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Screening the Poor
1888-1914
(1888-1914)

Contents: Manchester Band of Hope Procession (1901), Les victimes de l’alcoolisme (1902), Buy Your Own Cherries (1904), Au pays noir (1905), Buy Your Own Cherries! (1905), Le Chemineau (1905), The Little Match Girl (1905), Le Bagne des gosses (1907), Die Beerdigung der Opfer des Grubenunglücks auf der Zeche Radbod (1908), A Drunkard’s Reformation (1909), Bébé veut imiter St. Martin (1910), Comment les pauvres mangent à Paris (1910), Deux petits Jesus (1910), Don’t Go Down in the Mine, Dad (1910), Geheimnisvolle Streichholzdose (1910), Rigadin a l’ame sensible (1910), La tournée des Grands Ducs (1910), The Two Roses (1910), Ein vergeudetes Leben (1910), Le Violoniste della carità (1911), Ahlbeck. Der Kaiser bei den Berliner Arbeiterkindern (1912), The Cry of the Children (1912), Christmas Day in the Workhouse (1914), and The Little Match Girl (1914).

Edition Filmmuseum
2011 DVD edition

Screening the Poor (1888-1914), black & white, color-tinted black & white and color-toned black & white, ? minutes total, not rated, including Manchester Band of Hope Procession (1901), black & white, 2 minutes, not rated, Les victimes de l’alcoolisme (1902), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, Buy Your Own Cherries (1904), black & white, 5 minutes, not rated, Au pays noir (1905), color-tinted black & white and color-toned black & white, 14 minutes, not rated, Le Chemineau (1905), color-tinted black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, Le Bagne des gosses (1907), color-toned black & white and color-tinted black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, Die Beerdigung der Opfer des Grubenunglücks auf der Zeche Radbod (1908), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, A Drunkard’s Reformation (1909), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, Bébé veut imiter St. Martin (1910), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, Comment les pauvres mangent à Paris (1910), black & white, 4 minutes, not rated, Deux petits Jesus (1910), color-tinted black & white, 17 minutes, not rated, Geheimnisvolle Streichholzdose (1910), black & white, 5 minutes, not rated, Rigadin a l’ame sensible (1910), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, La tournée des Grands Ducs (1910), black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, The Two Roses (1910), black & white, 12 minutes, not rated, Ein vergeudetes Leben (1910), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, [Une vie gaspilleé] (1910), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, Le Violoniste della carità (1911), black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, Ahlbeck. Der Kaiser bei den Berliner Arbeiterkindern (1912), black & white, 2 minutes, not rated, The Cry of the Children (1912), black & white, 28 minutes, not rated, Christmas Day in the Workhouse (1914), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated, and The Little Match Girl (1914), color-toned black & white, 10 minutes, not rated.

Edition Filmmuseum, 64, unknown UPC/EAN number.
Two single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD discs; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in pillarboxed and windowboxed 16:9 (720 x 576 anamorphic pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 50 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English, French and German language intertitles, optional English and German language subtitles; chapter stops; 16-page insert booklet; standard DVD keepcase; €29,95.
Release date: May 2011 (second edition, July 2011).
Country of origin: Germany •

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

This PAL DVD collection has been mastered from archival 35mm film materials held by the British Film Institute, Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, La Cinémathèque française, Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, Det Danske Filminstitut, Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde, Eye Film Instituut Nederland, Filmmuseum Berlin Deutsch Kinemathek, George Eastman Museum, the Library of Congress.

The films are accompanied by music scores composed and performed by Günter A. Buchwald, Judith Herrmann and Andrew Crow.

Supplemental material includes recreations of the reformist magic lantern slide shows Billy’s Rose (1888) (8 minutes), A Bunch of Primroses (1889) (8 minutes), The Magic Wand (1889) (6 minutes), The Emigrant Ship (1890) (13 minutes), Enter Not the Dramshop (1890) (5 minutes), In the Workhouse (1890) (7 minutes), Dustman’s Darling (1894) (5 minutes), Ora Pro Nobis (1897) (6 minutes), Buy Your Own Cherries! (1905) (28 minutes), The Little Match Girl (1905) (9 minutes), and Don’t Go Down in the Mine, Dad (1910) (5 minutes), with recordings of live performances of the slide shows by speakers Ludwig Vogl-Bienek (German), Karin Bienek (German) and Mervyn Heard (English); documents about each title (accessed as DVD-ROM features by computer); and a 16-page bilingual (German and English) insert booklet.

For our reviews of individual films, see our Buy Your Own Cherries! on home video, The Cry of the Children on home video, and A Drunkard’s Reformation on home video pages.

This is our recommended home video editions of these films. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.