American Silent Horror Collection [5 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Box set includes The Man Who Laughs, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Cat & The Canary, The Penalty, Kingdom Of Shadows.

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 5
• Screen: Tint
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Features:
  • The Man Who Laughs:
  • None specified
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
  • Stan Laurel one reeler
  • Dr. Pykle and Mr. Pride
  • Rare audio restoration of "The Transformation Scene"
  • Excerpts from the rival 1920 version
  • Illustrated essay on the origins of the story
  • .... and more!
  • The Cat and the Canary:
  • None specified
  • The Penalty:
  • A tour of Chaney's makeup case and Penalty props
  • Original trailers
  • Rare Chaney footage
  • Stills
  • By the Sun's Rays: a complete 1914 short
  • "Making of" essay and more!
  • Kingdom of Shadows:
  • None specified

AWARDS

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 1998

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Conrad Veidt - Gwynplaine
       Creighton Hale - Paul Jones
       Forrest Stanley - Charles Wilder
       Josephine Crowell - Queen Anne
       George Siegmann - Dr. Hardqucinnone
       Arthur Edmund Carewe - Harry Blythe
       Flora Finch - Susan Sillsby
       Martha Mattox - Mammy Pleasant
       Cesare Gravina - Ursus
       George Siegmann - Hendricks
       Edgar Norton - Lord High Chancellor
       Billy Engle - Taxi Driver
       Julius Molnar, Jr. - Gwynplaine as a Child
       Allan Cavan

• Director:

  Paul Leni, Wallace Worsley, Sr., John S. Robertson, Bret Wood

• Producer:

  Samuel Goldwyn, Kevin Brownlow, Paul Kohner, Patrick Stanbury

• Screenwriter:

  Mary McLean, J. Grubb Alexander, Walter Anthony, Charles E. Whittaker

• Book Author:

  Victor Hugo

• Screenwriter:

  Charles Kenyon, Gouveneur Morris, Philip Lonergan, Clara S. Beranger

• Book Author:

  Robert Louis Stevenson

• Screenwriter:

  Robert F. Hill

• Play Author:

  John Willard

• Screenwriter:

  Alfred A. Cohn

• Cinematographer:

  Gilbert Warrenton, Don Short, Roy Overbaugh

• Songwriter:

  Lew Pollack, Walter Hirsch, Erno Rapee

• Composer (Music Score):

  Neil Brand

• Editor:

  Edward L. Cahn, Maurice Pivar, Frank E. Hull, Martin G. Cohn, Lloyd Nosler

• Production Designer:

  Charles Hall

• Art Director:

  Charles Hall, Joseph C. Wright, Thomas F. O'Neill

• Set Designer:

  Charles Hall

• Intertitle Writer:

  Walter Anthony

REVIEWS:

• Based on Frank Willard's 1922 play "that startled the world" (as Universal advertising put it), this original silent version of The Cat and the Canary became the standard by which all future haunted house comedy-thrillers would be measured. Beautifully restored and released on DVD in 1998, the film's enduring appeal is certainly not due to its silly reading-of-the-will melodramatics -- hoary even for 1927 -- but because of German director Paul Leni's flamboyant visual style and a wonderfully self-effacing sense of humor. Everything one expects to happen happens here, but Gilbert Warrenton's busy camera (decades ahead of its time), Charles D. Hall's impressive sets (some of which reappeared in Frankenstein four years later), and ripe acting from a well-chosen cast make The Cat and the Canary roaring good comedy-melodrama. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
• German director Paul Leni's second film for Universal, The Man Who Laughs, remains a stirring experience. Begun as yet another fantastic vehicle for Lon Chaney, the drama instead stars Conrad Veidt, who possessed the one quality that Chaney perhaps lacked: sex appeal. With Veidt in the role, it is not totally inconceivable that Olga Baclanova's duchess, never mind how decadent, could be attracted to Gwynplaine despite his hideous deformity. No one but Veidt could add realism to as thoroughly melodramatic a character as Victor Hugo's unfortunate Gwynplaine. Of course, the perpetual grin forced the actor to perform with his eyes only, and the result is never less than magnificent. When performing in front of the rowdy country fair crowds, Veidt's eyes fit his carved grin perfectly, but at other times they convey embarrassment over his disfigurement, tenderness toward Lea (Mary Philbin), and at all times an aching sadness. Legendarily wooden as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Mary Philbin is much better here and handles her blind scenes in a surprisingly realistic manner. Always the most democratic of silent femme fatales -- her victims coming from all walks of life -- Olga Baclanova, in only her second Hollywood film, lolls about in slinky black negligees, but she too is well-directed and less broad than under more lenient directors. Veering at all times to just this side of the maudlin, Paul Leni created an unforgettable universe filled with romance, wickedness, and heartache. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
• John Barrymore always looked just a little bit maniacal even when playing it straight and that trait actually adds to his portrayal of the oh-so-saintly Dr. Jekyll. Barrymore's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr. Hyde has become justly famous and if the ham is sliced a bit thick, well, all the better. The great actor was playing Richard III on Broadway at the time and a bit of Shakespearean comportment seems to have crept into Barrymore's Hyde, who scurries through the fog-bound back-lot London in an almost simian fashion. Surprisingly, the often maligned Nita Naldi adds an almost modern sexuality as the ill-fated cabaret dancer, an contrivance not in Stevenson's original but copied in the two most famous sound remakes. The contrasting Martha Mansfield, as good girl Millicent Carew, is the standard ingenue but she, too, is allowed a couple of nice moments in what essentially is a Barrymore tour de force. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
• Not as celebrated as The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Phantom of the Opera in the Lon Chaney canon, The Penalty is still a melodrama with plenty of action, hokey dramatic ironies, and, of course, a magnetic performance by its lead. To play the double amputee Blizzard, Chaney had his legs folded up behind him and strapped to his body; he proves amazingly agile getting around with a pair of cut-down crutches. The glowering Chaney mug is well used here, too, as his character inspires a young artist looking for a model to resemble the devil himself. The story offers several mismatched pairs: the bad doctor who maims Blizzard and his more idealistic protege; the woman secret service agent gone bad and the idealistic woman artist who resists Blizzard's allure; and the criminal Blizzard and the reformed man, who is ironically cured of his evil ways during an operation that was supposed to restore his legs. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi