1 Total Image(s)
Distributor: Continental Video

1984 - 1987
Los Angeles, CA
Country
United States
63 Releases in Db

Statistics

Formats
Packaging
Release Year

History and Information

History / Information

The company began in early 1984 as a collaboration between the father and son duo, Jack and Jim Silverman. Jack Silverman at this time was most famous for being the former president of the largest videocassette distributor/wholesaler in the country at the time, Commtron. Their first titles are released on June 15th, 1984.

Related Distributors3

Planet Video
Similar logo, many of the same titles. A likely precursor to Continental Video.
11
Comet Video
A sub-label of Continental Video.
5
Cinema Group
Parent company.
3

Comments 7

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JSpartan1989 5 years 11 months ago
Description
This outfit also had ties to Cinema Group Home Video. https://vhscollector.com/distributor-library/cinema-group-home-video
Bflocket 5 years 9 months ago
Description
They started in 1984, I'm pretty sure with Tilt (#1001), some movie about Brooke Shields playing pinball. I've never seen a #1000 anywhere, but I know that in some promo stuff, a kit that was a few copies of a few movies in a display thingie like they'd have up at video store check-outs had their own catalog numbers. They had an easy to understand numbering system, just going up a number with each subsequent release.
It was the same with their "distributed by" releases - Comet Video #2000+, Cinema Kid #3000+, VCL #4000+, Summit International #5000+, Virgin Video #6000+, Norstar 7000+, etc. "Continental Video`" became "Continental Video - a division of Cinema Group" sometime in 1985, I think with Desperate Living (#1051). They went from big boxes to slipcases with Born American (#1085) sometime in 1986. They switched over to "Cinema Group Home Video" sometime in 1987 with Starship (#1100). But I've seen promo posters/memorabilia with Starship where it's touted to be from Continental but I've never seen any actual tapes marked like that. CGHV re-released a lot of the Continental releases using the old catalog numbers, but their new releases didn't follow the simple numbering habits. And a few of their child labels changed names at some point. I don't know about the real company ownership details, but CGHV kind of morphed into "New Star Video" and "Palisades Entertainment." A few of the movies were eventually released as small box "Magnum Entertainment" releases.
Bflocket 5 years 9 months ago
Description
They either had some kind of ties with "21st Century Distribution Corp" (usually cheap horror/trash/grindhouse movies) or just bought a big lot of their movies to release. "Planet Video" must've done the same thing since Continental re-released a lot (but not all) Planet titles. They gave some of them new names.
JSpartan1989 5 years 1 month ago
Description
In turn, I believe Planet Video was the home video division of 21st Century Distribution.
TheBurialGround3 4 years 9 months ago
Description
Yes, Planet was 21st Century's label. After it folded they started licensing titles to Continental.
JSpartan1989 3 years 10 months ago
Description
Furthermore, this outfit, or rather Cinema Group, the parent company, had ties to Overseas FilmGroup too.
WizardUniciorn… 10 months ago
Description
Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever claimed that they release a film called The Barking Dog. I think the earliest edition I got from the library was 1990 or 1991, so long after it would have been possible to contact the company. I think it was a plagairsm detector. I contacted the editor of Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever over LinkedIn some years back to ask if this was the case, but I never got a reply.