Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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The Jack-Knife
Man
(1920)
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This feature drama, directed by King Vidor, stars Fred Turner, Henry Todd and Bobby Kelso, with Willis Marks, Lillian Leighton, James Corrigan and Claire McDowell.
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 Grapevine Video
2011 DVD edition
The Jack-Knife Man (1920), black & white, 70 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10453-4.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 20 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.95.
Release date: August 2011.
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 5 / additional content: 0 / overall: 4.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print. The source print from which the reduction print was duplicated was already moderately scuffed, with some emulsion damage. The natural-speed video transfer retains the persistent speckling, dust and schmutz that is common among vintage reduction prints.
The film is accompanied by two optional music scores by Blaine Gale, one performed on theatre organ and another performed on digital piano and synthesizer (with sound effects). Our preference is the theatre organ score.
Not a great presentation but this is the best home video edition of the film we know of.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2017 DVD edition
The Jack-Knife Man (1920), color-toned black & white, 59 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7908D, UPC 0-89218-79089-7.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 3.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 31 January 2017.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 4 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.
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This DVD-R edition has been prepared from a fair 16mm reduction print that has some frame jitters, dust, speckling, rough splices, emulsion damage and schmutz. The disc encoding is at such a low bit rate so that the picture is full of compression artifiacts (as is confirmed by any still frame). HD system upscaling does little to improve the smeary picture.
As is typical of Alpha Video releases, the film is presented with a soundtrack compiled from preexisting low-fidelity music recordings lifted from old grammophone records.
This edition is not recommended.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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Other silent era KING VIDOR films available on home video.
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