Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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Fatty’s
Faithful Fido
(1915)
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This short comedy, directed by Roscoe Arbuckle, stars Roscoe Arbuckle and Minta Durfee, with Al St. John, Frank Hayes, Charles Lakin, Dan Albert, Joe Bordeau and Charley Chase.
Roscoe and Al vie for the affections of Minta on the eve of the big dance ball hosted by the Swift-Foot Athletic Club. Roscoe’s dog, Luke, is there to keep Al in check with a rooftop chase and confrontation.
At the ball, much dancing and jealous rivalry happens with Al hiring a couple of thugs to target Roscoe with their pummeling. Al’s plan goes awry when the sign gets transferred to himself. The fight consumes the entire ball with the requisite Keystone mayhem ensuing.
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 Kino Classics
2025 Blu-ray Disc edition
Wonder Dogs!: Canine Stars of the Silent Era (1897-1928), black & white, color-tinted black & white, color-toned black & white, and color-tinted and color-toned black & white, 477 minutes total, not rated, including Fatty’s Faithful Fido (1915), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated.
Kino Lorber, K27007, UPC 7-38329-27007-0.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc (two BDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in pillarboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) 24 fps progressive scan image encoded in SDR AVC format at 20.4 Mbps average video bit rate; DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 1.6 or 2.0 Mbps audio bit rate (music), and Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate (commentary); English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard two-disc BD keepcase; $39.95.
Release date: 20 May 2025.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 6 / audio: 8 / additional content: 8 / overall: 8.
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This Blu-ray Disc collection has been mastered from an archival 16mm reduction film print held by the Library of Congress that is of good to very-good visual quality. As with other films in this collection, no digital clean-up has been performed on the film to remove the dust, speckling, schmutz, scratches, frame jitters, emulsion scuffing and scrapes, or other print flaws in the scans, leaving the films to appear in their honest survival state. The high-resolution of BD makes attempting to identify cast members easier and is more fun than with older DVD editions.
The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on piano by Shane Prendiville.
Supplemental material includes audio commentaries by the prolific Anthony Slide; interviews with archivists and curators of this collection Lynanne Schweighofer and George Willeman (21 minutes); and an interview with composer Andrew Earle Simpson (12 minutes). By the way, Anthony, the man who is knocked into the water trough that you couldn’t identify is none other than Charley Chase.
This is our recommended home video edition of these films.
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This
Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .
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 Mackinac Media
2005 DVD edition
The Forgotten Films of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle (1913-1932), black & white and color-toned black & white, 625 minutes total, not rated, including Fatty’s Faithful Fido (1915), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated.
Mackinac Media, MM0006D, UPC 6-89076-96352-7.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (four DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 6.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); 36-page insert booklet; double-wide four-disc DVD keepcase; $49.95.
Release date: 24 May 2005.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 5 / audio: 8 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.
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This DVD edition has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print with some of the usual issues associated with the gauge: dust, speckling, frame jitters, exposure fluctuations, and other print flaws. The presentation features restored, video-based intertitles. Ultimately, the combination of DVD’s limited resolution and the older video transfers give a coarser, contrastier picture than that in the Blu-ray Disc edition noted above.
The film is presented with a lively music score composed and performed on piano by Donald Sosin.
Supplemental material includes audio commentary of selected films including Character Studies, A Flirt’s Mistake, Leading Lizzie Astray, Leap Year, The Waiters’ Ball and Wished on Mabel; an image gallery of Arbuckle cartoons drawn by Tom Bertino (16 images); and a 36-page insert booklet with film notes, images and notes on the musical accompaniment.
As of 2008, this four-disc collection is out-of-print and can only be found as a used item. It is well worth the effort.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
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Other silent era ROSCOE ARBUCKLE films available on home video.
Other silent era CHARLEY CHASE films available on home video.
Other KEYSTONE comedy films available on home video.
Other SHORT COMEDY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
Other silent era ANIMAL STARS films available on home video.
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