Commons:Deletion requests/File:Charade (1963).webm
I really hate to say it because this has been a longstanding "newer" film at Commons, but while this film itself does not appear to have received renewal, the short story it was based on ("The Unsuspecting Wife" from 1961) was renewed, effectively rendering this film unable to be considered public-domain until 2057 (when it no longer has the weight of the copyrighted short story behind it). Evidence from the US Copyright Database (public domain because USGov):
Type of Work: Serial
Registration Number / Date: RE0000454442 / 1989-12-20
Renewal registration for: BB0000018113 / 1961-06-22
Title: The Unsuspecting wife; story. By Peter Stone.
Appears in: Redbook magazine, July 1961
Copyright Claimant: Peter Stone (A)
Variant title: The Unsuspecting wife
Names: Stone, Peter
PseudoSkull (talk) 23:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Keep This actually goes the other way as explained in the Wikipedia article : "When screenwriters Peter Stone and Marc Behm submitted their script The Unsuspecting Wife around Hollywood, they were unable to sell it. Stone then turned it into a novel, retitled Charade, which found a publisher and was serialized in Redbook magazine, as many novels were at the time. The series caught the attention of the same Hollywood companies that had passed on it earlier. The film rights were quickly sold to producer/director Stanley Donen. Stone then wrote the final shooting script, tailored to Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, with Behm receiving story co-credit." See also Nancy Nelson's Evenings with Cary Grant, p. 243 : "Stone and Marc Behm had tailored an original screenplay called The Unsuspecting Wife for Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Unable to sell it. Stone had turned it into a novel and renamed it Charade. After it appeared in Redbook magazine, Stanley Donen bought it, and Stone had a chance to realize his original conception". For the record, the serialized novel, dedicated to Behm, is slightly different from the film script by Behm and Stone dated July 12, 1962 [1]. In any case, the key point, as far as copyright is concerned, is that Donen's production company had acquired the rights to the novel. — Racconish 💬 08:46, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
- @Racconish: So is the original conception of "The Unsuspecting Wife" completely out of the question for this film? I don't know the exact court case to point to, but I believe there's a concept in American law about origins of works being enough to claim copyright on derivatives. So, if the novel Charade was based on "The Unsuspecting Wife", I guess wouldn't that mean the novel Charade is copyrighted by extension even if Charade wasn't renewed? And if the film is based on the novel, doesn't that cycle just continue, like a domino effect? PseudoSkull (talk) 09:48, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
- I'm also gonna ping @Lizardcreator: because they were the ones at Wikisource who put this whole situation in the back of my mind, with this diff at Wikisource. PseudoSkull (talk) 09:51, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
- You can also refer to the commentary of the film by Stanley Donen and Peter Stone, recorded in 2004 for the Criterion DVD release of the film, where Stone tells the story between 4'42'' and 5'42'': "This picture was not really based on a book. There was a book based on an original screenplay etc." [2] — Racconish 💬 10:52, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Kept: as per Racconish. --Yann (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2022 (UTC)