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

Tumbleweeds (1925)

This perennial favorite was William S. Hart’s final film (apart from a small number of later film appearances as himself), another in a long series of formula Westerns that nonetheless delivers the two-gun goods.

Tumbleweeds (1925) is the story of budding love amid the largest land grab in U.S. history. It is about the conflict between pioneering cattle ranchers and the swarm of land-hungry homesteaders. It is also a commentary that laments the progress of modern America and the loss of the 19th century cowboy’s legacy.

Hart is ably supported by love-interest Barbara Bedford (whose film debut was in the 1920 Hart crime drama The Cradle of Courage) and comic-relief Lucien Littlefield as Kentucky Rose.

Tumbleweeds is as formula as they come, yet it is entertaining and is a fitting end to Hart’s extremely successful career as a western film star. The film is fun and lighthearted in the beginning, settling down to the tense dramatic conflict and resolution, and the star’s one last appearance as the two-gun man in the doorway of the Box K Ranch.

— Carl Bennett

This DVD edition has been transferred from a Paul Killiam collection sound rerelease print at sound speed. The print is marked with some scratches, a few splices, and more dust specks than usual. The beginning of a superimposed intertitle visible at 49:50 reveals that the intertitles here are not the originals. The transfer maintains a very good range of greytones, but appears to be a bit overcompressed at times. The dust clouds in the background at 14:40 seem coarsely rendered in playback. The MPEG video compression reveals its undersampled status in several examples of light print decomposition. Generally, the DVD at hand looks much the same as earlier VHS home video editions prepared from the Killiam materials.

The piano music score performed by William Perry is distorted in places since the audio source was the mono optical soundtrack from the Killiam rerelease print. Since the original sound recordings of the Perry performance must exist somewhere in what is now Cohen Media Group’s holdings, the DVD would have benefitted from a new audio transfer from the original recorded masters.

We noted that it is unusual to see a land rush that moves from left to right, seemingly in the wrong direction — psychologically a progress from the west to the east.

This presentation includes William S. Hart’s 1939 sound introduction (and main titles) from the film’s late-thirties rerelease, a turgid affair that records for posterity Hart’s Victorian theatrical modulating vocal delivery. We cherish every melodramatic moment of it. Even with the years that have passed, and the number of other editions that have been produced, we still recommend this DVD edition (until something better comes along).

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.

Like most home video editions of Tumbleweeds, this presentation includes William S. Hart’s 1939 sound introduction (and main titles), synchronized music and sound effects from the film’s late-thirties rerelease.

Note: Our copy of this edition had trouble playing on a Macintosh laptop computer with two separate drives but played OK on all of our reference DVD deck players.

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

This midline DVD edition has been mastered from very-good 16mm reduction print materials of the 1939 rerelease version, with the sound introduction at the beginning of the film. Because the print is the sound rerelease version, the footage runs at the faster sound-speed pace and features the rerelease soundtrack of music and synchronized sound effects.

At times the print is dark and contrasty, with plugged up shadows but leaving highlight detail intact at the brightest end of the greyscale range. The usual amount of light speckling and dust is present in the source materials.

This edition is just watchable and is a greater value with the additional films included on the disc, but the Worldview Entertainment edition above is the best currently available on DVD.

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.

As in the majority of Navarre DVD releases, the source material for the video transfer is a 16mm reduction print, which is soft of image detail, scratched, dusty and other damage. The coarse picture details are a combination of the subpar print and overcompression of the video data. The result is a rough viewing experience.

The film is accompanied by the mono soundtrack from the 1939 rerelease.

We recommend the Image edition above instead of this budget disc.

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.

The film is accompanied by the synchronized music score from its 1939 rerelease.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

The film is likely accompanied by the synchronized music soundtrack from its 1939 rerelease.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from Reelclassicdvd.com through . . .

The film is likely accompanied by the synchronized music soundtrack from its 1939 rerelease.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .