Silent Era : Home Video Reviews

Silent Era Home Page > Home Video > The Round-Up

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

The
Round-Up
(1920)

Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Julienne Scott star in Arbuckle’s first feature film. Supporting actors include Wallace Beery, Irving Cummings, Tom Forman, Jean Acker, Guy Oliver, Lucien Littlefield, Eddie Sutherland and, in a cameo appearance as an Indian, Buster Keaton.

CineMuseum
2018 Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition

The Round-Up (1920), black & white and color-toned black & white, 70 minutes, not rated, with A Bandit (1913), black & white, 5 minutes, not rated, and Peeping Pete (1913), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated.

CineMuseum, CM1002, UPC 7-01822-99738-6.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 Blu-ray Disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in windowboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) progressive scan AVC (MPEG-4) format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 29.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops; and one single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD 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), 6.6 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops; standard two-disc DVD keepcase; $39.99.
Release date: 9 April 2018.
Country of origin: USA

This Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition features a 4K high-resolution scan and digital restoration of the very-good to excellent 35mm duplicate negative preserved by Paramount Archives and the Library of Congress. Digital stabilization and flaw replacement has removed the majority of frame jitters, dust, speckling, scratches and other flaws from the natural-speed video scan.

The film is presented with a music score performed on piano by Donald Sosin.

The edition’s supplemental material includes audio commentary by author and film historian Richard M. Roberts; restorations of two of Arbuckle’s earliest surviving films, both parts of a Keystone comedy split-reel release, presented with theater organ music scores composed and performed by Dennis Scott; a gallery of theatrical posters, lobby cards and glass slides (10 images); a gallery of still photographs (14 images); a gallery of theater programs and memorabilia (6 images); and a full-color booklet featuring production information, restoration notes and more.

As this is the only-known (published) home video edition of this film, we recommend this dual-format edition.

This Region 0 Blu-ray Disc / NTSC DVD edition is available directly from CINEMUSEUM LLC.

Alpha Video
2017 DVD edition

The Round Up (1920), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, with Fatty’s New Role (1915), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
unknown catalog number, unknown UPC number.
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), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98.
Release date: 20 June 2017.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD edition was likely to have been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.

Although slated for a 2017 release, this DVD-R edition may not have been published at all and the title has been deleted from the Alpha Video catalog. We recommend the Cinemuseum edition noted above over this (nonexistent) edition.

Other silent era ROSCOE ARBUCKLE films available on home video.

Roscoe Arbuckle filmography in The Progressive Silent Film List