Adult content now available on YouTube — but only with commercials!

Anyone who is even moderately familiar with DVD (and VHS) releases has come across the dreaded ever-present selection of public domain titles, which are movies that were never copyrighted, or somehow slid out of copyright. I’ve noticed several enterprising souls uploading them to YouTube, but one individual in particular has actually got car commercials preceding his public domain offerings — which include Paul Naschy’s Vengeance of the Zombies (see my other post today for a tribute to the “Spanish Lon Chaney”). Interestingly, the stash uploaded by this person, who cares to be known only as “Drelb” (yes, we got it, Laugh-In reference; as in “Morgul the Friendly…”), raises two interesting issues.

The first is the fact that Drelb’s collection includes a bunch of the TV episodes that are p.d. It isn’t clear at all how these network shows, which have appeared in better copies on legally licensed discs, fell into p.d. status, but Drelb has Jack Benny episodes, You Bet Your Life, The Beverly Hillbillies, One Step Beyond, and numerous 1970s TV movies (all, I believe, from ABC) from the infamous (The Boy in the Plastic Bubble) to the actually quite good (Hustling and the very evocative Sixties character study Katherine). These items are available in every p.d. collection in video stores and junk shops, but I’ve often wondered how the hell network fare fell between the cracks as far as copyright. If anyone would like to elaborate, I’m always interested in comments from readers.

And even more interesting, considering YouTube’s stringent rules on the unveiling of the human body, Drelb has a number of the p.d. titles that have nudity and “adult content” of one kind or another. Thus, he offers movies like Mandinga and Savage Man, Savage Beast, but if you, a member of the public, try to upload a video you’ve made that has an undraped human form, or some garish insanity (a la the very “mondo” Savage Man), it will be pulled down within a few hours. As I noted when I I wrote about Taxi Driver being offered in its entirety on YouTube, you are allowed to have adult content if you offer YouTube “commercial potential.” If not, screw ya!

As a closer here, let me note that several of the p.d. films are actually surprisingly good. Definitely worth your time is Ivan Passer’s Born To Win starring George Segal. The film is a terrific representation of that strange time in the early Seventies when actually adult fare (meaning intelligent and mature “adult,” not pornographic) was made on a regular basis by Hollywood studios. Sadly, the film came out in theaters at 88 minutes, but has come down to us in all of its p.d. releases at 83 minutes. I have no idea what is missing, as this is the version I’ve always seen, but it still is a powerful and memorable character study. You can find it at archive.org or you can watch Drelb’s version (after a fucking car commercial!) here.

The Tuesday Weld files, vol. 1

Inspired by the example of the pseudonymous UK blogger Arthur Ignatowski and our friend Stephen K's cool scan-posts [both blogs gone by the 2010s], I thought I’d try to add to the ongoing “library” of articles found on the Net by scanning in some items about a major Funhouse favorite, Tuesday Weld.

Tuesday had two careers: in her first, she was a teenage “sex kitten” on TV and in the movies, but in the late Sixties, she decided she wanted to be a legit actress and carved out a wonderful group of adult performances (see, among others, Play It As It Lays). She remained a very reluctant star performer, however, and was well known for turning down major box-office successes (which were pretty much considered hits-in-the-making as they were being cast) like Bonnie and Clyde and Rosemary’s Baby. 

She gave belligerent interviews, appeared in fewer and fewer films, and these days is only seen in the occasional supporting role. But, for a minute or two, let’s return to her starlet phase when she was featured on the covers of magazines, as with this February 1960 edition of “TV Radio Mirror,” where she poses with a pre-plastic surgery Paul Anka. The issue includes profiles of Steve McQueen, Florence Henderson, and Charles Van Doren, in addition to Anka and Tuesday, but I figured we will keep Tuesday on our mind here. 

These are scanned on a consumer-grade HP Officejet 5610 all-in-one scanner at 150 dpi (the Klavan/Finch scans below are 100 dpi, which I think is what I'm going with in the future). The files became pretty sizable when I upped the dpi level (about half of the size of last week's Robert Vaughn video file), and I know space on Blogger is limited, so I thought I'd keep the file-size down. If anyone has any (friendly and constructive) advice on scanning old magazine pages, please do feel free to pass it along. I realize the one thing that is missing here is the beloved (by me, at least) smell of old magazine paper....

   

And a bonus pic, a full-page portrait of Ms. Weld from another mag:

Morning madcaps Klavan and Finch in "TV Radio Mirror"

In scanning for the blog post that follows, I found that the same Feb. 1960 issue that contained a cover story on Tuesday Weld also had an article on the NYC radio comedy team Klavan and Finch. I grew up listening to Gene Klavan on WNEW-AM in the Seventies (by that time Dee Finch had retired), and have very fond memories of his crazy characters (whom he would "converse" with). Thus, I couldn't resist scanning this article too and putting it "in the public record" for local radio fans.

Camp and schlock: very much alive

I wrote a few months ago about the very special media circus that the death of Michael Jackson created. Outdistancing even the “big nothing” coverage of the event that Larry King carried on for WEEKS is this amazing event, “Michael Jackson: the Live Séance,” an amazing show that aired on the Sky Channel in the U.K. A psychic “connects” with Michael and passes on his thoughts and answers to questions posed by a small group of devoted, crying fans. The longer version found on YouTube does include short interviews with the one Jackson “friend” they could dredge up, David Gest (aka the ex-Mr. Liza Minnelli), who is decked out in amazingly bad plastic surgery and a stunning skull-themed hiphop outfit. (It’s never too late for Halloween.) Thanks to Friend Tim for drawing this to my attention.

Post-Thanksgiving video feast

I haven’t linked to video finds on other blogs in a few weeks now, so I will correct that and point your attention to bakedziti.net where blog-master Gene has posted a bunch of wonderful clips (full disclosure: yes, one recent post did come from a Funhouse episode). His recent uploads include ABC’s “Charlie B.” rap promo for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and two terrific clips of Stevie Wonder funkin’ out on Sesame Street. Keep in mind that Stevie is a grizzled music-biz vet of 23 at this time.

Stevie is here.