Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved. |
The
Mechanical Man
(1921)
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Alpha Video
2005 DVD edition
The Mechanical Man (1921), color-tinted black & white, 26 minutes, not rated, with The Headless Horseman (1922), black & white, 51 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 4873D, UPC 0-89218-48739-1.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 7.2 Mbps average video bit rate, 384 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; 7 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $6.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 27 September 2005.
Country of origin: USA
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This budget DVD edition of this extremely rare Italian science fiction film originates from a severely-truncated Brazilian Portuguese-language release print, which possibly may be the only surviving version of the film.
Despite the introductory video titles that might imply that we would be viewing the surviving footage in a restored high-quality video transfer, the actual surviving footage is copied from a low-quality VHS videotape, with new video-based English-language intertitles by Alpha Video. Even though the disc has a relatively high video bit rate, the picture is coarse with visible horizontal resolution lines. If your viewing system is capable of line-doubling, it will only moderately improve the low picture quality.
The film is accompanied by a MIDI-keyboard and digital piano music score performed by Rachel Gutches.
If you are at all nostalgic over the VHS videotapes of the 1990s, this disc will remind you just how far silent film presentations on home video have come.
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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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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. 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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Other ITALIAN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
Other SCIENCE FICTION and FANTASY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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