Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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The
Married Virgin
(1918)
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The first production of budget producer Joe Maxwell, a romance drama that stars Vera Sisson and a young Rudolph Valentino, barely saw release when completed and garnered little attention until after Valentino’s 1921 breakout roles in The Sheik and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and its rerelease as Frivolous Wives.
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 Film Preservation Associates
2000 DVD edition
The Married Virgin (1918), black & white, 71 minutes, not rated, with Eyes of Youth (1919) [exerpts], black & white, 10 minutes, not rated.
Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment, ID9704DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-97042-5.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (reissued on 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 6.5 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 10 chapter stops; snapper DVD case (reissued in standard DVD keepcase); $24.99.
Release date: 19 December 2000 (reissued 2 March 2012).
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 6 / audio: 6 / additional content: 7 / overall: 6.
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This DVD edition appears to have been mastered for this slightly windowboxed video transfer from a 35mm print that may have been a foreign release version since the main titles and intertitles have been replaced with new video-based cards. Video producer David Shepard added footage found in the Library of Congress and in Belgium and Luxembourg to a surviving rerelease print entitled Frivolous Wives to reconstruct an approximation of the original release version of The Married Virgin.
The slightly contrasty source material is moderately detailed, but lacks some highlight image details. The video transfer itself has been executed on analog equipment at a moderate resolution resulting in some indeterminate picture detail aliasing, as well-evidenced by the flickering textures of the McMillan wicker garden furniture. The source print and video transfer both being of modest quality, this disc doesn’t look as good as others of its age when played on high-definition equipment.
The film is accompanied by a music score performed on synthesizers by Brian Benison.
Also included are exerpts from Eyes of Youth (1919), featuring Valentino in another early surviving film role (10 minutes), and Pathé newsreel footage of Valentino’s public funeral with exerpts from The Son of the Sheik (1926) (4 minutes).
The appeal of this release is mostly the opportunity to see Rudolph Valentino early in his career.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
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 The Film Detective
2017 DVD edition
The Married Virgin (1918), black & white, 71 minutes, not rated.
The Film Detective, no catalog number, UPC 1-91091-48258-2.
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 ? 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; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $9.99.
Release date: 26 July 2017.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
THE FILM DETECTIVE through . . .
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 Passport Video
2009 DVD edition
The Rudolph Valentino Collection: 5 Fabulous Films (1918-1925), black & white, 420 minutes total, not rated, including The Married Virgin (1918), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.
Passport Video,
unknown catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc (three DVDs in the set); 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; double-wide three-disc DVD keepcase; $19.98.
Release date: 11 August 2009.
Country of origin: USA
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This three-disc DVD collection of Rudolph Valentino films may have been mastered from 16mm reduction prints.
All of the films in the collection have previously appeared on DVD in high-quality editions.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued
and is . . .
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Other RUDOLPH VALENTINO films available on home video.
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