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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From the Manger
to the Cross
(1912)
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Produced by Kalem Company, Incorporated, this early American feature-length religious epic features location cinematography shot in Israel and Egypt, and uses many quotations from the Holy Bible for its expository intertitles.
The Vitagraph Company of America rereleased the film in 1919 after having acquired the Kalem company assets.
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 Film Preservation Associates
2003 DVD edition
The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905), color-tinted and color-toned black & white, 44 minutes, not rated,
with From the Manger to the Cross (1912), color-toned black & white, 70 minutes, not rated.
Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment, ID1917DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-19172-1.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (reissued on 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 4.9 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 8 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $24.99.
Release date: 8 April 2003.
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 5 / audio: 7 / additional content: 7 / overall: 6.
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This DVD edition features a windowboxed video transfer mastered from a good 35mm rerelease print from circa 1919 that appears to be little better than a standard 16mm reduction print. The windowbox presentation allows the maximum amount of surviving image to be viewed on all television monitors. The inevitable dust and speckling are there, as are frame jitters, emulsion chipping, and other print flaws. The picture is helped slightly by viewing systems capable of HD upscaling.
While the source material is of acceptable quality — that is, accepting its soft image details, and jittery and contrasty picture — the video transfer appears to be an older analog transfer that doesn’t come up to DVD quality standards.
The film is accompanied by a piety-evoking music score performed on theatre pipe organ by Timothy Howard.
A definite case where the importance of the content surpasses quality concerns, there may never be a better-looking DVD edition of this film than this. The edition was reissued on DVD-R disc and is now out-of-print.
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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 edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
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 Grapevine Video
2022 Blu-ray Disc edition
From the Manger to the Cross (1912), color-tinted black & white, 70 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video,
no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 Blu-ray Disc (BD-R BDMV); 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 mono sound encoded at ? Mbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard BD keepcase; $19.95.
Release date: 16 December 2022.
Country of origin: USA
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This BD-R edition has been mastered at 2K high-resolution, likely from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is accompanied by a music score reconstructed by Janosch Korell, supervised by Sophia Khorobrykh, and assembled by Jack Hardy.
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This
Region 0 Blu-ray Disc (BD-R) edition is available directly from . . .
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 Grapevine Video
2022 DVD edition
From the Manger to the Cross (1912), color-tinted black & white, 70 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, 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 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.95.
Release date: 16 December 2022.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered at 2K high-resolution, likely from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is accompanied by a music score reconstructed by Janosch Korell, supervised by Sophia Khorobrykh, and assembled by Jack Hardy.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2016 DVD edition
From the Manger to the Cross (1912), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, with Son of Man (1914), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7747D, UPC 0-89218-77479-8.
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 to $8.98).
Release date: 2 February 2016.
Country of origin: USA
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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 music recordings.
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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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Other RELIGIOUS FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
Other EARLY FEATURE-LENGTH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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