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

In the Tentacles of the North (1926)

A B-film release from Poverty Row studio Rayart Pictures Corporation, this story of ice-bound sailors in the frozen North adapted from a story by James Oliver Curwood stars Gaston Glass and Alice Calhoun.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a color-toned abridged 35mm nitrate print. The full-frame, natural-speed video transfer was originally prepared for Grapevine Video’s VHS release and shows signs of its older, analog pedigree. While the color-tones of the nitrate print are well-captured throughout the midranges, the video transfer itself is contrasty, with little image detail visible in deep shadows and in the blasted-out highlights, making this viewing experience only slightly better than watching a good 16mm print. The very-good source print itself is speckled, with some dust and print damage, but also with more than its share of splices and obvious gaps in the story narrative.

The film is accompanied by a cobbled-together score of orchestral music culled from older film soundtracks, predominantly from the Movietone soundtrack of The Man Who Laughs (1928).

A slightly above-average quality product for this video company that often must rely on older 16mm reduction prints for its releases, this disc is compromised by its older video transfer that likely does not well-represent the image quality of the surviving material. But, hey, where are you going to find another edition of this title?

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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 . . .