Product Details

• Directors: Zion Myers, Jules White
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: MGM
• DVD Release Date: December 17, 2009
• Run Time: 142 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003156IIY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,888 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Warner Bros. Digital Dist Release Date: 06/22/2011

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remember these shorts are a product of their time, October 18, 2009

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

I believe it was the running of an entire herd of animals off the edge of a cliff to their deaths for the sake of filming a Western that led to the humane treatment of animals in films. Remember these nine shorts were made in 1930 and 1931 - not last week. If you can do this, then they are hilarious. In case you've never seen these, the Dogville Comedies of the early 1930's spoofed popular movies with dogs as the actors. There was a "Dogway Melody", "So Quiet on the Canine Front", and "The Big Dog House", and "Dog Tails of Morocco" to name some of the others.

My favorite short is "Hot Dog", and it is basically a canine precode in which a female dog goes into a speak-easy and gets picked up by one of the male dog customers. She thinks her husband is away, but he shows up and interrupts the rendezvous. There is a fight, a shooting, and a dramatic courtroom finale, all spoofing precode film of the era in general. The reaction of people to these shorts has me wondering - in 80 years what films of today will shunned because of changing standards of what is considered decent and humane?

This set was released in September 2009, and Warner Bros. has a 90 day window in which they are the exclusive sellers of any Warner Archive product, of which this is one. You can buy this two disc set directly from them right now for 24 dollars. The shorts are unrestored and are on DVD-R. The audio has a little hissing - after all these are early sound shorts - and the video looks just fine, at least on my copy.

For you film historians out there, writing and directing these shorts was Jules White's big break into the film business. The shorts were so popular that MGM allowed White to graduate to directing human beings - starting with Buster Keaton's "Sidewalks of New York". The film was a disaster because you can just imagine a creative force like Buster being ordered about by the autocratic White who had been directing canines for the last two years. However, White did rebound in the Columbia shorts department in the mid 1930's where he spent many years directing that studio's most successful comedy team, the Three Stooges.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wacky and weird, and great, February 3, 2010

By 

Laura M. Hardman "Aguadog" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

Okay, in the middle of the night I woke up (finding I had left my TV on) to one of the Dogville shorts on. I was somewhat shocked and dumbfounded by the ridiculousness I was watching!

I searched the TCM website to find out just what I had seen, and it was one of these shorts.

This a 2 disc set, and it's chock full of the silliest, strangest shorts ever. All dogs, voiced over. These dogs are REMARKABLY patient! They are always dressed up to fit the short subject, and sometimes (particularly the college football team) you can pretty much see the wires that are helping the dogs to "walk" upright.

I DO absolutely recommend this set for any dog fancier, just be prepared for bizarre and silly!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great movies, horrible format, April 12, 2010

By 

G.H. (Pasadena,CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dogville Collection: Shorts, 1930-31 (DVD-R)

The good: the videos themselves are great, and recommended.

The bad: despite what the description says, this is not a standard DVD. It won't play on computers, but will most likely play on your DVD player. It's basically an inherently defective disc that most DVD players will play anyway, but one of the shorts wouldn't play right on two different DVD players. Is it a problem with the burning process, or a problem with the poor attempt at DRM? Especially considering the price of the 2-disc set, I'd expect an actual working DVD. Since amazon doesn't give a warning about this not being an actual DVD, feel free to buy it, watch it, then return it. After all, you paid for a DVD and received less than a DVD. Also, who knows if whatever devices we're using 5 years from now to play DVDs will play this. I'm not even sure if your typical blue ray player will play this, so buyer beware.