Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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The
Family Secret
(1924)
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This domestic drama stars Baby Peggy, with Gladys Hulette, Frank Currier, Lucy Beaumont and Edward Earle.
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 Undercrank Productions
2015 DVD edition
The Family Secret (1924), black & white, 62 minutes, not rated, with Circus Clowns (1922), black & white, 16 minutes, not rated, Miles of Smiles (1923), black & white, 18 minutes, not rated, Screen Snapshots (1921), black & white, 3 minutes, not rated, and Screen Almanac (1924), black & white, 1 minute, not rated.
Undercrank Productions,
no catalog number, UPC 6-63593-21953-4.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 7.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 Kbps audio bit rate, PCM 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $19.95.
Release date: 20 October 2015.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from the restoration undertaken by the Library of Congress, which utilized an incomplete export version 35mm nitrate print with Italian intertitles conflated with footage from two very-good vintage abridged 16mm reduction prints. The majority of the material is excellent 35mm footage, with some scuffing and light speckling, and with a few fine vertical scratches that don’t last long. The greyscale range is broad and balanced, and the image finely detailed. There has been no digital stablization of the picture, so there is some moderate movement of the image within the frame. Other print artifacts remain such as timing marks and processing flaws.
The film is presented with a music score performed on virtual theatre pipe organ by Ben Model, utilizing Hauptwerk software and Paramount Organ Works digital samples. The results are quite authentic sounding and entertaining.
The supplementary material includes two Baby Peggy short films sourced from the Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress (32 minutes), and newsreel footage (4 minutes).
This is the best-looking edition of The Family Secret available on home video and it is currently our recommended edition.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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 Grapevine Video
2009 DVD edition
The Family Secret (1924), color-tinted black & white, 70 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10352-0.
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), 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate, 384 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; 12 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 19 June 2009.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good color-tinted 8mm reduction print.
The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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Other silent era BABY PEGGY films available on home video.
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