Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Easy Virtue (1927)

Early in his directing career — during the silent era years — Alfred Hitchcock made an assortment of films that ran the story-subject gamut, from suspense thrillers to love triangle stories. Most of them barely resembled the kind of films he would later become famous for. It was partially his film studio pressuring for a popular product, and partially it was a young filmmaker exploring style and subject matter.

Of Hitchcock’s surviving silent era films, Easy Virtue is easily the least appealing film in a collection of journeyman efforts. Society dramas can be the most trying of silent era genres. The viewer can feel as though we are to be entertained through voyeurism, peering into the rarified world of the rich and opulent. Part of the fault in Easy Virtue lies with the outdated morality-play sensibilities of the story, part with the unappealing casting of the mannish Isabel Jeans in the lead role. Jeans looks every bit — in dress and countenance — like Jack Lemmon in his drag performance from Some Like It Hot (1959). We kid you not.

A woman poses for an oil portrait in an artist’s studio — foretelling the artist’s studio disaster of Blackmail (1929). Her rich but bored and drunken lout of a husband behaves loutishly. The woman is discovered by her husband in the arms of the sympathetic but poor artist. A struggle ensues! A gun appears! The artist shoots the drunken, jealous husband (probably just for having the foppish name Aubrey Filton). Scandal! The rich Filton shot by his wife’s lover in an artist’s studio! Oh, that degenerate den of debauchery frequented by those of debased morals. Oh, that adulterous, hedonistic Filton woman — she-devil temptress of inexorable sin!

An investigation follows. The husband survives. A divorce is brought to court. Larita Filton’s tragic downfall is played out in full in the courtroom for the press to scandalize and the public to salaciously savor. And of course Larita — almost saintlike — sadly endures the slings and arrows of the rabble, both those of high and low standing. Almost Greek tragedy, isn’t it?

Larita escapes to the south of France (apparently still well-to-do after the scandalous divorce) to forget all, only to meet a wonderful (and young) British man of fine standing, John Whittaker. Their whirlwind romance turns to marriage. It’s back home to England and mother! And mommy is a prototypical ringer for Madame Sebastian in Notorious (1946) and Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (1940). The results are tragically predictable. Mother Whittaker asks her son, “John — who is this woman you have pitchforked into the family?”

Larita’s past threatens to scandalize the Whittaker family and John hasn’t the backbone to oppose his mother. Father Whittaker is only there is be withered by a single glance from his wife. The mother stands, like a single-headed Cerberus, guarding the gates of her monied family’s secret hell from gossip and scandal. Larita suffers, and so do we. After more than an hour of this, the film’s ending is both abrupt and merciful for the viewer.

Unfortunate for today’s audiences, the film appears to have only survived in 16mm reduction prints of poor visual quality.

— Carl Bennett

Mysteriously, the film is presented without an accompanying soundtrack of any sort. This can make drudging through the substandard surviving print material an even more challenging task.

Supplementary material includes an introduction (in French with no English subtitles) to the Elephant Films releases of restored Hitchcock films (and other filmmakers) by Jean-Pierre Dionnet (5 minutes); an examination of Hitchcock and his nine silent films (in French with no English subtitles) by Jean-Pierre Dionnet (9 minutes); a profile of Hitchcock and his silent films (in English with optional French subtitles) (24 minutes); and a virtually worthless photo gallery (2 images).

North American collectors will need a region-free Blu-ray Disc / PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition from Amazon.com. Purchase supports Silent Era.
France: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition from Amazon.fr. Purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk.

Just because we are of a suspicious sort, we also are willing to hazard a guess that the film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings. Meh.

We cannot recommend this Blu-ray Disc edition of Easy Virtue sight unseen. We also note that the edition’s packaging states that the video signal is in the PAL television format rather than in an AVC (MPEG-4) format, which is common on BD. (Is that possible?) That would mean that North American collectors will need a region-free PAL Blu-ray Disc player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC PAL Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC PAL Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

This DVD edition has been mastered from the 2012 BFI restoration that conflated incomplete 16mm prints held by the Museum of Modern Art and the British Film Institute. Collectors now have a clearer 1080p edition of the contrasty and soft image details of substandard reduction prints. The moving image is flat with gray blacks and flat enough to hold what little image details remain in the contrasty source materials. Intertitles have been restored to a clean but stark black & white compared to the grey motion picture. Of note is the significantly shorter running time of 67 minutes as compared to the DVD editions listed below that tend to run approximately 80 minutes.

Mysteriously, the film is presented without an accompanying soundtrack of any sort. This can make drudging through the substandard surviving print material an even more challenging task.

Supplementary material includes an introduction (in French with no English subtitles) to the Elephant Films releases of restored Hitchcock films (and other filmmakers) by Jean-Pierre Dionnet (5 minutes); an examination of Hitchcock and his nine silent films (in French with no English subtitles) by Jean-Pierre Dionnet (9 minutes); a profile of Hitchcock and his silent films (in English with optional French subtitles) (24 minutes); and a virtually worthless photo gallery (2 images).

This is our recommended DVD home video edition of the film. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
France: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.fr. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Purchase supports Silent Era.

This budget DVD edition has been transferred from a contrasty 16mm reduction print, but turning down the contrast level of your TV monitor can help hold highlight details a bit. The print utilized is a few dupes away from an original, being both grainy and soft of detail. And grainy silent films running at less than 24 frames per second can be a challenge for MPEG-2 video compression. A discerning eye can detect compression artifacts in the middle to light greytones of the picture, and a freeze frame is a horror on an HD monitor. The print is marked by light scratches, scuffing, dust and speckling. But, that being said, this DVD is the best-looking of three home video editions of Easy Virtue we have seen. Most of the intertitles are easy to read and are framed properly. A better source print would reveal if it is indeed Alfred Hitchcock standing and leaving the courtroom gallery after the divorce verdict is read, 18 minutes into the film.

The canned orchestral music soundtrack is, like the other silent Hitchcock DVDs from Laserlight, reasonably selected from tape and LP record sources.

While this DVD is far from an ideal edition, it is a welcome improvement over previous VHS editions of Easy Virtue. The accompanying edition of Blackmail appears to be transferred from a tightly-cropped 35mm print, marked with some light speckling. For the money, this edition of Blackmail is acceptable for most collectors. We recommend the DVD, with the understanding that this substandard Easy Virtue is the best that we have viewed available on home video until a better edition is released.

Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
LASERLIGHT DIGITAL has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

This PAL DVD edition of Easy Virtue is every bit as bad as myriad other home video editions. It is virtually the same subpar video transfer of the subpar reduction print materials that have been utilized for the other home video editions listed below. This edition has been made even worse by a “Screen Gems” diamond logo placed in the upper right corner of the picture throughout the film presentation. This is done to discourage pirated copies but since it is likely this edition was pirated from another, earlier crappy edition, this precaution is ludicrous and only serves to annoy collectors who don’t want the logo there at all.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting orchestral recordings taken from scratchy LPs.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

Germany: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.de. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

This inexpensive three-disc DVD edition has been mastered from 16mm reduction prints and there are no surprises. This is as awful as other home video editions. It can be noted that this is the USA release version of the Archive DVD edition noted above, with both discs manufactured in the EU.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting orchestral recordings taken from scratchy LPs.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This DVD edition has been transferred from a good to very-good 16mm reduction print.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This DVD edition has lifted from the Laserlight/Delta editions reviewed above, video transfer, music and all. There is no improvement in quality of presentation with this edition, other than a barely perceptible smoothing of the coarseness present in the previous editions.

With this edition is of similar quality to those above, this collection may be of interest due to the number of films in it.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This budget DVD edition has been transferred from a 16mm reduction print and the results are about the same of all cheap editions of the films mastered from the same source material — good, at best. Several sections of the film have blasted-out highlights and plugged-up shadows. This is yet another repackaging of substandard material from yet another substandard home video company.

Of course, the film is presented with a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

The supplementary material includes a ‘documentary’ The Story of Alfred Hitchock in 16:9 widescreen (22 minutes) and a collection of Hitchcock film trailers (39 minutes).

Until a high-quality home video edition of the film is released, a collector has a toss-up choice as to which edition is worth buying. They’re all about the same.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This budget DVD edition has been mastered from the same readily-available contrasty and blurry video transfer from the same low-quality 16mm reduction print, with the same canned musical accompaniment, utilized for as the Laserlight/Delta and Brentwood editions noted above. Is there to be no decent home video edition of this film — laughable as it is — available to Hitchcock collectors?

The disc is so cheaply manufactured it does not play in all DVD players. We do not recommend this edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The people at Laserlight obviously didn’t know that these “Hollywood Classics” were produced in England.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
LASERLIGHT DIGITAL has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

More of the same substandard stuff.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
DELTA ENTERTAINMENT has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

More of the same substandard stuff.

DELTA ENTERTAINMENT has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Of course, the tone of the packaging has nothing to do with the tenor of the film. But we have noted that this edition’s packaging features nearly the same artwork as for the DVD menus of the Miracle Pictures edition reviewed above, indicating a slimy dog disregard for any extra creative effort.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

As with many of these cheap editions noted above, this disc is not recommended. Someone, at some time, will produce a high-quality home video edition of the film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Other BRITISH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.