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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.
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The Heart of
Texas Ryan
(1917) |
The Heart of Texas Ryan (1917) was Tom Mix’s last film for Selig Polyscope, and to squeeze at much money out of the film’s release, at a time when Selig was on the verge of financial failure, the studio reedited the short film to five reels, adding footage from other Tom Mix Selig films, The Telltale Knife (1914) and (likely) from Single Shot Parker (1914). As is often the case with this type of studio-expanded release, the film’s continuity is a mess. The Heart of Texas Ryan is thought to survive only in its 1923 rerelease version from Exclusive Features, Incorporated, retitled Single Shot Parker, which itself was reedited — either smoothing out editing rough spots or making things worse.
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 2003 VCI Entertainment edition
The Great Train Robbery 100th Anniversary Special Edition (1903-1925),
black & white and color-tinted and color-toned black & white, ? minutes total, not rated,
including The Heart of Texas Ryan (1917) [1923 rerelease version],
black & white, 60 minutes, not rated,
with The Great Train Robbery (1903), black & white and color-tinted and color-toned black & white, 12 minutes, not rated, The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1914), black & white, 20 minutes, not rated, and Tumbleweeds (1925) [1939 rerelease version], black & white, 82 minutes, not rated.
VCI Entertainment, 8297, UPC 0-89859-82972-7.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, dual-layered DVD disc, Region 0, 5 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, no chapter stops, keep case, $19.99.
DVD release date: 16 December 2003.
Country of origin: USA
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 2005 Grapevine Video edition
The Heart of Texas Ryan (1917) [1923 rerelease version],
black & white, 58 minutes, not rated,
with The Man from Texas (1915), black & white, 45 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, no UPC number.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, single-layered DVD-R disc, Region 0, ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? kbps audio bit rate, PCM 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops, keep case, $18.95 (reduced to $14.95).
DVD release date: August 2005.
Country of origin: USA
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Our first look at this disc reveals that it has been mastered from what appears to be a 16mm reduction print of the 1923 rerelease version of the film. As is typical with many 16mm prints, the print’s exposure flutters moderately from reasonable grayscales ranges to entirely too dark ranges in the picture, and often the shadow areas are plugged up to black. While not ideal, this is currently the only edition of the film available on DVD.
