Produced by Inspiration Pictures, the company headed by actor Richard Barthelmess, director Henry King and executive Charles Duell, The White Sister was shot in Italy to capture the beauty of the story’s homeland. The film stars Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman.

This Grapevine edition, touted as being the complete 10-reel version (that is, the complete general release version of the film edited from its premiere length of 13 reels), has been transferred from a good but contrasty 16mm reduction print. Image shadow details are lost in deep, choking blacks, but highlight details (if still existing in the source print) remain.

The film can be hard to watch at times as all but the brightest picture details in interior shots are lost in subterranean shadows. Small exposure fluctuations throughout the film slowly flicker the sparce middle graytones. At least, the windowboxed, natural-speed video transfer will present on all monitors all of the picture information in the closely-cropped 16mm print.

The production is presented with a serviceable compiled music score of preexisting orchestral recordings, edited to accompany the film’s action.

Not the best home video option for hopeful collectors but, still, a marginal improvement over the crappy VHS editions of the 1980s and early 1990s. Our wish is that sometime soon the best surviving materials of this film are remastered in a high-quality home video edition to allow this spectacular production its long-deserving due.

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

This edition of The White Sister from Sunrise Silents reveals a faster-than-natural-speed windowboxed video transfer from a very-good 16mm reduction print. However, the source print is cropped more so on the left side than elsewhere. Image details are soft, the print is contrasty, with plugged-up shadows and featureless highlights, and there are small exposure fluctuations throughout. While the intertitles are readable, some facial features are hard to discern.

The disc features musical accompaniment performed on a MIDI-based synthesizer.

Also on this disc is Charles Chaplin’s second film, transferred from a good 16mm reduction print, a Krazy Kat cartoon, transferred from a very-good 16mm reduction print, a glass-slide gallery (25 images), the fifth episode of the serial Mystery of the Double Cross (1917), transferred from a good 16mm reduction print, a Lillian Gish photo gallery (32 images), and a trailer for What Price Glory (1926), transferred from a good 16mm reduction print.

We were happy to trash our old hard-to-watch VHS edition of The White Sister for this new DVD-R edition, but we look forward to an improved home video release of this film.

This Region 0 NTSC or PAL DVD-R is available directly from Sunrise Silents.

Other silent era LILLIAN GISH films available on home video.

Other silent era RONALD COLMAN films available on home video.