This early drama from director Ernst Lubitsch features Emil Jannings and Pola Negri in early roles.

This edition from public-domain home video company Grapevine Video has been transferred from a 16mm reduction print, and features new English language intertitles. The very-good 16mm print is, as usual, soft of image detail, contrasty with blasted-out highlights, some speckling and dust. The video transfer is adequate, with an annoying hair in the gate.

The film is accompanied by a canned and abruptly-edited music score, which is reproduced with a very brassy, digitally over-compressed ringing.

The disc has been supplemented with a Keystone one-reeler comedy transferred from a 16mm reduction print.

As is the case with most Grapevine product, the disc is not mastered from the best materials or accompanied by the best in music, but it is slightly better viewing than the Alpha Video edition noted below.

This Region 0 NTSC disc is available directly from Grapevine Video.

This budget edition has been mastered from a very-good 16mm reduction print. In fact, it has been mastered from the Grapevine Video edition noted above. The only differences are that this picture has been converted to black & white and the film is presented with a passible original music score performed on digital piano by Rachel Gutches.

The picture is slightly softer in image detail, which is apparent most in the English language intertitles. The difference in running times between the two editions is accounted for by Alpha’s removal of the longer opening video-based credits and some introductory footage present in the Grapevine edition.

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 Ernst Lubitsch films available on DVD home video:
Anna Boleyn (1920)
The Doll (1919)
Eternal Love (1929)
Das fidele Gefängnis (1917) with Trouble in Paradise (1932)
I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1919)
Lubitsch in Berlin (1919-1921)
Madame Du Barry (1919)
The Marriage Circle (1924)
The Oyster Princess (1919)
Sumurun [One Arabian Night] (1920)
The Wildcat (1921)

About Ernst Lubitsch:
Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin (2006)

Other silent era Emil Jannings films available on DVD home video:
Anna Boleyn (1920)
The Last Laugh (1924)
Madame Du Barry (1919)
Othello (1922)
Tartuffe (1925)
Waxworks (1924)

Other silent era Pola Negri films available on DVD home video:
Hotel Imperial (1927)
Madame Du Barry (1919)
Sumurun [One Arabian Night] (1920)
The Wildcat (1921)
The Woman He Scorned (1929)

Other German silent era films available on DVD home video:
Asphalt (1929)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Deerslayer and Chingachgook (1920)
Destiny (1921)
Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)
Different from the Others (1919)
Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922)
Genuine (1920)
The Golem (1920)
The Hands of Orlac (1924)
The Holy Mountain (1926)
The Indian Tomb (1921)
The Joyless Street (1925)
The Last Laugh (1924)
The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927)
Metropolis (1927)
Michael (1924)
Die Nibelungen (1924)
Nosferatu (1922)
Opus I (1921)
Pandora’s Box (1929)
People on Sunday (1929)
Secrets of a Soul (1926)
Sex in Chains (1928)
The Spiders (1919-1920)
Spies (1928)
The Student of Prague (1913)
The Student of Prague (1926)
Tartuffe (1926)
The Treasure (1923)
Warning Shadows (1923)
The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929)
The Woman in the Moon (1929)

About German filmmakers:
Fritz Lang: Circle of Destiny (1998)
The Way to Murnau (2003)

Collections and boxsets that include German silent era films:
Fritz Lang Epic Collection (1924-1929)
The F.W. Murnau Collection (1922-1931)
German Expressionism Collection (1920-1926)
German Horror Classics (1920-1924)
The Masterworks of the German Horror Cinema (1920-1922)

Other silent era horror films available on DVD home video:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) [Epstein]
Faust (1926)
The Golem (1920)
The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Häxan (1922)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
L’Inferno (1911)
Leaves from Satan’s Book (1921)
Maciste in Hell (1926)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Nosferatu (1922)
The Penalty (1920)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
The Student of Prague (1913)
The Student of Prague (1926)
The Unknown (1927)
Warning Shadows (1923)
Waxworks (1924)