Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved. |
The Desert
of the Lost
(1927)
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This western drama from B-film producer Action Pictures, Incorporated, stars Wally Wales as fugitive Jim Drake trailed into Mexico by a western detective (Edward Cecil). But you know Wales is really a good guy — he’s wearing a big white hat. A good high-actioner. Peggy Montgomery and William J. Dyer are also featured.
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Grapevine Video
2010 DVD edition
The Desert of the Lost (1927), color-tinted black & white and black & white, 56 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10395-7.
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 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 9 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.95.
Release date: 7 May 2010.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 4 / additional content: 0 / overall: 6.
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good 35mm color-tinted nitrate print, which is marred with some speckling, dust, scratches, exposure fluctuations, filmstock scuffing wear and splices.
The full-frame, slightly-faster-than-natural-speed video transfer is of nearly commercial home video quality, but a little dark in its shadows, however the digital master compression is a little higher than is ideal, rendering to the eagle-eyed viewer some compression artifacts. Pretty darned good on standard television equipment, the picture is just better than OK on high-definition equipment.
The film is presented with a low-fidelity music score of compiled film music from the 1930s, utilitarian at best.
Despite our criticisms, this budget home video edition is of higher visual quality than usual Grapevine Video product and is recommended until a better (if ever) edition comes along.
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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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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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Other WESTERN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
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