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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Ridin’ Mad
(1924)
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This first-starring role for Yakima Canutt was directed by Jacques Jaccard and features Lorraine Eason, Wilbur McGaugh, Helene Rosson, Annabelle Weenick and Dick La Reno in support.
After some bronc-bustin’, Steve Carlson (Canutt) searches for the bad men who sold bogus oil stock to the now-dead father of his girlfriend, Marion Putman (Eason).
The original five-reel feature is presumed lost. Poverty row producer Bud Pollard acquired the film, cut it down to two reels, and rereleased it with poorly-recorded added dialogue and narration, synchronized music and sound effects. Unfortunately, this is the only surviving version of the film. Pollard occupies a special place in hell for what he did to this film.
— Carl Bennett
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 Grapevine Video
2006 DVD edition
The Silent Western in Two Reels, Volume 1 (1920-1927), black & white and color-tinted black & white, 113 minutes total, not rated, including Ridin’ Mad (1924) [abridged 1931 rerelease version], black & white, 18 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10234-9.
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 5.0 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; 4 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 2006.
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 3 / additional content: 5 / overall: 5.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a 16mm reduction print featuring good to very-good greyscale ranges and image detail. Whether is is the video transfer or the framing of the source print (most likely), the top and left-side of the original picture is cropped off making some of the intertitles hard to read. Intertitles added by rerelease producer Bud Pollard are framed properly. Because the original silent film was reissued as a sound film, the playback frame rate is 24 frames per second running the film’s action at a faster than natural pace.
The film is accompanied by the 1931 rerelease soundtrack of low audio quality. The sound is so bad that it has the audio quality of gramophone records recorded in 1905.
As tough-going as it is, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2018 DVD edition
The Devil Horse (1926), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, with Ridin’ Mad (1924) [1931 two-reel rerelease version], black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 8092D, UPC 0-89218-80929-2.
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 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 19 June 2018.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.
The film is likely accompanied by the 1931 rerelease soundtrack.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .
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Other silent era YAKIMA CANUTT films available on home video.
Other WESTERN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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