Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2026 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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Devil’s Island
(1926)
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Pauline Frederick is the star, but it’s ostensibly Marian Nixon’s film to run away with as the slighted love interest of saintly George Lewis. This Chadwick studio B-film has less to do with the infamous French penitentiary and more so with class struggles, as matronly Frederick conspires to free her brilliant surgeon son (Lewis) from the shackles of criminal guilt by accident of birth. Deus Ex Machina descends in the form of a transoceanic radio message saves Nixon from sexual spider Harry S. Northrup. Almost laughable.
— Carl Bennett
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 Sunrise Silents
2006 DVD edition
Devil’s Island (1926), color-toned black & white, 66 minutes, not rated, with Mystery of the Double Cross (1917) [chapter 9: “When Jail Birds Fly”], color-toned black & white, 26 minutes, not rated, Sweedie Learns to Swim (1914), color-toned black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, What a Change of Clothes Did (1913), color-toned black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, Dreamy Dud: He Resolves Not to Smoke (1915), color-toned black & white, 7 minutes, not rated, and The Mutual Weekly, No. 109 (1918), color-toned black & white, 13 minutes, not rated.
Sunrise Silents, DIMN-N (NTSC) and DIMN-P (PAL), no UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC or PAL DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 3.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $23.95.
Release date: 7 November 2006.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 5 / audio: 6 / additional content: 6 / overall: 5.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered at a natural speed from a good 8mm reduction print. Picture details are quite soft, and facial details are lost in distance shots in this reasonably acceptable greyscale-range print, which is compromised by a number of processing flaws, speckling, a generous amount of dust on the print, and some long emulsion scratches in the original 35mm print sourced for the 8mm copy.
The film is accompanied by a compiled MIDI synthesizer music score, which is servicable and, at least, not a series of scratchy LP needle drops.
Supplemental material includes an introduction to Devil’s Island by edition producer Rich Olivieri (5 minutes); the short comedy Sweedie Learns to Swim (1914) and the short drama What a Change of Clothes Did (1913); an episode of the serial Mystery of the Double Cross (1917); the cartoon Dreamy Dud: He Resolves Not to Smoke (1915); The Mutual Weekly, No. 109, a 1918 newsreel installment; a theatrical trailer for Forbidden Hours (1928); “Bathing Beauties,” footage of women romping on a California beach (1 minute); an image gallery of glass slides (27 images); and an image gallery of covers to photoplay book editions (24 images).
For now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.
This review was updated in 2026.
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SUNRISE SILENTS has discontinued business and this edition is . . .
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 Alpha Video
2013 DVD edition
Devil’s Island (1926), black & white, 75 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7174D, UPC 0-89218-71749-8.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $6.98 (raised again to $9.99).
Release date: 24 September 2013.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm or 8mm reduction print.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .
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