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

College (1927)

Buster Keaton returned to a simpler story with College (1927) and reaped one of his most-popular films of the 1920s.

This remastered Blu-ray Disc edition utlizes a conflation of a number of prints including an excellent 35mm print, with inserts from a very-good 35mm duplicate print with softer image details and another good 35mm print with really soft details. Several of the intertitles have been reset as video-based intertitles, possibly replacing foreign language title cards. Some of the footage has been transferred in a 2K high-definition scan with rather filmlike continuous greytones and sharp image details, where other footage has been transferred with results that produce image details in not-so-filmlike black pointilistic dots.

The film is presented with two optional music scores, both in uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo: a new music score performed by a small ensemble, The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, our favorite accompaniment to this film, and a music score performed on theatre pipe organ by John Muri.

Supplementary material includes audio commentary by film historian Rob Farr; an introduction by edition producer Serge Bromberg (in French with English subtitles) (4 minutes); a filmed introduction by Lillian Gish originally produced for the Silent Years television series (4 minutes); the Mack Sennett collegiate short Run, Girl, Run (1928); a visual essay on the film’s locations by John Bengtson; and “The Scribe,” a 1966 industrial short that was Keaton’s final filmed performance (30 minutes).

This edition of College is largely on par with the 2013 Kino edition noted above and is an alternate recommended edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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The film is accompanied by a music score compiled and arranged by Rodney Sauer and performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Supplemental material includes the Hal Roach Dippy-Doo-Dads short Go West (1923) featuring a cast of monkeys; and “Buster Keaton: Screenwriter,” an audio interview from the 1950s (59 minutes).

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region A Blu-ray Disc edition is also available directly from . . .

This Blu-ray Disc edition features a remastered high-definition home video release of Buster Keaton’s College, which captures the image details of the source print in continuous greytones and rather than in black pointilistic dots — quite preferable and produces the most filmlike picture. Some footage has been inserted from lesser-quality prints.

The film is presented with a music score performed on theatre pipe organ by John Muri.

The disc’s supplementary section includes audio commentary by film historian Rob Farr; a visual essay on the film’s locations by John Bengtson; and “The Scribe,” a 1966 industrial short that was Keaton’s final filmed performance (30 minutes).

This is our recommended home video edition of College for its filmlike HD video transfer, slightly edging out Kino’s 2017 edition produced by Lobster Films noted below.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This Blu-ray Disc collection edition contains the first high-definition home video release of Buster Keaton’s College, which is identical to the single-disc edition noted above.

The film is presented with a music score performed on theatre pipe organ by John Muri.

Originally available on Blu-ray Disc only in this boxset, College was released by Kino Lorber separately in 2013.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Supplementary material includes audio commentary for Our Hospitality by historian Rob Farr; audio commentary for Go West by historians Joel Goss and Bruce Lawton; the alternate version Hospitality (1923) with optional commentary by film historian Polly Rose; a video essay by Patricia Eliot Tobias (26 minutes); video essays on Go West and College shooting locations by John Bengtson; a video essay by David Cairns (28 minutes); the short film Go West (1923) (12 minutes); the short film The Railrodder (1965) with optional audio commentary by director Gerald Potterton and cameraman David De Volpi (24 minutes); the documentary Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965); and a 60-page insert booklet with essays on all three films by Imogen Sara Smith, an article by Philip Kemp, an article on Our Hospitality shooting locations by John Bengtson, Gerald Potterton’s original treatment for The Railrodder, and an appreciation of Keaton and The Railrodder by writer and silent cinema aficionado Chris Seguin.

Sight unseen, this is our recommended European home video edition of the film. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region B Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

The film is presented with a music score performed on theatre pipe organ by John Muri.

The disc’s supplementary section includes audio commentary by film historian Rob Farr; a visual essay on the film’s locations by John Bengtson; and “The Scribe,” a 1966 industrial short that was Keaton’s final filmed performance (30 minutes).

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.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This DVD edition has been mastered from an excellent 35mm print that has just a touch of dust, speckling, beginning print decomposition and other flaws, with missing footage inserts from a very-good 35mm print and a good 16mm reduction print. Originally mastered for release on laserdisc and VHS videotape in 1995, the standard-resolution analog video master is soft in its image details.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on theatre pipe organ by John Muri.

We recommend the remastered DVD edition (not this one) and the high-definition Blu-ray Disc edition (noted above) from Kino Lorber.

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.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This low-budget DVD edition utilizes the same slightly windowboxed video transfer as the 2000 Kino edition noted above, for it brandishes the Kino International logomark before the film begins. The transfer has probably been lifted from a Kino DVD, with or without their knowledge. The Kino transfer utilized a 35mm print for nearly the entirely of their edition (the Image Entertainment laserdisc used a greater combination of 35mm and 16mm footage), so the clarity is greater than other home video editions of College. Despite the disc’s low video bit rate, in motion the picture looks pretty good and is far better than other budget silent film discs.

The film is accompanied by the same pipe organ score by John Muri as the Kino edition, but is encoded at a low volume and is noisy when turned up.

Once the disc is playing, there is no accessing the disc’s menu (there isn’t one), there are no chapter stops, nor any other interactive controls other than ‘stop.’

The disc is available on eBay and also retails for about $2.00 in stores that carry this super-cheap line of discs, identified on its cardboard packaging by the ‘Movie Classics’ logo that is used instead of a Genius Entertainment logo.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

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

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

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

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

While surviving prints of College appear to be composed of surviving 35mm and 16mm materials, this GoodTimes edition has been mastered entirely from a 16mm reduction print which is characteristically soft of focus, coarse of image detail and contrasty in its greyscale range. Despite the high video bit rate on this disc, the quality of the source print seriously compromises this disc.

This multifilm edition also features the Harold Lloyd sound comedy The Milky Way (1936), mastered from a 16mm print, which is at least watchable.

For our comments on this edition of The General (1926), see our The General on home video page.

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 . . .

The low-budget DVD edition utilizes a dark 16mm reduction print for its older analog video transfer. The results are unexpectedly horrible. Worse than could be expected. Most of the subtleties of Buster’s performance are lost in a dark, murky picture full of plugged-up shadows and dark grey highlights.

The film is presented with a theater organ music score performed by an uncredited musician.

While the temptation is to get three discs for a low price, the quality of prints used for the video transfers are commensurately low. Not recommended and not worth collecting.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Sight unseen, we don’t recommend it.

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 . . .

Sight unseen, we don’t recommend it.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Other COLLEGE-THEMED FILMS of the silent era available on home video.