A Mad House

The film 'A Mad House' (1934), starring Slim Summerville and ZaSu Pitts, was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on February 6, 1934. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a copyright renewal filing during the 28th year of their first term to maintain protection. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries for the years 1961 and 1962 (the 27th and 28th years following the 1934 registration) shows no record of a renewal for this title. While some Universal shorts and features from this era were diligently renewed, many comedy shorts and minor releases were allowed to lapse into the public domain. Because no renewal was filed, the copyright expired at the end of its first 28-year term in 1962. The film is now consistently identified in comprehensive reference works, such as the Hurst/Baer 'Film Superlist', as being in the public domain due to non-renewal.