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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Reaching for
the Moon
(1917)
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 Flicker Alley
2008 DVD edition
Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer (1916-1921), color-toned black & white, color-tinted black & white and black & white, 760 minutes total, not rated,
including Reaching for the Moon (1917), color-toned black & white, 69 minutes, not rated.
Flicker Alley, FA0011,
UPC 6-17311-67359-7, ISBN: 1-8939-6735-2.
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), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 11 chapter stops; five slimline DVD keepcases in cardboard slipcase; $89.95.
Release date: 2 December 2008.
Country of origin: USA
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Our first look at this five-disc, eleven-film DVD collection has generally been a delight, and the release of these films on DVD home video has been a long time coming for the relatively neglected Douglas Fairbanks. At first overwhelming, this collection of films released by Triangle, Artcraft Pictures and Fairbanks’ own United Artists is a great overview of the first phase of Fairbanks’ motion picture career, predominantly comprised of his light-hearted comedies, leading to the well-known action-adventure films of the 1920s.
The coarsely transferred Reaching for the Moon, with its coarse (vertical!) pixels that are easily detected and distracting on high-definition monitors, may play acceptably on standard televisions.
The films are accompanied by musical scores performed by Eric Beheim, Philip Carli, Frederick Hodges, Robert Israel, Rodney Sauer, The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and Franklin Stover.
Included is a 32-page booklet with an essay by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta. The supplemental material includes productions stills and pressbook reproductions, an audio essay for A Modern Musketeer, and a reproduction of Fairbanks’ first film contract. This boxset collection won an award at Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2009 for excellence.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports the Silent Era website.
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 Alpha Video
2020 DVD edition
Reaching for the Moon (1917), black & white, 91 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 8303D, UPC 0-89218-83039-5.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 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 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 14 January 2020.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R collection has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.
The films are likely to be accompanied by a soundtrack of preexisting recordings.
We have not yet viewed this film in this home video edition.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Other silent era DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS films available on home video.
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Douglas Fairbanks filmography in The Progressive Silent Film List
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