Scarecrow is about to get a whole lot bigger with over 9,700 titles from a private collection being added to ourlibrary. The new additions come from 90 countries and include genres ranging from the more conventional like Comedies, Dramas, Documentaries, Horror, Science Fiction, Thrillers, Wars and Westerns to ones that have their devoted fans like Anime, Blaxploitation, Bollywood, Cult films, Film Noir, Martial Arts & Samurai, Live Music Performances and Mysteries (aka Whodunits).
In 2023, Scarecrow was approached with an opportunity to purchase as much of a significant private collection as they wanted before it was disbanded. After sifting through tens of thousands of titles, they identified approximately 11,700 that they wanted to obtain – ~2,000 would be upgrades to titles existing in its collection and the remainder would be new additions. With the assistance of a generous supporter, they were able to make this dream a reality.
“We are already bursting at the seams,” Executive Director Kate Barr shares, “but collections like this are extremely rare, so this was an opportunity we just couldn’t pass up.”
The logistics of bringing so many new titles into one of the largest video collections in the world – one that is currently at 149,000+ titles – is enormous. In order to make it more manageable, items will be introduced in smaller chunks in a new section that is being called The Big Score. To kick things off, this section will feature approximately 150 Capers, Whodunits and other crime-themed movies and television shows. Here’s a small sampling of ones that are not available for streaming.
International mystery television series like: THE KETTERING INCIDENT (Australia), THE OUT-LAWS (Belgium), BABYLON (British), NORSKOV (Denmark), THE LAVA FIELD (Iceland) and THE PERFECT INSIDER (Japan - Manga).
Bollywood thrillers and crime movies that are on the lighter side including: OYE LUCKY! LUCKY OYE!, JOLLY LLB, KISMET LOVE PAISA DILLI, KICK, and WELCOME BACK just to name a few.
Movies with some pedigree that we are thrilled to now have in our collection like: ATTENTION BANDITS! (directed by Claude Lelouch), THE HYPNOTIST (directed by Lasse Hallström) and PHANTOM LIGHT (a very early movie for director Michael Powell).
