Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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The Johnstown
Flood
(1926)
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This Fox drama, directed by Irving Cummings, stars George O’Brien and Florence Gilbert, with Janet Gaynor, Anders Randolf, Paul Nicholson, Paul Panzer, George Harris, Max Davidson, and appearances as extras by Carole Lombard (confirmed), and by Gary Cooper and Clark Gable (unconfirmed).
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 The Film Preserve
2023 Blu-ray Disc edition
The Johnstown Flood (1926), color-tinted black & white, 68 minutes, not rated.
The Film Preserve and The Maltese Film Works,
FPMFW001, UPC 8-10134-94228-8.
One single-sided, single-layered, Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc (BD-R BDMV); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in pillarboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) 24 fps progressive scan image encoded in SDR AVC format at 30.4 Mbps average video bit rate; DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 2.1 Mbps average audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 8 chapter stops; 8-page insert booklet; standard BD keepcase; $35.45.
Release date: 17 October 2023.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 9 / audio: 9 / additional content: 7 / overall: 9.
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This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered at 4K high-resolution from an incomplete 35mm nitrate print and a 35mm preservation duplicate negative held by the George Eastman Museum film archive. Some brief footage has been lost to nitrate decomposition and brief print breaks. Digital stabilization, repair and clean-up has been performed on the scans, removing as much as possble but not completely any print flaws and wear, with still excellent results. The picture is quite detailed, with a broad range of greytones and open, well-defined shadow details. A pleasure to watch.
The film is accompanied by an arrangement by Rodney Sauer of the film’s original music score as performed by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Once again, first-class, excellent work.
Supplementary material includes a featurette on silent era special effects featuring sound designer Ben Burtt and special visual effects artist Craig Barron (29 minutes); two audio interviews with George O’Brien (17 minutes total); Janet Gaynor presenting at the 50th Annual Academy Awards (4 minutes); a stills gallery of historic photographs taken after the Johnstown Flood (56 images); and a stills gallery of stereographic photographs taken after the Johnstown Flood, with anaglyphic 3D viewing glasses (55 images); and an 8-page insert booklet with an essay by film historian Shelly Stamp. Some of the stereoscopic photographs are compromised by misaligned anaglyphic conversions; we feel that these days such stereoscopic presentationson home video should utlize an optional polarized conversion version (such as that used for 3D motion picture on home video) that may also be viewed on 3D-capable home video systems. We do understand that the anaglyphic process can be viewed on standard television systems by anyone but it would have been nice to have a polarized option available for 3D systems.
Highly recommended for its top-drawer production values; also recommended as this is the only home video edition of the film that we are aware of.
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This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc (BD-R) edition is available from
THE FILM PRESERVE through . . .
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Other silent era GARY COOPER films available on home video.
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