Historic Films Now Representing the Ira Gallen Archive
/Since 1972, Ira Gallen has resurrected and preserved tens of thousands of rare vintage television commercials, children's tv shows, Hollywood outtakes and one of a kind television programs. Historic Films has embarked on a multi year project of cataloging, archiving, scanning and making available many hours from the Gallen collection for clip licensing as well as developing programing for streaming and other commercial distribution.
For 25 years Gallen hosted the pioneering New York City public access program Biograph Days, Biograph Nights, presenting his rare footage to millions of nostalgia hungry baby boomers. He's worked alongside filmmakers such as Sidney Pollack, John Schlesinger, Michael Winner, J. Lee Thompson, Gil Cates, Dino De Laurentiis, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman and Fred Astaire. He filmed rare footage on the sets of classic films such as Death Wish, Three Days of the Condor, Summer Wishes Winter Dreams, Marathon Man, Shaft's Big Score, Kramer vs Kramer, Rocky II, Man in a Santa Claus Suit, Gumball Rally, and more.
In 1998 Gallen’s archives were tapped into by a then-fledgling start-up search engine (now called Google) to attract more viewership. Gallen continues to enable Boomers to relive their childhoods through rare footage offered for viewing on his TV DAYS website.