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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Long Pants
(1927)
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What does that title refer to? Harry Langdon is something of a mother-coddled boy who is kept in old-fashioned short pants, commonly designating a boy who has yet to come of age. Yet Harry, a bookworm, is beginning to discover romance — in some of the wrong places.
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 Kino on Video
2000 DVD edition
Harry Langdon . . . the Forgotten Clown (1926-1927), color-toned black & white, 196 minutes total, not rated, including Long Pants (1927), color-toned black & white, 58 minutes, not rated.
Kino International, K173, UPC 7-38329-01732-3.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 1 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 5.2 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 12 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $39.95 (reduced to $29.95).
Release date: 2000 (rereleased 2 September 2003).
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 6 / audio: 7 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.
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This David Shepard-produced DVD edition of Long Pants has been mastered from a very-good 35mm print that is overall a bit on the lighter greyscale range and a little blasted-out in its highlights. Highlight details, especially Langdon’s face, and hard to discern during the film. The windowboxed natural-speed video transfer is OK, but overall, image details are also a little soft, making viewing worse, likely due to a print that has been duped from other positive materials.
The film is accompanied by a music score performed on piano by Donald Sosin.
Someday there may well be a better edition of Long Pants than this, but for now . . . this is it.
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This Region 1 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .
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 Alpha Video
2024 DVD edition
Long Pants (1924), black & white, 58 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 8578D, UPC 0-89218-85789-7.
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; $8.98.
Release date: 9 January 2024.
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 recordings.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .
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Other silent era HARRY LANGDON films available on home video.
Other silent era FRANK CAPRA films available on home video.
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