Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
Saturday
Afternoon
(1926) |
Saturday Afternoon (1926) with Harry Langdon. Harry escapes his controlling wife (Alice Ward) to spend a weekend afternoon with a friend (Vernon Dent) and two women (Ruth Hiatt and Peggy Montgomery). |
 All Day Entertainment
2007 DVD edition
The Harry Langdon Collection: Lost and Found (1924-1942), black & white, 624 minutes total, not rated,
including Saturday Afternoon (1926), black & white, 27 minutes, not rated.
All Day Entertainment, distributed by Facets Multimedia,
DV95365, UPC 7-36899-11362-9.
Four single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD discs, 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 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops; two plastic DVD trays with hinged disc holders in casebook; $39.95.
Release date: 26 December 2007.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD collection of Harry Langdon short films (and a feature) has been mastered from generally very-good 35mm prints from a variety of archival and private collection sources.
The films are accompanied by music scores performed by the Snark Ensemble, the Redwine Jazz Band, and Franklin Stover.
Among the supplemental material is the documentary Lost and Found (2007) on Harry Langdon (75 minutes); a 20-page booklet featuring writings by Rob Farr, Bruce Lawton, Steve Massa, Ben Model, Wayne Powers, Richard M. Roberts, Andrew Earle Simpson, Dave Stevenson, Brent Walker and Ed Watz; television abridgements of Langdon films; early sound films; Langdon home movies, and more.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is also available directly from
ALL DAY ENTERTAINMENT.
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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 Saturday Afternoon (1926), 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 2.0 stereo 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
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This DVD edition features the same video transfer as is available on DVD from Kino, from an excellent 35mm print. Accompanied by piano music by Donald Sosin.
All of the films are transferred full-frame, except The Rink. Some of the 16mm prints are tightly cropped, which makes some of the insert shots of telegrams and some intertitles incomplete on some television monitors.
Overall, we are less than impressed with the three bonus films included in this new DVD set — all of them have previously appeared on Shepard-produced home videos. However, we are generally overjoyed at high-quality of many of the films that are presented here. Some of these films have been available on public-domain videotapes for years, but here they are presented in their best available form on home video from the best surviving materials. The introductions to the films have a number of typographical errors in them, but provide brief and sometimes valuable background information to each of the films. For the number of films and the gargantuan length of the program, this DVD set is well worth the comparatively modest cost. We highly recommend this DVD edition of the Slapstick Encyclopedia.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Other silent era HARRY LANGDON films available on home video.
Other SHORT COMEDY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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