Comments on: Movie Urban Legends Revealed #7

By: elvislennon

elvislennon — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:27:41 +0000

Frank didn’t know about owning rights to his films until the 80s. Anyway, that about Suddenly is also flaue because it too was shown on TV after JFK assassination. It was shown twice as well. He couldn’t do alot of things by hiding this movie since it fell into Public Domain. When that happens anything goes. No one can stop it. It went into Public Domain during the early 80s.

By: Ted Watson

Ted Watson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:28:05 +0000

I, too, had long heard that Sinatra suppressed BOTH of those films. When “Suddenly” turned up (on A&E) in the mid-80s, it soon became obvious that it had gone into the public domain, and when “Manchurian Candidate” got its big re-release just two or three years later, I assumed that the first’s copyright expiration had had something to do with it not being seen, and Sinatra made sure that didn’t happen with the other. On the other hand, I myself had seen “Candidate” on NBC some years after the JFK assassination (nowhere near as late as 1975, however), and therefore knew something wasn’t quite right (at the least) about that story. We still don’t know why it wasn’t seen anywhere for well over a decade, unfortunately. Maybe we never will (Sinatra not knowing he had the rights didn’t stop the two telecasts indicated, after all, and the late 80s theatrical reissue was made feasible only by the fact that the film hadn’t been seen at all for years).

By: Stereotypea

Stereotypea — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:00:25 +0000

That is sooo very odd about the nun. I live in Woodbury, which is the next town over from Bethlehem, so I’ve passed that Abbey a thousand times. Small world…huh…

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:25:02 +0000

I’ve heard that, too, R, but only as a “he suppressed BOTH films” type deal.

If I ever get anything definitive on what the deal was with Suddenly, I’ll run that, too!