Kino International (USA) has announced a new
NTSC deluxe DVD edition of
Buster Keaton’s The General (1926). The two-disc set will feature a new high-definition video transfer, accompanied by three optional music scores — the
Carl Davis score from
Photoplay Productions, a score arranged and performed by Robert Israel, and an organ score performed by
Lee Erwin. The set will be available 11 November 2008.
MGM Home Video (USA) has announced an eight-disc
NTSC collection of
Alfred Hitchcock films that will include the first high-quality release of
The Lodger (1926) on DVD home video. The boxset will be available 14 October 2008.
Kino International (USA) has announced a new
NTSC deluxe DVD edition of
F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924). The two-disc set will feature the 2003 restoration from the F.W. Murnau Stiftung with a new 5.1 orchestral performance of the 1924 Giuseppe Becce score, along with the USA version originally released on home video by Kino with music by Timothy Brock. The set will be available 30 September 2008.
Flicker Alley (USA) and
Film Preservation Associates (USA) have announced the impending release of their two-disc
NTSC DVD edition of Abel Gance’s
J’accuse (1919). Restored to its 1919 premiere form in a joint effort of Lobster Films, Paris, and the Nederlands Filmmuseum, the definitive edition features an orchestral score by Robert Israel, and essay contributions from Kevin Brownlow and Leslie Hawkins. The DVD will be available 16 September 2008.
The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra (USA) has released their
NTSC DVD edition of
The Mark of Zorro (1920) starring
Douglas Fairbanks.
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung (Germany) has announced the recovery of a 16mm reduction negative of
Metropolis (1927) in Argentina. Staff members of Museo del Cine Pablo C. Ducros Hicken in Buenos Aires recovered the worn negative, which is said to contain missing scenes not surviving in other prints of the film.
Read the F.W. Murnau Stiftung announcement. Read the Zeit Online story.
Unknown Video (USA) has released a double-feature
NTSC DVD-R edition of
The Sea Lion (1921) starring Hobart Bosworth and Bessie Love, and
The Average Woman (1924) starring Pauline Garon and Harrison Ford.
Kino International (USA) has released their long-awaited
NTSC format DVD edition releases of three films by Victor Sjöström.
The Outlaw and His Wife (1918) also includes the documentary
Victor Sjostrom (1981). Available separately is a double-feature disc of
A Man There Was (1917) and
Ingeborg Holm (1913).
All Day Entertainment (USA) has released their three-disc
NTSC DVD collection
American Slapstick 2 (1915-1937), including shorts featuring Harold Lloyd, Snub Pollard, Billy West, Larry Semon and Ben Turpin, and the feature comedy
Charley’s Aunt (1925) starring Sydney Chaplin.
Sunrise Silents (USA) has released
Silent Rarities (1911-1928), featuring surviving footage of
The Cost of High Living (1916) starring William Duncan and Corinne Griffith;
[Chaplin Animation] (circa 1915) with animated characterizations of
Charlie Chaplin,
Fatty Arbuckle and
Mabel Normand;
Top Sergeant Mulligan (1927) with Lila Lee and Wesley Barry, only reels two and four survive of this six-reel feature;
The Country Doctor (1927) with Rudolph Schildkraut and Junior Coghlan, from a one-reel Kodascope abridgement;
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1911) directed by Albert Capellani; and
Whose Baby? (1917) with
Gloria Swanson and Bobby Vernon; transferred from an incomplete one-reel print of this rare title. Also released is a digital edition of the April 1924 issue of
Photoplay Magazine.
Grapevine Video (USA) has released their
NTSC DVD-R editions of
The Count of Monte Cristo (1913) starring James O’Neill,
The Devil Horse (1926) starring Yakima Canutt,
Häxan (1922) directed by Benjamin Christensen,
Soul of the Beast (1923) starring Madge Bellamy and Cullen Landis, and
A Tale of Two Worlds (1921) starring
Leatrice Joy and
Wallace Beery.
Flicker Alley (USA) and
Film Preservation Associates (USA) have released
Perils of the New Land (1910-1915), a compilation of social dramas that explore the immigrant experience in early 20th century America. Featured are
Traffic in Souls (1913) and
The Italian (1915), plus three Edison short films.
Kino International (USA) has released their
NTSC format DVD edition of the
BFI restoration of Franz Osten’s
A Throw of Dice (1929). The Indian epic features a cast of thousands, and is accompanied by a new orchestral music score by Nitin Sawhney, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Kino International (USA) has released three more
NTSC format DVD editions in their Slapstick Symposium series. Available separately are
The Extra Girl (1920) starring
Mabel Normand, the second volume of
The Stan Laurel Collection (1918-1926), and a double-feature edition of
Three’s a Crowd (1927) and
The Chaser (1928) starring
Harry Langdon.
Sunrise Silents (USA) has released their edition of
The Vortex (1927), starring Ivor Novello. Also released are digital editions of the April 1925 issue of
Photoplay Magazine, and the December 1923 issue of
Photoplay Magazine.
Flicker Alley (USA) and
Film Preservation Associates (USA) have released what will easily be one of the three most-important DVD releases of 2008, a two-disc, 4.5-hour
NTSC format edition of Abel Gance’s
La Roue (1922). The film has been restored to 20 of the 32 reels of its French premiere, and is presented with an orchestral score composed and conducted by Robert Israel.
Kino International (USA) has released a number of
NTSC format DVD titles previously available only on VHS. Available separately are
The Red Kimona (1925) starring Priscilla Bonner,
Lois Weber’s Hypocrites (1915) with
Cleo Madison’s Eleanor’s Catch (1916), Alice Guy Blaché’s
The Ocean Waif (1916) with Ruth Ann Baldwin’s
’49-’17 (1917), and the Charles Musser documentary
Before the Nickelodeon (1982).
Criterion Collection (USA) has released their DVD boxset of silent Yasujiro Ozu films,
Silent Ozu (1931-1933). The
NTSC format set includes
Tokyo Chorus (1931),
I Was Born, But . . . (1932) and
Passing Fancy (1933).
Kino International (USA) has released their DVD boxset
Houdini: The Movie Star (1919-1923). The three-disc
NTSC format set includes the serial
The Master Mystery (1919) and the feature films
Terror Island (1920),
The Man from Beyond (1922) and
Haldane of the Secret Service (1923).
Nederlands Filmmuseum has
preserved unique nitrate prints of three feature films starring
Sessue Hayakawa,
His Birthright (1918),
The Man Beneath (1919) and
The Courageous Coward (1919), in response to the upsurge in interest in the Japanese-born Hollywood star.
Milestone Film & Video (USA) has released their
NTSC format DVD edition of
The Dragon Painter (1919) starring Hayakawa and
Tsuru Aoki. Also included is
The Wrath of the Gods (1914).
Flicker Alley (USA) and
Film Preservation Associates (USA) have released
Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913), a five-disc
NTSC format DVD boxset that contains more than 170 Méliès films that span the cinema pioneer’s entire career. Several musicians provide accompaniment to the films gathered from film archives worldwide.
Kino International (USA) has released their DVD editions of Robert Wiene’s
The Hands of Orlac (1924) starring
Conrad Veidt, and G.W. Pabst’s
Secrets of a Soul (1926). Available separately, the discs are also included in a new boxset,
German Expressionism Collection (1920-1926), which includes Kino’s editions of
Warning Shadows (1923) and
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
Flicker Alley (USA) and
Film Preservation Associates (USA) have released the three-disc
NTSC format DVD set
Saved from the Flames (1896-1944). Covering a number of short-film genres from dramas to comedies and experimental to jazz, the set presents many silent-era films preserved from endangered nitrate originals.
Eureka Entertainment (UK) has released a new
PAL format DVD edition of
Fritz Lang’s Frau im mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929).
Edition Filmmuseum (Germany) has released their two-disc
PAL edition of the restored
Frank Borzage film
The River (1928) starring Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan. The supplementary materials include three early Borzage films from 1915-1916.
All-Day Entertainment (USA) has released
Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon Collection (1924-1944). Comprised of many short films being released on DVD for the first time, the four-disc set also includes a documentary on Langdon, home movies and audio commentary.
Sunrise Silents (USA) has released their edition of
Cecil B. DeMille’s The Road to Yesterday (1925). Also released are digital editions of the October 1913 issue of
Motion Picture Story Magazine, the March 1920 issue of
Photoplay Magazine, and the September 1926 issue of
Motion Picture Magazine.
JEF Films (USA) has released their editions of
Frank Capra’s That Certain Thing (1928) starring Viola Dana and Ralph Graves,
Cecil B. DeMille’s The Little American (1917) starring Mary Pickford, and Paul Sloan’s
The Coming of Amos (1925) starring Jetta Goudal and Noah Beery.
The University Press of Kentucky (USA) has published Ray Zone’s
Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film: 1838-1952.
Fox Home Video (USA) has released a fantastic boxset,
The Ford at Fox Collection: John Ford’s Silent Epics (1920-1928), consisting of the five
John Ford feature films
Just Pals (1920),
The Iron Horse (1924),
3 Bad Men (1926),
Hangman’s House (1928) and
Four Sons (1928).
Kino International (USA) has released a DVD edition of
Ernst Lubitsch’s early film
The Doll (1919) with the feature-length documentary
Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin (2006). The new disc is available separately and in a economically-priced five-disc
Lubitsch in Berlin boxset that includes the previously-released titles in Kino’s Lubitsch in Berlin series:
The Oyster Princess (1919) with
I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1919),
Anna Boleyn (1920), and
Sumurun (1920) and
The Wildcat (1921).
Since the first posting on 8 October 2007, there has been a hot discussion on the Criterion Forum blog site regarding the assertion that a print of
F.W. Murnau’s 4 Devils (1928) has survived in a nitrate stash held by a retired engineer living in Tacoma, Washington. Cruel rumor or film recovery of the decade?
You decide.
Grapevine Video (USA) has released their
NTSC DVD-R editions of
Love ’em and Leave ’em (1926) starring
Evelyn Brent and
Louise Brooks,
The Man from Painted Post (1917) starring
Douglas Fairbanks,
Dress Parade (1926) starring William Boyd and Bessie Love,
The Red Raiders (1927) starring Ken Maynard, and a Glenn Tryon double feature with
Barnum Was Right (1929) and
Dames Ahoy (1930).
Eureka Entertainment (UK) has released a
PAL format definitive two-disc edition of
Nosferatu (1922), based on the recent F.W. Murnau-Stiftung restoration, which features the original 1922 intertitles, a new orchestral recording of the original Hans Erdmann music score, a full-length audio commentary, and 92-page booklet. Meanwhile,
Kino International (USA) has released a
two-disc set American
NTSC format edition of the restoration version, sharing many of the same features.
Eureka Entertainment (UK) has released a new
PAL format DVD edition of
Tabu (1931), from the recent F.W. Murnau-Stiftung restoration, which features the
F.W. Murnau’s cut of the film, a full-length audio commentary, and an 80-page booklet.
Edition Filmmuseum (Germany) has released their
PAL edition of the 2006 restoration of Hugo Rütters’
Vom Reiche der sechs Punke (1927).
Unknown Video (USA) has released a DVD edition of
What Happened to Rosa (1920), starring
Mabel Normand. The disc also features
Hide and Seek (1913), and musical accompaniment by
Ben Model.
Sunrise Silents (USA) has released a DVD-R edition of
The Ice Flood (1926) starring Kenneth Harlan and Viola Dana. Also available are digital editions of the April 1916 issue of
Picture-Play Magazine, the June 1923 issue of
Motion Picture Magazine, and the February 1925 issue of
Photoplay Magazine.
Kino International (USA) has released an exciting two-disc edition of the definitive restoration of
Sergei M. Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925). The set includes the restored film mastered in high-definition, including all of the footage edited from the film before its premiere in its original and intended sequencing, accompanied by a full-orchestra presentation in 5.1 surround sound of the original Edmund Meisel German premiere music score overseen by Eisenstein. Also included is a presentation of the edited film as it originally premiered with optional English intertitles, a documentary on the making and restoration of the film, and a photo gallery.
