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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Double Trouble
(1915)
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Douglas Fairbanks takes a comedic turn in this fantasy story of a hypnotized man with Jekyll and Hyde personalities. Directed by William Christy Cabanne, Fairbanks is supported by Margery Wilson, Richard Cummings, Olga Grey, Gladys Brockwell and Monroe Salisbury.
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 Film Preservation Society
2021 Blu-ray Disc edition
Douglas Fairbanks Double Feature (1915-1918), black & white, ? minutes total, not rated, including Double Trouble (1915), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, and Mr. Fix-It (1918), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Film Preservation Society,
no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in pillarboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) 24 fps progressive scan image encoded in SDR AVC format at ? Mbps average video bit rate; DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Mbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard BD keepcase; $35.00.
Release date: 2021.
Country of origin: USA
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This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from an archival 35mm print.
The film is accompanied by a custom music score.
Sight unseen, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.
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This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2016 DVD edition
Double Trouble (1915), black & white, 53 minutes, not rated, with From Leadville to Aspen (1906), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7866D, UPC 0-89218-78669-2.
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 4.6 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised again to $9.99).
Release date: 15 November 2016.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 4 / overall: 3.
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This DVD-R edition of this early Fairbanks film has been mastered from a fair to good 16mm reduction print duplicated from a source print of the Enterprise rerelease version with several sections of active decomposition. In addition to the constant blurriness of the source material and/or from a substandard video transfer, dust, speckling, frame jitters from splices, and other print flaws are present. Tight cropping makes some of the inserts (of newspapers and letters) hard to read.
The film is presented with a soundtrack crudely compiled from preexisting vintage music recordings.
Supplemental material includes a 1906 Biograph split-reel short comedy-drama from a good 16mm reduction print.
Not a great disc so we recommend the Blu-ray Disc from Film Preservation Society (noted above) as the best home video edition of this film.
This review was updated in 2026.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .
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Other silent era DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS films available on home video.
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Douglas Fairbanks filmography in The Progressive Silent Film List
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