Once again, annually, we have a look at this year’s batch of copyrighted films that as of January 1, 2022, will enter U.S. public domain. This year includes movies made in 1926. I would note that, additionally, this year some 400,000 sound recordings made before 1923 will enter public domain.
Some of the movies from 1926 that are now in public domain include:
Battling Butler with Buster Keaton
The Son of the Sheik with Rudolph Valentino
Don Juan with John Barrymore, Mary Astor, and Warner Oland
3 Bad Men – which we covered here in this previous post.
Beau Geste with Ronald Colman
La Bohème by King Vidor with Lillian Gish
Flesh and the Devil – John Gilbert and Greta Garbo
The General with Buster Keaton – which we covered here in this previous post.
Here are previous posts on Public Domain Day 2020 and 2021.
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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.
2 comments:
This is a surprising list – The General??! Also surprised to see Don Juan on the list.
For so long we were in the era of silents coming into public domain for which there were no existing prints anyway, so we had never seen them. Now we come into an interesting situation where the movies coming into public domain are more familiar to us. Will they end up as muddy copies, neglected because of a copyright lapse, or will they still be regarded as treasures to preserve?
Wake me when "Casablanca" goes into public domain.
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