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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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The Sign of
the Claw
(1926)

This adventure drama, directed by B. Reeves Eason, stars Edward Hearn and Ethel Shannon, with Peter the Great (the dog), Joe Bennett and Lee Shumway.

With a daring rooftop chase we are introduced to Peter the Great as he pursues criminals with Officer Bob Conway (Hearn) close behind. During a comically undercranked fight scene Officer Bob is conked on the head and the thugs get away. Among the fleeing criminals is Jimmy Bryson (Bennett), nearly torn to pieces by Peter, the brother of oblivious Mildred Bryson (Shannon) main squeeze of Officer Bob. Got it?

Jimmy works as a bank teller and is being pressured by unsavory Al Stokes (Shumway) to steal the vault combination for a planned robbery.

You guessed it. The bad guys rob the bank and escape only to be tracked down by Peter the Great, who just loves munching on bad guys’ arms.

Not a great film but a potentially fun one.

— Carl Bennett

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 The Sign of the Claw (1926), black & white, color-tinted black & white, and color-toned black & white, 50 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 18.0 Mbps average video bit rate; DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 1.6 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; no chapter stops (within the film); standard two-disc BD keepcase; $39.95.
Release date: 20 May 2025.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 9 / audio: 8 / additional content: 8 / overall: 8.

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from a very-good to excellent archival 35mm nitrate film print with color-tints and tones held by the Library of Congress. The source print sports fine visual details and a broad, controlled range of greytones but there are more than a few brief bits of footage lost to print breaks. 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, nitrate decomposition, or other print flaws in the scans, leaving the films to appear in their honest survival state.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed by Peter Valsamis and performed on reeds and piano Sean Sonderegger and Dana Reason with (presumably) Peter Valsamis on (presumably) emulating synthsizers for that big orchestral sound.

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).

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .

Grapevine Video
200? DVD edition

The Sign of the Claw (1926), color-tinted and color-toned black & white, 55 minutes, not rated, and Look Out Buster (1927), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated.

Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10319-3.
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 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 200?
Country of origin: USA

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a 35mm nitrate print held by the Library of Congress.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

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

Loving the Classics
202? DVD edition

The Sign of the Claw (1926), black & white, 60 minutes, not rated.

Loving the Classics,
no catalog number, no UPC number.
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 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.99.
Release date: 202?
Country of origin: USA

This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

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