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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
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Burning Daylight
(1928)

This last silent version of Jack London’s novel, directed by Charles J. Brabin, stars Milton Sills and Doris Kenyon, with Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Arthur Stone and Stuart Holmes.

Grapevine Video
2009 DVD edition

Burning Daylight (1928), black & white, 71 minutes, not rated.

Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10358-2.
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 7.0 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; 12 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.95 (raised to $16.95).
Release date: 9 October 2009.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print that is quite dark throughout the presentation but, characteristically, also there are some shots with blasted-out highlights. The disc is coarsely-mastered and line-doubling the DVD signal still doesn’t hide the resolution lines that can be seen in a standard resolution picture.

The film is accompanied by a cobbled-together soundtrack of preexisting film music and sound effects. The abrupt editing and the repitition of certain sections of music may drive you crazy.

The is the only home video edition of the film we are aware of.

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