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

Judex (1916-1917)

This Louis Feuillade serial thriller followed the successful Les vampires (1915-1916) featuring the vigilante Judex (René Cresté), he who punishes all who have committed evil acts against humanity.

Criminals Diana Monti (Musidora) and Robert Moralés (Jean Devalde) hatch a scheme to defraud the morally corrupt banker Favraux (Louis Leubas), who is smitten with Monti posing as Marie Verdier, a governess. Meanwhile, Favfaux’s daughter Jacqueline (Yvette Andréyor) accepts the proposal of the Marquis Amaury de la Rochefontaine (Georges Flateau), a man who is heavily in debt and has an eye on the Favaux millions. However, these undetected schemes are among the least of Favraux’s concerns for he is receiving mysterious letters from a man who signs them only as Judex, demanding he turn over half his fortune to charity to atone for his corrupt activities. Favraux engages the ineffectual detective Cocantin (Marcel Lévesque) to uncover Judex’s identity and intent, but to no avail.

That is just the prologue to the layers of intrigue and criminal retribution presented in this serial.

— Carl Bennett

Flicker Alley followed their successful freshman home video effort, The Garden of Eden (1928), with this American DVD edition of the 12-part French crime serial. The edition, initially produced for presentation on Turner Classic Movies, is touted as the most-complete version of the serial available. The edition has been prepared from a set of very-good source prints that may (or may not) be 35mm, in a slightly windowboxed picture (framing shown above), with some moderate and persistent speckling, dust, and a few other minor flaws.

The serial is accompanied by an excellent new small orchestral music score arranged and conducted by Robert Israel, which lifts the presentation immeasurably.

Also included is an 18-minute featurette comprised of scenes from the serial and a voiceover by Israel on his scoring of the film, and a booklet introductory essay by Jan-Christopher Horak.

While the image quality isn’t superb it remains a very-good presentation on today’s high-definition monitors, especially on systems capable of progressive scan line doubling. Highly recommended, with kudos to Israel for the entertaining music score. The disc is now out-of-print.

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Other SERIAL FILMS of the silent era available on home video.