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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
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Between Showers
(1914)

In their first film together, Charles Chaplin and Ford Sterling duke it out over an unwilling mashee and an umbrella.

It’s a Keystone film, it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s directed by Henry Lehrman, it won’t make sense.

Flicker Alley
2010 DVD edition

Chaplin at Keystone (1914), black & white, 590 minutes total, not rated, including Between Showers (1914), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated.

Flicker Alley, FA0018,
UPC 6-17311-67579-9, ISBN 1-893967-57-3.
Four single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD discs, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; four slimline DVD keepcases in cardboard slipcase; $79.95.
Release date: 26 October 2010.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 8 / audio: 8 / additional content: 8 / overall: 8.

This quality DVD edition has been mastered from a restoration conflation of a 35mm nitrate prints held by the British Film Institute, the Library of Congress and the Svenska Filminstitut, with additional footage inserts from a 16mm reduction print held by Lobster Films, Paris, which has been transferred by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovita in Italy. The intertitles were digitally reset with texts from a surviving original Keystone print. The results are very-good to excellent, with the ending footage from the 16mm print being only fair.

The film is accompanied by a music score performed on piano by Frederick Hodges.

The collection’s supplemental material includes Charlie et sa Belle [Charlie’s White Elephant] (1916), Inside the Keystone Project (2010) documenting the Chaplin Project (10 minutes), Silent Traces: The Keystone Locations (2010) with John Bengtson, author of Silent Traces (12 minutes), and a stills gallery.

Overall, the improvement in quality over previous home video editions is so great that you’ll toss your other Keystone Chaplin discs when you see this collection. Highly recommended!

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.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

Alpha Video
2014 DVD edition

Silent Comedy Classics, Volume 2 (1914-1928), black & white, 157 minutes total, not rated, including Between Showers (1914), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7381D, UPC 0-89218-73819-6.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 27 May 2014.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.

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

Probably not a great presentation and this home video edition is not recommended.

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