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

Going Straight (1916)

Norma Talmadge stars in this crime drama from directors Sidney and Chester Franklin. Ralph Lewis and Eugene Pallette support.

Well-to-do couple Grace Remington (Talmadge) and John Remington (Lewis) have their comfortable lives disrupted by Dan Briggs (Pallette), a petty street thief. Before going straight, the Remingtons were leaders of the Higgins gang and Briggs, a Higgins gang member, begins to blackmail them for easy cash and to avail himself of Remington’s former expertise as a safe cracker.

Certain that it would be the one and only time that he returns to crime, Remington reluctantly joins Briggs’ criminal enterprise. However, the home that Briggs intends to burglarize belongs to a friend of Grace’s, and she and the Remington children are sleeping overnight there. When the heist goes awry, Briggs vows revenge on Remington.

While short on plot, Going Straight is a pretty good film overall. Eugene Pallette makes the biggest splash, with his attention-commanding and compelling performance. Ralph Lewis is . . . well, Ralph Lewis . . . not a particularly versatile actor and prone to his rote mannerisms but he is nonetheless solid enough here. Norma Talmadge is lovely (as always) and, in her turn, runs the gamut from happiness to dread and fear. The Franklin Brothers produced a good film that features a few surprising inset shots and noteworthy close-ups.

— Carl Bennett

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a good to very-good 16mm reduction print of the S.A. Lynch Enterprises rerelease version. The source print for the 16mm print was worn, with a constant patina of scuffing, speckling, dust and scratches, and a couple of brief sections of sprocket damage to the image. While the picture features good highlights and midtones, the shadows are closed-up and detailless. Also, the transfer speed is a little faster than a natural pace.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack that has been compiled from preexisting recordings, the same recordings we have heard on dozens of low-budget home video editions of silent films.

This disc is currently the only known home video edition of Going Straight on DVD.

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

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