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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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Hell’s Hinges
(1916)

Hell’s Hinges (1916), directed by Charles Swickard, is a Western feature drama of the supposedly pious turning corrupt (Jack Standing) and the supposedly unredeemable turning to good (William S. Hart).

National Film Preservation Foundation
2000/2005 DVD edition

Treasures from American Film Archives (1893-1960), black & white and color, 642 minutes total, not rated, including Hell’s Hinges (1916), black & white and color-toned black & white, 64 minutes, not rated.

National Film Preservation Foundation,
distibuted by Image Entertainment,
NATD9706DVD (rereleased as NATD0918DVD),
UPC 0-14381-97062-3 (rereleased as 0-14381-09182-3).
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (four DVDs in the set); 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 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 (silent era films), no subtitles; chapter stops; four cardboard wrapped plastic trays with 150-page book of program notes (rereleased with four smaller bookets) in cardboard slipcase; $99.99 (rereleased at $69.95).
Release date: 3 October 2000 (rereleased 10 May 2005).
Country of origin: USA

This DVD edition utilizes a source print that is missing its main title but features its original art title intertitle cards. Approximately 36 minutes of the film are color-toned. Transferred full-frame from a 35mm preservation print from a moderately speckled and scuffed but still very good original 35mm nitrate print.

The film is accompanied by a modern music score.

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