Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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Early Cinema
Primitives and Pioneers
(1895-1910)
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Contents: Arrivée des Congressistes á Neuville-Sur-Sâone (1895), Arrivée d’un train en gare á la Ciotat (1895), L’Arroseur arrosé (1895), Barque sortant de port (1895), Démolition d’un mur (1895), The Derby (1895), Partie d’écarte (1895), Repas de bébé (1895), Rough Sea at Dover (1895), Sortie d’usine (1895) [third version], Bataille de Boules de Neige (1896), Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (1896), Niagara, les chutes (1896), Sortie de la Pompe (Lyon) (1896), Course de Taureaux (circa 1897), Dewar’s — It’s Scotch (1897), Come Along, Do! (1898) [incomplete], The Miller and the Sweep (1898), The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899), The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899), As Seen Through a Telescope (1900), Attack on a China Mission (1900), The Biter Bit (1900), Explosion of a Motor Car (1900), Grandma’s Reading Glass (1900), How It Feels to Be Run Over (1900), Ladies’ Skirts Nailed to a Fence (circa 1900), Let Me Dream Again (1900), Rough Sea (circa 1900), Spanish Bullfight (1900), The Big Swallow (1901), The Countryman and the Cinematograph (1901), Fire! (1901), Historie d’un crime (1901), Mary Jane’s Mishap; or, Don’t Fool with Paraffin (1901), Par le Trou de Serrue (1901), Réve et réalité (1901), Stop Thief! (1901), Ali Baba et les Quarante Voleurs (1902) [incomplete 1905 rerelease version], A Chess Dispute (1903), Daring Daylight Burglary (1903), Desperate Poaching Affray (1903), Extraordinary Cab Accident (1903), The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Sick Kitten (1903), Buy Your Own Cherries (1904), An Interesting Story (1904), The Other Side of the Hedge (1904), Voyage a travers l’impossible (1904), Rescued by Rover (1905), La Révolucion en Russie (1905), Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse (1906), Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906), The (?) Motorist (1906), A Visit to Peek Frean & Co.’s Biscuit Works (1906) [extracts], Le cheval emballé (1907), That Fatal Sneeze (1907), Magic Bricks (1908), The Physician of the Castle (1908), A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1910).
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 BFI Video Publishing
2005 DVD edition
Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers (1895-1910), black & white, color-tinted black & white and color-toned black & white, 187 minutes total, BBFC Classification E.
BFI Video Publishing, BFIVD643,
UPC 5-35673-00643-6, EAN 5.03567E+12.
Two single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD discs; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 576 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 50 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.0 surround sound encoded at 448 Kbps audio bit rate (music), Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate (commentary with music), and LPCM 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 1.5 Mbps audio bit rate (music); English language intertitles, optional English language subtitles; closed captions; chapter stops; standard two-disc DVD keepcase; £19.99.
Release date: 29 August 2005.
Country of origin: England
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This Region 2 PAL DVD collection of 60 early short films from the British Film Institute’s National Film and Television Archive includes 13 short films by the Lumière brothers, Georges Méliès’ Voyage a travers l’impossible (1904), Birt Acres’ Rough Sea at Dover (1895), nine films by the Pathé brothers (including Ali Baba et les Quarante Voleurs [1902] and Par le Trou de Serrue [Peeping Tom] [1901]), five films from the Hepworth Company (including Rescued by Rover [1905]), an advertising film commissioned by the biscuit company Peek Frean & Co., a documentary produced by the Kineto Company, Limited, A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1910), films by the Edison Manufacturing Company (including Dewar’s — It’s Scotch [1897] — reputedly the first advertising film, The Gay Shoe Clerk [1903], The Great Train Robbery [1903] and Dream of a Rarebit Fiend [1906]). Also included are films by Robert W. Paul, George Albert Smith, Sheffield Photographic Company, Walter Haggar, James Bamforth and James A. Williamson. The program is similar to the second and third volumes of the Kino DVD boxset, The Movies Begin, released in the USA.
The films are accompanied by new improvised piano scores performed by Neil Brand, John Sweeney and Stephen Horne.
The disc includes optional audio commentary written by film historian Barry Salt, and a 24-page illustrated booklet with filmmaker biographies and notes.
North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.
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United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
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