Dear Daniel,
This film was originally produced in Mexico and directed by Hugo
Butler in 1958. Butler worked in Mexico because he was blacklisted in
Hollywood, and was originally credited as "Hugo Mozo" because of that.
The original name of the film is Los Pequeños gigantes. It didn't do
well in the box office, but it was showed twice on NBC in 1960 (as
"The Little Giants") and again in 1961 (as ""How Tall is a Giant").
"A year later the team was in the film "The Little Giants," which
failed to make a dent at the box office but enjoyed good public
reaction when televised twice in 1960 and once in 1961 on NBC (with a
new title, "How Tall Is a Giant?"). " (SOURCE: "Mexico's Babe Ruth",
<http://theomnibus.org/playball/about_excerpts.html>).
The IMDB message board is full of people looking for the film, and it
also has a message of one person claiming to have this film. I suggest
that you'll contact these people first (as their emails/postal
addresses are available on the message board) and ask them whether
this person had sent them a copy of the movie, as he promised to:
Board: Pequeños gigantes, Los (1960)
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051869/board/nest/6111077>
You can also try to contact NBC, to ask about their 1960 and 1961 telecasts
NBC.com
<http://www.nbc.com/nbc/footer/Contact_Us.shtml>
The distributor, Continental Distributing Inc., was a division of
Walter Reade/Sterling (later "Walter Reade Organization"), a larger
"art house" distribution company, which is unfortunately also inactive
since the 1970s. My research on the fate of the company (and films) is
not very encouraging:
- Some Walter Reade assets may belong now to Sony, that bought
Columbia, which bought some WRO assets. This is not very encouraging,
given the inaccessibility of Sony pictures to their customers
(<http://www.sonypictures.com/corp/sonypicturesfaq.html>).
- "Companies like Cinema V and Continental usually contracted for
distribution for a limited number of years, after which the films
reverted to their producers and/or owners." (SOURCE: Cinema Treasures
Forum, <http://cinematreasures.org/theater/6113/>). The producer was a
Mexican company, which was distributed in the US by (again!) Columbia.
- "When I worked for Cineplex the basement was full of Continental
Releasing film prints, Sterling Film 16mm documentaries and other
relics of the Walter Reade era." (CInema Treasures, "34th Street East
Theatre", <http://cinematreasures.org/theater/10459/>).
In addition to that, the newsgroup alt.video.tape-trading
"http://groups.google.com/group/alt.video.tape-trading?hl=en" has
sometimes participants that have rare films, although in this case, I
also found someone else looking for the film (who got no response):
Little Giants 1958
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.video.tape-trading/browse_thread/thread/90773e43b769071e/a6f31756126866cc?q=%22little+giants%22&rnum=1&hl=en#a6f31756126866cc>
There are other mentions of "Little Giants" on the list, but it is not
clear if it is the same film:
Getting shed of my collection
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.video.tape-trading/browse_thread/thread/8240a2f1d7a4dfc3/b99773f3e28c20eb?q=%22little+giants%22&rnum=2&hl=en#b99773f3e28c20eb>
Trade List and Want List
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.video.tape-trading/browse_thread/thread/8c968bfc35a14f56/a925955d810b8cb2?q=%22little+giants%22&rnum=6&hl=en#a925955d810b8cb2>
My list F/S F/T
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.video.tape-trading/browse_thread/thread/374340f0d2312e1/f81667207c884ffb?q=%22little+giants%22&rnum=8&hl=en#f81667207c884ffb>
I hope this answers your question and would provide you some leads
into finding this very rare film. Please contact me if you need any
clarifications on this answer before you rate it. Search terms:
"Walter Reade" -theatre -theater, Producciones Olmeca, "little giants"
"hugo butler", "Continental Distributing", "Walter Reade" -theatre,
"Walter Reade", Waiter Reads Organization, "Waiter Reads
Organization", WRO continental film, WRO film distribution,
WROcontinental Reade-Sterling, Walter Reade-Sterling Inc.) [us], ucla
television library"how tall is a giant", "how tall is a giant" film,
"hwo tall is a giant" film, Pequeños gigantes film, Pequeños gigantes,
"desperate housewives" "second season", "desperate housewives" "second
seasn", "Pequeños gigantes" butler hugo, "Pequeños gigantes" Buñuel,
"Pequeños gigantes" 1960, "Pequeños gigantes" 1961, "Pequeños
gigantes" 1958, Continental Distributing Inc |
