Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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Dogs of War!
(1923)
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In 1922, Hal Roach created a new series of comedy short films starring a group of young kids who, although they were officially named Hal Roach’s Rascals, quickly became popularly known by the title of one of their earliest films, Our Gang (1922). Roach soon learned that he had tapped a gold mine, and produced far more than 100 Our Gang films from 1922 through 1938, when the rights to the series were sold to Our Gang distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The series featured a number of talented and popular child performers who inevitably grew too old to remain participants in the series and were replaced by other children. Fans of the Our Gang series grew to love Mickey, Jackie, Joe, Farina, Mary, Wheezer and others, and later grew attached to Spanky, Alfalfa, Porky, Buckwheat, Darla and Butch in the golden era.
In Dogs of War! (1923) the gang defends Kelly’s tomato patch against invasion by other neighborhood kids, then the kids try to get into the movies, and they meet Harold Lloyd on the set of Why Worry? (1923). The buildings and grounds of the Hal Roach Studios (“West Coast Studios”) are clearly seen in the film.
— Carl Bennett
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 Film Preservation Associates
2002 DVD edition
Slapstick Encyclopedia (1909-1929), black & white and color-toned black & white, 1089 minutes total, not rated,
including Dogs of War! (1923), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment, ID0699DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-06992-1.
Five single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD discs, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 4.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 224 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 stereo and mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops; five standard DVD keepcases in cardboard slipcase; $69.99.
Release date: 7 May 2002.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 8 / audio: 7 / additional content: 0 / overall: 8.
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 Alpha Video
2007 DVD edition
Hal Roach’s Rascals (1923-1928), black & white, 175 minutes total, not rated,
including Dogs of War! (1923), black & white, 26 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 5312D, UPC 0-89218-53129-2.
One single-sided, dual-layered,Region 0 NTSC DVD disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 8 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $6.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 24 April 2007.
Country of origin: USA
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 Passport Video
2007 DVD edition
Smiles and Spectacles: A Harold Lloyd Treasury (1917-1947), black & white, 600 minutes total, not rated,
including Dogs of War! (1923), black & white, 26 minutes, not rated.
Passport Video, DVD-5160, UPC 0-25493-51609-8.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (five DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 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 foreign language subtitles; no chapter stops; double-wide five-disc DVD keepcase; $19.98.
Release date: 13 February 2007.
Country of origin: USA •
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