This Blu-ray Disc edition of The Penalty (1920), starring Lon Chaney, has been prepared from the 35mm restoration materials prepared by the George Eastman Museum film archive based on the 1926 MGM rerelease version. The source print is often quite sharp in image detail, with some moderate speckling, a little light emulsion damage in the form of scrapes, some visible editing splices, and some overexposed frame edges of the frame in parts of the print, notably at the bottom corners. One shot at 1.14:51, of Dr. Ferris arriving at Blizzard’s lair, one at 1.17:53, of Blizzard directing the looting of San Francisco, and one at 1.18:42, of Rose fleeing for help, have been inserted into the restoration print from a 16mm reduction print. Their difference in image quality is in stark contrast to the 35mm print. The resolution is high enough in this Blu-ray Disc edition to see that a very few shots in the original print were unstable when taken in the camera, resulting in a slight fluttering double-exposure.

Some early high-definition video transfers of silent films released on Blu-ray Disc introduce their own unique digital artifacts depending on the system and software utilized. This results in something short of the intent — to reproduce the source material in the greatest detail for home video and in the most filmlike fashion. Here, in this Kino Blu-ray Disc, we have a much better example of such goals being met. The picture is sharp and the greyscale range evenly reproduced. Even the film grain of the source print comes close to being accurately reproduced. Any still frame will show that even Blu-ray Disc cannot capture all of a 35mm print’s image detail. But, on the right HD system, the picture of this Kino edition is still of greater detail than can be achieved through theater projection.

The accompanying music score compiled by Rodney Sauer and performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra is excellent and a vast improvement over the synthesizer score of the Kino DVD edition noted below. The score is appropriate to the film’s action, mood-settting, entertaining and historically respectful of the film. The music is well-recorded and excellent listening in both surround and stereo sound, and is a welcome upgrade from the annoying synthesizer accompaniment of Kino’s 2001 DVD release.

The disc’s supplemental material has been pared down from its DVD sister edition from 2001, and includes a Lon Chaney short previously thought to be lost. The supplemental material includes a standard-resolution featurette called “Chaney’s Secrets Revealed” with Michael F. Blake in which he hosts a video tour of Chaney’s makeup cases, Penalty props and the ‘Blizzard’ costume held by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles; a standard resolution presentation of By the Sun’s Rays (1914) Chaney’s earliest surviving film; trailers from the MGM films The Big City (1928) and While the City Sleeps (1928) from 16mm reduction prints with piano accompaniment by Rodney Sauer, and surviving exerpts from The Miracle Man (1919) from a very-good 35mm print of a sound compilation film. Chaney’s physical control alone in his ‘miracle’ transformation is incredible. The audio commentary from the compilation film includes the statement, “This was the big scene that helped make The Miracle Man a picture that will never be forgotten.” If only the film had survived to help keep the film from being forgotten! The film had survived long enough to be exerpted in this film but has disintegrated by today — another reason to preserve films now! By the Sun’s Rays has been transferred from a 16mm reduction print that is likely the only surviving print of the film. The print is good to rough in quality, being transferred from a well worn, scratched and slightly decomposed (in places) 35mm print way back when. But the film has not looked this good on home video before this appearance.

This high-definition edition is such an improvement over Kino’s decade-old DVD edition that we enthusiastically recommend that collectors replace their old DVD with this new BD edition.

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Canada: Click to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports the Silent Era website.

For this DVD edition, a very-good to excellent 35mm print was transferred, with moderate speckling, light emulsion damage, some visible editing splices, and overexposed frame edges of the frame in parts of the print, notably at the bottom corners. The resulting picture is either unevenly exposed in the print or unevenly illuminated in the transfer, as evidenced by the establishing shot of downtown San Francisco five minutes into the film. The picture is bright enough in the center of the frame but falls off in illumination at the right and especially the left edges of the image. The print may well be at fault here and the defect is not apparent throughout the film. The transfer has been done at proper speed, and there is a broad range of greytones and fine detail in the resulting image.

The presentation is accompanied by a synthesizer music score composed and performed by Michael Polher; a score that sometimes revels in its artificiality, with unabashedly unreal sounds that might be more appropriate accompanying the futuristic Metropolis (1927). The score is repetitious and is just this side of outright annoying. While we acknowledge that single performers using MIDI synthesizers can be an inexpensive way to synchronize a musical accompaniment to a silent film, the artificial sounds of synthesizers feel out of place with the majority of silent era films. Some synthesizers are quite pleasing in their use of sound samples taken from acoustic instruments and we have little problem with musical scores using those instruments. We simply want performers to strive for tasteful music compositions that accompany silent films on natural-sounding instruments, electronic or not. The score should never distract, it should augment!

This home video edition of The Penalty features one of the most extensive supplementary sections ever included on a silent era film DVD. Kudos must go to edition producer Bret Wood for pulling this extra material together. The supplemental material includes an essay on The Penalty by Chaney expert Michael F. Blake; a detailed examination of the adaptation of the Gouverneur Morris novel to film scenario by Bret Wood; a section called “Chaney’s Secrets Revealed” with Michael F. Blake in which he hosts a video tour of Chaney’s makeup cases, Penalty props and the ‘Blizzard’ costume held by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles; a section of comparisons of a scene between the novel, the screenplay and the final film (which mistakenly plays the audio track from the following section and the audio track must play out with the final shot of the comparison in still frame — no way out); a photo gallery; and a brief look at the film’s Goldwyn production budget sheet.

All that is great to have but the exciting stuff includes By the Sun’s Rays (1914) Chaney’s earliest surviving film, with a musical accompaniment that sounds like it has been cobbled together; trailers from the MGM films The Big City (1928) and While the City Sleeps (1928) from 16mm reduction prints with piano accompaniment by Rodney Sauer, and surviving exerpts from The Miracle Man (1919) from a very-good 35mm print of a sound compilation film. Chaney’s physical control alone in his ‘miracle’ transformation is incredible. The audio commentary from the compilation film includes the statement, “This was the big scene that helped make The Miracle Man a picture that will never be forgotten.” If only the film had survived to help keep the film from being forgotten! The film had survived long enough to be exerpted in this film but has disintegrated by today — another reason to preserve films now! By the Sun’s Rays has been transferred from a 16mm reduction print that is likely the only surviving print of the film. The print is good to rough in quality, being transferred from a well worn, scratched and slightly decomposed (in places) 35mm print way back when. But the film has not looked this good on home video before this appearance. The supplemental features menu is not obvious in requiring an ‘up’ command to return to the main menu.

Blake notes in his essay that, for the original release of the film, Goldwyn inserted a shot at the end of the film of Lon Chaney, out of amputee costume, walking down stairs to prove to audiences that he was not an amputee or was not doubled. A shot that was obviously necessary in 1920 before Chaney’s fame was wide-spread. In three years audiences would have expected Chaney to do all his own stunt work. The shot was likely removed from the 1926 rerelease and has apparently not survived.

Altogether, this is a fine edition of The Penalty and has added value over the VHS edition with the inclusion of the supplementary materials. Other than the music, which is more tolerable for some than others, we like everything about this edition of Lon Chaney’s first starring feature film.

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.

The film is accompanied by an unknown music score.

If you own a copy of this disc please consider loaning it to us to review for documentation purposes. We pay postage both ways.

UNKNOWN VIDEO has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is . . .

Other HORROR FILMS of the silent era available on home video.