Customer Reviews

Memories of the Silent Stars

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What a great video, seeing stars and directors I have only heard of and not expecting to see on film in a way not usually seen. The film quality was fantastic. It was great to see Lillian and Dorothy Gish who I really love, and also Pearl White. Taken all round, well worth the money. I love it anyway.

I haven't seen this DVD so I can't speak to its quality or contents, but being a silent film fanatic I will be buying it soon. However, I will not pay $100 for a copy! It's available for just $18.95 at Unknown Video's website (I can't post the URL here but you're bright folks, you can figure it out). Why do certain sellers feel the need to jack up the price astronomically on items that they think have gone out of print?

Unfortunately, it won't play at all. I don't see any DVD logo, and all my player says is "disc error", and spits it out.

Don't even know if the 1 star rating applies.....

I was a bit more fortunate than previous reviewer Mr. Goode in that this disc played on my DVD player, but I did not find myself interested in the silent stars featured (I was happy to see Norma Shearer until some flapper blocked my view). The other DVD I purchased from "Unknown Video" (through amazon) is the Jack Pickford version of Tom Sawyer. I almost got through that DVD but it "stuck" about ten minutes from the end, on my player and several others. Very frustrating when I had waited years to see that movie. Both discs are lilac in color - a bit like Maxell brand DVD-Rs - and both have peel off labels attached to them, and both trimmed by some mechanical cutter that is a bit off center. So these Unknown DVDs are clearly not of the quality you would expect from Image or Milestone, but are put together by unknowns who are just learning how to copy video to DVD and make labels on a computer. I must say I was very happy with the fridge magnets that came with the discs, but the discs themselves would appear to be public domain films that are copies of copies of copies. Check out Unknown Video's website and you'll get the picture much clearer than you do on these discs.

This is quite a nice DVD featuring about 80 minutes worth of silent film footage: from scenes out of movies, behind-the-scenes takes, newsreels and general publicity shots, each only a few seconds or minutes in length, but there is certainly a lot of variety. It is divided in 6 parts, each about 12 minutes long, and each part focusses on an aspect of Hollywood: eg Comedians, "Behind the Scenes", Candid Moments, "The Men Behind the Megaphone" and Stars in Newsreels. These original mini-documentaries are by Blackhawk Films, and Blackhawk has done an excellent job of supplying good notes to introduce each segment of film footage so that the viewer knows which star or director will be seen next - and that is a big help because many celebrities featured here are probably not well known at all today. The stars most silent film viewers will be well familiar with, and who appear at least once for a few seconds on this DVD are: Clara Bow, Jackie Coogan, Lon Chaney, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Norma and Constance Talmadge, Charles Ray, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer, Eric von Stroheim, Priscilla Dean, Bebe Daniels, Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin, Marie Dressler, Pearl White, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Lewis Stone and - featured a little more than all the others, the "King and Queen" of Hollywood in the 1920s, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Some of these stars are only spotted briefly as they enter Grauman's Chinese Theatre or attend a movie premier. D W Griffith is also seen, and the part entitled "The Men Behind the Megaphone" shows other directors like Alan Crosland at work. In fact, quite a few scenes on this DVD show filming in action or other `behind the scenes' moments, so that it might still be of interest to the general film enthusiast even though not many famous stars are shown. There is a short newsreel segment on Tom Mix's visit to The White House, and Doug & Mary's arrival home from another European vacation, and plenty more long-forgotten silent stars.

The picture quality of most of this footage is very good and clear, and it has Unknown Video's usual competent musical score on electric organ by Bob Vaughn. As a bonus on this DVD, there is a slide show of nearly 150 colour stills of movie magazine covers of the 1910s and 1920s, and accompanied by a jazzy Twenties tune it also makes for a pleasant and entertaining few minutes viewing. I had no trouble at all playing this DVD, but as it is a DVD-R, it might cause problems on some DVD players. Although this DVD is nothing special or brilliant, I'd say it would definitely still be of interest to serious silent film enthusiasts, even if only to test one's knowledge of stars and names!

There were some clips of the famous Silent Stars, but overall, I was very disappointed. Most of the footage was of unknown stars, with some producers and directors I've never heard of. Sure, you see some clips of Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, but other than that, it was boring. This was not at all what I thought it was going to be. Save your money!!