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 Song of Love
(1923)
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This feature drama, directed by Chester Franklin and Frances Marion, stars Norma Talmadge and Joseph Schildkraut, with Arthur Edmund Carew, Laurence Wheat, Maude Wayne, Earl Schenck and Hector V. Sarno.
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 Kino Classics
2018 Blu-ray Disc edition
Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers (1911-1929), black & white, color-tinted and color-toned black & white and color-toned black & white, 1710 minutes total, not rated, including The Song of Love (1923), black & white, 81 minutes, not rated.
Kino Lorber, K23411, UPC 7-38329-23411-9.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region A Blu-ray Disc (six 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 26.8 Mbps average video bit rate; LPCM 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 1.5 Mbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; 80-page insert booklet; three double-disc plastic trays on cardboard wrap in cardboard slipcase; $99.95.
Release date: 20 November 2018.
Country of origin: USA
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This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from 4K and 2K high-resolution scans of archival prints held by the Library of Congress, UCLA Film and Television Archive, FPA France (Lobster Films collection), the Academy Film Archive, and other archives. While many of the scans are very-good to excellent, a number of films could have benefitted from digital image stabilization at minimum.
The films are accompanied by music scores by Renée Clark Baker, The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Makia Matsumura, Maud Nelissen, Dana Reason, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Ben Model, Andrew Earle Simpson, Lisa Mezzacappa and others.
Supplemental material includes audio commentaries by Gaylyn Studlar; an introductory featurette with contributions by Shelley Stamp, Cari Beauchamp, Anthony Slide, Jane M. Gaines, Karen Ward Mahar and Rob Stone (17 minutes); a featurette on Alice Guy-Blaché with contributions by Alison McMahan, Shelley Stamp, Jane M. Gaines and Anthony Slide (8 minutes); a Lois Weber featurette with contributions by Shelley Stamp and Anthony Slide (9 minutes); a featurette on social commentary with contributions by Karen Ward Mahar, Shelley Stamp and Anthony Slide (11 minutes); a featurette on the restorations of the films with contributions by Rob Stone, Geo. Willeman and Lynanne Schweighofer of the Library of Congress (11 minutes).
Let’s nitpick with Kino Lorber: the two-level plastic trays can make extraction of the bottom disc worrisome for fear of bending or breaking the disc before it works loose. Might we suggest some practical alternative for future multidisc sets? Perhaps go back to individual slimline disc cases in a cardboard slipcase?
This will likely be the best home video editions of many of these films. A companion volume containing three feature films and a fragment of a fourth was also released under the title The Intrigue.
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This Region A Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .
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 Kino Classics
2018 DVD edition
Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers (1911-1929), black & white, color-tinted and color-toned black & white and color-toned black & white, 1320 minutes total, not rated, including The Song of Love (1923), black & white, 81 minutes, not rated.
Kino Lorber, K23410, UPC 7-38329-23410-2.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 1 NTSC DVD disc (six DVDs in the set); 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; 80-page insert booklet; three double-disc plastic trays on cardboard wrap in cardboard storage box; $79.95.
Release date: 20 November 2018.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD edition has been mastered from 4K and 2K high-resolution scans of archival prints.
The films are accompanied by music scores by Renée Clark Baker, The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Makia Matsumura, Maud Nelissen, Dana Reason, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Ben Model, Andrew Earle Simpson, Lisa Mezzacappa and others.
This will likely be the best DVD home video editions of many of these films. A companion volume containing three feature films and a fragment of a fourth was also released under the title The Intrigue.
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This Region 1 DVD edition is available directly from . . .
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 Loving the Classics
202? DVD edition
The Song of Love (1923), black & white, 80 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
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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.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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Other silent era films by WOMEN DIRECTORS available on home video.
Other silent era NORMA TALMADGE films available on home video.
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