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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
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Great Old
Short Subjects
(1925-1938)

Conetnts: Franz Liszt (1925), Bill and I Went Fishing (1927), “The Seventh Wonder,” Panama (1934), The Old Camp Ground (1935), The Old Prospector Talks (1935) and Couldn’t Live Without You (1938).

Alpha Video
2010 DVD edition

Great Old Short Subjects (1925-1938), black & white, 56 minutes total, not rated, including Franz Liszt (1925), color-tinted black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, Bill and I Went Fishing (1927), color-tinted black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, “The Seventh Wonder,” Panama (1934), color-tinted black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, The Old Camp Ground (1935), black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, The Old Prospector Talks (1935), color-tinted black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, and Couldn’t Live Without You (1938), color-tinted black & white, 10 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 6350D, UPC 0-89218-63509-9.
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 5.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $6.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 27 April 2010.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 4 / additional content: 0 / overall: 4.

This DVD collection has been mastered from 16mm and/or 8mm reduction prints. Franz Liszt has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print that may be a post-synchonized rerelease version with new footage of Nat Shilkret and his Victor Concert Orchestra. Bill and I Went Fishing has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print; note that the listed release year is suspect and is likely to actually be circa 1935. Couldn’t Live Without You, The Old Camp Ground, The Old Prospector Talks and “The Seventh Wonder,” Panama have all been mastered from good 16mm reduction prints. All of the films in this collection but The Old Camp Ground were shot silent and released with post-synchronized soundtracks.

The films are likely accompanied by soundtracks compiled from preexisting music recordings.

Overall not a great presentation but this is the only home video edition of these films we know of. Get ready for a lot of marimbas.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is available directly from . . .