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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved.

The Vanishing
American
(1925)

Adapted from a Zane Grey novel, this story of the clash of the traditional and the modern stars Richard Dix, Lois Wilson and Noah Beery.

A companion to the later Redskin (1929), in which Dix again portrays a native American fighting the wrongs of the corrupt white man.

Film Preservation Associates
2000 DVD edition

The Vanishing American (1925), color-tinted black & white, 108 minutes, not rated.

Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment, ID9229DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-9229?-?.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 4.5 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 16 chapter stops; snapper DVD case; $24.99.
Release date: 17 October 2000.
Country of origin: USA •

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 7 / additional content: 0 / overall: 7.

This DVD edition, that shows its age a bit, has been mastered from a very-good 35mm print that flickers a bit with slight exposure fluctuations in this nearly full-frame video transfer from 1999. Image details are clear enough, and the disc is satisfying viewing (aside from the flickering). However, the disc’s video information is a bit overcompressed to facilitate its fit onto a single-layer DVD, resulting in a nearly constant swarm of artifacts that look like filmgrain but are not (as any still frame will reveal). Most viewers will be able to ignore it, but we can’t . . . especially on a high-definition system.

The film is accompanied by a theater organ music score performed by John Muri that was recorded during a live presentation.

We recommend this edition as the best currently available on home video, but we look forward to an updated edition that has been mastered to current standards.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .

Alpha Video
2024 DVD edition

The Vanishing American (1925), black & white, 129 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 8592D, UPC 0-89218-85929-7.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $8.98.
Release date: 20 February 2024.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

Sight unseen, this is not our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .