Topic: Movie Locations - The Little Rascals - Bear Shooters - Then and Now

[ChrisBungoStudios]

Here's part of my filming locations then and now video documentary, 1930 vs today from The Little Rascals film Bear Shooters. Pretty drastic changes to this particular Los Angeles neighborhood in the past 94 years! The complete video documentary - along with several of The Three Stooges movie locations video documentaries that I've created - are up on my website: https://ChrisBungoStudios.com

[NoahYoung]

So, did you expect everything to remain unchanged for 94 years?

Funny, because I recently picked up a Super 8 Blackhawk copy and watched it the other day. It is actually a little better than I'd given it credit for over the years. I just wish studios like Roach didn't stoop to guys in gorilla suits so much.

Do those new restorations restore the missing bits from previous releases? My Blackhawk copy has them, but the soundtrack is mute for the portions missing from the DVDs. So that gives a clue to why those DVDs were missing the bits -- rather than having dialog that couldn't be heard, they cut out the visuals, too.

The sound was probably recorded on a Victor disc, and perhaps portions were damaged in the only available copies throughout the years.

I had heard that the L&H and Friends DVD had everything intact, but you can't believe everything you "hear" on the Web.

[ChrisBungoStudios]

So, did you expect everything to remain unchanged for 94 years?

Funny, because I recently picked up a Super 8 Blackhawk copy and watched it the other day. It is actually a little better than I'd given it credit for over the years. I just wish studios like Roach didn't stoop to guys in gorilla suits so much.

Do those new restorations restore the missing bits from previous releases? My Blackhawk copy has them, but the soundtrack is mute for the portions missing from the DVDs. So that gives a clue to why those DVDs were missing the bits -- rather than having dialog that couldn't be heard, they cut out the visuals, too.

The sound was probably recorded on a Victor disc, and perhaps portions were damaged in the only available copies throughout the years.

I had heard that the L&H and Friends DVD had everything intact, but you can't believe everything you "hear" on the Web.

As far as I know, nothing has been edited out and the films are as "complete" as they can possibly be.

And yes... when stuck for a good comedy idea, ALWAYS use a guy in a gorilla suit!

[NoahYoung]

I just found this. Apparently BEAR SHOOTERS isn't complete.

https://littlerascals.proboards.com/thread/1904/little-rascals-centennial-collection-review

This may seem like beating a dead horse (Or a bear, or a gorilla?), but there's 2 spots in the initial outdoors scene in which lines are missing from BEAR SHOOTERS (1930) RHI and ClassicFlix releases.

Here is everything that is missing as far as I know:

- At around 2 minutes, the first scene cuts to Norman “Chubby” Chaney licking his lips instead of Jackie Cooper and his first line directed at Chubby, which is “Well, ain’t that some [unintelligible], Chub?” on the ClassicFlix Blu-ray edit. On the RHI DVD and Cabin Fever Laserdisc transfers, the end of Jackie Cooper’s line “[Unintelligible] Chub?” is audible before the scene cuts from the Bedroom just after Spud and Wheezer’s mom walks out of camera range to the outdoors scene. This only serves to telegraph the fact there is dialogue missing from this first outdoors scene! It has taken numerous playbacks from all 3 transfers for me to suss out that the visual edits are exactly the same; with the only difference being that Jackie Cooper’s initial clipped line isn’t present on the ClassicFlix transfer. Sorting out this truly bizarre edit almost drove me off the deep end!

- The second instance of missing dialogue begins near the 6 minute mark, right after Spud (Leon Janney) says to Allen "Farina" Hoskins; “Sure I’m goin'!”
Spud: Suppose I’ll get whipped though! Darn it, I’m goin' anyhow!
Farina: Come on, let’s get going.

On the ClassicFlix Blu-ray and RHI-Entertainment DVD, the scene picks up where Farina says “Come on, Mule!”


All of these lines are intact on the BEAR SHOOTERS (1930) transfer as presented on the long out of print "Laurel And Hardy And Friends" DVD by Image Entertainment, and there is indeed a wee bit of extra footage after the bedroom scene, in which we can hear Jackie Cooper’s initial line complete, instead of his clipped line being heard over the end of the bedroom scene, which is so unexpected, and truly bizarre, it’s no wonder I never noticed it previously! The Image Entertainment DVD is the best quality home video release to include all BEAR SHOOTERS (1930) missing lines, to the best of my knowledge! Please feel free to correct me on this point and/or any others! Needless to say, I’ll be keeping this disc, if only for occasional point of reference! Also, according to that DVD's liner notes BEAR SHOOTERS (1930) is one of 3 shorts on this disc that were from Original Camera Nitrate Negatives.

There's no excuse for it not to be on the new restorations, since it was on the OCN that a previous release used. These companies just cannot get it right!

[ChrisBungoStudios]

I just found this. Apparently BEAR SHOOTERS isn't complete.

https://littlerascals.proboards.com/thread/1904/little-rascals-centennial-collection-review

There's no excuse for it not to be on the new restorations, since it was on the OCN that a previous release used. These companies just cannot get it right!

That's disappointing.

[NoahYoung]

I need to look up how they did on WASHEE IRONEE now. Sometimes they cut out a lot of the laundry scene, including on the first DVDs. I believe it was corrected at some point.

These companies need to hire knowledeable collectors as consultants on these releases. They will catch everything that may fall through the cracks.

Guess where nothing fell through the cracks? On the original Blackhawk Our Gang releases on real film!
 
The Blackhawk version of BEAR SHOOTERS on youtube is also missing the scenes, and is different from my Super 8 Blackhawk print. Probably because they didn't want to show lips moving with no sound.

'm curious what the source was, since that was not one of the shorts with Blackhawk titles on the Genius DVD set. I know it's PD, but the PD releases would have copied it from another video source and wouldn't have gone to the trouble of scanning a Blackhawk print.

Blackhawk themselves released the Our Gang shorts on their own VHS tapes in the early 80s, but that video doesn't look like a VHS source was used. I'm not sure what was released on laser disc prior to the Cabin Fever releases -- and I'm not sure if those were ever released on laser. I have some Republic Pictures VHS tapes which used the Blackhawk video masters, but I'm pretty sure BEAR SHOOTERS was not re-issued by Republic, since they stuck mostly to the Spanky era, with a handful of exceptions. I need to do some more research.

This site lists companies that released Our Gang on video. The link is hidden from the main site, for some reason:
https://www.theluckycorner.com/vc/

Many possibilites, but from what I've seen, not all identify enough details of the BEAR SHOOTERS source used.

Again, my point is I would find it hard to believe that those PD releases would scan a print rather than just use another video release as the source.