• The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, April 9, 2008 10:15 AM

On a handshake deal, Wal-Mart started using a video-production company, Flagler Productions, to capture its corporate meetings and culture in the 1970s. Two years ago, the retailing giant axed the tiny company. Now Flagler is selling clips of its 15,000 Wal-Mart tapes to the outside world to the tune of $250 an hour.

The material is proving irresistible to everyone from business historians and documentary filmmakers to plaintiff's lawyers and union organizers. Unlike the polished presentations delivered at business forums, the videos provide an unvarnished look at Wal-Mart leaders as the corporation grew into one of the world's largest, says Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California at Santa Barbara who has viewed some of the tapes.

Wal-Mart isn't pleased. "It's difficult to understand how the company could now sell to third parties the material we paid it to produce on our behalf," says a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. She adds that the company is "reviewing our legal options."

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