1345 Victor Sjöström’s Hollywood Masterworks

[onedimension]

Well, I blind bought Flicker Alley’s release of He Who Gets Slapped and absolutely loved the film so I’m interested in seeing the other two here. It does seem funny to see Slapped get reissued so soon even if it is public domain. Makes me wonder why Criterion didn’t get around to upgrading Nanook of the North after FA did their disc. I had assumed it was courtesy between boutiques but who knows.

After 3 minutes on Google, my provisional understanding is that Flicker Alley used a 4K restoration of ...Slapped from Blackhawk Films - Criterion is using a 2K restoration?

[Tuppence]

Flicker Alley's Blu-ray of He Who Gets Slapped runs at 95 minutes, and the Criterion running time is listed as 86 minutes. So this should be an interesting comparison. (I imagine the Criterion is running at a faster framerate, rather than any substantial difference in footage.)

George Feltenstein being in the extras implies that Warner has been directly involved with this set.

[onedimension]

Flicker Alley's Blu-ray of He Who Gets Slapped runs at 95 minutes, and the Criterion running time is listed as 86 minutes. So this should be an interesting comparison. (I imagine the Criterion is running at a faster framerate, rather than any substantial difference in footage.)

George Feltenstein being in the extras implies that Warner has been directly involved with this set.

I don't know what discernible impact framerate will have, but it's potentially significant when a sad clown's being slapped over and over. Lugubrious, drawn-out sadness and slaps that feel heavier, or something more kinetic and carnivalesque..

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The Flicker Alley release is 18fps, assuming the footage is identical then the Criterion is 20. I have no idea how they each settled on those numbers, but based on the FA release I don't think speeding it up to 20 will be problematic. OTOH the 24fps of the old Warner transfer was blatantly too fast.

[pistolwink]

Flicker Alley's Blu-ray of He Who Gets Slapped runs at 95 minutes, and the Criterion running time is listed as 86 minutes. So this should be an interesting comparison. (I imagine the Criterion is running at a faster framerate, rather than any substantial difference in footage.)

George Feltenstein being in the extras implies that Warner has been directly involved with this set.

I don't know what discernible impact framerate will have, but it's potentially significant when a sad clown's being slapped over and over. Lugubrious, drawn-out sadness and slaps that feel heavier, or something more kinetic and carnivalesque..

Actually the Flicker Alley version is longer in part because Blackhawk Films discovered several dozen additional slaps—removed from the film for post-1934 re-releases due to the Production Code's strict limit on the number of slaps per film—that they edited back into the film.

[Peacock]

My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw this announced! Unbelievable. Criterion if you’re reading this thank you, thank you, thank you.

Glad I held off on Slapped for the FA sale, but may still get it anyway, let’s see. I wonder how the 4K and 2K sources compare? Great film no matter the res. I’ve been waiting to see the other two for decades!

Now let’s close up the gaps and get Greed, The Merry Widow, The Wedding March out now!

Herr Schreck where are you right now?!

[Tuppence]

Actually the Flicker Alley version is longer in part because Blackhawk Films discovered several dozen additional slaps—removed from the film for post-1934 re-releases due to the Production Code's strict limit on the number of slaps per film—that they edited back into the film.

That's extremely interesting information. So is the Warner Archive DVD made from the censored reissue cut?

[andyli]

Mainly getting this for the other two features. Still, having a different source of Slapped is a plus!

[bad future]

I only first saw The Wind in the last 5 years but connected with it so deeply that it has felt like one of my favorite films of all time ever since. Even the ways in which the forced ending is wrong are to the film's benefit imo!

This announcement has me both elated and slightly nervous: I've only seen The Wind via a rip of this weird (Spanish?) DVD with interlaced video and a score seemingly made with general MIDI type sounds from a 90s workstation keyboard drenched in digital reverb. What if I don't like it actually looking good, with a choice of acclaimed scores? I'm joking but also at least a little serious. The DVD presentation added a whole other temporal layer, old west via late silent hollywood via digital wasteland, and a bootleg vibe that really worked for a film so ghostly in content and conspicuously absent from legitimate representation in the modern home video era.

Excited for these new experiences, but will probably not stop revisiting my first love!

[onedimension]

Flicker Alley's Blu-ray of He Who Gets Slapped runs at 95 minutes, and the Criterion running time is listed as 86 minutes. So this should be an interesting comparison. (I imagine the Criterion is running at a faster framerate, rather than any substantial difference in footage.)

George Feltenstein being in the extras implies that Warner has been directly involved with this set.

I don't know what discernible impact framerate will have, but it's potentially significant when a sad clown's being slapped over and over. Lugubrious, drawn-out sadness and slaps that feel heavier, or something more kinetic and carnivalesque..

Actually the Flicker Alley version is longer in part because Blackhawk Films discovered several dozen additional slaps—removed from the film for post-1934 re-releases due to the Production Code's strict limit on the number of slaps per film—that they edited back into the film.

This is amazing, thank you. I hope you had fun typing that sentence, too.

[Matt]

Old timers of the forum: what unreleased film was the cause of more release speculation (not even via Criterion, just from any label) on here for last two decades-plus (especially in the early days of the forum when there were far more silent enthusiasts), the Wind or Greed? This feels like the end of an era

To my memory, Greed has always been at the top of the forum wishlist, especially since the “reconstructed” version was made available on iTunes. Then The Crowd at a close second. Amazing that some of these things are, at long last, starting to come out.

[Big Ben]

Please excuse my ignorance but it's really neat to see so much enthusiasm for The Wind. I obviously know about both Sjöström’s and Gish but I cannot for the life of me say I've ever heard much about The Wind. Is this simply one of those great films that hasn't really seen the light of day properly for an obscene amount of time? We all have gaps in our film knowledge but the excitement I've seen all over this specific film is palpable.

[domino harvey]

Yes, it’s great and was widely considered a high point of silent cinema. And then it just… never made it to DVD and unless you went looking for it, you weren’t gonna see it. It happens,
see that One Time Arthouse Titans thread for many more examples

[Michael Kerpan]

It seems like there were a lot of famed films on VHS that never made it to DVD....