MovieChat Forums > A Medal for Benny (1945) Discussion > Out of Circulation?

Out of Circulation?

posted 17 years ago by HarlowMGM
4 replies | jump to latest

This great film was one of the best reviewed films of 1945 and won two Oscar nominations for J. Carroll Naish (Best Supporting Actor, he won the Golden Globe for it) and Best Screenplay (John Steinbeck) but you cannot find this movie anywhere. I know a lot of older films are in limbo because the rights sometimes revert to the authors after a certain period, especially if the author is a powerful one like John Steinbeck certainly was. Is this perhaps the issue, or perhaps there is some confusion on who owns it, either Paramount (actually Universal now) or the Steinbeck estate, or maybe the Steinbeck estate owns it outright and just doesn't have the Hollywood connections to get it all straightened out and back in distribution. And maybe they own it and don't even know they do. I don't know what the reason is but it really needs to be seen because it is an extraordinary film and certainly a major feather in Steinbeck's esteemable cap to say nothing of perhaps being the absolute peak of superstar Dorothy Lamour's career.

[–] solex10 10 years ago

Okay, just to clarify:

The current ownership is indeed by Universal Pictures, who acquired the pre-1948 Paramount film library; the Steinbeck estate has nothing to do with holding the rights. It may be that the movie's not as popular as it used to be (I've seen it listed for airing on TV here in Canada in the past, but not very recently) and doesn't have a big enough following to warrant it being on home video in any format. Maybe it needs to be rediscovered on TCM with a few airings.

[–] HarlowMGM 10 years ago

Yes I know Universal generally owns every pre-1948 Paramount film via a purchase they made decades ago however many major playwrights and novelists were given special contracts in which film ownerships transferred to them after x number of years. I believe this was mainly so that they would own full remake rights to the work. I have no idea if this is the case re AMFB however it would be surprising if Steinbeck did not receive this given this option was granted to several authors of considerably less note. I believe this may also be the issue why the film version of his THE WAYWARD BUS (1957) also is conspiciously absent from television. I'm not saying Universal doesn't own AMFB, I don't know and if you say they do fine, just that it's not uncommon for select 30s/40s films based on works by major writers to have been withdrawn from circulation because of this clause. Just about every major studio has titles in their catalog that fall into this area.

[–] solex10 10 years ago

Oh, okay, thanks for the heads-up about that.

[–] caribeno 10 years ago

"A Medal for Benny" used to show up frequently on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles all through the 1960's-1980's. I saw it, at least, 5 times. I enjoyed it more with each viewing. When the 1990's hit and KTLA changed ownership, it stopped showing the Paramount pre-1950 films that it routinely showed, "A Medal for Benny", among them. It has fallen through the cracks and deserves for TCM to air it, the UCLA Film & TV Archives to restore and air it, and get airings at revival theaters and college campuses. It's plot is as timely now as it was in 1945. I agree that everyone associated with this film had their finest hour with it's production.