DVDs for the Film Connoisseur

While the high-definition Blu-ray DVD format is expanding rapidly in both consumer purchasing and in variety of titles available, standard DVDs are not only a bargain-priced alternative in today’s troubled economy but continue to offer new releases of previously inaccessible films.

About a year ago, a fascinating three-DVD anthology called “Saved from the Flames” came out in the U.S. from Flicker Alley (having previously been released in Europe by Lobster Films). This set, which really should have been on the summary of major 2008 releases I did last month, includes 54 rare and restored short films made between 1896 and 1944, running about seven hours in all.

The wide-ranging subject material provides an instant history of cinema and a small sampling of the kinds of films that co-existed with the more familiar Hollywood feature films that dominate people’s conception of “the movies.” The set’s title refers to the all-too-frequent fate of many films made before 1952, which were filmed on a highly flammable nitrate-based plastic film stock that was also subject to rapid chemical deterioration if not stored under optimum conditions.

Subjects include early film “actualities” from the 1890s, “trickfilm” experiments in special effects, a couple of early attempts at sound movies from 1900 (also part color) and 1907, and various methods of color films that use hand or stencil-applied dyes as well as natural color photography based on two or three colors.

There are newsreels, comedies, cartoons, advertising films, musical performances (anticipating today’s music videos), propaganda films, and short film dramas. There’s even a three-minute compilation of “stolen kisses” that projectionists cut out of numerous films to censor them for local audiences.

Selection in the set seems based not only on rarity, obscurity and peculiarity, but often on the amazingly high quality of the surviving copies. Some of the movies from over a century ago were transferred from the original film negatives and others from original hand-colored projection prints.

This set is a good complement to various other DVD sets on film history. Besides resurrecting some true obscurities, it spotlights the notable directors and stars but leaves out the familiar landmarks in favor of alternative versions and lesser-known titles.

For example, the Lumiére Brothers’ famous 1895 films showing “Workers Exiting the Factory,” “An Arrival of a Train,” and “Card Party” that first displayed their filmmaking technology for the public were regularly remade as negatives wore out, and this DVD includes versions filmed in 1896 and 1897, one of them hand-colored frame by frame.

Charlie Chaplin’s 1914 Mack Sennett comedy “Kid’s Auto Race” shows up on many cheap DVDs of silent comedy, but rather than being a contrasty copy of a copy, this version was transferred directly from a recently discovered camera negative made for European release, thus using alternate takes and/or camera positions as well as having a drastically sharper image.

Magician Georges Méliès is famous for his 1902 fantasy “A Trip to the Moon,” but on this set we can see Segundo de Chomon’s 1908 remake and its vivid colors applied by stencil. A number of famous French film stars (Jacques Tati, Fernandel, and Michel Simon) are seen, not in studio-made narrative films but in short one and two minute 1930s “screenads” promoting commercial products, run before the regular films as a means for theatres to earn extra money. Other promotional films depict the 1936 Chevrolet manufacturing plant, the 1938 Philips radio, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1944 election bid.

There is also a comedy short starring Stan Laurel before he teamed with Oliver Hardy, a selection of jazz musical shorts featuring such legends as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Django Reinhardt, and animated films from masters like Max Fleischer, George Pal, and Chuck Jones.

A sampling of three dramatic shorts by noted directors D. W. Griffith, Lois Weber, and Thomas Ince (“For His Son,” “Suspense,” and “The Heart of an Indian,” respectively) demonstrate the filmmaking styles and serious subject material regularly seen in theatres in 1912-13, just as full-length features were starting to replace short film programs.

Besides having amazingly sharp and clear transfers from most of these rare old films, the “Saved from the Flames” DVD set also includes an illustrated 16-page booklet with detailed program notes, some of which are also included as printed titles on the DVD.

It’s a set that certainly belongs in every public library, but its appeal extends beyond the educational. It’s a perfect source from which the DVD collector can choose some offbeat, entertaining short before starting the main feature at a movie watching party. It will likely be hard to find in local video stores, however, so you may need to order it directly from the distributor at http://www.flickeralley.com.