Silent Era : Home Video Reviews

Silent Era Home Page > Home Video > Character Studies

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

Character
Studies
(1923)

Flicker Alley
2007 DVD edition

Valentino: Rediscovering an Icon of Silent Film (1918-1922), color and black & white, 226 minutes total, not rated, including Character Studies (1923), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.

Flicker Alley, FA0004,
ISBN 1-893967-32-8, UPC 6-17311-67329-0.
Two single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD discs, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; 12-page insert booklet; standard two-disc DVD keepcase; $39.98.
Release date: 11 September 2007.
Country of origin: USA

The release of this two-disc DVD collection of Rudolph Valentino material is both a happy and sad occasion. Sad, for the unhappy survival condition and incomplete state of surviving prints of these films; happy, for the opportunity to view them in any state whatsoever.

The DVD’s high video bit rate ensures that, despite how rough the source prints are, the disc will render the best-possible image, even on high-definition television monitors. Incomplete prints of films are rarely available on home video, so the occasion of the release of this DVD set is cause for celebration of the opportunity to view what is, at least, cohesive representations of these films that have been hard to locate or thought lost forever. We highly recommend this disc set.

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 . . .

Mackinac Media
2005 DVD edition

The Forgotten Films of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle (1913-1932), black & white and color-toned black & white, 625 minutes total, not rated, including Character Studies (1923), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.

Mackinac Media, MM0006D, UPC 6-89076-96352-7.
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; no chapter stops (within the film); double-wide four-disc DVD keepcase; $49.95.
Release date: 24 May 2005.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD collection contains 32 comedies directed by and starring Roscoe Arbuckle, and also feature Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Ford Sterling, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Jackie Coogan, Al St. John, Mack Swain, Edgar Kennedy, Charley Chase, Monty Banks, Lloyd Hamilton and Lupino Lane. The disc has been mastered from archival materials, or from the only known surviving print. The films feature restored intertitles, and several include previously lost or alternate footage.

The presentation features newly-created music scores by Philip Carli, David Drazin, Ben Model, The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, Rodney Sauer and Donald Sosin.

As of 2008, this four-disc collection is out-of-print and can only be found as a used item.

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 has been discontinued
and is . . .

Passport Video
2007 DVD edition

Smiles and Spectacles: A Harold Lloyd Treasury (1917-1947), black & white, 600 minutes total, not rated, including Character Studies (1923), color-toned black & white, 10 minutes, not rated.

Passport Video, DVD-5160, UPC 0-25493-51609-8.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (five DVDs in the set); 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 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); double-wide five-disc DVD keepcase; $19.98.
Release date: 13 February 2007.
Country of origin: USA