Nightmare

The film 'Nightmare', directed by Maxwell Shane and starring Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy, was released in the United States in May 1956. As a US-produced film released between 1928 and 1963, its copyright protection was contingent upon a valid renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during the 28th year of its first term. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal registration for this motion picture. The original registration was filed by Pine-Thomas Productions on May 10, 1956 (LP6543). To remain protected, a renewal should have been filed in 1983 or 1984; however, no such record exists. Consequently, the film entered the public domain upon the expiration of its first 28-year term. The film's public domain status is widely recognized in the industry; it has been released on home video by numerous public domain distributors including Alpha Video and Digiview Entertainment. It is also available for unrestricted download on the Internet Archive. The film is a remake of the 1942 film 'Fear in the Night', which Maxwell Shane also directed.