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

The Man You Loved to Hate (1979)

This documentary, written by historian Richard Koszarski and directed by Patrick Montgomery, on the then often-maligned, now immensely respected film director and actor Erich von Stroheim covers his entire career.

The documentary includes exerpts from many of Stroheim early film appearances as an actor and also his films as director. The documentary includes audio interviews with Erich von Stroheim and cinematographer Hal Mohr, and filmed interviews with film critic Thomas Quinn Curtiss, actor Marcel Dalio, actress Valerie Germonprez (Mrs. Valerie von Stroheim), location scout Harold Henderson, cinematographer Paul Ivano, producer/agent Paul Kohner, attorney I.B. Kornblum, writer Samuel Marx, writer Leonard Spigelgass, actress Denise Vernac, and editor Grant Whytock.

— Carl Bennett

The Killiam Shows print of this documentary (which appears to be 16mm) is very-good, but it is flecked with dust and speckling, and is slightly scratched and sports a very small number of splices. This Blu-ray Disc edition presentation benefits greatly from this new high-definition video transfer, which puts the DVD edition noted below to shame. We may be wrong but it appears that fresh scans of some footage and stills have been inserted to replace those reproduced in the original print. The historical footage is comprised of 35mm and 16mm reduction prints of motion pictures sequences, and is supported by production stills and portraits. The footage of contemporary interviews (from the 1960s and 1970s) was exclusively shot on 16mm stock.

Overall, other documentaries look better, but we suspect that this one was produced for release in 16mm prints and probably looks as good here as it ever will. We enthusiastically recommend this edition of this portrait of cinema’s most-maligned filmmakers.

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.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

The Killiam Shows print of this documentary (which appears to be 16mm) is very-good, but it is flecked with dust and speckling, and is slightly scratched and sports a very small number of splices. The analog video transfer (which appears to be decades old) utilized for this DVD edition has many of the characteristics of analog, with horizontal smears across white highlights and video noise in the flat middle greytones. The historical footage is comprised of 35mm and 16mm reduction prints of motion pictures sequences, and is supported by production stills and portraits.

Overall, other documentaries look better, but we suspect that this one was produced for release in 16mm prints. Despite our previous guess that this documentary looks as good here as it ever would, the Kino Blu-ray Disc edition noted above is a vast improvement over this presentation.

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 . . .

Other silent era-related DOCUMENTARIES available on home video.