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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A Pair of
Tights
(1929)
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This silent Hal Roach comedy, directed by Hal Yates, features Anita Garvin, Marion Byron, Edgar Kennedy, Stuart Erwin, Spec O’Donnell and Charlie Hall. Retaliation runs rampant.
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 Flicker Alley
2024 Blu-ray Disc edition
Laurel & Hardy: Year Two (1927-1929), black & white, 212 minutes total, not rated, including A Pair of Tights (1929), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Flicker Alley,
unknown catalog number, UPC 6-17311-68869-0.
Two single-sided, dual-layered, Regions ABC Blu-ray Discs; 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 ? Mbps average video bit rate; LPCM 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Mbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, optional English language SDH subtitles; chapter stops; insert booklet; standard two-disc BD keepcase; $49.95.
Release date: 29 October 2024 (advance), 22 November 2024 (street).
Country of origin: USA
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This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from archival and private collection prints. The collection has been curated by L&H historians Randy Skretvedt, Richard W. Bann, Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange.
The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed by Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola or Andrea Benz.
Supplementary material includes audio commentaries for each film by L&H historians Randy Skretvedt and Richard W. Bann; audio interviews conducted by Randy Skretvedt with Anita Garvin, Thomas Benton Roberts and Hal Roach; a 1959 interview with Stan Laurel; “Laurel & Hardy On-Location in Year Two,” a video essay by historian John Bengtson on selected location exteriors — always fascinating information and worth many viewings; a rare one-reel fragment of the Charley Chase short Now I’ll Tell One (1927); “George Mann’s Home Movies” of the Roach studio; an image gallery containing original publicity materials, press reviews and rare production stills; and an insert booklet featuring an introduction to the collection by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, an article on the Roach studio actors and crew by Sara Imogen Smith, an essay on the development of the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system in 1928; and notes on each film by historian Randy Skretvedt.
This is our recommended home video edition of the film.
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This
Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .
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 Edition Filmmuseum
2010 DVD edition
Hal Roach: Female Comedy Teams (1928-1935), black & white, 228 minutes total, not rated, including A Pair of Tights (1929), black & white, 20 minutes, not rated.
Edition Filmmuseum, 57, UPC/EAN 4-260100-33057-5.
Two single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD discs; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 576 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, optional German language subtitles, chapter stops; standard two-disc DVD keepcase; €29,95 (reduced to €25,17).
Release date: 17 December 2010 (reissued in enhanced edition January 2012).
Country of origin: Germany
Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.
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This PAL DVD collection has been produced by Filmmuseum München under the supervision of Stefan Drössler. Restoration was performed utilizing an incomplete 35mm positive, an incomplete 16mm reduction duplicate negative, and a 16mm reduction positive.
The silent films are presented with music scores performed by Günter A. Buchwald, Joachim Bärenz and Christian Roderburg. The 1930s films in the collection are presented with their original soundtracks.
This is our recommended DVD home video edition of the film. North American collectors will need a Region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.
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This Region 0 PAL DVD edition is available directly from . . .
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Other SHORT COMEDY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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