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Discovering Cinema
Learning to Talk &
Movies Dream in Color
(2003-2004)

This collection of two documentaries, produced by Lobster Films, Paris, and Histoire, focuses on experimental sound and color technologies in the silent era.

Flicker Alley
2007 DVD edition

Discovering Cinema: Learning to Talk & Movies Dream in Color (2003-2004), black & white, color-tinted black & white, color-toned black & white, color-tinted-and-toned black & white, and color, 267 minutes total, not rated.

Flicker Alley, FA0005,
UPC 6-17311-67339-9, ISBN 1-893967-33-6.
Two 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 8-bit 2.0 stereo sound; English, French and Italian language intertitles (some films), English language subtitles (some films); chapter stops (Learning to Talk) and 5 chapter stops (Movies Dream in Color); standard two-disc DVD keepcase; $29.99.
Release date: 25 September 2007.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 8 / audio: 8 / additional content: 9 / overall: 8.

The two French documentaries are presented in this DVD edition with English language narration, and interviews with Paolo Cherchi Usaï, Gian Luca Farinelli, Maurice Gianati, Stephen Herbert, Anthony L’Abbate, Gilles Trarieux Lumière and Dominique Païni.

Among the more than two-and-a-half hours of supplemental material is complete presentations of the sound and color films [Blacksmith Scene] (1895), [Death of Marat] (1897), Danse serpentine (1897), [Execution of Joan of Arc] (1898), [Spanish Dancers] (1898), Métamorphoses du papillon (1904), La Fée aux fleurs (1905), Le sorcier Arabe (1906), Lucia di Lammermoor (1908), Ach Wie So Trügerisch (Rigoletto) (1908), Carmen: Air du toréador (1910), Légende du roi Gambrinus (1911), La Marseillaise (1911), [Dr. Doyen Color Test] (1912), Inauguration of the San Marco Campanile (1912), Nursery Favorites (1913), Le Père la victoire (1917), Quand Madelon (1917), an excerpt from The Chamber Mystery (1920), an excerpt from [Miss Venus] (1921), Snappy Tunes (1923), [Theodore Case Test Film No. 2] (1925), Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (1925), [Unie Film Revue No. 29: Mode de Paris] (1926), John Miljan — Vitaphone Trailer Announcement — “The Jazz Singer” (1927), [Sonia Delaunay Color Test] (circa 1928), Governor C.C. Young, Accompanied by His Family, Hails Greater Talkie Season; Ronald Colman Expresses the Good Wishes of the Film Industry (1928), Finding His Voice (1929), Flying High (1929), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1929), the Technicolor-Movietone theatrical trailer for King of Jazz (1930), Wonderland of California (circa 1930) a compilation of Cinecolor test footage including a rehearsal of the Marx Brothers on the set of The Cocoanuts (1929)!, the dazzling La Cucaracha (1934) the first live-action three-strip Technicolor film, the three-strip Technicolor theatrical trailer for Becky Sharp (1935), [Jeunes femmes prenant le thé procédé Autochrome Lumière; also known as Tea Time] (circa 1937), and New York, N.Y., U.S.A. (1938).