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Shore Leave
(1925)

This nautical drama features Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Mackaill in the second of their starring pairings. Barthelmess gives a relatively light comic performance through his usual stoicism.

Grapevine Video
2009 DVD edition

Shore Leave (1925), black & white, 90 minutes, not rated.

Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10368-1.
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 6.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 256 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 14 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.95 (raised to $16.95).
Release date: November 2009.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 5 / audio: 5 / additional content: 0 / overall: 5.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good Hollywood Film Enterprises 16mm reduction print. Some shots are quite light (Mackaill sitting on the dock), and there is a noticable amount of dust, speckling, emulsion scuffing, frame jitters, and other print flaws. The slightly windowboxed video transfer will appear as full-frame on older televisions.

The film is accompanied by a custom piano music score that sounds like the William Perry performances of the 1970s and likely originates from the source print’s soundtrack.

This OK edition, with its OK piano score, will do and is recommended until a better edition (hopefully from 35mm material) is released. For now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This review was updated in 2025.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .