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

North of Hudson Bay (1923)

This northwoods drama, directed by John Ford, stars Tom Mix and Kathleen Key, with Jennie Lee, Frank Campeau, Eugene Pallette, William Walling and Frank Leigh.

I have a question: Does Tom Mix always have to wear those Mickey Mouse white gloves?

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an incomplete 35mm (or possibly 16mm) print with Czechoslovakian intertitles. Some Czech insert shots have been replaced with English intertitles. The source print is significantly damaged in places, with emulsion chipping and scrapes, numerous print splices, beginning nitrate decomposition, frame jitters, timing marks, print tears, and with dust, speckling and other flaws.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting orchestral music recordings of varied audio quality.

It needs to be noted that a faint “SHF-E” digital watermark appears in the lower right-hand corner of the picture to discourage pirating of this edition (which is a laugh in itself).

Not a great presentation (or affordable, either) but this is the only home video edition of the film we know of. Ask yourself whether you will pay $45.00 for a disc with no menus, no custom music, no chapter stops, and no DVD storage case or packaging artwork. If you are a John Ford or Tom Mix collector, you may just bite the bullet and curse the seller under your breath (as we did).

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Other silent era TOM MIX films available on home video.