Lou Costello : Castle Film Shorts

Castle Film Shorts

In 1951, Abbott and Costello sued Universal Pictures for $5 million, charging among other things, that they had not received an accounting of the money Universal made from the release of edited versions of their films for home movie projectors. In the late forties and early Fifties, Sears Roebuck and other stores sold home movie cameras and projectors for families at Christmas time. Projectors often came with a couple of 15mm films, usually an A&C comedy.Schools and churches also ran them for children at parties and on rainy days when there was no recess. Castle Films had puchsed Universal's library of comedies, westerns and cartoons. When the courts ruled that the evidence did not support the allegations made, Abbott and Costello were forced to apologize.

Re: Castle Film Shorts

I had a couple of them - A&C Meet Frankenstein and A&C Meet Dr. Jekyll &a 16d0 mp; Mr. Hyde. They were 8mm, silent (with a few subtitles) and ran about 10 minutes. I can't remember exactly how much they cost, probably around $10. I had a few Laurel and Hardy's too.

"No! That’s not true at all. Elvis takes fifty percent of everything I earn." Col. Parker

Re: Castle Film Shorts

I bought a lot of 8MM films in the late 1960s, which I still have. The 200' versions ran 9 to 10 minutes and cost about $5. Before VCRs and long before the digital age they were all we had in the way of home video. I loved them.
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