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SILENT ERA FILMS ON HOME VIDEO
Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2009 by Carl Bennett.
All Rights Reserved.

Discovering Cinema
Learning to Talk &
Movies Dream in Color

(2003-2004)

This collection of two documentaries, produced by Lobster Films, Paris, and Histoire, focuses on experimental sound and color technologies in the silent era.

2007 Flicker Alley edition

Discovering Cinema: Learning to Talk & Movies Dream in Color (2003-2004), black & white, color-tinted black & white, color-toned black & white, color-tinted-and-toned black & white, and color, 267 minutes total, not rated.

Flicker Alley, unknown catalog number,
UPC 6-17311-673??-?, ISBN 1-893967-????-?.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, two single-sided, dual-layered DVD discs, Region 0, ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, English, French and Italian language intertitles (some films), English language subtitles (some films), chapter stops (Learning to Talk) and 5 chapter stops (Movies Dream in Color), keep case, $29.99.
DVD release date: 25 September 2007.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 8 / audio: 8 / additional content: 9 / overall: 8.

The two French documentaries are presented with English language narration, and interviews with Paolo Cherchi Usaï, Gian Luca Farinelli, Maurice Gianati, Stephen Herbert, Anthony L’Abbate, Gilles Trarieux Lumière and Dominique Païni.

Among the more than two-and-a-half hours of supplemental material is complete presentations of the sound and color films [Blacksmith Scene] (1895), [Death of Marat] (1897), Danse serpentine (1897), [Execution of Joan of Arc] (1898), [Spanish Dancers] (1898), Métamorphoses du papillon (1904), La fée aux fleurs (1905), Le sorcier Arabe (1906), Lucia di Lammermoor (1908), Ach Wie So Trügerisch (Rigoletto) (1908), Carmen: Air du toréador (1910), Légende du roi Gambrinus (1911), La Marseillaise (1911), [Dr. Doyen Color Test] (1912), Inauguration of the San Marco Campanile (1912), Nursery Favorites (1913), Le père la victoire (1917), Quand Madelon (1917), an exerpt from The Chamber Mystery (1920), an exerpt from [Miss Venus] (1921), Snappy Tunes (1923), [Theodore Case Test Film] (1924), Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (1925), [Unie Film Revue No. 29: Mode de Paris] (1926), John Miljan — Vitaphone Trailer Announcement — “The Jazz Singer” (1927), [Sonia Delaunay Color Test] (circa 1928), Governor C.C. Young, Accompanied by His Family, Hails Greater Talkie Season; Ronald Colman Expresses the Good Wishes of the Film Industry (1928), Finding His Voice (1929), Flying High (1929), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1929), the Technicolor-Movietone theatrical trailer for King of Jazz (1930), Wonderland of California (circa 1930) a compilation of Cinecolor test footage including a rehearsal of the Marx Brothers on the set of The Cocoanuts (1929)!, the dazzling La Cucaracha (1934) the first live-action three-strip Technicolor film, the three-strip Technicolor theatrical trailer for Becky Sharp (1935), [Jeunes femmes prenant le thé procédé Autochrome Lumière; also known as Tea Time] (circa 1937), and New York, N.Y., U.S.A. (1938).

This collection an absolute necessity for anyone fascinated by early film technologies, and is many times worth the price of admission.

 
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.
 
United Kingdom: Click the logomark at right to purchase
a Region 0 NTSC DVD of this edition from Amazon.co.uk.
Other silent era-related DOCUMENTARIES available on home video:
American Experience: Mary Pickford (2005)
Before Hollywood, There Was Fort Lee, N.J. (1964)
Before the Nickelodeon: The Early Cinema of Edwin S. Porter (1982)
Birth of a Legend (1966)
Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965)
Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies (2001)
The Chaplin Puzzle (1992)
Chaplin’s Art of Comedy (1966)
Chaplin’s Goliath (1996)
Charlie Chaplin: The Forgotten Years (2003)
Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin (2003)
Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995)
Clara Bow: Discovering the ‘It’ Girl (1999)
Discovering Cinema (1908-2004)
Douglas Fairbanks: The Great Swashbuckler (1976)
Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin (2006)
The Film Parade: A History of Early Cinema (1933-1947)
Forgotten Silver (1997)
Fritz Lang: Circle of Destiny (1998)
The Gentleman Tramp (1975)
The Great Chase (1963)
Harold Lloyd’s World of Comedy (1962)
Kingdom of Shadows (1998)
The Last Diva: Francesca Bertini (1982)
Laurel and Hardy’s Laughing 20s (1965)
The Legend of Rudolph Valentino (1982)
The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon (2004)
Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998)
The Man You Loved to Hate (1979)
Mary Pickford: A Life on Film (1997)
Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde (1997)
Memories of the Silent Stars
Olive Thomas: Everybody’s Sweetheart (2004)
Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat (1977)
The Railrodder (1965)
Rudolph Valentino: The Great Lover (2006)
Sergei Eisenstein: Autobiography (1996)
Silent Britain (2006)
Slaphappy: The Movie (2004)
30 Years of Fun (1963)
Victor Sjöström (1981)
The Way to Murnau (2003)
When Comedy Was King (1960)
Without Lying Down (2000)

Other silent era SOUND FILMS available on home video.

Other BRITISH silent era films available on home video.

Other FRENCH silent era films available on home video.

Other GERMAN silent era films available on home video.

 
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