Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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Aladdin and the
Marvelous Lamp
(1906)
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This short fantasy film was directed by Albert Capellani and survives in a beautiful hand-colored print.
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 Pathé
2011 DVD edition
Coffret Albert Capellani (1906-1921), color-tinted black & white, and black & white, 488 minutes total, not rated, including Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse [Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp] (1906), color-tinted black & white, 13 minutes, not rated.
Pathé, 5223846, UPC 3-388330-040024.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 2 PAL DVD disc (four DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 576 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; French language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; 40-page insert booklet; four standard DVD keepcases in a cardboard slipcase?; €14,90.
Release date: 11 May 2011.
Country of origin: France
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This PAL DVD edition has been mastered from archival 35mm film elements.
The film is accompanied by a music score.
Supplemental material includes a 40-page illustrated insert booklet (possibly French language text only) with the texts “Albert Capellani: La saga Capellani” by Bernard Basset-Capellani; “Albert Capellani, cinéaste Pathé frères, 1906” by Richard Abel; “De Fort Lee 1905 à aujourd’hui” by Pierre Rissient; “Les films Capellani de la collection Morieux” by Stéphanie Salmon; with restoration notes by Camille Blot-Wellens; and “Une enfance au cinéma” by Stéphanie Salmon.
This is our recommended home video edition of the film for European collectors. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.
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This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
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 Kino on Video
2002 DVD edition
The Movies Begin (1894-1913), black & white and color-tinted black & white, 414 minutes total, not rated, including Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse [Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp] (1906), black & white, 12 minutes, not rated.
Kino International, K236A-E, UPC 7-38329-02362-1.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (five DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame and windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 5.5 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; five standard DVD keepcases in cardboard box; $99.95.
Release date: 19 February 2002.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 6 / audio: 8 / additional content: 5 / overall: 7.
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This DVD edition has been transferred from an archival 35mm print with hand-coloring.
The film is accompanied by a music score.
Altogether, there are supposed to be 13 unannounced bonus films spread among the discs’ content, but we were only able to locate 11 of them. Considering the bonus films are quite short and are 16mm restoration prints of the Library of Congress paper prints, access to them is a small value-added perc.
This is our recommended home video edition of the film for North American collectors.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD boxset has been discontinued
and is . . .
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 BFI Video Publishing
2005 DVD edition
Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers (1895-1910), black & white, color-tinted black & white and color-toned black & white, 187 minutes total, BBFC Classification E, including Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse [Aladdin and the Marvelous Lamp] (1906), color-tinted black & white, 12 minutes, BBFC Classification E.
BFI Video Publishing, BFIVD643,
UPC 5-035673-006436, EAN 5.03567E+12.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD disc (two DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 576 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 50 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.0 surround sound encoded at 448 Kbps audio bit rate (music), Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate (commentary with music), and LPCM 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 1.5 Mbps audio bit rate (music); English language intertitles, optional English language subtitles; closed captions; chapter stops; standard two-disc DVD keepcase; £19.99.
Release date: 29 August 2005.
Country of origin: England
Ratings (1-10): video: 6 / audio: 8 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.
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This PAL DVD edition of 60 early shased in the USA.
The film is accompanied by a music score performed by Neil Brand, John Sweeney and Stephen Horne.
Supplmentary material includes optional audio commentary written by film historian Barry Salt and read by Michael Garland.
North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.
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This Region 2 PAL DVD edition is available directly from . . .
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Other FRENCH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
Other EARLY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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