Following the success of The White Sister (1923), the Inspiration Pictures company and director Henry King again teamed Lillian Gish with Ronald Colman for this period drama of love, jealousy and political corruption, shot on location in Italy, that also features William Powell as the villain.

This public-domain edition of the film has been mastered from a fair to good 16mm reduction print. Some sections of the source print are quite dark, making reading some of the intertitles and following the film’s action rough going for the viewer. The print is contrasty in itself and the video transfer has been adjusted to gray down the image highlights in an attempt to hold detail, resulting in its generally dark picture. However, we have never viewed a 35mm print of this film and this DVD represents the best-looking edition of the three we have seen on home video (which apparently isn’t saying much). Collectors may benefit from increasing the brightness settings on their television monitor when viewing this disc.

The film is accompanied by preexisting recordings from a variety of sources, roughly edited together into a serviceable music score.

Far from an ideal edition, this disc will have to do until a better edition can be mastered from the print held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

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

Other silent era HENRY KING films available on home video.

Other silent era WILLIAM POWELL films available on home video.

Other silent era RONALD COLMAN films available on home video.