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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Queen Elizabeth
(1912)
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This early feature drama, directed by Louis Mercanton and Henri Desfontaines, stars the infamous Sarah Bernhardt and Lou-Tellegen.
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 Grapevine Video
2006 DVD edition
Queen Elizabeth (1912) [USA version], black & white, 45 minutes, not rated, with Cousins of Sherlocko (1913), black & white, 12 minutes, not rated, and Jack and the Beanstalk (1912), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-00232-8.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC 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 6.2 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; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 2006.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 4 / additional content: 5 / overall: 4.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a fair to good 8mm reduction print. Dust, speckling, schmutz, filmbase wear, and other print flaws are present. The small gauge source print does little to represent the film’s original image quality — picture details are blurry, but a little less so than the Harpodeon edition noted below. The best you can hope for is that you will be able to follow the film’s story despite the sometimes hard-to-read intertitles (we suggest you keep your player’s remote in hand for those neccesary still frames).
The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting orchestral music recordings.
Supplemental material includes two short films: Cousins of Sherlocko (1913) and Jack and the Beanstalk (1912).
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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 Harpodeon
2009 DVD edition
Queen Elizabeth (1912), black & white, 52 minutes, not rated.
Harpodeon, no catalog number, no UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC 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 ? 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; $6.99.
Release date: 31 December 2009.
Country of origin: USA
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This low-budget DVD-R edition has been mastered from a fair to good 8mm reduction print. The results are dismayingly poor.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from MIDI files processed on synthesizer.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
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 Loving the Classics
201? DVD edition
Queen Elizabeth (1912), black & white, 44 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; $14.99 (raised to $15.49).
Release date: 201?.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from an 8mm 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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Other EARLY FEATURE-LENGTH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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