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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The Phantom of
the Forest
(1926)
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This B-studio adventure drama, directed by Henry McCarthy, stars Thunder the dog, with Betty Francisco, Eddie Phillips, James Mason and Frank Foster Davis.
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 Grapevine Video
2008 DVD edition
The Phantom of the Forest (1926), color-toned black & white and color-tinted black & white, 59 minutes, not rated, with The Screen Almanac (192?), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10339-1.
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 7.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 12 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 2008.
Country of origin: USA •
Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 7 / additional content: 6 / overall: 7.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered at standard-resolution from a worn and dirty color-tinted and color-toned 35mm print, which has a noticable amount of dust, speckling, schmutz, scratches, emulsion scrapes, sprocket damage, scuffing, and other print flaws. We’re being picky, but the print could have been cleaned before the video transfer was done. Otherwise, the resulting picture is very-good with good image detail and a broad range of color-tones.
The film is accompanied by a music score compiled from royalty-free digital files performed on MIDI keyboards. For a cobbled-together soundtrack, it does a better job of accompanying the film than do vintage film music recordings.
Supplemental material is an unusual novelty short that includes brief appearances by Clyde Cook, Ned Wayburn, the girls of the Ziegfeld Follies, Strongheart the dog, Baby Peggy with her mother and sister, Frank Billings, Betty Blythe, Lowell Sherman, David Warfield, Mae Murray, Sid Grauman, Mrs. Smith (mother of Mary Pickford), Jack Pickford, Marilyn Miller, a girl identified as Mary Pickford Jr. (daughter of Lottie Pickford), and Irving Cohen. The film also includes shots of the Pickford-Fairbanks film studio.
As this is a better than average production from Grapevine Video, for now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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 Loving the Classics
2025 DVD edition
The Phantom of the Forest (1926), black & white, 60 minutes, not rated.
Loving the Classics, no catalog number, 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 ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $24.99 (raised to $25.49).
Release date: 11 December 2025.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.
Note that this company apparently has a history of pirating other home video editions or pirating television network recordings to produce their products. Be aware that purchasing pirated home video editions does not benefit the original edition producers nor the composers whose music is often pirated as well.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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