BY MICHAEL CHARLES
In
1975 Stuart Young returned to New York City after graduating from Boston’s
Emerson College with a degree in Mass Communications to begin his career in
show business. Time Warner had just begun laying cable throughout Manhattan and
Young saw an opportunity to produce a show that would air weekly on Public
Access TV and address a growing population of new viewers. The program was
called Inside The Naked City and took a point of view look at nightclubs,
restaurants and social events that were taking place at the time. Through a
mutual friend he was introduced to Herb Graff, the man who would become his
mentor and ultimately change the path his career would take. Monday through
Friday from 9 to 5 Herb was head of sales for the Arrow Shirt Company but that
was just a way to pay for his fulltime passion and hobby…film collecting. In
partnership with critic Leonard Maltin and cinephile Gene Stavis he operated
Film Mavens, a stock footage company specializing in vintage motion pictures.
Additionally he lectured and created thematic evenings around his vast film
collection and invited Young and his crew to attend and shoot one of them. It
was a tribute to Myrna Loy at the Waldorf Astoria and Young, a longtime fan of
the actress and her work in the Thin Man series for MGM, jumped at the
opportunity. That evening would mark the beginning of a lifelong friendship
between the two men and a new direction for both of them.
Herb
was an expert in “public domain†footage which was a way of utilizing and
selling material which had either never been copyrighted or had become free and
clear due to either lack of renewal or disinterest by the original owners. His
collection and expertise spanned from the late 1800s to the early 1950s and
stayed locked in that period.
“As
I was a baby boomerâ€, remembers Young, “I was interested in movies from the
fifties and sixties and asked Herb about adding them to the collection. He
laughed derisively and told me to go out and find my own, which I did, and thus
a business and a website was born.â€
Young
then began actively looking for his own special interest films. “The very first
16mm print I bought was from a young collector whom Herb put me in touch with.
I have always had a great fondness for Jayne Mansfield and he sold me a black
& white version of Too Hot to Handle, as it was originally called when
distributed in England. It would later be distributed in the United States with
the more salacious title Playgirl After Dark and was a great find for me at the
time and to this day as I am still selling it both online and in retail stores
via by distributor Allied Vaughn.â€
As
he began researching more titles and hired someone to go directly to the
Library of Congress to determine copyright statuses, he found more and more
movies he considered “orphans†and doggedly searched for existing prints all
over the United States to add to his “orphanage.†Since there was generally no
afterlife for movies during the fifties and sixties in a world where home video,
cable and satellite TV were not yet commercial realities, once a film finished
its theatrical run that was the end of its life cycle. Producers and
distributors, especially those in foreign markets, chose not to waste money on
copyrighting and storing a print in the Library of Congress, and Young
literally found a pot of gold at the end of his personal rainbow.
Says
Young, “I was an avid follower of the ongoing series which appeared in Playboy
Magazine, The History Of Sex In The Cinema written by Arthur Knight and Hollis
Alpert, and those men handed me a virtual map to the treasures I was looking
for.â€
Under
the original umbrella title package Sex Sirens Of Cinema, he put together a
catalogue of notable legendary ladies who had captured the erotic imaginations
of many an admirer such as himself during their heyday. Sophia Loren, Mamie Van
Doren, Brigitte Bardot, Ann-Margret, Raquel Welch, Elke Sommer, Claudia
Cardinale, and Gina Lollobrigida were among the original stars of the movies he
bought, transferred to video, and sold to a global market of enthusiastic
consumers who were either already familiar with these bombshells of the past or
curious as to who they were and why their appeal continues unabated.
“I
made deals both in the emerging retail and broadcast marketsâ€, continues Young,
“and then the world suddenly discovered the previously secretive world of the
internet known only to the military, and voila, a brand new place to display my
now abundantly endowed orphanage emerged.â€
In
2000 he launched Cinemasirens.com as a free site where fans and consumers could
browse the photo galleries, movie memorabilia, and also purchase the rare,
unique and largely forgotten films which were of interest to a population still
desirous of reliving memories of the past but of no interest to the current
studios and entertainment conglomerates who sell their wares in the here and
now.
Concludes
Young, “When I first opened the site many people including my friends
questioned the decision to populate it mostly with Black & White relics
from the past. They wondered who in the world would buy such stuff! Well, I’ve
sold those relics to both the people who appeared in them, wrote them, produced
them, and couldn’t find them anyplace else and have been doing it for 15 years.
Next to greed, sex is the most powerful force there is when it comes to the
human condition. Add incredibly beautiful and timeless women to the mix and a
decent storyline, and you have the stuff of which dreams and long term
businesses are made of.â€
Written
By Michael Charles.
For
more information visit www.cinemasirens.com.
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