Welcome to Public Domain Theater, your home for the wonderful world of films that have (in the United States, at least) fallen into the public domain, and are free for everyone to see!

Here on the good ol’ PDT, we usually stick to the first half of the 20th Century, when most public domain films are from. But on occasion, we can offer you something marginally closer to “modern”. Movies made at a time when film techniques were making some radical shifts, and when the Production Code that censored American films ceased to be a thing (and boy did filmmakers revel in that newfound freedom).

Yes, this month’s film comes to you from hip and swingin’ 1970’s. And what could be more 70’s than a kung-fu/blaxploitation picture? It’s TNT Jackson, the saga of a woman (trained in the martial arts, natch) who goes to Hong Kong investigating their brother’s death, and winds up embroiled in a war between drug lords (who also know martial arts, natch).

Filled with brutal violence, profanity, and gratuitous nudity (including our lady TNT doing a whole fight scene naked), it’s more Not Safe For Work than our usual offerings, but a fun example of 1970’s sleaze pictures.

Here’s where I’d normally segue into how our opening short relates to the feature film in some way … but this one really doesn’t. It’s just a classic Looney Tunes cartoon, “Puss n’ Booty”, about a housecat repeatedly trying to eat a pet canary, in what was clearly a trial run for the Tweety & Sylvester cartoons that followed. No connection to kung fu or blaxploitation cinema, just cute little short I thought was funny.

So whichever sort of picture you might be in for, you can find them both right here on Public Domain Theater!

Opening Cartoon:

Feature Presentation:
Watch at Archive.org
(There’s a YouTube version, but twenty ad breaks for a 70 minute film felt excessive.)