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The Marcel Perez Collection Volume 2 (1907-1923)

Contents: The Near-Sighted Cyclist (1907), Some Hero (1916), Lend Me Your Wife (1916), A Scrambled Honeymoon (1916), Oh! What a Day (1918), Chickens in Turkey (1919), Pinched (1921), Wild (1921) and Friday the 13th (1923) [incomplete].

Marcel Perez was known to international audiences as Robinet, Twede-Dan and Tweedledum over the course of his career as a film comedian.

This collection of nine short comedies produced in France and America is presented from surviving prints held by the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from 35mm archival prints preserved by the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art.

The Near-Sighted Cyclist (1907) is presented from what is thought to be a British release print entitled The Short Sighted Cyclist held by the Museum of Modern Art. The 35mm print is of good quality, with soft image detail, occasional image flutters and a moderately constrasty greyscale range.

Some Hero (1916) is presented from an excellent but incomplete 35mm print held by the Museum of Modern Art, with a few thin vertical scratches, dust, speckling, emulsion scuffing and some footage lost to splices. The high-resolution scan renders a detailed picture that is a pleasure to watch.

Lend Me Your Wife (1916) is presented from a good to excellent but incomplete 35mm print held by the Museum of Modern Art, with some soft image detail, dust, speckling, emulsion scuffing and some footage lost to splices.

A Scrambled Honeymoon (1916) is presented from an excellent but incomplete 35mm print (missing reel two) held by the Library of Congress, with dust, speckling, some emulsion damage, picture jitters, and is occasionally dark in its shadows.

Oh! What a Day (1918) is presented from two incomplete 35mm prints: reel one from the Museum of Modern Art and reel two from the Library of Congress. Reel one is a very-good to excellent print, with a few vertical scratches, some light dust, speckling and moderate emulsion damage that is also marred by some sections of active nitrate decomposition; reel two appears to be a conflated print from a good to very-good print that is clearly a duped copy that is contrasty and has some exposure fluctations and an excellent 35mm original print, with some picture jitters, a vertical scratch or two, light dust, speckling and moderate emulsion damage. Missing footage has been bridged by new intertitles and still photograph inserts. The film is distinguished by a very good optical effect early in the film. . . . and, what is that being coaxed out of the ground by the man sitting in the road?

Chickens in Turkey (1919) is presented from a very-good but incomplete 35mm print held by the Library of Congress. Much of reel one is missing due to active nitrate deposition. The notes before the film postulates that the second reel appears to have been censored, with close-ups of fetching women and any violent comedy action having been removed from the print. Copyright records have been utilized to recreate missing intertitles and to create bridging intertitles to relay the story from absent footage.

Pinched (1921) is presented from a very-good but incomplete 35mm print held by the Library of Congress, with some beginning decomposition, dust, speckling and emulsion scuffing. Reel two is missing.

Wild (1921) is presented from a vintage 16mm reduction print, entitled Untamed, held by the Library of Congress. The picture quality is very-good, with a broad range of greytones, and with dust, speckling, emulsion scuffing and scrapes.

Friday the 13th (1923) is presented from an excellent 2-minute fragment held by the Library of Congress.

The films are accompanied by music scores performed on digital piano by Ben Model.

The 2K high-resolution scans often render a detailed and rather filmlike picture that is a pleasure to watch, especially on a 4K television system capable of upscaling the image from standard DVD resolution. We highly recommend this collection of rare short comedies.

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