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

Beauty’s Worth (1922)

This comedy-drama, directed by Robert G. Vignola, features Marion Davies as a Quaker woman who encounters culture shock when she is away from her conservative upbringing as she attempts to enter high society in the big city. Acting support is provided by Forrest Stanley, June Elvidge, Truly Shattuck, Lydia Yeamans, Hallam Cooley, Antrim Short, Thomas Jefferson and Martha Mattox.

This DVD-R edition, produced for home video by Edward Lorusso, has been mastered from a high-definition transfer of a 35mm preservation print held by the Library of Congress. The transfer has been remastered as a slightly-windowboxed picture that will appear as full-frame on most television monitors and presents slightly more of the picture than the Lorusso edition noted below.

The film is presented with a fine music score performed on a computer-based virtual theater pipe organ by Ben Model. We love the authentic-sounding pipe organ emulation.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

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

Not publicly released in this form, we do know that this DVD-R home video edition (which was crowd-funded through Kickstarter) has been released in a remastered version on Ben Model’s Undercrank Productions label. The 35mm preservation version of the film produced by the Library of Congress has been utilized for this edition, which is well-represented in this natural-speed, high-definition video transfer. The resulting picture is reasonably detailed and features a broad range of open greytones, but it also runs up against the resolution limits of DVD and occasionally shows signs of insufficient resolution. Also of note is the presence of yellow tinges to some of the medium-dark greytones in the picture throughout the film. (See the wall on the right side of the picture in the still frame above.) Edition producer Edward Lorusso has expressed that there may be a possibility of releasing the video with color tints added, which we support as they would effectively disguise the unwanted yellow tinges.

The film is presented with a fine new music score performed on a computer-based virtual theater pipe organ by Ben Model, which is quite authentic sounding and effective.

It’s not hard to believe that this edition is far better-looking than the Alpha Video edition noted below. Our nitpicking aside, we highly recommend the remastered Undercrank edition noted above.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an old analog videotape copy of a video transfer from a very-good 16mm reduction print. Of course, the results are not great since the picture is very soft in its image details, very dark in its shadow details, and altogether a very unsatisfying viewing experience.

The film is presented with a music score compiled from preexisting orchestral recordings.

Our recommndation is to pass on this one since there is better to be had (see above).

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

For now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.

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