Kino: Buster Keaton: The Short Films Collection (1920-1923)

[What A Disgrace]

Buster Keaton Shorts Collection in July

[SpiderBaby]

On blu-ray too. This is great news.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, shit. I already have the excellent MoC box, but Blu-ray and new features seems impossible to pass up.

[swo17]

That excludes the 13 Keaton/Arbuckle films included in the MoC box, which aren't at the same level as Keaton's solo shorts but which are worthwhile nonetheless. But still, wow. And if HD materials are available I wonder if MoC will consider revisiting their boxset.

[captveg]

Fantastic news. This may end up being the Blu-ray set of the year for me.

[Roger Ryan]

I figured they'd go for the shorts on Blu-ray eventually. I'm sure the picture quality for vary greatly from film to film (THE BOAT is in pretty bad shape), but it's bound to look better that Kino's DVD issues. I assume they'll use the fully-restored version of HARD LUCK this time around, too.

I wonder if this marks the end of Kino issuing Keaton on Blu-ray with the remaining features being left on SD only?

[swo17]

I wonder if this marks the end of Kino issuing Keaton on Blu-ray with the remaining features being left on SD only?

Maybe. Although it's weird that they would do Three Ages and not Seven Chances and The Navigator at least.

[matrixschmatrix]

That would be pretty disappointing- I was assuming that their goal was eventually to get the whole Art of Buster Keaton set out on blu.

[onedimension]

My guess is more double-feature blu rays of Keaton.. Go West is awesome, his face & that cow

[Roger Ryan]

That would be pretty disappointing- I was assuming that their goal was eventually to get the whole Art of Buster Keaton set out on blu.

I thought they might wait until the features had been issued before putting out the shorts collection, although I seriously doubt there would be much of a market for something like THE SAPHEAD on Blu. Maybe all the discs will be repackaged in a box set with films like SAPHEAD, GO WEST and BATTLING BUTLER being exclusive to the set.

The Keaton Blu-ray releases seem to follow a pattern of declining desirability, at least from my perspective . THE GENERAL, SHERLOCK JR. and OUR HOSPITALITY were must-haves for me, although I'm happy to have STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. as well. I might even consider re-purchasing THE NAVIGATOR and SEVEN CHANCES if the transfers and extras were good, but I don't think I would double-dip for the remaining three.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'd be happy if they did more of them with commentaries, and Our Hospitality was enough of a step down both in picture quality and extras from the Sherlock Jr./Three Ages release that I still haven't upgraded, but frankly I'm figuring I'm going to buy every one of them sooner or later. I don't know that there's a silent movie on blu-ray out there that I don't have at least some interest in, aside from maybe the Ten Commandments.

[captveg]

Seven Chances is my 3rd favorite Keaton film after The General and The Cameraman, so they better release it on Blu.

But I think they will. This seems more like an omen of the success of their Keaton Blu-ray sales.

I can see them putting the rest out as double features, with one popular and one less popular. That's only 3 more releases for the 6 remaining features. They're all only 60-75 mins. or so, so space wouldn't much of an issue.

Now, if only Warner would go Blu for a double feature of The Cameraman and Spite Marriage.... :-"

[SpiderBaby]

[swo17]

Oh yay, they're going to be colorized then.

[John Edmond]

Oh I like Kino's awful covers. Now that they've got their shit together it's the only thing that connects them to their past.

[matrixschmatrix]

Outside of the Three Ages bubble on Sherlock Jr, I thought they'd actually been doing pretty well on the Keaton blus up till now.

[knives]

The worst part is that this would be a great cover if it were in B&W.

[Jonathan S]

Kino's "colorized" cover may be accurately reproducing (or at least mimicking) original publicity, which in the silent era - and later of course - often displayed coloured stills for black & white (or merely tinted) films. Whether it sends out the right message on a disc cover today is perhaps another matter...

[colinr0380]

It is the radioactive glow surrounding both of the figures that troubles me even more than the 'colorization'!

[Roger Ryan]

It is the radioactive glow surrounding both of the figures that troubles me even more than the 'colorization'!

Well, that still is from THE ELECTRIC HOUSE, isn't it? I'm not surprised Keaton and the girl are glowing.

[hearthesilence]

Kino's "colorized" cover may be accurately reproducing (or at least mimicking) original publicity, which in the silent era - and later of course - often displayed coloured stills for black & white (or merely tinted) films. Whether it sends out the right message on a disc cover today is perhaps another matter...

Just out of curiousity, what proportion of silent films were actually 'colored' back in the day? It's been a while, but the most surprising lesson I had when I took a silent film course at the George Eastman House was that silent films were often colored - not just with tinting, but with selective coloring too, thanks to stencils and microbrushes, etc. They even showed a print of Cyrano de Bergerac that had the coloring intact. It looked crude, but not as a bad as I thought it would. I think the professor said this was fairly common, but I can't remember how common...

[swo17]

Kino's "colorized" cover may be accurately reproducing (or at least mimicking) original publicity, which in the silent era - and later of course - often displayed coloured stills for black & white (or merely tinted) films. Whether it sends out the right message on a disc cover today is perhaps another matter...

Just out of curiousity, what proportion of silent films were actually 'colored' back in the day? It's been a while, but the most surprising lesson I had when I took a silent film course at the George Eastman House was that silent films were often colored - not just with tinting, but with selective coloring too, thanks to stencils and microbrushes, etc. They even showed a print of Cyrano de Bergerac that had the coloring intact. It looked crude, but not as a bad as I thought it would. I think the professor said this was fairly common, but I can't remember how common...

That's a different issue from colorizing publicity artwork, but I'm going to say 5-10%, based on my experience.

[Peacock]

but I'm going to say 5-10%, based on my experience.

Your experience? Award for oldest forum member goes to.....

[perkizitore]

It is well known that swo has seen more silent films than knappen and HerrShreck combined...

[MichaelB]

Tinting and toning was very common indeed for prestige titles, and one of the challenges facing film restorers is to reproduce the exact tones that were originally used. In the case of the 1903 Alice in Wonderland, the only surviving print was black and white, but there was sufficient written evidence in Cecil Hepworth's papers of how the film was intended to look, complete with the chemical formulae to create specific tones - for the restoration, the toning was carried out digitally, but on the basis of some highly educated guesswork.