Blackhawk Films

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Blackhawk Films, from the 1950s through the early 1980s, marketed motion pictures on 16mm, 8mm and Super 8 mm film. The majority of their titles were one reel or two reel vintage short subjects, usually comedies starring Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and other famous comedy series of the past. The Blackhawk catalog also included vintage newsreels, documentaries and classic silent feature films. With the rise of the video market in the early 1980s, Blackhawk began producing video versions of many of their titles in 1981 and within a few years no longer manufactured film copies. The company was later purchased by Republic Pictures.

[edit] History of Blackhawk Films

The Blackhawk Films library was founded in 1927 by Kent D. Eastin, who made movie ads for merchants, filmed local news events for theater newsreels and sold independent 35mm theatrical film prints for home projectors of the day. Eastin worked from his parents’ home in Galesburg, Illinois. With the advent of 16mm sound film in 1934, Eastin moved his company to Davenport, Iowa, operating a rental library until 1957 when business slowed due to television. Davenport was also home to the Victor Animatograph Corporation, a pioneer motion picture equipment manufacturer.

With a background in direct mail and management, Martin D. Phelan left Montgomery Ward to become Eastin's business partner in 1947. The Blackhawk name was first used for a secondary business, liquidating stocks of used 16mm prints from British Information Services, Mills Panoram Soundies and other libraries and producers. Blackhawk began publishing monthly catalogs in 1949. More than 2,500,000 used films were sold by mail order before this business was discontinued in 1981.

In 1952, Blackhawk introduced its own releases in both 8mm and 16mm. Included in this "Collector Series" were Laurel and Hardy silents from Hal Roach Studios, authorized editions of Keystone comedies licensed by Sennett’s original backer, Roy Aitken and a grouping of railroad films.

Boasting up to 18 new releases every month, an in-house film restoration facility as good as any owned by film archives, and more than 90 employees working in a picturesque century-old building of roughly 30,000 square feet, Blackhawk grew to dominate the home movie field with a base of 125,000 customers. Fox Movietone News, Killiam Shows and National Telefilm Associates joined Hal Roach as important suppliers for film releases.

David Shepard, the present owner of the Blackhawk Library, was employed by Eastin-Phelan during these years. He began working closely with Eastin from the American Film Institute in the late 1960s to ensure permanent preservation of Blackhawk’s unique original films at the Library of Congress. He joined the organization in 1973, becoming vice president.

In 1975, Eastin and Phelan sold Blackhawk to Lee Enterprises, a successful newspaper and broadcasting conglomerate. Basic decisions to emphasize mail order sales instead of unique product line and heavy investments in the Betamax and CED (RCA mechanical video disc) formats proved very costly. Lee Enterprises sold the company to its Blackhawk management team, who continued until 1985 when Republic Pictures bought the company. Republic discontinued film sales and closed the Davenport facility in 1987.

Shepard is now owner of Film Preservation Associates, specializing in restoration of silent film classics. Shepard started FPA with the purchase of the Blackhawk film library.