Both of these long term distribution agreements were conducted via numerous phone calls and unlike our dealings with UK distributors, I don’t believe there was any up-front monies for each title or royalties involved. The heads of these well established businesses, Dietrich Kempski of CSC and Ron Knorr of Red Fox had decided to retire from the Super 8 distribution market and needed to ensure that their productions, even if in name only, would continue to be made available to the collector. As both companies product was that of feature films bearing the MGM logo, it was relatively easy to arrange contracts, very similar to the one between Ken Films/MGM/and ourselves to be drawn up and signed.
The features ‘The Black Stallion’, ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’, ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, ‘For Me and My Gal’, ‘Strike Up The Band’, ‘Poltergeist’, ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’, ‘Angels With Dirty Faces’, ‘The Time Machine’, ‘Forbidden Planet’, ‘Jack The Giant Killer’, ‘Red Dust’, ‘San Francisco’, ‘North By NorthWest’, ‘A Shot in the Dark’, ‘Victor Victoria’, ‘Dodge City’, ‘Gorgo’, ‘Ghidrah, The 3 Headed Monster’, ‘Night of the Living Dead’, ‘The Band Wagon’, ‘Till The Clouds Roll By’, ‘Bonnie Scotland’ and ‘Fra Diavolo’ all came from Red Fox. While Kempski gave us ‘West Side Story’, ‘Logan’s Run’, ‘Poltergeist’, ‘Doctor Zhivago’, ‘Brainstorm’, ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’, ‘2010: The Year We Make Contact’, ‘Ben-Hur’, ‘Soylent Green’, and ‘Poltergeist II’.
In both cases we received the negative and sound masters to each title and in addition Red Fox included the pre-printed labels to place on the finished film.
Over time all the Red Fox black and white titles were withdrawn due the ongoing problems with raw film stock. Meanwhile Derek began to recut the negs and soundmasters to fit 600′ spools. As far as can recall ‘Logan’s Run’ was the only title not to receive this treatment. Disaster struck when two reels of the negative to ‘West Side Story’ was mislaid by Buck labs and even after a thorough seach was never found, so it too had to be withdrawn. Our prices were considerably lower than the German imports and the quality was very good.
The final entry in this series takes a look at the small number of negatives and sound masters we gathered from Mountain, Walton and PM! I can’t disclose any events or conversations relating to these, I was just aware that they arrived in dribs and drabs over many months, beginning with a number of Tom and Jerry cartoons and went on from there. ‘Rhubarb’ was the only title I recall from Powell. All this and more next time.
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