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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Upstream
(1927)
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In 2010, the National Film Preservation Foundation proudly announced that 75 American films surviving in the collections of The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound film archive would be repatriated to American film archives. Many of the films had survived only in the unique prints that had travelled the globe decades ago, only now to return to American shores. Among those surviving films was the long-lost Upstream (1927), the most-exciting discovery of the collection, a theatrical romantic comedy directed by John Ford that stars Nancy Nash and Earle Foxe.
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 National Film Preservation Foundation
2013 DVD edition
Lost & Found: American Treasures From the New Zealand Film Archive (1914-1929), black & white and color, 198 minutes total, not rated, including Upstream (1927), color-toned black & white, 60 minutes, not rated.
National Film Preservation Foundation, distributed by Image Entertainment, NATD9472DVD, UPC 0-14381-94722-9.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD 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; $24.98.
Release date: 24 September 2013.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD edition of Upstream (1927) has been mastered from a very-good 35mm positive.
The film is presented with a music score written and performed by Donald Sosin with other musicians.
Supplemental material includes a 56-page booklet with a foreword by Leonard Maltin and film notes by Scott Simmon; a short documentary on the recording of the film scores by Donald Sosin (16:9 anamorphic); and more than 180 interactive screens.
With so many of these rare titles having been transferred from high-quality prints, we deem this a highly-recommended collection.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
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 Rare Films and More
202? DVD edition
Upstage (1926), black & white, 65 minutes, not rated, with Upstream (1927), black & white, 59 minutes, not rated.
Rare Films and More, 6570, 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; $13.99.
Release date: 202?.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a scan of a 35mm print that appears to have been pirated wholesale from the NFPF edition noted above.
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 files from Internet streaming sites 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 silent era JOHN FORD films available on home video.
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