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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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Beauty’s Worth
(1922)

 

This comedy-drama, directed by Robert G. Vignola, features Marion Davies as a Quaker woman who encounters culture shock when she is away from her conservative upbringing as she attempts to enter high society in the big city. Acting support is provided by Forrest Stanley, June Elvidge, Truly Shattuck, Lydia Yeamans, Hallam Cooley, Antrim Short, Thomas Jefferson and Martha Mattox.

Undercrank Productions
2017 DVD edition

Beauty’s Worth (1922), black & white, 76 minutes, not rated.

Undercrank Productions,
no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
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 7.5 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $19.95.
Release date: 25 July 2017.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 0 / overall: 7.

This DVD-R edition, produced for home video by Edward Lorusso, has been mastered from a high-definition transfer of a 35mm preservation print held by the Library of Congress. The transfer has been remastered as a slightly-windowboxed picture that will appear as full-frame on most television monitors and presents slightly more of the picture than the Lorusso edition noted below.

The film is presented with a fine music score performed on a computer-based virtual theater pipe organ by Ben Model. We love the authentic-sounding pipe organ emulation.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

 
USA: Click logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Edward Lorusso
2017 DVD edition

Beauty’s Worth (1922), black & white, 75 minutes, not rated.

Edward Lorusso, no catalog number, no UPC number.
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 ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; 18 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $25.00.
Release date: March 2017.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 0 / overall: 7.

Not publicly released in this form, we do know that this DVD-R home video edition (which was crowd-funded through Kickstarter) has been released in a remastered version on Ben Model’s Undercrank Productions label. The 35mm preservation version of the film produced by the Library of Congress has been utilized for this edition, which is well-represented in this natural-speed, high-definition video transfer. The resulting picture is reasonably detailed and features a broad range of open greytones, but it also runs up against the resolution limits of DVD and occasionally shows signs of insufficient resolution. Also of note is the presence of yellow tinges to some of the medium-dark greytones in the picture throughout the film. (See the wall on the right side of the picture in the still frame above.) Edition producer Edward Lorusso has expressed that there may be a possibility of releasing the video with color tints added, which we support as they would effectively disguise the unwanted yellow tinges.

The film is presented with a fine new music score performed on a computer-based virtual theater pipe organ by Ben Model, which is quite authentic sounding and effective.

It’s not hard to believe that this edition is far better-looking than the Alpha Video edition noted below. Our nitpicking aside, we highly recommend the remastered Undercrank edition noted above.

 
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is . . .
Alpha Video
2016 DVD edition

Beauty’s Worth (1922), black & white, 107 minutes (listed as 112 minutes), not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7742D, UPC 0-89218-77429-3.
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 5.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 2 February 2016.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 4 / additional content: 0 / overall: 4.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an old analog videotape copy of a video transfer from a very-good 16mm reduction print. Of course, the results are not great since the picture is very soft in its image details, very dark in its shadow details, and altogether a very unsatisfying viewing experience.

The film is presented with a music score compiled from preexisting orchestral recordings.

Our recommndation is to pass on this one since there is better to be had (see above).

 
USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
 
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Other silent era MARION DAVIES films available on home video.
 
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