MGM/Paramount/Fox Silent Films on DVD Petition! (please sign!) (1 Viewer)

[Patrick McCart]

http://www.petitiononline.com/silentDV/petition.html

 

[Adam_S]

Done! I especially want Iron horse and other John Ford Silents, not to mention Wings, Sunrise, and the Musketeers of Pig Alley and other Griffith and Chaney films.

Adam.. wow I'm not sure if I shoudl be proud or sad that I'm number three, sign up people!

 

[oscar_merkx]

nr 5
I want Wings and the silent Ben Hur the most
Adam
The Iron Horse is available on R2. www.bfi.org.uk and looks absolutely amazing

 

[Scott Leopold]

I've added my name.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Signed! Let's keep this going!

 

[ChristopherM]

A pity Universal isn't on the list. I'd dearly like to see a DVD release of Link Removed
I went to see this at the National Film Theatre in London a few years ago, primarily because I knew it had been the prime inspiration for the Joker in the Batman comics. In fact I found it to be a beautiful and moving film in it's own right.

 

[Patrick McCart]

A pity Universal isn't on the list. I'd dearly like to see a DVD release of "L'Homme qui rit" (aka "The Man Who Laughs")

It really is. Carl Lammle decided, back in the 1930's, to turn the negatives and existing prints of most of their silents into a bonfire.

The ones which survive are either public domain or owned by Photoplay (Kevin Brownlow) after restorations.

 

[Dick]

Patrick, this is one of the few petitions I feel compelled to add my name to. I see I am only signer #25. I hope this builds over a month or so to a massive number which any studio would be remiss to ignore.

 

[Brian E]

Done

 

[Jon Robertson]

Signed

 

[Claes Ljunghorn]

Signed!

 

[Patrick McCart]

So far, Wings (Paramount) and Sunrise (Fox) are the most requested titles so far. Wings has 12 mentions out of 36 signatures and Sunrise has 15.

 

[Roderick Gauci]

I too have signed the petition (No. 36).

From the “77 Silent Films I have on 45 DVDs”, I have selected my top ten based on their presentation on disc – print, transfer and supplements. Listed in chronological order, they would read something like this:

1)FANTOMAS (Louis Feuillade, 1913-14) [R2; Gaumont]
2)LES VAMPIRES (Louis Feuillade, 1915-16) [Water Bearer/Image]
3)THE PENALTY (Wallace Worseley, 1920) [Kino]
4)EL DORADO (Marcel L’Herbier, 1921) [R2; Gaumont]
5)DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (Fritz Lang, 1922) [Image]
6)HAXAN (Benjamin Christensen, 1922) [Criterion]
7)THE LOST WORLD (Harry O. Hoyt, 1925) [R2; Eureka – exactly the same as the R1 Image SE]
8)THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (Lotte Reiniger, 1926) [R2; BFI]
9)THE BLACK PIRATE (Albert Parker, 1926) [Kino]
10)THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) [Criterion]

From the numerous Silent Films I own on VHS, the ones I would most like to have on DVD would have to be:

1)THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (Rex Ingram, 1922)
2)SAFETY LAST (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1923)
3)GREED (Erich von Stroheim, 1924) – ideally both the 140 minute studio cut and 250 minute “reconstruction” made in 1999 by Rick Schmidlin should be included in the eventual DVD edition
4)THE BIG PARADE (King Vidor, 1925)
5)MASTER OF THE HOUSE (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1925)
6)BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST (Fred Niblo, 1926)
7)THE KID BROTHER (Ted Wilde, 1927)
8)THE CROWD (King Vidor, 1928)
9)SPEEDY (Ted Wilde, 1928)
10)THE WIND (Victor Sjostrom, 1928)

Taking a look at the various films suggested for DVD release by those who have signed the petition, there are a great many of which I approve. However, there are some which are already available on DVD (in either Regions 1 or 2) or else have been, officially or not, mentioned as being “in production”:

1)THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903) - available on Kino's 5-Disc Set THE MOVIES BEGIN
2)THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY (1912) – will be included on Image’s upcoming 2-Disc Set, D.W. GRIFFITH: YEARS OF DISCOVERY 1909-1913 to be released on 09/10/02
3)BLIND HUSBANDS (1919) – to be released by Kino accompanied by the documentary THE MAN YOU LOVED TO HATE (1980)
4)THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919) – already available as a SE from Image, it will be re-released by Kino as part of its CLASSIC HORROR COLLECTION 4-Disc Set, along with THE GOLEM (1920), NOSFERATU (1922) and WAXWORKS (1924)
5)NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR (1922) – see above
6)THE IRON HORSE (1924) – available only on R2 in a bare-bones disc but the print is said to be beautifully restored
7)SIEGFRIED (1924) – to be released by Kino, hopefully as a SE
8)KRIMHELD’S REVENGE (1924) – ditto
9)THE LOST WORLD (1925) – already available in an excellent SE from Image; the Slingshot DVD edition may also interest completists as it includes footage missing from the Image version
10)THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) – already available from Image, this will be re-released by Kino, hopefully as a SE including both the 1925 original and the 1929 “sound” re-issue version
11)METROPOLIS (1926) – hopefully, the “definitive” version of this landmark film will be released by Kino next year: the longest cut at the correct speed and with a boatload of supplements
12)SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927) – this has been mentioned in some Forums as a possible 2003 DVD release from Fox
13)PANDORA’S BOX (1928) – available on R2 in the full-length 131 minute version with a 1 hour documentary on Louise Brooks, it has also been rumored as a possible Criterion future release (likewise for G.W. Pabst’s THE THREEPENNY OPERA [1931])
14)QUEEN KELLY (1928) – to be released by Kino as a SE

Furthermore, the following films, which have not been mentioned in the petition so far, are also being "prepared" for a DVD release:

1) THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) - to be released by Kino, hopefully as a SE
2) INTOLERANCE (1916) - to be released by Kino, hopefully as a SE
3) FOOLISH WIVES (1922) - to be released by Kino as a SE
4) THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1923) - already available from Image, this will be released by Kino hopefully as a SE and at the corrected film speed
5) STRIKE (1924) - already available as an SE from Image, this will probably be re-released by Criterion in their EISENSTEIN: THE SILENT YEARS Box Set
6) THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925) - will probably be re-released by Criterion as part of their EISENSTEIN: THE SILENT YEARS Box Set
7) OCTOBER (1927) - see above
8) THE GENERAL LINE (1929) - will probably be released by Criterion as part of their EISENSTEIN: THE SILENT YEARS Box Set
9) THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1924) - already available from Image, this will be re-released by Kino, hopefully as a SE similar to their THE BLACK PIRATE DVD
10) THE LOVES OF SUNYA (1927) - to be released by Kino
11) SPIES (1928) - already available on DVD from Ryko, it will be released by Kino, hopefully as a SE and at the corrected film speed

To conclude I would like to mention two other films directed by the great F.W. Murnau which will be released on DVD by Image Entertainment: TABU`: A STORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS (1931) which will be issued as a Special Edition DVD on 09/03/02; and THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1921) which should come out in March 2003.

 

[Patrick McCart]

43 signatures so far!

It looks like the "stars" of the petition so far are Fox's Sunrise; WB's Greed, The Cameraman, Ben-Hur, and The Crowd; and Paramount's Wings.

Keep up the signatures...if any admin are reading this, could you sticky this petition thread? This is an important cause...in fact even more so than stuff like the Star Wars films and Indiana Jones (because the studios KNOW the SW and Indy trilogies are highly wanted...they don't know that their silents are wanted badly too.)

BTW...don't worry about London After Midnight. It's being restored. Watch for it on Halloween.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

signed.

 

[Brian W.]

Patrick, please take "required" off the 8mm, laserdisc and "DVDs you currently own" portion of this form. I spent about 15 minutes filling it out, really thinking about what I had and what I want on DVD, and didn't notice it said "required" under laserdisc and 8mm, since they didn't apply to me, then got an error message and had all my input erased because I didn't fill out those fields. I don't feel like taking the time to fill it out again. Maybe I'll get around to it later. Sorry. Please fix the form.

 

[Patrick McCart]

You can put numbers too, if you want.

Sorry...I need to have the forms required to show specifically what is wanted. There's a few titles that are getting an overwhelming amount of requests in this petition. This allows the studios (I'm going to sort out everything in a table when I mail it to each place) to know exactly what titles are in high demand for. The on-film section should be optional. I only made the others required.

If you need to, type out the answers in notepad and save them. Then, paste them into the form. That's what I often do to prevent data lost.