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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King Lear
(1916)
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The Thanhouser Film Corporation’s production of King Lear (1916) stars renown actor Frederick Warde as Lear, with support from director/actor Ernest C. Warde, Ina Hammer, Wayne Arey and Edith Diestal.
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 Thanhouser Company
Film Preservation
2007 DVD edition
The Thanhouser Collection, DVD Volumes 7, 8 and 9 (1910-1917), black & white, 302 minutes total, not rated, including King Lear (1916), black & white, 36 minutes, not rated.
Thanhouser Company Film Preservation Incorporated,
unknown catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc (three DVDs in the set); 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; double-wide three-disc DVD keepcase; $24.95.
Release date: September 2007
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD collection of surviving Thanhouser films has been mastered from prints held by world film archives.
The discs feature musical accompaniment performed on organ by Raymond A. Brubacher.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2014 DVD edition
King Lear (1916), black & white, 63 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7321D, UPC 0-89218-73219-4.
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; $7.98 (raised again to $9.99).
Release date: 25 February 2014.
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 music score compiled from preexisting recordings.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .
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 TeleVista
2007 DVD edition
King Lear (1916), black & white, 64 minutes, not rated.
TeleVista, no catalog number, UPC 0-29502-19164-1.
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 6.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $19.95.
Release date: 2 October 2007.
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 7 / additional content: 0 / overall: 4.
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This overpriced DVD edition (for the quality tendered) has been mastered from a fair-to-good contrasty 16mm reduction print of sufficiently low quality, with its blasted-out highlights and plugged-up shadows, to make many of the medium-shot facial features hard to discern and some of the intertitles hard to read. A shame.
The film is accompanied by a serviceable cobbled-together music score performed on orchestral instruments and MIDI synthesizers.
Ask yourself, why is it OK to charge twenty bucks for this kind of quality?
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is available from
TELEVISTA through . . .
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Other SHAKESPEARE FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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