Silent Era : DVD : The Squaw Man (1914) Review

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Reviews of silent film releases on DVD home video.
Copyright © 1999-2008 by Carl Bennett. All Rights Reserved.

The Squaw Man
(1914)
on

2007 Passport Video edition

The Squaw Man (1914), black & white, 74 minutes, not rated, with The Virginian (1914), black & white, 50 minutes, not rated, Carmen (1915), black & white, 57 minutes, not rated, The Cheat (1915), black & white, 59 minutes, not rated, Joan the Woman (1916), black & white, 133 minutes, not rated, The Little American (1917), black & white, 62 minutes, not rated, A Romance of the Redwoods (1917), black & white, 90 minutes, not rated, Don’t Change Your Husband (1918), black & white, 79 minutes, not rated, Old Wives for New (1918), black & white, 72 minutes, not rated, The Whispering Chorus (1918), black & white, 81 minutes, not rated, Male and Female (1919), black & white, 115 minutes, not rated, Why Change Your Wife? (1920), black & white, 91 minutes, not rated, The Affairs of Anatol (1921), black & white, 117 minutes, not rated, Miss Lulu Bett (1921), black & white, 71 minutes, not rated, Manslaughter (1922), black & white, 100 minutes, not rated, The Road to Yesterday (1926), black & white, 105 minutes, not rated, and The Volga Boatman (1926), black & white, 120 minutes, not rated.

Passport Video, DVD-5090, UPC 0-25493-50900-0.
Full-frame 4:3 NTSC, five single-sided, dual-layered DVD discs, Region 0, ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 1.0 mon0 sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 11 chapter stops, multidisc keep case, $19.98.
DVD release date: 12 June 2007.
Country of origin: USA

This multidisc budget edition has been mastered from a 16mm reduction print, at a slightly faster than natural transfer speed. The source print is a little flat in grayscale range and soft of image detail but more of the original picture details are retained in the video transfer, which results in slightly better quality than the contrasty, analog-based Alpha edition noted below.

The film is accompanied by a series of preexisting recordings.

This edition is not ideal, but it is likely — temporarily — the best available edition on home video.

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.

2006 Alpha Video edition

The Squaw Man (1914), black & white, 80 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Video, ALP5121D, UPC 0-89218-51219-2.
Windowboxed 4:3 NTSC, one single-sided, single-layered DVD disc, Region 0, ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 7 chapter stops, keep case, $6.98.
DVD release date: 25 July 2006.
Country of origin: USA

Our first look at this budget edition of Cecil B. DeMille’s first film reveals a windowboxed video transfer from a 35mm source print, but the disc appears to have been mastered from a VHS videotape copy of the transfer. Tell-tale smears over shadows to the right of highlights and a specific absence of sharp image details reveals the disc’s analog origin. Freeze-frames will reveal many digital video artifacts indicating overcompression. However, we have seen discs far worse than this that were mastered from VHS and this is, regardless of its less-than-perfect mastering, quite watchable.

The film is accompanied by a music score performed on piano by Rachel Gutches for this presentation.

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.

2006 Grapevine Video edition

The Squaw Man (1914), black & white, 80 minutes, not rated, with Slim Becomes an Editor (1914), black & white, 8 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, $16.95.
DVD release date: 2006.
Country of origin: USA

This budget edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.

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

Other silent era Cecil B. DeMille films available on DVD home video:
The Affairs of Anatol (1921)
Carmen (1915)
The Cheat (1915)
The Clinging Vine (1926)
Don’t Change Your Husband (1919)
The Godless Girl (1928)
The Golden Chance (1916)
Joan the Woman (1917)
The King of Kings (1927)
The Little American (1917)
Male and Female (1919)
Manslaughter (1922)
Old Wives for New (1918)
The Road to Yesterday (1926)
A Romance of the Redwoods (1917)
The Ten Commandments (1923)
The Virginian (1914)
The Volga Boatman (1926)
The Whispering Chorus (1918)
Why Change Your Wife? (1920)

Other silent era western films available on DVD home video:
The Bargain (1914)
The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1914)
Behind Two Guns (1924)
Blue Blazes Rawden (1918)
Born to Battle (1927)
The Buckaroo Kid (1926)
Bucking Broadway (1917)
The Cradle of Courage (1920)
Custer’s Last Fight (1912)
The Deerslayer (1920)
The Devil Horse (1926)
The Films of William S. Hart (1915)
The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926)
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
The Heart of Texas Ryan (1917)
Hell’s Hinges (1916)
The Iron Horse (1924)
Jesse James Under the Black Flag (1921)
Just Tony (1922)
The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
The Man from Texas (1915)
The Martyrs of the Alamo (1915)
Pioneers of the West (1927)
Redskin (1929)
The Return of ‘Draw’ Egan (1916)
The Son-of-a-Gun! (1918)
The Square Deal Man (1917)
Straight Shooting (1917)
Thundering Hoofs (1924)
The Toll Gate (1920)
Tumbleweeds (1925)
The Vanishing American (1925)
Wagon Tracks (1919)
Wild Beauty (1927)

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