Silent Film on DVD and BD

[HerrSchreck]

I actually have the old Video Yesteryear VHS from 1983, which I feel very sentimental about. But there is also a complete FWMS copy of the film floating around back channels that I have a copy of that runs 90 minutes which superceded it. With some perseverance you could probably grab it. But in the meantime you could do worse than whats on the VHS.

[denti alligator]

Check out this link for Gaumont's Feuillade holdings.

Does anyone know how best to contact them to get info on their DVD release plans? I've tried the general contact email at the site and got no reply. I'm really eager for more of these.

[CRT]

So, if you don't mind me asking, I just found out about Feuillade and Les Vampires sounds AMAZING. The french release appears to be OOP, but which is a better release of the remaining two, the Artificial Eye UK release or the Image US release?

Thanks.

[denti alligator]

The Artificial Eye is the one to go for. The Image is tinted, which is nice, but the image quality is not up to snuff, and it's lacking the French intertitles.

Get the AE Fantomas while you're at it, too. Cinema hardly gets better.

[osmin]

Noored kotkad (1927)
War film from Estonia. Available on DVD with English subtitles.

Does anybody know how to order this one?

[CRT]

Noored kotkad (1927)
War film from Estonia. Available on DVD with English subtitles.

Does anybody know how to order this one?

http://www.lasering.ee/index.php?make=i ... e_id=21442" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

?

[Knappen]

Just posted some caps of the new Italian Maciste DVD here.

[JAP]

Just posted some caps of the new Italian Maciste DVD here.

One of two new DVDs on the Il Cinema Ritrovato series by the Cineteca di Bologna. You can find the other title here.

[Scharphedin2]

Great find Knap & JAP! I will definitely place an order for these two discs.

The other disc sounds really good too... an on-going project of discovering the films of 100 years ago. This volume including films from 1909. So, with luck, maybe in five years, we will get the fully restored Cabiria.

[Tommaso]

Yup, very nice. Too bad that the Cineteca site doesn't give any real specs for all its films; though Knappen informed us that the "Maciste" disc has English and French subs, it would be good to know whether this goes for all their releases. Their disc of Pasolini's "Appunti per un'orestiade africana" looks tempting with the big accompanying booklet, especially as I didn't get around to buy the new BFI "Decameron" yet (I'm straying off-topic, sorry...).

[RidgeShark]

The sound version of Nosferatu, Die zwölfte Stunde - Eine Nacht des Grauens (The Twelfth Hour - A Night of Horror) and the Conrad Veidt silent Paganini are both being offered here -

The Twelfth Hour -
http://sites.google.com/site/coronaretro/

Paganini -
http://sites.google.com/site/silentedition/

and the youtube page -

http://www.youtube.com/user/Musimug

The editions are expensive - 49,99 euros each - and there are no video clips of the films themselves, just photos. I'd almost plunk down my $71 for The Twelfth Hour (I want to see it that badly), but it all seems a bit fishy.

[Tommaso]

Great find, actually. But the price is really forbidding, and who is this Coronaretro character anyway? Either it's some private collector who has the means to put prints on disc (which sounds somewhat unlikely) and do some resto work on his own, or it's a complete rip-off with the materials coming from dubious sources. Hmm.... this surely doesn't look like these are normal manufactured discs, too.

[Hofmeister]

Great find, actually. But the price is really forbidding, and who is this Coronaretro character anyway?
Either it's some private collector (…) or it's a complete rip-off with the materials coming from dubious sources.

Tommaso, it's a combination of both. Ever heard of Jens Geutebrück? I seem to remember that you read German; perhaps you'll enjoy the fireworks this 'offer' started in the German Stummfilmforum where this attempt to lure the gullible (and blindside the greedy) was nicely taken apart. Let me give you three links:

• Having 'just stumbled upon' the Coronaretro DVDs, the interested party came to promote them 'innocently' in the Stummfilmforum. Bad idea.
• Misinformation and confusion seeped into a discussion of legal issues related to the Murnau Stiftung (in fact the full thread is worth a look).
• A thread outside the Stummfilmforum which was hijacked by the same interested party impersonating several fans of Geutebrück's – in the end he even impersonated his own ex-girlfriend!

The upshot is that Coronaretro do not reply to reasonable inquiries and refuse to comply with simple trust-building requests. They do not give out a real name or physical address or phone number, they just want the money. Have a look at their 'shop' page or (even worse) their call for donations toward a Max Schreck family plot and use your own judgment. I hope none of the members in the Criterionforum have been taken in by this.

[Tommaso]

Hofmeister,
yes, I'm German and while looking for more info on coronaretro, I stumbled upon that forum that you mention (which was totally unknown to me before) and have read the discussions there. Certainly this Geutebrück character looks extremely dubious and I would advise anyone here not to spend any money on this offer.

That Stummfilm-Forum looks nice, btw. Certainly a lot of knowledge there that hasn't made it to this place yet.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

L'Herbier box coming from Gaumont October 7 - El Dorado and L'Homme du Large with 13 additional shorts.

On a related note, I wonder if Nick & co have their sights on this following that rather enigmatic note about the Epstein being bound up with other stuff .
Did that mean from a packaging point of view or negotiations?

Seems a shame that Nick seems to have ruled out the Epstein Brittany films as L'Homme would fit very neatly alongside them.

[HerrSchreck]

Re that page mentioned above that's devoted to me, this is interesting because it shows me without my bulbous headpiece, yet with my fake ears still on. Fascinating!

Really ridiculous all the copyright claims flying left and fro on that page.

[Hofmeister]

Re that page mentioned above that's devoted to me, this is interesting because it shows me without my bulbous headpiece, yet with my fake ears still on. Fascinating!

How did you like the design suggestion for your tomb:
http://sites.google.com/site/grabsteinf ... CT0009.JPG
Apparently the instigator intends to keep you from ever returning to your place of rest.

[HerrSchreck]

Too much



and not enough

[Hofmeister]

I see what you mean: Clearly the same guy, but what a difference in expression! It's incredible what a (subliminal) difference a prop can effect, if craftily chosen. Ceci n'est truly pas une pipe.

The issue of crypt design, on the other hand, is academic: Those brass figures (in the image linked above) may look deterring but only in daylight. Should you come home after dawn then the twin statues will be the least of your problems. Evidently that's where the big ashtray in the middle comes into play.

[HerrSchreck]

Heh heh.. my point was primarily: "Too much classical snobbery, and not enough blue collar psycho-ness.." Schreck was anything but hibrow-- this doesn't mean he was low-brow either.. but there's no point in pursuing an image of him striding the heavens with the gods of theatre. A simple obelisk, or even something like Murnau's grave, with a dignified bust of the man, would be more than elegant for Schrecks memory.

And I do think the man was an excellent actor. He was filled with charisma, and really seemed to become whatever it was he played-- from the blind man in Die Strasse, temple attendant in Nathan, the heavy in Finanzen Grossherzogs, Nosferatu of course. I still have to get to the Bartered Bride and a couple other extant films with him. I'd love to see Richter von Zalamea. But I don't think thats extant.

Could you fill me in on that Schreck site-- i e who they claim to be and what they're doing? Are they supposed to be related to him (are there in fact any known Schreck relations whove surfaced?), in posession of his papers and furniture, etc? There was also a shot of an interior, with a rounded window over to the rh side-- was that supposed to be Schreck's residence? And where are his remains interred at the present time?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I still have to get to the Bartered Bride

He's only in this very briefly, as a circus performer dressed as an (American) Indian!

[Hofmeister]

HerrSchreck, the Internet Archive provides DIE VERKAUFTE BRAUT (with English subtitles):
http://www.archive.org/details/verkaufte_braut" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The print and transfer are just bearable though. A much better print (but sans subs) will be screened on December 4 and December 8 at the Munich Filmmuseum. Anyone care to make the pilgrimage?

I'll be back soon with news about the guy who's picking over the bones of poor Max Schreck (by the way, the remains are interred in Berlin's Wilmersdorfer Friedhof).

[HerrSchreck]

Thx for the heads up, though I've had it on dvd for a little while in a transfer thats a touch superior. I've known about that Archive link for awhile (in fact, if memory serves, it was recently updated to a complete print, whereas previously it was missing footage). The problem is my kevyip, the top disc of which is visible only to those on helicopter tours.

[tojoed]

This might be of interest to lovers of British silents. The Wrecker (1928) is being released by Network in October.

I believe this film was thought lost, so it's good to have it - with a stack of extras, too.

[Felix]

This might be of interest to lovers of British silents. The Wrecker (1928) is being released by Network in October.

I believe this film was thought lost, so it's good to have it - with a stack of extras, too.

Interesting extras and clever package. I wonder whether it will sell more to movie fans or train fans...

# Vintage Cine Kodak Services Trailer, featuring 'The Wrecker'' Featurettes: Shooting The Wrecker, Walking the Line, Composing for The Wrecker
# Derailment (1944)
# Iowa State Fair Staged Rail Crash (1932)
# Featurette: Mid-Hants Railway - A Line Preserved
# Impressions of a Train Wreck - Korea 1952