Silent Era : Home Video Reviews

Silent Era Home Page > Home Video > The Outlaw and His Wife

Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved.

The Outlaw
and His Wife
(1918)

This famous feature drama, directed by Victor Sjöström, stars Victor Sjöström and Edith Erastoff, with John Ekman, Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson, Artur Rolén, Nils Aréhn, William Larsson and Sigurd Wallén.

Kino International
2008 DVD edition

The Outlaw and His Wife (1918), color-tinted black & white, color-toned black & white and black & white, 71 minutes, not rated, with Victor Sjöström (1981), color and black & white, 65 minutes, not rated.

Kino International, K598, UPC 7-38329-05982-8.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 6.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 12 chapter stops; 4-page insert booklet; standard DVD keepcase; $29.95.
Release date: 29 July 2008.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 8 / overall: 8.

This DVD edition of one of Victor Sjöström’s best-known films was previously available from Kino on laserdisc and VHS videotape. Its appearance on DVD was too long coming. The source material presents a moderate amount of speckling, emulsion scuffing and chipping, visible splices, frame jitters, and other print flaws. Shadows are a bit too dark with some image details there being lost, and the overall image is a little soft.

The film is presented with an orchestral music score composed and conducted by Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist and performed by the Malmö Symphonic Orchestra. The music is abruptly edited in places.

Supplementary material includes a documentary on Victor Sjöström, directed by Gosta Werner, and featuring comments by Ingmar Bergman.

This edition easily surpasses Kino’s previous home video edition released on laserdisc and VHS videotape, and it is recommended. However, we certainly think that now is the time for a high-definition digital restoration of the film for theatrical and home video viewings.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .