Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Vanishing American (1925)

Adapted from a Zane Grey novel, this story of the clash of the traditional and the modern stars Richard Dix, Lois Wilson and Noah Beery.

A companion to the later Redskin (1929), in which Dix again portrays a native American fighting the wrongs of the corrupt white man.

This DVD edition, that shows its age a bit, has been mastered from a very-good 35mm print that flickers a bit with slight exposure fluctuations in this nearly full-frame video transfer from 1999. Image details are clear enough, and the disc is satisfying viewing (aside from the flickering). However, the disc’s video information is a bit overcompressed to facilitate its fit onto a single-layer DVD, resulting in a nearly constant swarm of artifacts that look like filmgrain but are not (as any still frame will reveal). Most viewers will be able to ignore it, but we can’t . . . especially on a high-definition system.

The film is accompanied by a theater organ music score performed by John Muri that was recorded during a live presentation.

We recommend this edition as the best currently available on home video, but we look forward to an updated edition that has been mastered to current standards.

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