This Kino DVD edition has been prepared from a 35mm print held by the Museum of Modern Art, which features very-good to excellent image detail and range of greytones, and is marked by the usual flaws of a print its age: emulsion scuffing, moderate speckling, scratches, processing flaws, some frame jitters and dust. Some shots in the print appear to have been shortened, lost over time to print breaks and splices. But the overall image quality of the slightly windowboxed video transfer is quite high and is often a pleasure to watch, compared to the mediocre VHS editions from 16mm prints that have been available over the past decade. On high-definition systems with hardware to upscale a standard-definition NTSC signal to a high-definition 1080p signal, the transfer renders a fairly sharp and filmlike picture that appears to be limited only to the quality of the source materials.

The accompanying music was arranged from the 1919 M. Winkler cue sheet and performed on digital piano (with some brief synthesizers) by Donald Sosin. The performance is pleasing and appropriate to the film’s action.

The disc also includes The Great Gabbo (1929), a starring performance by Erich von Stroheim in his first sound film. The Library of Congress restoration print features excellent image detail. Read edition details here.

The supplementary materials include image details and exerpts from the 1919 pressbook, a still photo gallery, a brief note on the film by Erich von Stroheim, notes on the aborted 1929 remake, audio interview exerpts featuring Valerie von Stroheim and Paul Kohner, and a 1944 radio program featuring a performance by Erich von Stroheim.

We highly recommend this edition of Stroheim’s great success.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

The presentation is accompanied by a music score by Günter A. Buchwald.

Among the disc’s supplementary materials are a 20-page booklet of articles, a comparison of the American and Austrian versions of the film (10 minutes), the main titles from the 1924 American rerelease version (1 minute), footage of von Stroheim in Vienna in 1948 (1 minute), a stills gallery of photographs and lobby cards, and a DVD-ROM section of additional information and articles in PDF form.

This high-quality edition is recommended to all with a PAL disc player. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

This Region 0 PAL DVD edition is available directly from . . .

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

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.