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

Nathan the Wise (1922)

Manfred Noa directed this historical drama starring Werner Krauss, Carl de Vogt and Max Schreck.

This PAL DVD edition has been mastered from a very-good 35mm print that is a bit contrasty, with lost details in highlights in nearly every shot, but with reasonably open shadows. Midrange greytones are well represented with very-good image detail, and the picture is reasonably stable. Dust, speckling, some processing flaws and very minor print damage are present, but rarely seen at a level of distraction. The full-frame video transfer has been made at a natural speed resulting in a slight jerkiness to some of the action, indicating a slower original camera cranking speed of approximately 16 frames per second. The film is presented with color tints — always a good choice with their tinted highlights that visually stand-in for blasted-out detail and help hold the remaining highlights detail — that are those of the source print or have been added for this presentation.

The film is presented with optional accompaniment; one a music score composed by Aljoscha Zimmermann, and performed by Sabrina Hausman and Mark Pogolski on piano and violin, the other an improvised piano score performed by Joachim Bärenz.

Supplemental material includes an image gallery of lobby cards; and a 16-page insert booklet with an article by Stefan Drössler about the film’s production and reception.

This high-quality edition is recommended to all. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 PAL DVD edition is also available directly from . . .