Is The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947) public domain?

The copyright record for this film, written out in full so you can check it.

Public domain in the United States

What is usually said

Public domain, never renewed. Also circulates as the shorter re-edit, Mad Wednesday.

The finding, and the working behind it

Public domain in the United States: no renewal in any volume from 1957 to 1978, under either title or any of the three claimants, and no renewal record after 1978.

Preston Sturges directed it and Harold Lloyd stars, in his last film. Howard Hughes cut it down to about 79 minutes in 1950 and reissued it as Mad Wednesday, so two versions circulate and the renewal had to be searched under both names.

Nothing was found in any renewal volume from 1957 through 1978, under either title or under California Pictures, Hughes or Sturges. The online catalog, which covers 1978 onward, holds no renewal record for either title either.

The copy the save pass examined is the 1947 original rather than the re-edit: its opening card reads “California Pictures Corporation presents … The Sin of Harold Diddlebock”, and it runs about 90 minutes against Mad Wednesday’s 79.

The register, as it stands

Titles searched: The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, and the 1950 re-edit Mad Wednesday
Claimants searched: California Pictures, Hughes, Sturges
Renewal found: none, in print or online
Searched: 2026-09-19

How to check this yourself

Everything above is drawn from public records. None of it requires our word:

The Catalog of Copyright Entries, the Copyright Office’s printed registration and renewal volumes, scanned and searchable at the Internet Archive and at the Online Books Page. Registration numbers beginning LP or MP are film entries.
The Copyright Office online records at copyright.gov, which are complete from 1978 and therefore decisive for any renewal that fell due from then on.
The NFPF Field Guide to Sponsored Films, for the industrial and educational titles, which records copyright status entry by entry.

Where these numbers came from

Catalog of Copyright Entries, Motion Pictures renewal sections, 1957 through 1978.
Copyright Office online records, 1978 onward, searched under both titles.

What this does and does not mean

This is a finding about United States copyright, made in good faith from the public record. Copyright terms differ by country, and a film in the public domain here may still be protected elsewhere.

A negative search proves that no record was found, which is not identical to proving that no record exists. The Copyright Office says as much about its own catalogs. Where a search could not be decisive we say so above rather than rounding it up to certainty.

This is a record of research and not legal advice. If you hold a right in this film, or you think we have read the record wrong, write to [email protected] with what we missed and we will correct it here.

Why we did this research

Establishing what may be published is the first step before restoring a film and writing an audio description for it. That is what this site is for, and we do the same work on commission — audio description and captioning, with published rates.