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27. The article concerned a new copyright law
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Richard Fleischer 163 27 Our family was not one that regularly read the business pages of the newspapers, so we all missed an article that would change our lives forever. But Stanley Handman read the Wall Street Journal , and he didn’t miss it. Thank God. The article concerned a new copyright law that Congress had just passed. The old copyright law stated that, if the original author had assigned his rights to a third party (which Paramount did when it sold all the Fleischer cartoons), the copyright would run for twenty-eight years and could be renewed for an additional twenty-eight years. After the second twenty-eight years had expired, the author’s work became public domain and could be used by anyone without either payment or permission of the author. This, of course, was old stuff to Stanley. It was what came next that was a real grabber, a jaw dropper, an eye popper. The new law stated that, if the author hadn’t assigned renewal rights 164 Out of the Inkwell (which Max never did) and was still alive (which Max certainly was), only he had the right to renew. Stanley picked himself up off the floor and read the article two or three more times to make sure that it said what it seemed to say. It did. No third party could renew the almost-expired Betty Boop copyright, whatever rights the party claimed to have. Only the living author, Max, could do that. Stanley raced to the Windermere and gave the news to Max, Essie, and Vera. I can imagine the scene when Stanley read the newspaper article to them. I can imagine it, but not having been there, I can’t describe it. Who could? Who can describe the indescribable ? In timely fashion, Stanley had Max sign the necessary papers . On June 25, 1959, the copyright on Betty Boop was renewed in Max’s name. Thanks to Stanley Handman’s watchful eye, Betty Boop stayed where she belonged: in the loving hands of her creator, Max Fleischer. When Fleischer Studios first started to investigate the possibility of reintroducing Betty Boop to the public, it was quite surprised to find how recognizable and how loved she still was. Her popularity was not much diminished from her heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. There were offers from various companies to “do something” with the character, like creating a new television series or mounting a Broadway musical. However, for one reason or another, all the proposed deals collapsed. Meanwhile, time was not being kind to Max. He never fully [54.204.117.206] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:50 GMT) Richard Fleischer 165 accepted the reality that his case against Paramount was over, so he kept researching legal books and dictating more memos to Vera. It was a sign that changes, cruel changes, were taking place inside his head. Max never left the apartment except to go to one of his doctors. Slowly he began to withdraw within himself. He was speaking less and less. That brilliant, creative, inventive mind was slowing down. With what he had been through, it was a wonder that it had lasted as long as it had. Essie, my mother, was always much more extroverted than Max and given to short bursts of furious temper. A kind of cabin fever was developing. She loved being outdoors, traveling, going places, playing poker with her friends. Now she was all but locked in, taking care of her husband, staring out the windows, looking at the hard, concrete canyons of Manhattan instead of the grounds and gardens of her beloved Miami Beach home. Eventually, she began to talk of suicide , of jumping out one of the windows of their eleventh-floor apartment. She would frighten my sister, Ruth, with hysterical phone calls that, day or night, would bring Ruth in a panic from the other side of town. It was becoming more and more apparent that a retirement home would be the next step. And then the Motion Picture Country House came into our lives. From the time I started directing movies in Hollywood in 1945, I’d heard about the Motion Picture Country House (MPCH). A small percentage of my salary was automatically deducted and donated to it. Almost everyone in the picture business did the same. I knew it was a retirement home meant exclusively for people who worked in the industry in any capac- 166 Out of the Inkwell ity...