Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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Dress Parade
(1927)
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This romantic comedy-drama, directed by Donald Crisp, takes place at the West Point Academy and stars William Boyd and Bessie Love, with Hugh Allan, Walter Tennyson, Maurice Ryan, Louis Natheaux and Clarence Geldert.
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 Grapevine Video
2007 DVD edition
Dress Parade (1927), black & white, 73 minutes, not rated, with The Weakend Driver (1922), black & white, 7 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10307-0.
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 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95 (reduced to $14.95).
Release date: November 2007.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.
Sight unseen, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2013 DVD edition
Dress Parade (1927), black & white, 58 minutes, not rated, with For Old Time’s Sake (1930), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 6944D, UPC 0-89218-69449-2.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R 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 6.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 30 April 2013.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 3 / additional content: 3 / overall: 3.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a good to very-good 16mm reduction print. The video transfer is a little greyed out and runs at a faster-than-natural-pace speed. There is a moderate amount of dust, a persistant amount of speckling and emulsion scrapes, schmutz, frame jitters, vertical scratches, and other print flaws.
The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings, all of them exceedingly annoying and crudely edited. The opening strains (how appropriate!) played on synthesizers sound as if they were lifted from an Eric Beheim performance.
Supplemental material includes an early sing-along sound film featuring Singing Sam.
Not recommended as the Grapevine Video edition noted above should be slightly better viewing.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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 Loving the Classics
201? DVD edition
Dress Parade (1927), black & white, 72 minutes, not rated.
Loving the Classics,
no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
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; $14.99.
Release date: 201?
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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