Public Domain Day - 2021

On January 1st, the creative works of 1925 entered into public domain.  Here are a few classic films that are now public domain items:

The original Stella Dallas with Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Lois Moran, Alice Joyce, Jean Hersholt, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

King Vidor's The Big Parade starring John Gilbert.

The Freshman with Harold Lloyd, which we covered here.

Go West, with Buster Keaton.

The Gold Rush with Charlie Chaplin

The Unholy Three with Lon Chaney.

The biggest convenience to classic film writers of the annual Public Domain Day is knowing that all works of a certain year have now passed into public domain and that makes it easier to remember than having to research individual titles to see which ones are and which aren't due to failure to renew the copyright under the last century's various copyright extensions.  Some titles of the many produced in 1925 were already in public domain, but now they all are free to use.

Here's a link to last year's Public Domain Day post for films of 1924.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.