Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
|
The
Toy Shop
(1928)
|
The Toy Shop (1928), a Technicolor short film from Tiffany-Stahl with a synchronized music and sound effects track, features Josef Swickard and child actress Virginia Marshall.
|
 Flicker Alley
2003 DVD edition
The Garden of Eden (1928), black & white, 78 minutes, not rated, with Hollywood the Unusual (1927), color-toned black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, and The Toy Shop (1928), color, 9 minutes, not rated.
Flicker Alley, unknown catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 1 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 ? 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 subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $29.95.
Release date: 22 April 2003.
Country of origin: USA
|
|
This DVD edition is presented from a good to very-good color 35mm source print that of similar quality to other surviving Technicolor films.
The RCA Photophone soundtrack is consistent with other tracks of the time, good with some pops, crackles, and dynamic distortion.
Supplementary material includes a collection of lobby cards, cast bios, newspaper ads, promotional materials and stories, and suggested promotional schemes from the 1928 press book; production stills from the estate of director Lewis Milestone (10 images); a section “Color in The Garden of Eden,” which covers the presumed lost Technicolor dream sequence that was originally in 1928 prints and includes more exerpts from the 1928 press book and also seven stills from the sequence. For our reviews of the supplemental films, see our The Toy Shop on home video and Hollywood the Unusual on home video pages.
This is our recommended DVD home video edition of the film.
|
This
Region 1 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
|
|
|
 Flicker Alley
2002 DVD edition
The Garden of Eden (1928), black & white, 78 minutes, not rated, with Hollywood the Unusual (1927), color-toned black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, and The Toy Shop (1928), color, 9 minutes, not rated.
Flicker Alley, FA0001, UPC 8-03120-00222-6.
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 4.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 2 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $22.95 (reduced to $19.95).
Release date: 6 November 2002.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 4 / additional content: 8 / overall: 4.
|
This short Technicolor film is presented from a good to very-good color 35mm source print that of similar quality to other surviving Technicolor films, and that is that some scenes have extremely dark shadows and image detail is blurry and color slightly smeary. There are some vertical scratches throughout the film and splices at the end.
The RCA Photophone soundtrack is consistent with other tracks of the time, good with some pops, crackles, and dynamic distortion.
The print was supplied by the Library of Moving Images and the transfer sports a persistent LMI logo in white type in the lower right-hand corner. Since the video sources on a DVD are usually protected against unauthorized copying by digital encryption scheme, the logo identifying LMI’s prints are unnecessary and are annoyingly intrusive. Source print credits after the end of the films and in the disc’s packaging should be enough promotion to suit LMI — the logos do not belong in the video transfers.
We certainly welcome the future efforts of this new home video company — especially if they will be bringing more generally-unknown, quality silent era films to the home video market.
|
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
|
|
|
|
Other TECHNICOLOR FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
|
