Product Details

• Actors: Mary Pickford, Ford Sterling, Mack Sennett, Helen Holmes, Anita Stewart
• Directors: Mack Sennett, D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince, Fred Balshofer, J. P. McGowan
• Format: NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Unknown Video
• DVD Release Date: November 6, 2007
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000YEAIBI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,237 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Welcome Addition to the Silent Collection, March 7, 2008

By 

Catmommie (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nickelodia #2 (DVD)

Nickelodia 2 is the second in Unknown Video's series of short silent films from 1909-1915. The DVD contains a varied selection from pioneer film studios Biograph, Bison, Sennett, Kalem, and IMP, starring silent luminaries Mary Pickford, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, and Native American actors James Young Deer and Red Wing, with direction for two of the offerings provided by the legendary D.W. Griffith. This DVD is both an excellent introduction to early silents for the novice and a welcome addition to the collections of aficionados. Picture quality is excellent and the peppy Frederick Hodges scores add to the already high enjoyability quotient. The dvd comes with excellent and informative notes on the history of the productions...and a spiffy silent film refrigerator magnet! What's not to love?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great selection of charming, rare old films, October 9, 2008

By 

Barbara (Burkowsky) Underwood (Tumut, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nickelodia #2 (DVD)

This second volume of Unknown Video's Nickelodia series is just as good as the first, with a good, varied selection of seven early silent films from the years 1909 to 1915 featuring some of the best known stars and directors of that era. As `the Father of Film', D.W. Griffith once again features prominently, with the first two short films on this DVD directed by him for the Biograph Company. In typical Griffith style, both "The Light That Came" and "Fate's Turning" depict some of the sad and harsh realities of life, in both these cases of women in difficult situations who must take a stand or make a decision. For a complete change of pace, the third film, "As a Boy Dreams" is an unusual and rare one directed by another pioneer of the early film industry, Thomas Ince. `America's Sweetheart' Mary Pickford stars in this fast-paced sea adventure, and she also plays quite a different role in the first Griffith film in this Nickelodia selection.

More famous names pop up in the following films such as Roscoe Arbuckle playing a woman in the Keystone comedy production of "Peeping Pete", and Helen Holmes in an episode of the famous "Hazards of Helen" series of 1915. Like "The Perils of Pauline", Helen was another astonishing female heroine of early cinema who thrilled audiences with action, adventure and stunts; in this episode jumping onto a moving train from a water tower. It is only a short moment in about ten minutes of exciting railroad action with impressive shots of and from moving trains. Keeping in mind the year, 1915, the bonus film at the end of this selection is an even more astonishing railroad drama which could well be the absolute highlight of this entire DVD. Only the last reel of a feature film "The Juggernaut" is on this disc, but a breathtaking last reel it is, with scenes of a real train crashing off a bridge into a river. Before the days of sophisticated fast editing, stunts, tricks and computer technology, real-life action and wrecks like these thrilled audiences as much, if not more so, than today, and these scenes have not lost their impact over the decades. Some brilliant details such as a groping hand slowly sinking down into the water say more than any modern, loud and in-your-face disaster/action/drama scene. Fortunately, all these short films which average about 10 minutes in length are in fair to good quality, and a suitable, traditional music score accompanies them. As well as the Unknown Video fridge magnets which are fun to collect, this DVD also has very good notes which provide interesting and unusual background information to all the films. This Nickelodia series is excellent as a supplement to other compilations of Biograph, Griffith or other early silent films, as well as simply a good example of what else was showing in cinemas in the early 1900s besides the famous Keystone comedies.