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

The
Strong Man
(1926)

This early Frank Capra comedy is our personal favorite among Harry Langdon’s films.

Kino on Video
2000 DVD edition

Harry Langdon . . . the Forgotten Clown (1926-1927), color-toned black & white, 196 minutes total, not rated, including The Strong Man (1926), color-toned black & white, 76 minutes, not rated.

Kino International, K173, UPC 7-38329-01732-3.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 1 NTSC DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 5.0 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 foreign language subtitles; 12 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $39.95 (reduced to $29.95).
Release date: 2000 (rereleased 2 September 2003).
Country of origin: USA •

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 5 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.

This DVD edition of The Strong Man, produced by David Shepard, has been mastered from an excellent 35mm print, which is nearly free of dust and speckling, and features a broad range of greytones. It is one of the best-looking prints we have seen, but we are not as happy with the windowboxed natural-speed video transfer. While the picture looks great on standard televisions, viewing the disc on a high-definition system capable of upconverting an NTSC signal to a 1080-line progressive-scan HD signal only shows that the analog transfer isn’t as sharp as it could be and reveals a bit of red fringing on the right side of highlights and intertitles type.

The film is accompanied by a well-composed music score by Eric Beheim performed on annoying synthesizers. — Sigh. — How about Carl Davis instead?

This edition of The Strong Man is recommended as is, but we would love to see a new high-definition video transfer of this great-looking source material, coupled with new music, released on Blu-ray Disc.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Mr. Fat W
2017 DVD edition

The Strong Man (1926), black & white, 77 minutes, not rated.

Mr. Fat W, no catalog number, UPC 1-91091-50900-5.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R 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 ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $19.95.
Release date: 19 September 2017.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.

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

Not recommended but this may be the only home video edition of the film left in-print.

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

Other silent era HARRY LANGDON films available on home video.

Other silent era FRANK CAPRA films available on home video.

Other WORLD WAR I FILMS of the silent era available on home video.

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