MovieChat Forums > Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976) Discussion > ModCinema sells a DVD copy of this movie...

ModCinema sells a DVD copy of this movie. Is it legit? I want a copy.


I found a page on the "ModCinema" web site. I'm pasting it below here. Can anyone vouch for its legitimacy? It indicates I can create an account and pay with my debit card number for a DVD of Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. Please click below.

http://www.modcinema.com/categories/3-made-for-tv/772-dawn-portrait-of-a-teenage-runaway-tv-1976-dvd

I know YouTube has the movie in its entirety. Here are two reasons I prefer a DVD copy.

# 1 -- Quality of the picture could be better on a DVD than what I see on YouTube.

# 2 -- Friend of mine is a retired actor who played a very small part in Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. Soon after Dawn arrives in Hollywood, toward the beginning of the movie, she is inside a diner (also patronized by a character played by actress Suzanne Crough) and she (Dawn) is approached by a stranger. He tries to win her sympathy by revealing that his "old lady" is sick with hepatitis.

Then the stranger tries to steal Dawn's cash from her wallet. The credits leave out this actor, but I can tell you his name is Wendell Baker. I know him well. You notice that the screen name of this message is very similar to his name. He quit acting in the 1980s and became a building contractor in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Wendell owns a house in the San Fernando Valley, but he doesn't have much cash on hand. Had he known about the one-time screening of this movie by a cult cinema group in Chicago last summer, he could not have afforded travel expenses to attend it. He doesn't know anyone in the Chicago area.

I'm hoping to give Wendell Baker a gift of an MP4 file that consists of his few moments in the movie coupled with clips from other acting gigs he had throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Transferring a YouTube video to an MP4 file can be difficult and time-consuming, so I would prefer to purchase a DVD copy.

I doubt anyone has an MP4 file of the movie that they could sell me. I'm open to that if anyone has it. I'm hoping to create an MP4 file that lasts less than two minutes.

Wendell has told me his story of working on Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. Only detail you might not know is that the diner scene (toward the beginning) was filmed at an actual diner in Hollywood. The owner closed it for customers for one day of shooting. Wendell has shown me a letter he received from an employee of the Douglas S. Cramer Company that produced the film. Someone named W. L. Baumes has typed Wendell a letter thanking him for his participation. Date of letter is May 10, 1976. (Filming had wrapped but NBC network did not broadcast it until a few months later.) Letterhead lists address of Cramer Company as 10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035.

I could press Wendell Baker for more details, but . . . It's possible nobody will reply to this post, so I'm going to stop typing and see what, if anything, someone says in response. Please tell me if ModCinema is legit. I'm careful using my debit card on web sites that are not as well-known as Amazon and Ebay.

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This is all very interesting. I do remember him as the creepy Hollywood street boy who tried to rob Dawn until Frankie Lee steps in. I always wonder about actors that will make one movie appearance then nothing again. Ilah Davis was like that who played Kristen in 'Hardcore.' She died back in 2007 and Hardcore was her only movie.

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The screencaps on Modcinema look only marginally better in picture quality than the Youtube copy.

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I remember Dawn, and Alexander too from After School specials in the 1970s.

I also ordered a DVD from modcinema and am woriied that it will never arrive.

How was your experience??

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