The life of François Villon was a popular subject for motion pictures in the silent era, with no less than four versions shot between France and America. Popular star John Barrymore was an inspired choice to portray the French poet and patriot. With characteristic charm and vivacity, Barrymore prances through the role with the occasional love scene to display the Great Profile.

François Villon is the toast of Paris: respected by the upper classes for his poetic expression, beloved by the lower classes as a boozing rascal. As our story begins, Villon is crowned by the street people of Paris as the King of Fools for an annual celebration. In the progress of the event, Villon insults the Duke of Burgundy (Lawson Butt) in verse. For the transgression, King Louis XI (Conrad Veidt) banishes Villon from Paris. Heartbroken that he will be separated from everything that he loves, Villon establishes himself in an inn just outside the walls of Paris. It isn’t long before Villon figuratively thumbs his nose at the authority that has banished him, with Villon scaling the walls and launching food and wine into the lower class section of Paris. An act that further endears him to them. Meanwhile, the Duke of Burgundy has designs on the throne of France, and the king is too easily swayed by advisors and astrology to see the impending threat. The king is persuaded to allow his ward, Charlotte (Marceline Day), to be married, establishing an alliance between Paris and Burgundy. By accident, Villon meets Charlotte and is smitten. Villon gets the ear of the king and convinces him that Burgundy is not a friend of the throne, but a threat. Eventually, Burgundy’s plans are foiled, Villon favor with the king is reestablished, and Villon wins the hand of Charlotte.

Barrymore is wonderful in the role of Villon, with his impishness rogueness played to the hilt. Marceline Day is lovely, as always, and Conrad Veidt plays a deliciously ineffectual Louis. Barrymore is ably supported by character actors Mack Swain and Slim Summerville. — Carl Bennett

This home video presentation has been prepared by Worldview Entertainment (controllers of the Paul Killiam film collection) from the same Killiam preservation print that was issued, in a different video transfer, on laserdisc by The Voyager Company (Criterion) in 1991.

The DVD edition features a new full-frame video transfer, with color toning, and utilizes the piano score performed by William Perry from the source print, but the music level is low and muffled sounding.

The image contrast is a bit on the flat side and the image detail is soft, with the result being an average transfer of an average print. The Voyager laserdisc edition windowboxes the opening credits, with the balance of the transfer being full-frame and a different selection of coloring. The picture on the Voyager edition is more contrasty (although not to a fault), with the apparent image detail slightly greater, and the sound fidelity is better than on the DVD.

Our preference between the two editions is clearly for the out-of-print laserdisc, with its clearer picture and sound. This new DVD edition is acceptible, despite its soft, darkish picture and muffled sound. However, for owners of the Voyager laserdisc, we recommend holding on to their copy until a better edition than the Killiam is released on DVD.

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 budget edition was released early in 2004 as part of a major flood of silent titles from Delta Entertainment. The video transfer has been mastered from a very-good (what appears to be) 35mm source print, which features a broad range of graytones, and is marked with a light amount of speckling, dust and scratches. The transfer appears to have originated from the 1991 Voyager laserdisc noted above. The disc itself appears to have been mastered from a VHS videotape copy of the original transfer. The reduced resolution of VHS gives the disc the appearance of having been transferred from a very-good 16mm reduction print. Honestly, we do our best to discern the gauge of the source print from visual clues in the resulting picture image, but the history of this disc’s production are an educated guess at best.

The film is accompanied by a canned orchestral music track that is crudely edited together, and is occasionally unrelated to the film’s action.

This disc is watchable but, as with other budget releases, more could have been done to ensure the best possible quality. While image detail isn’t as sharp as the Image edition above, this is a passable edition for the budget conscious collector.

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.

Other silent era Conrad Veidt films available on DVD home video:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Different from the Others (1919)
The Indian Tomb (1921)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Waxworks (1924)