From Soup to Nuts and Marxists to Marxes!
On January 1, all films published 95 years ago lose their copyright restrictions and enter the public domain. This year, the crop of 1930can now be freely used to display, remix, and build upon. In the USA. Here in Canada, due to a legal Gordian Knot involving the Bern Convention, a series of treaties, and the “rule of the shorter term” possibly being exempted for works from the USA and Mexico… Public domain American films may still be copyrighted here, specifically if, (due to CUSMA, 2020) the “authors” (and it’s legally a bit vague who all this is for a motion picture) of the work died after 1971. It’s a mess.Result: a 20 year public domain hiatus in Canada, with no new works entering public domain until 2042. So unless that changes, we at the Vodville look forward to celebrating a real public domain day in Canada with you then.THAT SAID, we get around all this by exercising our rights as granted by the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act (1985). Here’s some non-substantial portions of possibly still copyrighted films presented non-commercially, and for educational and critical purposes. *jazz hands*
- First up, some good ol’ fashioned Marxist propaganda from Animal Crackers, it’s the memorable numbers Hello, I Must be Going and Hurray for Captain Spaulding. [3:23]
- Some reflections on man’s mortality from Alexander Dovzhenko’ Earth. [2:56]
- *after 8 pm The aerial camera work by Winnipeg’s own Osmond Borradaile sets the dogfight scene from Hell’s Angels amid towering clouds, bringing the viewer directly into a landscape that’s usually only seen from a distance, far below. [2:24]
- Next we go to Just Imagine which looks 50 years into the future and imagines a 1980’s Dr Frankenstein. No one appears to have imagined a social safety net though. Fun fact, the electrical effects in this were by Kenneth Strickfaden, they entered the collective imagination of moviegoers a year later when they appeared in 1931’s Frankenstein. [3:28]
- Speaking of fever dreams of the imagination, check out this airship-borne ode to all things electricity from Cecil B. DeMille’s Madam Satan. [3:29]
- Rube Goldberg (of ‘Machine” fame) was a real guy, and he wrote a movie, and it’s amazing. Check out the burglar alarm from Soup to Nuts. [2:07]
- Scythes vs combine in Earth. This film was created in response to the collectivization of Ukraine and it was banned by Soviet authorities 8 days after its release. In the following years the Soviets extended government control over the film industry, strangling its creative output. In totally unrelated news, Hollywood’s Hays Code debuted in 1930, although it was un-enforced until ‘33. [2:55]
- Speaking of banned films, Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece L’Âge d’Or managed to get banned from exhibition for 50 years, by the French no less. Here is a charming scene with a cow. [0:55]
- Back to Animal Crackers for a friendly card game with absolutely no tricks. [4:47]
- Ub Iwerks’ Fiddlesticks is his first animation after leaving Walt Disney’s Studio. Featuring Flip the Frog, and a suspiciously familiar looking cartoon mouse. [2:36]
- Animal Crackers again with a quick lesson on musician rates negotiations, gig workers take note. [2:56]
- Dizzy Dishes notable for the first appearance of Betty Boop. [1:37]
- Aside from it being the most whitewashed Jazz show I have ever seen, it does have some glorious two strip technicolor production pieces. Here is one from King of Jazz. [1:24]
- Back to the rigid airship party in Madam Satan, now with some cats on the catwalk, which seems like a recipe for static electricity and explosions. [2:22]
- That awkward moment when you get the government letter marrying you to your backup plan. 1980’s romance problems in Just Imagine. [3:15]
- *after 8 pm Director Howard Hughes himself was flying the camera plane for much of this aerial duel in Hell’s Angels. [3:43]
- Some Groucho asides on love and marriage from Animal Crackers. [3:30]
- You know the party is going to be good when there is a beer cart, L’Âge d’Or. [0:41]
- Some disembodied heads singing about lower extremities in King of Jazz. [0:43].
- More Rube Goldbergian genius from Soup to Nuts. [1:37]
- I love how pretty this movie is; Earth, with a series of scenes that will stir the heart of any child of the prairies, but chill the soul of any celiac. I’m conflicted. [1:52]
- Ever been so angry you just have to throw some things? This guy too, L’Âge d’Or. [1:43]
- Soup to Nuts is also known for being the first screen appearance of the Four Stooges (who, minus Ted, would go to work as a trio). Here they help out with a fire. [2:29]
- The perils of food service from Dizzy Dishes. [1:11]
- Coburg Ontario’s own Marie Dressler gives an oscar winning performance as dockside innkeeper in the film Min and Bill. Here is some yacht chaos. [3:34]
- 7 years before the Hindenburg, and 87 years before the Fyre festival, there was this disaster of a party from Madam Satan. [3:17]
- More zeppelin crashes! from Hell’s Angels. [1:28]
- More Four Stooges firefighter shenanigans from Soup to Nuts. [1:25]
- King of Jazz with a meditation on monarchy. Personally I feel that you shouldn’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because a chimpanzee hucked a coconut at your head. Also this was the first technicolor cartoon. [2:38]
- Animal Crackers Groucho Marx at his best, giving a pitch to an investor. [2:00]
- Everyone loves a good munitions dump explosion or 47. Hell’s Angels. [1:58]
- Just Imagine, launching on a mission to Mars. [1:46]
- A short animation to celebrate 2026 by local stop-motion animators Brongadoo productions.