into the time slot. This was the first time since the 1910’s that some of these films had been presented in watchable copies. I suppose that Mabel at the Wheel had been somehow acquired from the holdings of the defunct Exhibitors’ Pictures Corporation, which had reissued it in 1930 or thereabouts. Perhaps it was Jacob Harris “Jack” Hoffberg Productions which had acquired it from Exhibitors’ Pictures Corporation. The whole story gets vague and cloudy. I suppose that Dough and Dynamite and His Trysting Place[s] were acquired from Joseph Brenner, who had purchased the films from Fred Futter and reissued them as part of an anthology in 1954. I suppose that A Jitney Elopement, The Tramp, Work, A Woman, In the Bank (properly The Bank), Shanghaied, and Police, were acquired from Hoffberg Productions, which had purchased them from the King of Comedy Film Corporation, which was a renaming of Exhibitors’ Pictures Corporation, and which had stretch-printed those films, added music to them, and reissued them in 1939. The dozen Chaplin films made for the Mutual Film Corporation in 1916–1917 were all included in The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre. The Van Beuren Corporation and RKO Radio Pictures had reissued them, with remade titles, music, and sound effects, about one every two months from 1932 to 1934. When Van Beuren failed in 1937, Guaranteed Pictures Co., Inc., acquired those properties, and that’s when I lose the trail. Though the revised title cards and the soundtracks were copyrighted, the images remained in the public domain. So, the makers of The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre felt free to copy the film images. The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre included yet two more movies, namely The Champion and A Night in the Show. That surprised me, but, as I browse through old newspapers, I discover that the The Champion as well as the 1919 reissue of the retitled A Night at the Show continued to pop up here and there, now and then, all the way through the 1960’s, but who was the distributor? I see from an eBay listing (174755165326 by jayvalvo) that the retitled A Night at the Show was distributed at some time (early 1930’s???) by the nondescriptly named Producers Laboratories, Inc., 1600 Broadway, NYC. I see from another eBay listing (372741926488 by silentcinema) that an Edwin G. O’Brien reissued A Night at the Show along with some other (all?) of Charlie’s Essanay movies in the 1940’s or 1950’s, in a series called Charlie Chaplin’s Fun Parade, about which I can learn nothing else. The unanswered question is where Producers Laboratories and O’Brien acquired the film materials, and what happened to those film materials afterwards. The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre reintroduced Charlie to the American public after he had largely being absent from movie screens for decades. When this series played in Oakland, California, in 1966, and when it played in Albuquerque in 1981, it was 26 episodes, not 24. The extra two episodes consisted of an unwatchably murky abridgment of Tillie’s Punctured Romance, split over two episodes. When this series was announced on WOR Channel 9 in NYC, it was going to be even more than 26 episodes. Behold:



Well, I went through all the listings, and I guarantee you that the series never included The Gold Rush. I don’t see how it could have. Would Professor van de Kamp have loaned his print? Maybe. Would James Dukas have loaned his print? Maybe? Would MoMA have loaned its print? Impossible. As for the music, The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre pulled its royalty-free music from the Thomas J. Valentino Production Music Library. This listing shows us that a broadcast of The Gold Rush was indeed planned for this series, but it never happened.




Now, interestingly, or uninterestingly, there was a 60-minute TV edition of The Gold Rush. See this link, for instance. There are two other mentions of this somewhere on the Internet, but I’ll be darned if I can find them. Oh, wait. Here’s one of them:


This is topic f/s 16mm feature THE GOLD RUSH Charlie Chaplin in forum 16mm films for sale/trade/wanted at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=001169

Posted by Stefano Cacciagrano (Member # 2751) on July 05, 2013, 08:18 AM:

I’m selling Chaplin’s THE GOLD RUSH (1925)

Amazing print for British tv, from series “The Movies — Our Modern Art”, with original main titles and intro about Movies and Chaplin
1 Hour version, with narrator voice of Michael Whorf (english language)
Print in good shape, optical sound, on cores
Price 149 euro plus ship

Here's pics from projection: http://annunci.ebay.it/annunci/film-e-dvd/rieti-annunci-rieti/film-16mm-la-febbre-dell-oro-the-gold-rush-charlie-chaplin/50055288



Visit www.film-tech.com for free equipment manual downloads. Copyright 2003-2019 Film-Tech Cinema Systems LLC

UBB.classic™ 6.3.1.2


Hey, when it pours it rains. Here’s the other one:



Film clips from a re-release of The Gold Rush
Produced By
Atkinson, Dennis, American

Subject Of
Chaplin, Charlie, English, 1889 - 1977

Owned By
Smith, Ernie, American, ca. 1925 - 2004

Date
1969

Medium
acetate film

Dimensions
Duration (digital file): 00:30:51
Physical extent (film): 1150 ft

Description
A motion picture film with scenes from the first half of The Gold Rush, the 1925 feature film. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. The film starts with [“THE GOLD RUSH” / PART / 1] appearing briefly in the leader. After a few cameo shots, [THE MOVIES / OUT MODERN ART] appears on the screen while footage of a film set can be seen in the background. A narrator then begins discussing topics such as Hollywood and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin while scenes from The Gold Rush play in the background. At one point, the narrator says, “In 1925, he made what is considered today by many film historians to be the funniest comedy ever made: The Gold Rush,” after which two title cards appear on screen. The first reads [Walter Reade/Sterling, Inc. / presentation], while the second reads [Charles Chaplin / in THE / GOLD RUSH / copyright © MCMXLXIX by Spectra Pictures / All Rights Reserved]. The opening credits role after both title cards and include cast and crew for the original 1925 film and the “New Version.” Individuals credited in the re-release include James L. Limbacher (narration author), Michael Whorf (narrator), John Muri (composer and performer), Joseph Siracuse (sound engineer), William Gyrofy (associate producer), and Dennis R. Atkinson (producer and supervisor). The rest of the film features scenes from The Gold Rush, with occasional narratorly comments.

Place Filmed
California
, United States, North and Central America

Classification
Media Arts-Film and Video

Type
sound films
black-and-white films (visual works)
16mm (photographic film size)
film clips

Topic
Comedy
Film
Jazz (Music)

Credit Line
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Anonymous Gift in memory of Ernest (Ernie) R. Smith, Jazz Historian

Object Number
2015.275.43.1a

Restrictions & Rights
Restrictions likely apply. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.

GUID
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/fd56726723c-4bfb-4142-9721-498d10f37566


Ah! Note the credits! Walter Reade and Sterling, Inc., worked closely with Paul Killiam. Could this abridgment have been a prélude to Killiam’s broadcast on WTOP/9 in Washington, DC, the following year? Abridging it to 60 minutes would be rather in keeping with Killiam’s normal practice of shortening films to fit TV time slots. The copyright was by Spectra Pictures Corp., which had rights to some educational films at about that time. I know nothing else about the firm, though. Fascinating that Joe Siracusa gets a misspelled credit. I wonder how he got involved in this, and I wonder precisely what he contributed. This was about the time he got the assignment to compile and perform a score for The General, and so maybe he applied for this gig to get a chance to work with and learn from a legend?




The Gold Rush was never included in “The Charlie Chaplin Comedy Theatre,” but it was included in a different series, on WTTW/11 Chicago, a program called “The Toy That Grew Up,” distributed to other educational TV stations through ETS Program Service (Educational Television Stations Program Service of Bloomington). I do not know the full schedule, but in Chicago that episode aired on Thursday, 6 November 1969, with Hal Pearl accompanying on a small electric organ. It was almost certainly a Griggs-Moviedrome print.


Now we can circle around to Paul Killiam and his Killiam Shows, Inc., which brought The Gold Rush back, this time to commercial television. This was announced as the “world television première” of The Gold Rush, on Friday, 22 May 1970, on WTOP Channel 9 (a CBS affiliate) in Washington, DC. Never mind that a year prior it had been broadcast on West German station ZDF as well as on Chicago educational station WTTW/11.




For this TV version, the music score was performed on the Radio City Music Hall’s Wurlitzer organ. No idea who played it. Well, hmmmmm, might this have been John Muri’s score? Was it John Muri who had scored Rohauer’s edition in 1954? Did Rohauer really book Radio City Music Hall for a mere organ score? Or did Killiam or WTOP/9 commission a new organ score, probably from John Muri? Whatever this score was, I would just LOVE to hear it. Did anybody happen to record it? Killiam had Karl Malkames add tints, without reference to the film’s original tints, which at the time were unknown.


For decades now, I have had to restrain myself from throwing pots and pans at people who say that Paul Killiam’s edition of The Gold Rush is the original silent edition from 1925. IT IS NOT!!!!! Bruce Lawton revealed the origin of Paul Killiam’s unauthorized 16mm edition of 1970 and his unauthorized 35mm hodge-podge of 1971. Click here and scroll down to the comment by Burbank74. Oh what the heck, I’ll just copy and paste it. First, though, about color. As you know, color broadcasting began in 1953, but most Educational Television stations did not begin broadcasting in color until 1968. Now you will understand one of Bruce’s comments.


As one of the late Paul Killiam’s right-hand men — I can shed some light on the history of the “Killiam” GOLD RUSH.

Paul was gearing up for THE SILENT YEARS around 1969/1970 for Public Television. Color was a relatively new addition to TV and WNET wanted to play it up for all that it was worth. When they found out that some of the silent films that Paul would be providing were tinted — they then wanted ALL of them tinted — regardless of whether they should be or not.

Another consideration was having a Charlie Chaplin film to open the series. THE GOLD RUSH (with its unchecked PD status at the time) was the obvious choice. Paul actually commandeered a go-between (who will remain nameless) to snag a Rohauer 35mm print between bookings — have it sent to his NYC lab — and have a “tinted” 16mm negative made. William Perry’s lovely score was married to this “new edition” and it was premiered on THE SILENT YEARS with Orson Welles hosting.

About a year or so later — Paul got many inquiries to rent THE GOLD RUSH in 35mm for screenings. As he had only produced a 16mm negative — he would need a 35mm negative to make prints to satisfy these requests. He went to his inside source again to once again obtain access to the Rohaeur 35mm print between bookings. However, when the material arrived it was clear that a lot of the print had been mangled and was beyond copying. Paul was undeterred though and did three things 1) copy what he could of this material, 2) got his hands on a print of the ’42 version and filled out what he needed and 3) resorted to going back to a 16mm print of his tinted edition and blowing it up to 35mm to fill out the rest. The resulting 35mm negative was done in black & white.

So the tinted 16mm and black & white 35mm Killiam editions of THE GOLD RUSH actually have differences between themselves(!). The 35mm is actually a bastard child (of probably several bastard children) and Perry’s score had to be “fitted” to the new 35mm edition.

The tinted 16mm edition was released on VHS and laserdisc through Republic. The black & white 35mm edition was released only on laserdisc through Voyager.

Hope this saga clears up some questions and misconceptions.


That should answer your long-standing question from that day, many years ago, when you examined a Killiam 35mm print on an inspection bench. Why was it so inconsistent? Why were half the shots hard-matted at the Academy format and why were the other half full height with the left side lopped off? Why were yet other shots of utterly miserable quality? Now you know. As for the “go-between” or “inside source” who shall remain nameless, David Gill named the name: Bill Pence! I don’t understand why I’m surprised. Here is what David wrote:

...It was when Kevin [Brownlow] learned from David Shepard that Bill Pence, who runs the Telluride Festival, had a 35mm print, that these pieces of the jig-saw started to come together


Bill was very helpful when I spoke to him. Yes, he had a 35mm of the 1925 Gold Rush, but it was cropped and had an organ sound track. It was the Rohauer version that he had bought in 1967 from a man called Bob Fischer who operated from Texas, and was some kind of an associate of Rohauer’s. But it was very worn and battered now; better to use Killiam’s, unsatisfactory as it was, because it had been made from his print in the early ’70s. Why was Killiam’s 35mm so much poorer than his 16mm? Well, Killiam made his first copy around 1967 [sic, actually 1970], and probably because that was all he could afford, Killiam arranged with Bill to make a 16mm negative. Later, Killiam decided to make a 35mm copy and borrowed Bill’s print again. Bruce Lawton discovered a hidden file; in this was correspondence revealing that because Pence’s print had suffered so much in the intervening time from having been projected so often, Killiam was forced to use blown-up sections from his 16mm. So that was one mystery solved. If only Killiam had made a 35mm copy in the first instance, we would now perhaps have a complete 35mm copy of that version of the 1925 print. But in the ’60s, few people were prepared to invest in silent film, and Killiam, one of those few, had at least kept interest alive, if only on 16mm. Nearly all the many and varied 16mm copies of The Gold Rush that we have traced seem to be linked to the Rohauer/Killiam prints, yet no one has been able to find the master material that Rohauer worked from. All his 35mm copies seem to have disappeared, except those found in Wiesbaden.


“So that was one mystery solved”? Yes, but it brings up another mystery, which we shall witness in a while. Have patience. We’ll get there.


MVerdoux, Chaplin experts: Alice Artzt & Bonnie McCourt - 1991,
posted on Mar 25, 2013.
When YouTube disappears this, download it.


Killiam, through Blackhawk, later sold his edition to collectors, and it was about 82 min. at 24fps, which in 35mm terms means about 7,380', two and a half reels short of the original. For all its faults, Killiam’s edition at least had a wonderful score by William P. Perry, which is a treasure.

After decades of court battles, the Chaplin estate was eventually able to quash the Killiam edition. Thank heaven I have it on laserdisc, both the Republic and Voyager issues. Bill Perry later rearranged his piano score for a small ensemble for the film, and I would LOVE to get a copy of the film with that ensemble score.

Please watch the video below. William Perry hired someone to upload this to YouTube, but whoever he hired lopped off the top and bottom of the image to force-fit it onto the YouTube widescreen standard. And whoever that person was did us a favor, for he/she chose as a thumbnail the best of all possible frames:



William Perry, The Gold Rush with Charlie Chaplin, Score by William Perry,
posted on Jul 14, 2014
Medley of excerpts from Bill Perry’s exceptionally fine ensemble accompaniment.


Look what I just found: “George Eastman Museum Receives Reels of Rare Nitrate Films. ROCHESTER: Gift Includes Rare Vintage-Tinted Reel of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Gold Rush,’ Made in 1925,” Niagara Gazette, Thursday, 25 February 2021. By dumb luck, someone at Eastman put a little bit of film on a light table to take a snapshot, and he/she chose the best of all possible frames:



is the code for 1925.


Remember above when David Gill said, “So that was one mystery solved”? Now, let me show you something. If a soundtrack were to be added to this full silent image, the left side would be lopped off. Indeed, above we read sufficient testimony to convince us that Rohauer did indeed lop off the left side to make room for the organ track. The left side lopped off would look like this:




Yes, that is how much would be missing on a sound print, unless, of course, the producer or distributor paid extra to have the frame optically reduced to fit the smaller width. From all we have discovered above and shall discover below, Rohauer most definitely did not pay the extra cost to have the image optically reduced. He just lopped off the left side. From all we have learned above, Killiam copied Rohauer’s edition, which already had the left side missing. So how do we explain why the left side is still there in the little video above?




Yes, a smidgin of the width is missing from both left and right, but that is the normal safety cushion, entirely to be expected. It is not more extreme than that. So there is still a mystery to be solved. This particular shot likely did not come from Rohauer’s edition. If it did, then Rohauer paid the lab to reduce the size of this particular shot. But if he paid a lab to reduce one shot, then why didn’t he go whole hog and pay the lab to reduce all the shots to fit the sound format?


Interestingly, when you click on the link to Bruce Lawton’s comment, keep scrolling down to the comment by John Aldrich who reminds us again of John Griggs: “Griggs-Moviedrome used to sell a print of The Gold Rush that not only was visually superior to the Killiam, but also had some footage that was missing from the Killiam print.” That would make sense, because Griggs-Moviedrome (with or without the hyphen) copied some (all?) of its material from MoMA. MoMA had authentic material on deposit, but never duplicated it to my knowledge. Now I need to find a Griggs print somewhere, somehow. Apparently the Griggs edition, though, was a mere nine reels, not ten. My guess is that the reels were divided differently, since the 1925 general release was ten very short reels. Really, though, I don’t know. This is all guesswork. Until I can study a Griggs print, I cannot know anything for certain.


There is more guesswork yet! Take a look at “Chaplin Defends His Gold ClaimGreenbriar Picture Shows, Monday, 11 January 2010: “Sellers used to compete by claiming their Gold Rush to be the most complete anywhere. One I recall touted the inclusion of a rare assayer’s office scene where Charlie redeems his gold. Collectors redeemed theirs for opportunity to possess a definitive Gold Rush...” Was this the Griggs edition? What was the source of this unidentified edition?




That is hardly the end of the story, though. Too few people have commented upon this story from February 2003:


Verzamelaars

Schatgraver met slapeloze nachten

Wie zich wel eens afvraagt waar al die duizenden filmkopieën eigenlijk blijven nadat ze uit de bioscopen zijn verdwenen, moet maar eens bij een filmverzamelaar langs. Talloze films zijn uit de vuilverbrander gered door verwoede filmliefhebbers als Fenno Werkman, die een immense collectie muziek- en B-films bij elkaar heeft gesprokkeld.



Fenno Werkman (foto: Louk Röell).

Ergens in Voorburg staat een huis met verduisterde ramen waar celluloid de macht heeft overgenomen. De woonkamer, de gang, de trap, de keuken en zelfs de wc zijn volgestouwd met filmblikken, waarop oude stickers vergeten helden aanprijzen (‘Andy Clyde in Ze leren het nooit’). Fenno Werkman (1956) is midden jaren zeventig begonnen met het verzamelen van masters van The Beatles en daarmee verdiende hij genoeg om ook films te gaan verzamelen. “Soms koop ik blind een hele container met films en dan maar hopen dat er wat tussen zit”, vertelt hij, met tegenover hem de montagetafel waar Leni Riefenstahl nog haar films op heeft gemonteerd. “Ik ben niet geïnteresseerd in blockbusters maar in maffe B- en C-films. Elke film die ik binnenkrijg ga ik shot voor shot beschrijven. Als iemand voor een documentaire of tv-programma een scène met bijvoorbeeld een paarse Rolls Royce zoekt, weet ik hem op die manier zo te vinden.”

“Ik heb soms slapeloze nachten als er weer een fax uit Amerika komt met 5000 beschikbare titels. Dan maak ik een lijst van films die me wel wat lijken. Dat zijn er dan 2500, veel te veel natuurlijk. Dus moet ik gaan strepen, en dat alles onder tijdsdruk. Zo heb ik heel wat juweeltjes gevonden maar nog veel meer rotzooi gekocht.”

Avontuurlijk
Werkman heeft van veel films en concertopnames de enige kopie, zoals het eerste afscheidsconcert van Frank Sinatra in 1971, Feast of friend over The Doors uit 1979 (nooit uitgebracht), de enige 120 minuten-versie van Chaplins Goldrush en de originele negatieven van Black Hollywood-films uit de jaren twintig, dertig en veertig, B-films met Louis Armstrong en Cab Calloway die nergens staan beschreven. Ook heeft hij een kast vol prachtig hoezen met soundies voor de jukebox. “Ik heb ook eens de hele serie Peyton Place, de soap der soaps, vertoond. Dallas had ik ook op film, maar die moest ik op een gegeven moment de deur uitdoen, dat waren zóveel blikken.”

Ook filmhuizen kunnen films huren van Fenno Werkman, “graag zelfs”. “Steeds minder programmeurs durven het aan om avontuurlijker te programmeren, omdat ze bang zijn dat er te weinig publiek op af komt. Ze moeten wel zelf de rechten regelen. Pas 79 jaar na de uitbreng worden films rechtenvrij, daaarna kun je ermee doen wat je wilt. Met oud en nieuw hef ik vaak het glas champagne met medeverzamelaars en dan proosten we altijd op het feit dat er per 1 januari weer een paar duizend films rechtenvrij zijn.”

“Ik begrijp dat de rechten beschermd moeten worden, maar de producenten en distributeurs kunnen best wat soepeler zijn tegenover filmvertoners die eens wat anders willen draaien dan de commerciële films. Verzamelaars worden verguisd door de grote distributeurs, maar de liefhebbers zijn juist een van de weinigen die de films op waarde schatten en conserveren.”

Mariska Graveland


Are you astonished? Probably not, unless you speak Dutch. Shall we run that through an online translator?

Collectors

Treasure Hunter with Sleepless Nights

Anyone who has ever wondered where all those thousands of film prints actually go after they disappear from cinemas should visit a film collector. Countless films have been rescued from the incinerator by frantic film buffs like Fenno Werkman, who has amassed an immense collection of music and B-movies.



Fenno Werkman (photo: Louk Röell).

Somewhere in Voorburg is a house with darkened windows where celluloid has taken over. The living room, hallway, stairs, kitchen and even the toilet are crammed with film cans, on which old stickers tout forgotten heroes (“Andy Clyde in They Never Learn”). Fenno Werkman (b. 1956) started collecting masters of The Beatles in the mid-1970s, which earned him enough to start collecting movies as well. “Sometimes I buy a whole container of films blind and then just hope there’s something among them,” he says, facing the editing table on which Leni Riefenstahl edited her films. “I’m not interested in blockbusters but wacky B- and C-movies. Every film I get in I’m going to describe shot by shot. If someone for a documentary or TV program is looking for a scene with a purple Rolls Royce, for example, I know how to find it that way.”

“I sometimes have sleepless nights when another fax comes from America with 5,000 available titles. Then I make a list of films that I like. That comes to 2,500, far too many of course. So I have to cross them off, all under time pressure. That’s how I found a lot of gems but bought a lot more crap.”

Adventurous
Werkman has the only copy of many films and concert recordings, such as Frank Sinatra’s first farewell concert in 1971, Feast of Friends by The Doors from 1979 (never released), the only 120-minute version of Chaplin’s Gold Rush, and the original negatives of Black Hollywood films from the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s, B-movies with Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway that are not documented anywhere. He also has a closet full of beautiful covers of soundies for the jukebox. “I also once screened the entire ‘Peyton Place’ series, the soap opera of soap operas. I also had ‘Dallas’ on film, but I had to get rid of it at one point, because it was so many cans.”

Movie houses can also rent films from Fenno Werkman, “gladly even.” “Fewer and fewer programmers dare to program in a more adventurous way, because they’re afraid it won’t attract enough of an audience. They have to arrange the rights themselves. Only 79 years after release, films become royalty-free, after that you can do with them what you want. At New Year’s Eve I often raise a glass of champagne with fellow collectors and then we always toast to the fact that a few thousand films will be royalty-free by January 1.”

“I understand that the rights need to be protected, but it would be best for producers and distributors to be a little more lenient towards film exhibitors who want to play something different from the commercial films. Collectors are vilified by the big distributors, but enthusiasts are actually one of the few who value and preserve films.”

Mariska Graveland


Is somebody pulling our leg? Is the movie 120 minutes only because Fenno slowed it down to 16fps? After all, Killiam’s 7,380' edition would run about 123 minutes if slowed down to 16fps. So, that’s what I thought this claim was. Then we encounter this follow-up from someone who calls himself Johnny who posted a message sometime around 2011 on the Charlie Chaplin Club:

120 Minute Version Of The Gold Rush

One of world largest film collectors the Dutchman Fenno Werkman, owns the only copy in the world lasting 120 minutes. During the easter weekend I spoke [to] him, no it’s not because of the wrong speed in the exactly right speed this version lasts 120 minutes.... The Chaplin family found out about this version, tried to claim it as theirs. But because of copyright they couldn’t claim it.... Mr. Werkman claims he has fantastic versions of the Chaplin movies, better than the DVD’s.


Make of that what you will. I need to follow this up. (More links about Fenno: The 910, The 910, missing-episodes, ) The claim just might be true. After all, you saw above that an original 1925 reel of The Gold Rush somehow escaped into the wild and ended up at the George Eastman House in Rochester. It is known that an original 1925 Reel 10 of The Gold Rush somehow escaped into the wild and ended up in David Shepard’s collection.



International Film Festival Rotterdam, One-on-One #6:
Fenno Werkman (Hollywood My Hometown)
,
posted on Feb 3, 2016
How can we reach this guy? Help?


There is a third-hand claim that yet another print had once upon a time escaped into the wild. Given the context of the entry, I can only assume this referred to a 1925 print. Take a look at Glenn Mitchell’s book, The Chaplin Encyclopedia (London: Batsford, 1997, p. 115): “...in the July 1983 Classic Images, correspondent Cliff Howe mentioned having found the ‘complete tins’ of a 35mm print of The Gold Rush in a neighbour’s garage, only to find that decomposition had reduced the contents to brown powder.”

Zo, how do we restore The Gold Rush to its original form? Here’s a recipe I would like to try:

• Find and scan the edition that MoMA held for Charlie Chaplin (hope it’s still there).
• Find and scan the 16mm print that Charlie gave to Billy Gilbert.
• Scan the tinted reel held at the George Eastman House.
• Find and scan the tenth reel once held in David Shepard’s collection.
• Match and combine, tint per the scheme established by the GEH and Shepard reels.
• See if Fenno Werkman really does have an authentic copy, and see if we can get it properly scanned.
• Check the work against the 16mm Griggs-Moviedrome edition.

I don’t think any of that would be difficult. I think those seven simple steps would result in the original 27 June 1926 edition of the film as seen at Grauman’s Egyptian. Maybe not, but why not try it and find out?

Enough of Goldrausch. Enough of this Rohauer tangent. Now we can return to the Atlas Filmverleih tangent.


A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from March 1963
(from a Heinrich George retrospective)
Artist: UNKNOWN


Metropolis. The popularity of Der General was most likely the inspiration for Nordwestdeutscher Filmverleih to issue the MoMA/BFI edition of Metropolis, left side cropped off, carelessly printed. Heinrich Riethmüller did the score, bits and pieces of which he freely adapted from Gottfried Huppertz’s 1927 original.


A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1964
Artist: Karl Oskar Blase



A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1964
Artist: Karl Oskar Blase


Dr. Mabuse. Der General was such a monumental success, indeed, that Erwin Leiser of Atlas Film negotiated with Fritz Lang to reissue Dr. Mabuse, albeit abridged, with a brilliant score by Konrad Elfers. If you’ve not seen Dr. Mabuse, get an all-region Blu-ray player and then order the Region B set from Eureka IMMEDIATELY and watch it and be blown away. It’s silly comic-book pulp, but done with breathtaking panache. AFTER that, watch the poor online bootlegs of the abridgment with Konrad Elfers’s score: Part One and Part Two. Great score. Someone should license or purchase the rights and rearrange it to fit the latest restoration. Atlas’s reissue of Mabuse was in 1964. The left side was lopped off, the printing was terribly careless, and the film, shot at speeds around 12fps, looked ridiculous when projected at 24fps, yet it was still worth watching, and people did watch it. The 1964 Atlas/Leiser/Elfers edition became the only one available for commercial bookings for the next 20 years or so.



Die Zwanziger Jahre. Atlas also released that same year four movies with new music scores by Peter Schirmann: Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Destiny. We can be certain, even without checking, that the left side was lopped off and that the films were all misprinted. Were they profitable? How long did they play? Where? I would LOVE to find copies of all these. Atlas once issued Schirmann’s edition of Nosferatu on VHS and Madacy later issued it on DVD. What about the others?


A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1964
Artist: Karl Oskar Blase



filmkunstgrafik, Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari - Trailer, posted on Mar 26, 2010
If YouTube ever disappears this video, download it.



A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1964
Artist: Karl Oskar Blase



A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1964
Artist: Fritz Fischer


The poster for the 1964 edition of Destiny (Der müde Tod)?
I can’t find it anywhere. Sorry.


The poster for the 1965 edition of Metropolis?
I can’t find it anywhere. Sorry.


Metropolis redux. The following year, 1965, Nordwestdeutscher Filmverleih issued a slightly trimmed edition of its 1963 Metropolis, this time with a hard-bop score by Konrad Elfers, which, in my opinion, was not an appropriate accompaniment. How well it did at the box office, I do not know, but it was in European circulation for more than a decade. I have never found a poster for this particular release.

The Legacy. When we now watch silent movies, often what we see unspool before our eyes are authentic copies, properly presented with appropriate musical accompaniment. We can thank Buster for that, for it was he who started that trend.

A few more, for fun:


Screenprint, 119.8cm × 84.2cm, from 1962



A2 poster, 42cm × 59.4cm, from 1962



12-piece pillar poster (panels consisting of 12 A1 posters),
approx. 236cm × 252cm, from 1962



A1 poster, 59.4cm × 84.1cm, from 1968




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