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

The Martyrs of the Alamo (1915)

This historical drama, directed by W. Christy Cabanne, stars Sam de Grasse, Allan Sears, Walter Long, Alfred Paget, Fred Burns, John T. Dillon and Juanita Hansen.

This DVD edition has been mastered from a good-to-very-good 16mm reduction print, which is soft in image detail, has its fair share of dust, speckling, print damage, and frame jitters, but has a reasonable greyscale range, and is at least watchable. The video transfer is of a bit lower quality than is commonly available on silent era DVDs. Especially on high-definition equipment, the coarse resolution of the transfer will be readily apparent to most viewers. Regretfully, an Alamo logomark appears in the lower right-hand corner of the picture throughout the film.

The presentation features an introduction by author Frank Thompson, and the film is accompanied by a music score performed on synthesizers.

The supplemental material includes the video featurettes, “The Alamo: Shrine of Texas Liberty Lost & Found,” “The Alamo: Shrine of Texas Liberty” and “The Spirit of Independence.”

While not ideal, this so-so DVD is an improvement over its VHS predecessor, an edition produced by Frank Thompson for the Alamo Historical Site.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.