Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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His First
Command
(1929)
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This full-sound feature, directed by Gregory La Cava, stars William Boyd and Dorothy Sebastian, with Gavin Gordon, Helen Parrish, Alphonse Ethier, Howard C. Hickman, Paul Hurst, Jules Cowles, Rose Tapley, Mabel Van Buren, Charles R. Moore and Jack Pennick.
Playboy ne’er-do-well Boyd joins the army to pursue Sebastian, daughter of the base commander. Tedium ensues.
Performances in this early comedy-drama are unbearably sluggish as the actors speak their lines slowly to be captured by the primitive location sound equipment. Studio sound fares a little better. Viewing the film takes a generous amount of commitment and persistance.
— Carl Bennett
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 Alpha Video
2016 DVD edition
His First Command (1929), black & white, 60 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7855D, UPC 0-89218-78559-6.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.20:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 4.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 27 September 2016.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 2 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 2.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from an extremely blurry 16mm reduction print — so blurry, in fact, that actors can be difficult to recognize. Through the blur can be seen an average amount of dust, speckling and emulsion chipping. The actual running time is shorter than is advertised.
The film is accompanied by its original synchronized soundtrack. The audio taken from the early optical sound system is distractingly noisy with enough hiss, flutters and pops to swell your heart’s desire.
Reluctantly, this is our recommended DVD home video edition of the film (although an old Video Yesteryear VHS videotape we have still has a better picture than this disc).
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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