Hammer on DVD/BD Thread

[Nuno_Miranda]

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke

Sorry, but it simply doesn't take that long to make a film releasable unless it presents really unusual restoration challenges, and I'd be surprised if this was the case here. In fact, it's far more likely that the negatives are in superb condition, since they'll barely have been touched in decades, for much the same reason that BFI Flipside titles generally look terrific. And since Francis is the original producer of the films, he'll have had every incentive to store them properly.

Unless there are unforeseen rights complications or the label decides to wait for a third-party restoration that they didn't know about at the time of the original announcement (Indicator's Revenge of Frankenstein, for instance), it usually takes only a few months between teaser and release - not least because the label will most likely have only taken out a standard licence of between five and seven years - and if they paid over the odds, they'll have even more incentive to get it out ASAP.

Also, things didn't "just stop" during the pandemic. Labels had to rejig their schedules, but if Indicator could carry on working on the Pemini and Michael J. Murphy collections throughout (both of which posed far bigger materials and restoration challenges than the Tyburn films most likely would), this still unknown label* shouldn't have been interrupted too badly. Certainly nothing like two years, anyway.

(*For me, this is the clincher - the Tyburn films come up again and again in casual pub conversations with industry friends, and to this day nobody seems to know who was behind that announcement. This is pretty much unheard of: even if I'm sworn to secrecy at the time, I can usually find out which label is connected to a particular rumour, because this is a tiny world where everyone knows each other.)

While trying very hard not to feel like this was a metaphorical slap in the hand and a "everything you say is wrong" reply, I should point out that I'm not an industry insider, and never professed to be one. This was just a fan wondering if a couple of his favourite actor's films would be finally available, thinking this would be a great place to ask.

[Michael Brooke]

Originally Posted by Nuno_Miranda

While trying very hard not to feel like this was a metaphorical slap in the hand and a "everything you say is wrong" reply,

Not at all, and I'm genuinely sorry you feel that way. But, as a general rule, if something was announced nearly five years ago and has yet to bear any visible fruit of any kind (not even the name of the company behind it), it probably isn't happening, for the multiple reasons that I gave.

True, there are always exceptions - I myself worked on a project that took a full seven years between inception and release, part of the delay caused by it switching labels when the first one (reasonably) baulked at the likely cost and so the project had to be shopped around elsewhere. But Arrow's Walerian Borowczyk box wasn't publicly announced until less than a year before it finally came out - and in general such announcements aren't made until the ball has already rolled a fair distance.

[Nuno_Miranda]

I was just trying to watch a really bad copy of Hammer/Exclusive's Meet Simon Cherry taken from (I think) the Internet Archive and the sound was so badly out of sync that I had to give up. That got me wondering, because I'm a big fan of Hammer, if given that the early Exclusive releases are probably already in the public domain, if it would be worth it financially to find good copies, clean them up as much as posible and release a boxed set with proper subtitles. They wouldn't even need extras, although I'm sure you can get Kim Newman to talk about them a bit and it will be riveting

So I had an hour free and made a mockup. I wonder if I should have posted this in the Powewhouse thread? Maybe someone from PH reads this and gets excited about it! One never knows. Meanwhile, here's a "what if...?"

[Michael Brooke]

A lovely thought (and the artwork looks terrific!), but I'm afraid it's a non-starter in reality.

Or at least not as an Indicator box - but the (potentially) good news is that Network has the distribution rights to all these titles courtesy of their recent bulk deal with Hammer, and hopefully they're restoring them properly as we speak.

And as that rather implies, they're definitely not in the public domain. In Europe, this won't be the case for several more decades, and while the US is more of a grey area thanks to their more complicated system of copyright registration, it's by no means clear whether they're public domain there either.

(In the US, you can only be certain of this if the work in question was released or published no later than 1927, which is why there's currently a rather weird situation whereby George Orwell (d. 1950) is in the public domain across Europe, but only his pre-1928 writing is public domain in the US, and unless there's a change in the law in the meantime his writing won't become wholly public domain in the US until 2046.)

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke

A lovely thought (and the artwork looks terrific!), but I'm afraid it's a non-starter in reality.

Or at least not as an Indicator box - but the (potentially) good news is that Network has the distribution rights to all these titles courtesy of their recent bulk deal with Hammer, and hopefully they're restoring them properly as we speak.

Should The Mystery of the Mary Celeste see light of day from Network at least we can look forward to them using the classic artwork as seen above in some form or another which will be a delight.

[Nuno_Miranda]

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke

A lovely thought (and the artwork looks terrific!), but I'm afraid it's a non-starter in reality.

Or at least not as an Indicator box - but the (potentially) good news is that Network has the distribution rights to all these titles courtesy of their recent bulk deal with Hammer, and hopefully they're restoring them properly as we speak.

And as that rather implies, they're definitely not in the public domain. In Europe, this won't be the case for several more decades, and while the US is more of a grey area thanks to their more complicated system of copyright registration, it's by no means clear whether they're public domain there either.

(In the US, you can only be certain of this if the work in question was released or published no later than 1927, which is why there's currently a rather weird situation whereby George Orwell (d. 1950) is in the public domain across Europe, but only his pre-1928 writing is public domain in the US, and unless there's a change in the law in the meantime his writing won't become wholly public domain in the US until 2046.)

Thanks for the kind words.

Here's hoping that the House of Mouse eventually loses their battle in the US to keep the mouse out of public domain.

And that Network, since they bought the Hammer catalogue, gives some space to the lesser known titles -- it's always the post-1955 titles that get all the attention, which is perfectly understandable but ultimately frustrating for the completists like me.

[Nuno_Miranda]

Well, now that Network is no more, I hope that Hammer deal they had finds a new label that can give the pre-1955 stuff the love and care it needs...

[Rob4]

Someone on CHFB has reported that Hammer Films have gone bust again.

I've not seen anything. Anyone here have any info?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rob4

Someone on CHFB has reported that Hammer Films have gone bust again.

I've not seen anything. Anyone here have any info?

They have a film coming out albeit distribution rights at the end of the month - Doctor Jekyll.

[Rob4]

Apparently, it was the various companies that had been set up to deal with Network that have gone bankrupt.

Hammer Holdings who own the catalogue are still solvent