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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The Poor Fish
(1924)
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This short comedy, directed by Leo McCarey, stars Charley Chase and Beth Darlington, with Sammy Brooks, ‘Tonnage’ Martin Wolfkeil, Jules Mendel, Olive Borden, William Gillespie and Katherine Grant.
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 All Day Entertainment
2009 DVD edition
Becoming Charley Chase (1915-1926), black & white and color-toned black & white, 460 minutes total, not rated, including The Poor Fish (1924), black & white, 10 minutes, not rated.
All Day Entertainment, distributed by VCI Entertainment,
8562, UPC 0-89859-85622-8, ISBN 1-55739-587-X.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (four DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame and windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.2 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; chapter stops; standard four-disc DVD keepcase; $39.99.
Release date: 28 July 2009.
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 but constrasty 16mm reduction print, which has the requisite amount of dust, speckling, schmutz, filmbase shrinkage and cupping, and other print flaws.
The film is accompanied by a music score composed by Andrew Earle Simpson and performed by the Snark Ensemble.
Supplemental material includes audio commentary for the film by Ben Model, Bruce Lawton and Yair Solan.
This is our recommended home video edition of the film, but it is hard-to-find these days even as a used item.
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ALL DAY ENTERTAINMENT has discontinued disc sales
and this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition is . . .
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 Alpha Video
2016 DVD edition
Charley Chase Rarities (1915-1926), black & white, 90 minutes total, not rated, including The Poor Fish (1924), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7862D, UPC 0-89218-78629-6.
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 3.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised again to $9.99).
Release date: 27 September 2016.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 3 / overall: 3.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a poor VHS videotape transferred from a fair 16mm reduction print that is quite contrasty in places. As would be expected, the picture is full of analog videotape artifacts including shadow ghosting to the right of white picture elements and residual picture interlacing and compression artifacts that cannot be totally removed by HD systems capable of progressive scan upscaling. Compared to other home video editions, this is one of the worst-looking examples among them.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .
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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.
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