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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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His Bitter Pill
(1916)

Mack Swain stars as Jim, the big-hearted sheriff of a small town that has his girl (Louella Maxam) taken from him by a big-city crook (Edgar Kennedy).

Film Preservation Associates
1999 DVD edition

The Toll Gate (1920), black & white and color-tinted black & white, 73 minutes, not rated,
with His Bitter Pill (1916), black & white, 20 minutes, not rated.

Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment, ID4728DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-47282-0.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD 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 foreign language subtitles; 5 chapter stops; snapper DVD case; $24.99.
Release date: 20 April 1999.
Country of origin: USA •

Ratings (1-10): video: 5 / audio: 5 / additional content: 6 / overall: 5.

This early DVD edition of His Bitter Pill has been mastered from a good-to-very-good 16mm reduction print that is lightly speckled and moderately scuffed, with some dust, a bit of beginning print decomposition (in the second reel), and a few other source print flaws.

The film is accompanied by a serviceable music score performed on synthesizers by Eric Beheim.

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