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

The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916)

Lois Weber directed this epic drama of a mute fisher-girl, living in the mid-17th century Naples during the Spanish occupation, who is seduced and abandoned by a Spanish nobleman. This assault and the oppression of their people causes Fenella’s brother to lead a revolution.

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from a 35mm restoration print prepared by the Library of Congress from the only versions of the film known to have survived: a good to very-good but incomplete 35mm nitrate rerelease print struck in the 1920s as preserved by the British Film Institute and a poor to fair 16mm reduction print held at the New York Public Library’s Performing Arts Library. Digital image work was performed to stabilize and clean-up the restoration, and to add color-toning and color-tinting based on the original guidelines. While the 16mm reduction print is distressingly worn and contrasty, the 35mm material is a welcome relief from eyesore when it could be utilized. A slightly more-than-usual amount of dust, speckling, flashing exposure variations, emulsion scuffing (in the at times a quite dark picture), and other print flaws are seen in the 35mm material while constrastiness, a blurray picture and significant print damage are the characteristics of the 16mm material.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed by John Sweeney (after “La Muette de Portici” by D.F.E. Auber) and is performed by a small ensemble.

The second disc of suplimentary material includes the documentary-drama The Immortal Swan (1935) from a good to very-good 16mm reduction print scanned (with a slightly horizontal picture stretch) at standard resolution (48 minutes); the short film Anna Pavlova Dancing at the Fairbanks Studio (1924) from a sound film print (15 minutes); Pavlova newsreel excerpts (2 minutes); and Pavlova 9.5mm home movies from the 1920s (15 minutes).

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

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