Shotgun Law
PUBLIC DOMAIN FYI
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Bombs over Burma poster
Public Domain

Bombs over Burma

1942 · Producers Releasing Corporation · Dir. Joseph H. Lewis

The film tells the story of Chinese guerrillas fighting for the Allied cause in Burma during Early in World War II, Chungking schoolteacher Lin Yang is recruited to help with the dangerous mission of protecting the Allied supply line from Burma into China. In spite of the danger involved, her determination to help is strengthened when one of her young students is killed in a Japanese air raid. Some time later, she is part of a group of Allied representatives departing from Lashio, on a bus traveling the Burma Road back to China. A bridge outage forces them to spend the night in a monastery along the way, and during the night they watch in horror as a supply convoy of trucks is bombed by Japanese planes. The timing and accuracy of the raid brings them to realize that either one of their group, or perhaps the priest in the monastery, is really an enemy agent

Confidence
95
— Legal Reasoning —

Why this status applies

The film was released in 1942 and registered for copyright by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) on May 11, 1942, with registration number LP11270. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works registered between 1928 and 1963 required a manual renewal filing with the U.S. Copyright Office during the 28th year of their first term to maintain protection for a second term. A thorough search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, the University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page (which hosts the Catalog of Copyright Entries), and Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain (1894-1939 and 1940-1949 volumes) confirms that no renewal was ever filed for this title. PRC, a 'Poverty Row' studio, frequently failed to renew its properties as the company dissolved and its assets were shuffled through various successors like Eagle-Lion and United Artists. Because the copyright was not renewed in 1969 or 1970, the work entered the public domain in the United States upon the expiration of its initial 28-year term. It is currently widely available through public domain distributors and repositories such as the Internet Archive.
— Cited Sources —

Supporting facts

  • Catalog of Copyright Entries 1942, Motion Pictures, Vol 39 Pt 1: 104
  • Stanford University Copyright Renewal Database
  • Hurst, Richard Maurice. Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain (1940-1949)
  • AFI Catalog of Feature Films (1893-1993): Bombs over Burma (1942)

Research summary based on cited sources, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified copyright attorney before commercial use.