The Bells (1926) on

This intriguing historical drama stars Lionel Barrymore, Gustav von Seyffertitz and the Caligarian Boris Karloff.

Our first look at this early DVD edition reveals reveals a natural-speed, slightly windowboxed video transfer from an excellent 35mm print that features a broad grayscale range and a very light sprinkling of dust and speckling.

This film is accompanied by a music score performed on synthesizers by Eric Beheim.

Also included is Rene Clair’s short film Paris Endormi [The Crazy Ray] (1922).

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 1 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 1 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.

This edition has been mastered from an analog videotape copy, as evidenced by the dark smearing to the right of the white lettering in the film’s intertitles, of a slightly-windowboxed video transfer of an excellent 35mm print. Given that the windowboxing is identical and the running times are the same, this disc has likely been mastered from a copy of the Image edition cited above. While the video quality is quite good, the disc’s bit rate could have been higher to increase the resolution of the coarsely-rendered picture.

Despite what the packaging has to say, the film was not based on any material written by Edgar Allan Poe. It is, instead, based on a French play by Émile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrain. Do your research, Alpha!

The presentation is accompanied by a good but repetitious pipe organ music score composed and performed by Paul David Bergel.

Overall, this disc is far better than the majority of Alpha Video product and isn’t a bad alternative to the Image editon.

USA: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.com.
Canada: Click the logomark at right to purchase a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.ca.