Raymond Rohauer

[4] Films shown at the Coronet were generally copied illicitly, occasionally to the irritation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City because Rohauer often neglected to remove identifying features present in their prints.

Raymond Rohauer was known for claiming rights to films under dubious pretexts; he pursued court battles over The Birth of a Nation, eventually found to be in the public domain, and other classics.

[4] In some cases, he acquired the rights to stories from the estates of deceased writers, so gaining a hold over The Sheik (1921), produced by Paramount and starring Rudolph Valentino.

Alternatively, he found instances where living writers no longer held the rights to their work, an example being the J.B. Priestley novel Benighted, which was the basis for The Old Dark House (1932), James Whale's Universal horror film that had been thought lost.

[4] According to William K. Everson, he would claim to overseas contacts that he had won libel suits which he had, in fact, lost[4] or accept bookings for silent films which no longer existed.

Rohauer, offering the Buster Keaton silent films and Mack Sennett comedies (which he also claimed to own), deliberately distributed third-rate copies featuring harsh contrast and washed-out details.

[4] Rohauer was involved in the preservation of outtakes from the films of Charlie Chaplin, which were saved after the filmmaker was forced to leave the United States in 1952.

[4] At the time, Rohauer was reported to have died at the St. Luke's–Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, New York City from complications following a heart attack on November 10, 1987.

For the first time in decades, original film materials were consulted, resulting in superior, first-generation video masters for a nationwide, marathon broadcast -- a loss of control unthinkable to Rohauer during his lifetime.