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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A Lover in Pawn
[Mästerman]
(1920)
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This feature drama, directed by Victor Sjöström, stars Victor Sjöström and Concordia Selander, with Greta Almroth, Harald Schwenzen, Georg Blomstedt, Emmy Raymond-Albin, Hjalmar Selander, Simon Lindstrand, William Larsson, John Ekman and Märta Scherberg.
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 Silent Gems Collection
2018 DVD edition
A Lover in Pawn (1920), black & white, 103 minutes, not rated.
Silent Hall of Fame Enterprises, 174, no UPC number.
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 5.2 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 256 Kbps audio bit rate; Swedish language intertitles, permanent English language subtitles; 12 chapter stops; slimline CD jewelcase; $34.99 (raised again to $44.99).
Release date: 2018.
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 5 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an overcompressed digital file of a video transfer from a good 16mm reduction print that is full of distracting, blocky, faint pink and green compression artifacts and low-resolution picture details that will test your patience. Dust, speckling, emulsion scrapes, frame jitters, and other print flaws are present. Throughout the presentation a faint “SHF-E” watermark appears in the lower right-hand corner of the picture to discourage pirating; as this edition was likely pirated from some Internet streaming source, we find this to be ludicrous.
The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting orchestral music recordings.
Reluctantly, this is our recommended home video edition of the film and we still vehemently criticize this publisher for their overpriced offerings that give the consumer as little value as possible.
This review was updated in 2026.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available through . . .
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Other silent era VICTOR SJÖSTRÖM films available on home video.
Other SWEDISH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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