Flicker Alley

[perkizitore]

Is Inferno still getting a release by Flicker Alley?

[Matt]

After the theatrical run, yes.

[Ashirg]

Flicker Alley posted this link at twitter. CHAPLIN AT KEYSTONE confirmed and LAILA.

[htdm]

Cheers for the Chaplin but...Laila!
There's a gutsy choice - good show!

[Ashirg]

Chaplin at Keystone info and order page at Flicker Alley. 35 titles are mentioned, so it means it includes all existing films including recently found A Thief Catcher. The only missing known Chaplin film remains Her Friend the Bandit...

[Saturnome]

Did I missed something? Mubi's last newsletter attributes their streaming Fleischer shorts to Flicker Alley. It includes early stuff I've never seen in good quality before like Stoopnocracy.

What I wouldn't do for a good, complete collection of early Fleischer talkies... Man, anything with Swing, you sinners! would do.

There's exciting stuff going on with Flickey Alley! I've never heard of Laila before, but I certainly wouldn't mind a blind buy if anybody around here can comment on it.

[RodneySauer]

There's exciting stuff going on with Flickey Alley! I've never heard of Laila before, but I certainly wouldn't mind a blind buy if anybody around here can comment on it.

Laila was apparently a big hit at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival a few years back. There's a review here.

[Matt]

Chicago looks amazing. If this had been on Blu-ray, it would easily be the equal of MoC's City Girl in the silents-in-HD category. But on DVD, it's still gorgeous. The musical score is very good--appropriate and interesting without being overwhelming. I can't help but imagine what it might have been like with a newly composed "hot jazz" score, though, given the content of the film. Unfortunately, I found the film a bit of a slog, but maybe I'm just overly familiar with the story. Still, give me Roxie Hart any day.

[Jonathan S]

David Shepard addressed the question of Blu-ray releases on the Nitrateville forum a few days ago:

At this moment in time, DVD sales of our silent film editions are such that Blu-Ray would definitely not be prudent.
We have been mastering in HD for a while, so there is a possibility of titles on Blu-Ray in the future, but at least for the silent films, none are presently planned.
Flicker Alley has some releases coming which are newer films and I believe Jeff Masino does intend to issue one in Blu-Ray to see how it does.

[oldsheperd]

I already have the Essanay and Mutual Chaplin stuff so that Chaplin at Keystone is a must. Deep Discount has it the cheapest at 60.96 if you don't go with the preorder price on Flicker Alley's website.

[Minkin]

Beaver: Chaplin at Keystone

[Saturnome]

I don't know what I was waiting. Bought with The Italian Straw Hat and Bardelys the Magnificent. The B&N Criterion sale better be true or I'm broke for ever.

[Finch]

Dave Kehr on the Keystone set

[Finch]

Flicker Alley's website lists a few Howard Hughes pictures as their next projects; The Racket sounds especially mouthwatering.

[Jonathan S]

FA prepared those three Hughes silents for US TCM over five years ago. They were broadcast but FA were unable to gain DVD rights for them. Although they've been on the website from the start, I'm not sure if their current ambiguous position under "Coming Soon" (which actually brings up the already released Italian Straw Hat when clicked) means they now have disc rights or not. Or do they now explicitly state they are in the pipeline? They would certainly be welcome and The Racket is indeed a fascinating film, much superior to Hughes' dismal RKO remake.

[Finch]

Jon, the site doesn't explicitly state FA now have the disc rights to those. I'll have a look though if TCM is offering a DVD of The Racket. Might be an idea to contact Jeff Messino as well, and see if he can clarify.

[What A Disgrace]

According to Flicker Alley's website, Laila will be released on April 11, and DVD and Blu-ray editions of Henri Georges Clouzot's Inferno will be released the following week.

[Finch]

You've got to love Flicker Alley for releasing titles like Laila. It makes me wish they were able to release more titles per year though but I'll take what I can get.

[perkizitore]

I assume they are releasing the Norwegian silent, yes?

[Tommaso]

Yes.

[Jonathan S]

As the link above indicates, Laila has now been delayed (for the second time) until May 10. On a Nitrateville post by Flicker Alley

Due to technical glitches in manufacture and his desire for perfection, Jeff (Flicker Alley) has had to do the manufacturing run over THREE times; and because of similar problems at a different replicator, he's had to do INFERNO twice...

If FA had to pay for all those runs, bang go the profits, I should think!

[Finch]

Laila has a new and solid release date, 17 May.

[Ashirg]

Flicker Alley has a new title for pre-order on Amazon for June 21.

Wild and Weird - 14 Facinating and Innovative Films with New Music

Anyone know what this is? Some of the titles included in the set are directed by Buster Keaton, Georges Melies, Ferdinand Zecca, Segundo de Chomon, Winsor McCay...

[Ashirg]

To answer my own question, from Amazon:

Here are fourteen exciting short films some favorites, others unfamiliar produced between 1902 and 1965. They were photographed silent, but they re not silent anymore. All boast new music composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra, a three-man ensemble that critic Roger Ebert has called the best in the world at accompanying silent films. Alloy Orchestra shuns the nostalgic approach, successfully using found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics to reinvigorate films for new audiences with its unique sound, heard here in a spectacular variety of styles. High quality prints of appealing movies from five nations, digitally mastered, are drawn from Blackhawk Films lifetime collection. They offer wonder, laughter, absurdity, charm, and whimsy; they represent many genres including trick films, hand-drawn and stop-motion animation, classic comedy, avant-garde and surrealist surprises. Following D. W. Griffith s curtain raiser Those Awful Hats from 1909, the program proceeds in chronological order with many of the shorts separated by vintage hand-painted slides created for use in movie theaters a century ago. The selections are A Trip to the Moon (by Georges Melies, with his original English narration), Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (Edwin S. Porter), Red Spectre (Ferdinand Zecca, Segundo de Chomon) The Acrobatic Fly (Percy Smith), The Thieving Hand and Princess Nicotine (Vitagraph Studios), Artheme Swallows His Clarinet (Eclipse Films), The Cameraman s Revenge (Ladislas Starewicz), The Pet (Winsor McCay), The Play House (Buster Keaton, in a beautiful copy with all original titles), Filmstudie (Hans Richter), The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapich and Gregg Toland), and Clay, or the Origin of Species (Eliot Noyes, Jr.). If you don t know anything about the first 70 years of cinema, or even if you are an expert, share the enthusiasm and enjoy the revelations of this entertaining collection. Engaging films never grow old, and with Alloy s music, the films on this DVD certainly haven t aged at all!

[Jonathan S]

the Alloy Orchestra, a three-man ensemble that critic Roger Ebert has called the best in the world at accompanying silent films.

I wonder how many silent film accompanists Ebert has heard?! Or does he merely mean the best three-man ensemble?

It looks like this programme is designed to introduce new and probably younger people to silents, and I wish it well in that endeavour, but for me the Alloy with their banging-pots-and-pans style are the Annoy Orchestra. (Strange that despite the fact the Alloy "shuns the nostalgic approach," as the blurb euphemistically notes, the programme includes "vintage hand-painted slides created for use in movie theaters a century ago.") Given that I already have most of these shorts on previous DVD releases, this is one Flicker Alley release I'll gladly pass on.

Unless of course A Trip to the Moon is the handcoloured version being premiered at Cannes - but, given that the restoration cost over $400,000, I think that would be the main selling point of this collection.