Date Created : 1940 Link : http://publicdomainmovie.net/movie/santa-fe-trail-0 Description: From Wikipedia: The film loosely follows the life of J.E.B. Stuart (Errol Flynn) before the outbreak of the American Civil War. Among its sub-plots include a romance with the fictional Kit Carson Holliday (Olivia de Havilland), friendship with George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan), and battles against abolitionist John Brown (Raymond Massey). Santa Fe Trail is a 1940 American Western (genre) film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey and Ronald Reagan. Written by Robert Buckner, the film is about the abolitionist John Brown and his fanatical attacks on slavery as a prelude to the Civil War. Subthemes include J.E.B. Stuart and George Armstrong Custer as they duel for the hand of Kit Carson Holliday. The film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the seventh Flynn–de Havilland collaboration. The film also has almost nothing to do with its namesake, the famed Santa Fe Trail, except that the trail started in Missouri and the railroad could be built only after the Army drove Brown out of Kansas. The outdoor scenes were filmed at the Movie ranch#Famous Players-Lasky Movie Ranch - Ahmanson Ranch in the Lasky Mesa area of the Simi Hills in the western San Fernando Valley. Plot At the This film takes substantial liberties with the historical facts: Stuart and Custer did not attend West Point at the same time and were never personally acquainted. Stuart graduated from West Point in 1854 and Custer graduated in 1861. Production The film is frequently confused with the Raoul Walsh movie They Died with Their Boots On , released the following year, in which Flynn replaces Reagan in the role of Custer and also features de Havilland as Flynn's leading lady. Vitasound In its initial release, Warner Brothers premiered this film in some large cities with an experimental sound system called Vitasound . Not a stereophonic system as sometimes reported, Vitasound was intended to create a greater dynamic range in the reproduced sound in the theatre for battlefield scenes etc., or for dramatic music. Vitasound employed a second, control, track along the line of the sprocket holes on the soundtrack side of the film. This control track consisted of a clear line on a black background that varied in width. If the width was greater than 0.04 then the soundtrack played as normal. At a width of 0.04 a relay operated connecting left and right speakers in parallel with the normal center speaker. As the control track width reduced further playback volume would be increased up to a maximum of 10dB at a zero control track width. (Source: IMDb) This system was unrelated to Disney's Fantasound system which had just been used for roadshow engagements of Fantasia (1940 film) , released 13 November 1940. Availability Santa Fe Trail entered the public domain in 1968, after United Artists Television – then the owners of the pre-1950 WB library (inherited from Associated Artists Productions [a.a.p.]) – failed to renew the copyright. As a result, the film has been widely available on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD, with picture and sound quality varying. A Film colorization version was produced in the 1980s, which was released on VHS. In the 1990s, Turner Entertainment through MGM Home Entertainment released an authorized VHS version (of higher quality than most other releases, but not utilizing the original negative); no other official release has been available on DVD or Blu-ray Disc (today, Turner's library is part of the Warner Bros. Television of Warner Bros., the original distributor). The film is also free to watch and download on YouTube and the Internet Archive. Errol Flynn filmography Olivia de Havilland#Filmography Ronald Reagan filmography List of films in the public domain List of films featuring slavery Further reading Robert E. Morsberger, Slavery and 'The Santa Fe Trail,' or, John Brown on Hollywood's Sour Apple Tree, American Studies (1977) 18#2 pp 87–98. online , full-scale scholarly analysis of John Brown & other distorted historical themes Category:1940 films Category:American films Category:Warner Bros. films Category:Romantic Western (genre) films Category:Black-and-white films Category:English-language films Category:Films directed by Michael Curtiz Category:American Civil War films Category:1940s Western (genre) films

Link : http://publicdomainmovie.net/movie/white-zombie-1932 Description: White Zombie is often described as being the first ever zombie movie. It is about a young couple who go to visit an acquaintance who lives in Haiti. Unfortunately the the girl is so attractive that she turns the head of a local Voodoo master, played by Bela Lugosi, who wants her for himself, so he turns her into a zombie. You can learn more about White Zombie at A Passion for White Zombie is a 1932 Cinema of the United States independent film Pre-Code Hollywood horror film directed and produced by brothers Victor Halperin and Edward Halperin. The screenplay by Garnett Weston, based on a book by William Seabrook, tells the story of a young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo master. Béla Lugosi stars as the antagonist, Murder Legendre, with Madge Bellamy appearing as his victim. Other cast members included Robert W. Frazer, John Harron and Joseph Cawthorn./ TV Guide gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, comparing the film's atmosphere to Carl Theodor Dreyer's film Vampyr . However, the magazine described the acting as woefully inadequate, with the exception of Lugosi./ Edward G. Bansk, a Val Lewton biographer, identified several flaws in White Zombie , including poor acting, bad timing and other haphazard and sloppy film aspects. Bansk wrote, Although White Zombie is a film with courage, a film difficult not to admire, its ambitions overstep competence of its principal players. In Cleveland, Ohio, White Zombie sold a record 16,728 tickets its first weekend on its initial release in August. Rhodes 2001, p. 162/ In Montreal, Canada, the film opened August 3 at the Princess Theatre. The facade had been transformed into a House of the Living Dead and zombies walked atop the marquee. The film failed to gross its estimated $8,000 and earned only $6,500 following a one-week run at the Princess Theatre. In comparison, Dracula (1931 English-language film) had grossed $14,000 at Montreal's Robillard Block during its first week in March 1931. R269 / =Home video= White Zombie was transferred from poor quality prints to VHS and Betamax in the 1980s. Rhodes194 / The film has been released on DVD from several companies – including K-Tel and Alpha Video — with varying image quality. dvdRelease/ dvdRelease / RoanGroup/ The book Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide described the Roan's later DVD release of the title as the best available./ Legacy File:Robzombiegfdl.PNG appropriated the name of the film for his group White Zombie (band)}}} White Zombie is considered to be the first feature film zombie film and has been described as the archetype and model of all zombie movies./ Modern critical response to Revolt of the Zombies is generally unfavorable. In a review from Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide , the review declares that [T]here's no experimentation here, only dull composition shots and flatly lit shots of yakking characters in a by-the-numbers plot.// Scenes from White Zombie have appeared in other films including Curtis Hanson's The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (film) , Michael Almereyda's Nadja (film) , and Tim Burton's Ed Wood (film) ./ Screenwriter Jared Rivet worked on a script in 2007 with Hooper. The project was halted due to rights issues, with Rivet explaining that White Zombie is clearly public domain, but there were question marks about uncredited source material. NoTobe/ In 2013, Walkabout Publishing released Stephen D. Sullivan's adaptation of White Zombie . Bela Lugosi filmography List of American films of 1932 List of horror films of the 1930s ; Notes ; Bibliography Category:1930s horror films Category:1932 films Category:American horror films Category:Black-and-white films Category:English-language films Category:Films directed by Victor Hugo Halperin Category:Films set in Haiti Category:Independent films Category:United Artists films Category:Zombie films