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Poster: The Monkey Master Date: Nov 24, 2009 6:40pm
Forum: feature_films Subject: What happen to the movie Topper?

What happen to the movie Topper (1937) and the third movie in the series, Topper Returns (1941). Both of these use to be here on the IA.
Also, dose any one know of the 2nd movie, Topper Takes a Trip (1938) is in the PD and if so, can some one up load it?

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Poster: Moose Malloy Date: Nov 25, 2009 5:40am
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

The original TOPPER is available at the TCM website.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=209318

It's a .flv file - so, if you want, it's easy to download and put on a DVD with DVDFlick.

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Poster: billbarstad Date: Nov 24, 2009 7:42pm
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

Topper had to be removed because of copyright. I imagine the same was true for Topper Returns.

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Poster: Video-Cellar Date: Nov 24, 2009 9:30pm
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

The first two Topper movies were properly renewed. But, in the late 60s Hal Roach Studios had financial problems, resulting from the Laurel and Hardy management arresting control of the copyrights in many of Hal Roaches comedies, and couldn't afford to lodge renewals for about a year. A lot of their 1940 and 41 movies fell into the public domain including Topper Returns. As far as I know Hal Roach studios have never attempted to pull Topper Returns out of the PD. In fact, HRS are strong public domain advocates and were one of the studios that petitioned against copyright term extension.

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Poster: billbarstad Date: Nov 24, 2009 10:04pm
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

Wow! That's an interesting tidbit. I would never have imagined that a studio would petition against copyright term extension. It would seem to be against their best (monetary) interest.

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Poster: Video-Cellar Date: Nov 24, 2009 10:47pm
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

They were pioneers of the colorization process, they owned the trademark "Colorization" and used the process on their own and lots of PD movies. They also still hold the negatives and best elements for the Laurel and Hardy movies and were looking to pay back CCA (the company who took the L&H copyrights) by flooding the market with master quality copies as the copyrights expired. They supported the court action against the copyright term extension. This is their supporting petitioner brief.
This post was modified by Video-Cellar on 2009-11-25 06:47:24

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Poster: billbarstad Date: Nov 25, 2009 6:50am
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

Colorization. Oh my. Worst thing to ever happen to black & white movies. I remember watching an old Frank Sinatra movie on TCM or TNT some years ago with my wife when she pointed out that Sinatra's eyes were brown. The horror!

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Poster: Video-Cellar Date: Nov 25, 2009 7:41am
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

Hal Roach Studios colorization process was pretty natural looking for the video technology at the time. I have a few of their tapes (they did the PD Sherlock Holmes, DOA, Father's Little Dividend) for early 80s colorization they look OK with believable colour schemes. They often used people involved in the creation of the films. Frank Capra was colour consultant for their colorizations of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Meet John Doe". But when a financial deal fell through he left the project and started to speak out against colorization.

HRS sold colorization to an Australian company which continues to this day. They have developed it to the point that they are now the cutting edge in digital colouring. Most of the footage that you see in the War in Color type shows are colorized using the grandchild of the HRS system. They fool most people into thinking that they are seeing genuine color footage. So it has come a long way.

The system that Turner used was pretty much crap. Their colour version of "The Big Sleep" has colorized foregrounds and B/W backgrounds in some scenes and "Count of Monte Cristo" with Robert Donat, everyone was bright pink.

Turner's "computer colored" films were often over saturated with just the wrong colours. In "Suspicion", Cary Grant and Joan Fontain can be seen were bright Green tweed riding outfits, the glass of milk is bright yellow and Nigel Bruce as very red hair.

Turner's ones were done by the company that is now Legend Films. They also did a lot of work for Fox (all the Shirly Temple features and Mark of Zorro). Their work is still plagued by a really poor colour palette.

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Poster: guyzilla Date: Dec 3, 2009 5:04pm
Forum: feature_films Subject: Re: What happen to the movie Topper?

Did Turner colorize any Disney movies? I saw "The Absent-mined Professor" colorized and thought it stunk because in a lot of scenes Fred MacMurray was in color but the background was b&w.