Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Silent Avant-Garde (1921-2022)

Contents: Manhatta (1921), The Enchanted City (1922), Return to Reason (1923), Le Ballet mécanique (1924), Looney Lens: Pas de deux (1924), Anémic cinéma (1926), Hände: Das Leben und die Liebe eines zärtlichen Geschlechts (1927), Twenty-Four-Dollar Island (1927), The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928), [Vorkapich Montage Sequences] (1928-1934), [Eisenstein Mexican Footage] (1930), A Bronx Morning (1931), Hearts of Age (1934), Escape (1938), The Eclipse (1936-1949), N.Y., N.Y. (1949-1958), Look Park (1973) and Tenga Fe (2022).

This collection brings together 21 restored avant-garde silent classics and a few newer titles. Films by Sergei M. Eisenstein, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Jay Leyda, Robert Flaherty, Ralph Steiner, Joseph Cornell, Mary Ellen Bute and Theodore J. Nemeth, Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich, Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, William Vance and Orson Welles, Stella F. Simon and Miklós Bándy, Francis Thompson, Al Brick, Warren Newcombe, and Bruce Posner are represented in the collection.

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered at 2K and 4K high-resolution from archival 16mm and 35mm prints held by leading world film archives.

The films are accompanied by music scores composed and/or performed by Donald Sosin, Gustavo Matamoros, John Alden Carpenter, Ludwig van Beethoven, Jacob Druckman, Jacques Offenbach, Carlos Dominguez, Alex Lough, Marc Blitzstein, George Antheil, Guy Livingston, Paul Lehrman, Peter Breiner, Charles Amirkhanian, Johann Sebastion Bach, Leopold Stokowski, Gene Forrell, Rafael Audinot, Alberto de Bru, Cuarteto Caney, and Christian Wolff.

For our comparative reviews of the individual silent era films, see our Anémic cinéma on home video, Le Ballet mécanique on home video, Hände on home video, The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra on home video, Looney Lens: Pas de deux on home video, Manhatta on home video, Return to Reason on home video and Twenty-Four-Dollar Island on home video pages.

The Enchanted City (1922) is a short film by Warren Newcombe for commercial release through Educational Film Exchanges. A very-good 35mm print was scanned for this edition. The 2K scan has not been digitally cleaned, repaired or stabilized. Poetic verses are intercut with a fantasy story of young lovers told chiefly in static illustrations that are panned over and slowly zoomed in and out. The film is presented with a piano score composed and performed by Donald Sosin.

[Eisenstein Mexican Footage] (1930) is presented without musical accompaniment. The scan has not been digitally cleaned, repaired or stabilized. The footage, seen here in the best home video edition available, seems to us not to be avant-garde in intent or result and feels as if it has been shoehorned into the colllection.

[Vorkapich Montage Sequences] (1928-1934) are clips from Hollywood feature films designed by Slavko Vorkapich: sequences from Manhattan Cocktail (1928), The Wolf of Wall Street (1929) and Sins of the Fathers (1928), and the Furies sequence from Crime Without Passion (1934).

A Bronx Morning (1931) has been prepared from a 2014 HD scan of a very-good 16mm print. Shot minus optical sound, the film is presented with a music score performed on digital piano and synthesizers (with some truly annoying sound settings) by Donald Sosin. The scan has not been digitally cleaned, repaired or stabilized; dirt, speckling and light scratches are seen in the images throughout.

Hearts of Age (1934) appears to have been scanned from a 16mm print, which may be the original gauge of the film’s production. Although the scan of the print is not new, it is the clearest edition we have viewed (chiefly due to its delivery on a Blu-ray Disc) of a film that not produced under the best of technical circumstances (several shots are accidentally or purposefully out-of-focus). The film is presented with a piano music score performed by Donald Sosin, with added sound effects (the bells!, the bells!).

Escape [Synchromy No. 4] (1938), originally shot in a two-color color film process, has been prepared from a 2022 5K(?) high-definition restoration scan of a very-good 35mm source print. The film is presented with its original soundtrack of a J.S. Bach work as recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

The Eclipse [also known as Rose Hobart] (1936-1949) is presented with an emulation of its intended accompaniment, as was sometimes specified by filmmaker Joseph Cornell, a scratchy grammophone record played in the dark before the film starts. The film is comprised mainly of nonsequential footage of actress Rose Hobart appearing in East of Borneo (1931). The 2K scan prepared in 2019 and 2022 is from a 16mm reduction print as may have been the gauge at which Cornell’s film was assembled. The film is color-tinted to emulate Cornell’s projection of the film through a dark blue glass at his screenings.

N.Y., N.Y. (1949-1958) has been prepared from a conflation of high-definition scans from 2014 and 2022 of a very-good to excellent 35mm print. The film is presented with its original soundrack featuring music by Gene Forrell.

Look Park (1973) has been scanned at 2K high-resolution from a very-good 16mm print, and is accompanied by music composed by Jacob Druckman and Jacques Offenbach from the film’s original optical mono soundtrack.

Tenga Fe (2022) is a digital assembly film by Bruce Posner of found footage dating as far back as 1906, prepared for home video (presumably) from a 4K high-definition digital composite file. The film is presented in two versions with soundtracks by Christian Wolff that verge on the annoying.

Many of the films were selected and the scans upgraded from the DVD collection Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film (1894-1947).

The collection is recommended for the improved HD scans that make this the best home video edition of these films available.

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Other silent era SERGEI EISENSTEIN films available on home video.