Continental Video

1984 - 1987
Los Angeles, CA
Country
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.

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JSpartan1989 3 years 6 months ago
Description
This outfit also had ties to Cinema Group Home Video. https://vhscollector.com/distributor-library/cinema-group-home-video
Bflocket 3 years 4 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 3 years 4 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 2 years 8 months ago
Description
In turn, I believe Planet Video was the home video division of 21st Century Distribution.
TheBurialGround3 2 years 4 months ago
Description
Yes, Planet was 21st Century's label. After it folded they started licensing titles to Continental.
JSpartan1989 1 year 5 months ago
Description
Furthermore, this outfit, or rather Cinema Group, the parent company, had ties to Overseas FilmGroup too.