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Silent Ozu
Three Crime Dramas
(1930-1933)

Contents: That Night’s Wife (1930), Walk Cheerfully (1930) and Dragnet Girl (1933).

This three-film collection, culled from the earliest years of Yasujirô Ozu’s long cinematic career, contains an audience favorite and the highlight of the collection, Dragnet Girl (1933).

Due to the entrenchment of the Benshi narrator tradition in Japanese film exhibition, the production of Japanese silent films extended well into the 1930s. These three films are excellent examples of the continued development of the Japanese silent film and excellent films in the Ozu oeuvre.

Eclipse Series
2015 DVD edition

Silent Ozu: Three Crime Dramas (1930-1933), black & white, 262 minutes total, not rated, including That Night’s Wife (1930), black & white, 65 minutes, not rated, Walk Cheerfully (1930), black & white, 96 minutes, not rated, and Dragnet Girl (1933), black & white, 100 minutes, not rated.

The Criterion Collection, ECL192 (Eclipse series 42),
UPC 7-15515-14511-4, ISBN 978-1-60465-988-7.
Three single-sided, dual-layered, Region 1 NTSC DVD discs; 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; Japanese language intertitles, optional English language subtitles; chapter stops; three slimline DVD keepcases in cardboard slipcase; $44.95.
Release date: 21 April 2015.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD collection has been mastered from three very-good 35mm source prints.

The films are accompanied by music scores performed on piano by Neil Brand.

For our comparative reviews of the individual films in this collection, see our That Night’s Wife on home video, Walk Cheerfully on home video and Dragnet Girl on home video pages.

As would be expected of a Criterion Collection release, this collection has been lovingly produced for home video and is enthusiastically recommended.

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