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Hi all. You asked for it, you got it. Warner Archives has announced today their issue of a 4 DVD set of the EARLY 1926-30 restored Vitaphone shorts. SIXTY in all. This is the first time any of these have been on home video anywhere. I have worked with George Feltenstein on this and will be providing notes on each short (still to be determined if via link or other way, so stay tuned).

I believe you can order these by close of business April 12th so if you try earlier it may not work. Spread the word

And there are at least another 60 restored early Vitaphones still to be issued after this. So please help make this as big a success as the earlier Vitaphone sets and THE JAZZ SINGER! Here is a rundown of the contents:

* Studio: Warner Bros.
* Screen Aspect: 4 X 3 FULL FRAME
* Run Time: 547 minutes
* Packaging Type: Amaray Case
* Genre: Comedy

Synopsis:

Recovered and restored: fascinating early-sound shorts from a bygone entertainment era. Venerable vaudevillians. Musical marvels. Crazy comics. Formidable character actors. These and other great performers and ensembles from the Warner Bros. vault comprise a dazzling 9+-Hour, 4-Disc Collection of 60 Theatrical Shorts (1926-1930) that reach across the footlights – and decades – to delight new generations. Vitaphone Varieties is an endlessly entertaining blast from the past.

Vitaphone Varieties (1926-1930)
Disc One 17 shorts
THE REVELERS
THE MORRISEY AND MILLER NIGHT CLUB REVIEW
COLIN & GLASS IN "SHARPS AND FLATS"
EARL BURTNETT AND HIS BILTMORE HOTEL ORCHESTRA
VAL AND ERNIE STANTON IN "CUT YOURSELF A PIECE OF CAKE"
BROWN AND WHITAKER IN "A LAUGH OR TWO"
JIMMY CLEMONS IN "DREAM CAFE"
BERT SWOR IN "A COLORFUL SERMON"
GLADYS BROCKWELL IN "HOLLYWOOD BOUND"
JAY C. FLIPPEN IN "THE HAM WHAT AM"
HARRY J. CONLEY IN "THE BOOK WORM"
DORA MAUGHAN WITH WALTER FEHL IN "SONG IMPRESSIONS"
HENRY B. WALTHALL IN "RETRIBUTION"
DICK RICH AND HIS SYNCO-SYMPHONISTS
MONTAGUE LOVE IN "CHARACTER STUDIES"
KJERULF'S MAYFAIR QUINTETTE IN "A MUSICAL MELANGE"
VAL HARRIS WITH ANN HOWE IN "THE WILD WESTERNER"

Disc Two 17 Shorts
EDDIE WHITE IN "I THANK YOU"
MARLOWE AND JORDAN IN "SONGS AND IMPRESSIONS"
VAL AND ERNIE STANTON IN "ENGLISH AS SHE IS NOT SPOKEN"
JACK WALDRON IN "A BREATH OF BROADWAY
FLORENCE BRADY IN "A CYCLE OF SONGS"
EARL BURTNETT AND HIS BILTMORE HOTEL ORCHESTRA
MITCHELL LEWIS IN "THE DEATH SHIP"
AL LYONS AND HIS FOUR HORSEMEN IN "MY MUSICAL MELANGE"
ROBERT EMMET KEANE IN "GOSSIP"
BORN AND LAWRENCE in "THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN"
THE RANGERS IN "AFTER THE ROUND-UP"
ARTHUR PAT WEST IN "SHIP AHOY!"
BORN AND LAWRENCE IN "PIGSKIN TROUBLES"
FRANK WHITMAN "THAT SURPRISING FIDDLER"
ANN CODEE AND FRANK ORTH IN "A BIRD IN THE HAND"
BUD HARRIS AND FRANK RADCLIFFE IN "AT THE PARTY"
HARRY FOX AND HIS SIX AMERICAN BEAUTIES

Disc Three 15 shorts
FRED ARDATH IN "THESE DRY DAYS"
JACK WHITE with the MONTREALERS
DOOLEY AND SALES IN "DOOLEY'S THE NAME"
OKLAHOMA BOB ALBRIGHT AND HIS RODEO DO FLAPPERS
CHARLES C. PETERSON, BILLIARD CHAMPION OF FANCY SHOTS
HOBART CAVANAUGH,REGINA WALLACE in "SYMPATHY"
MEL KLEE IN "THE PRINCE OF WAILS"
HARRY FOX AND BEE CURTIS IN "THE BEE AND THE FOX"
COLETTA RYAN AND DUKE YELLMAN IN "SONGOLOGY"
THE GOTHAM RHYTHM BOYS
"POOR AUBREY" BY GEORGE KELLY WITH FRANKLIN PANGBORN,HELEN FERGUSON,CLARA BLANDICK ANDRUTH LYONS
BILLY "SWEDE" HALL & COMPANY IN "HILDA"
"REVIVAL DAY" WITH SLIM TIMBLIN
"NIAGARA FALLS" WITH BRYANT WASHINGTON AND HELEN JERONE EDDY
JOHN T. MURRAY AND VIVIEN OAKLAND IN "SATIRES"

Disc Four 11 shorts
JANS AND WHALEN IN "TWO GOOD BOYS GONE WRONG"
CARLENA DIAMOND: HARPIST SUPREME
"TRIFLES"
ANDERSON AND GRAVES IN "FISHING AROUND"
"SURPRISE" WITH TOM DUGAN AND BARBARA LEONARD
"WHAT A LIFE"
"THANKSGIVING DAY"
"PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES" WITH DOUGLAS STANBURY AND THE LYRIC QUARTET
"SHE WHO GETS SLAPPED" WITH TOM DUGAN
BETTY AND JERRY BROWNE IN "LET'S ELOPE!"
JOE FRISCO IN "THE SONG PLUGGER"

Special thanks to our preservation partners:
UCLA Film & Television Archive
Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation
and The Vitaphone Project

Me want!

Bob

Ordered!

Bryant Washburn and Helen Jerome Eddy star in NIAGARA FALLS.

Pretty sweet artwork, too!

Wow.

Is the Ruth Lyons in "Poor Aubrey" the same lady who was a staple of Cincinnati broadcasting for so many years?

-Harold

Correct Harold. Same Ruth Lyons.

Now we possibly confirm if it really is Marjorie Main in that Harry Fox & His Six American Beauties short!

vitaphone wrote:Correct Harold. Same Ruth Lyons.

Amazing!! I had no idea she appeared in any film let alone a Vitaphone short. A good friend of mine is working on an epic documentary about her.

GOTTA HAVE IT! NOW!!!!!

Good thing that Father's Day is not too far off, this will be at the top of my list.

And kudos to The Vitaphone Project for all its hard work, and to Warners for following through. SETH

Thats great news. But I'll have to wait till the international resellers or Amazon list them. Still not complaining.

TCM Shopping will have it listed soon and so will Oldies.com but Oldies want a postage payment for each disc in a set plus their order fee. Then there is Movies Unlimited who also shop TCM orders. Amazon might not have it for a while, if at all. DeepDiscount seems to only have a few older titles now in their catalog.

This is terrific news! It's taken me until the past Christmas holidays to properly sit down and watch the shorts that were included with the `Jazz Singer' box set. They're addictive!

moviepas wrote:TCM Shopping will have it listed soon and so will Oldies.com but Oldies want a postage payment for each disc in a set plus their order fee. Then there is Movies Unlimited who also shop TCM orders. Amazon might not have it for a while, if at all. DeepDiscount seems to only have a few older titles now in their catalog.

What in darnashun are you talking about??? Just buy the damn set from Warner Archives already so more of this prime ooze will come outta the vaults.

LouieD wrote:

moviepas wrote:TCM Shopping will have it listed soon and so will Oldies.com but Oldies want a postage payment for each disc in a set plus their order fee. Then there is Movies Unlimited who also shop TCM orders. Amazon might not have it for a while, if at all. DeepDiscount seems to only have a few older titles now in their catalog.

What in darnashun are you talking about??? Just buy the damn set from Warner Archives already so more of this prime ooze will come outta the vaults.

I think moviepas is referring to the fact that WA won't ship outside the USA. Resellers will ship their titles OS. Handy info for buyers like me.

Thanks Changsham. People don't read before they put their foot in their mouth. The letter gives me the impression that you live outside USA like I do so I answered accordingly. I wish I could order direct but that is not going to happen. Only a few have been issued outside USA from both Columbia/Sony or WAC and these have often been before the DVD-Rs are available in USA and are replicated as normal street releases. I have spent a lifetime importing all sorts of media and going to others to get stuff not for export and paying more for stuff never issued in my land.

It should be noted that most discs from USA are not for export outside of US & Canada or North America. Funny that because they sell to Amazon & the like who they know export all over the world!!! I guess it covers them by selling to Amazon & the like and getting extras sales/profits that way. They used to raid the few stores that sold Laserdiscs here and take their stock and get them into court. Columbia imported a few PAL from UK but returned them when they sold little. I imported without hassle but got a bargain when stores opened with all their MGM & Warner classics and within a month they were ordered to close and sell off their stocks so $30 or more LDS I got for under $10 & saved the postage from USA which for air was about US$7 a title average because of the weight. DVDs are much lighter & shipping is a lot cheaper currently. France & England also gave shops a hard time with Region 1 DVDs in a Region 2 area and confiscated discs under Board of Trade rules. Stupid in this day and age of Trade Agreements which we have with USA and have done for a few years now. Record companies trade to protect their trademarks for a few years then the government demanded a huge annual fee to open all parcels looking for trademarks or getting people to scrap logs off labels or use a water-based black marker to cross thru a TM on the cover. That fee stopped them!!!! I have to say many US recordings had better mastering than local product but local product might have had better material used in the pressing & less charges & bubbles. One heard instruments like pianos clearer, for example, on USA pressings of the same LP made here.

Some three years ago they told me that these same Vitaphone Varieties shorts were being restored, in advance of the Colleen Moore features SYNTHETIC SIN, and WHY BE GOOD? Those were supposed to be among the next in line for the on-going Vitaphone project. So I hope that it is still the case? Though I rather doubt it.

As Antonio Moreno died back in the 50's, how is it that prints were not found among his effects until about 2003? Or where were they taken after He had passed away? Did he have any other rare films of interest in his personal collection? Maybe something he was in with Swanson, or Pola Negri? Sad there wasn't a copy of Moore's LOOK YOUR BEST in there too.

Gagman, just to clarify, while we have succeeded in getting funding consistently to restore Vitaphone shorts, we never said that WHY BE GOOD? and SYNTHETIC SIN had funding or were in the pipeline to be restored. We said that since the location of the elements were now known, they were restorable. Having just gotten 53 shorts (!) restored, which is no mean feat, we are now working on getting funding for at least WHY BE GOOD? I own the disks.

It is important to recognize that no one questions the importance of restoring this film, but the reality is that money does not exist to do everything and hopefully these will be done soon.

If you personally know of a funder, please let me know. We did an extensive presentation to Hefner but he passed. I have something in the works now so wish me luck!

moviepas wrote:Thanks Changsham. People don't read before they put their foot in their mouth. The letter gives me the impression that you live outside USA like I do so I answered accordingly. I wish I could order direct but that is not going to happen. Only a few have been issued outside USA from both Columbia/Sony or WAC and these have often been before the DVD-Rs are available in USA and are replicated as normal street releases. I have spent a lifetime importing all sorts of media and going to others to get stuff not for export and paying more for stuff never issued in my land.

It should be noted that most discs from USA are not for export outside of US & Canada or North America. Funny that because they sell to Amazon & the like who they know export all over the world!!! I guess it covers them by selling to Amazon & the like and getting extras sales/profits that way. They used to raid the few stores that sold Laserdiscs here and take their stock and get them into court. Columbia imported a few PAL from UK but returned them when they sold little. I imported without hassle but got a bargain when stores opened with all their MGM & Warner classics and within a month they were ordered to close and sell off their stocks so $30 or more LDS I got for under $10 & saved the postage from USA which for air was about US$7 a title average because of the weight. DVDs are much lighter & shipping is a lot cheaper currently. France & England also gave shops a hard time with Region 1 DVDs in a Region 2 area and confiscated discs under Board of Trade rules. Stupid in this day and age of Trade Agreements which we have with USA and have done for a few years now. Record companies trade to protect their trademarks for a few years then the government demanded a huge annual fee to open all parcels looking for trademarks or getting people to scrap logs off labels or use a water-based black marker to cross thru a TM on the cover. That fee stopped them!!!! I have to say many US recordings had better mastering than local product but local product might have had better material used in the pressing & less charges & bubbles. One heard instruments like pianos clearer, for example, on USA pressings of the same LP made here.

I live in Melbourne Australia. It was hard to follow our interest 30 years or so years ago. One felt like a criminal trawling through the underworld. All my hardware(NTSC TV, multi region VCR and NTSC LD)was purchased though the black market out of someones farm shed or garage. I used to buy some imported LD's from a guy. Eventually he got bold and started selling them direct from his shop. He got raided and lost all his stock. Then a couple of weeks later his shop burned down.

Vitaphone,

I appreciate the update. At least some progress is finally being made. That is an improvement over what I have been hearing the past few years. Sell people on the fact that Colleen Moore was "The Female Harold Lloyd." I speak of the equation of of her persona. The All American Girl counter part, to Lloyd's All American Boy. Indeed as big a Star as Harold was during the 20's. A brilliant comedienne, but a highly skilled dramatic performer when the occasion warranted so, as well. The loss of so many of her films is atrocious, and devastating. Harold has successfully gained many, many new fans, and it would be nice to see these people get behind Colleen as well. As much as I have long idolized Lloyd, I actually like Colleen even better. Maybe because I am a man I don't know? She has the same type of innate charisma and endearing charm. I'm confident that Colleen can still delight an audience in the same manner that Harold does.

No Silent Star is in as dire need of a Champion as Colleen Moore. I continue to be dumbfounded by the frustrating lack of interest in her surviving work. After last years Talmadge releases, She is the biggest Silent film Star remaining with not one official DVD release from Kino, Image, Milestone, Flicker Alley, Criterion, or anyone. I am speaking of her 1920's Starring features. Unacceptable! Yeah Kino put out THE BUSHER, and just happened to mention that Colleen was in the film, along with John Gilbert, but it is still a Charles Ray picture. Not enough, Colleen is very magnetic, and should be a much easier sell than she has been. I, many of us, had hoped that HER WILD OAT or LILAC TIME would have at least popped up on TCM by now, but there has been no sign of them. That is why I was so overjoyed just to see the FLAMING YOUTH fragments a couple weeks ago broadcast. A step in the right direction, if nothing else. If there are any other restorations going on I would appreciate hearing about them. The guy at Eastman House couldn't tell me much a few weeks ago.

I'm excited about Jeff Codori's book coming out, and I hope it can start to generate some buzz, towards at least getting some of the films before the public, and not just in Art Houses. Good luck with all your efforts. Disappointed that Hue Heffner passed on the project. I had also heard that He was approached to do a documentary on Colleen back in the late 90's after the Louise Brooks, and Clara Bow ones, but that never came about. If so, what a downer that is.

Christmas in April, I believe it!

thanks Vitaphone!

Warner Brothers George Feltenstein does a podcast about the Vitaphone shorts:

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbol/us/dd/po ... _12_11.mp3

I was aware that many of Colleen Moore's silent features were unavailable, but always wondered why. I see that many of her films were released by First National, which was eventually purchased by Warners.

Since Warners has been better than most studios in preserving their product (which still isn't saying a lot), I wonder if there was a specific reason for the disappearance of the Moore material. Vault fire? Decomposition? Lost sound discs? Fights over rights? I'll be interested to see if anybody has further information on this.

Meanwhile, anyone looking for an interesting side story on Colleen Moore should get a copy of Sydney Kirkpatrick's book, A CAST OF KILLERS (Dutton, 1986); it details King Vidor's personal investigation of the William Desmond Taylor murder, and also has much information about his relationship with Colleen Moore. The book is out of print, but check your local library or www.abebooks.com for an inexpensive used copy.

And BTW, kudos to Vitaphone for his ongoing efforts to restore and preserve this type of material. We realize it takes time and money, and that there is just a finite amount of both things!! SETH

LouieD wrote:Warner Brothers George Feltenstein does a podcast about the Vitaphone shorts:

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbol/us/dd/po ... _12_11.mp3

Holy cow! It even includes a recording of Buster Collier (i.e. William Collier Jr.) singing "Thinking of You"--a test that was the first Vitaphone recording made on the West Coast. And he ain't half bad!

-Harold

sethb wrote:Since Warners has been better than most studios in preserving their product (which still isn't saying a lot), I wonder if there was a specific reason for the disappearance of the Moore material. Vault fire? Decomposition? Lost sound discs? Fights over rights? I'll be interested to see if anybody has further information on this.

First National had a large studio/backlot in Burbank, and when Warners bought control of the company, they got this property too, and relocated to it. In December 1934 there was a massive vault fire there. David Pierce's excellent article "The Legion of the Condemned" cites a local newspaper report, which said that a great many Vitagraph films went up in the blaze. (Now we know why Vitagraphs are so rare.)

But since the vault was located on the old First National property, it stands to reason that a lot of FN films were lost in the fire too.

Colleen Moore's late 1920s silents were produced by her own company, so whether the negatives were owned and stored by Moore and her husband, or by First National (and subsequently Warners), is something I don't know. I think Warners had positive prints, at least for a while.

Under the TCM Treats post, I earlier posted this:

What I've been told by a couple of people is that Moore donated her films to MOMA. Years later, Warners asked for their films back from MOMA, and someone decided to give them all First National titles as well. When Moore came looking for her material years later at MOMA, they realized it had gone to Warners. When Warners was contacted, they found the Moore material, but it had deteriorated to dust by that point.

I wasn't aware of these Warner Podcasts. Wonderful! Thanks, Louie!

Hey, it's not like Colleen Moore doesn't still have some surviving work left to see. Harold Aherne mentioned just a week or so ago that about 47% of films exist in at least partial form. But nothing restored is available or in circulation on DVD or even TCM. This is what I fail to understand. At least HER WILD OAT, or LILAC TIME should be accessible. If not COME ON OVER, BROKEN CHAINS, IRENE, TWINKLETOES, and ORCHIDS AND ERMINE. The lack of a release of even ELLA CINDERS from Kino or Flicker Alley is disappointing, since the film is Public-Domain.

Chris Snowden wrote: First National had a large studio/backlot in Burbank, and when Warners bought control of the company, they got this property too, and relocated to it. In December 1934 there was a massive vault fire there. David Pierce's excellent article "The Legion of the Condemned" cites a local newspaper report, which said that a great many Vitagraph films went up in the blaze.

Yes, I've read some accounts of the fire as well. It was large enough that many folks in the neighborhood, including, IIRC, Bing Crosby, came in to assist the fire dept. to battle the blaze.