Flicker Alley

J'Accuse (1919) is a story set against the backdrop of World War I that is considered one of the most technically advanced films of the era and the first major pacifist film. Gance, who had served briefly in the military during World War I, decided to return to active service in 1919 in order to film real battle scenes to include in the project. The film was reedited and shortened for peacetime reissue in 1922, and has not been available since in its original form. The 2-disc DVD set provides the best possible and most complete restoration of the original 1919 edit of the film and features a new symphonic score composed and conducted by Robert Israel.

Three years in production, and for its time unprecedented in length and complexity of emotion, Abel Gance's monumental film La Roue pushed the frontiers of film art beyond all previous efforts and is till one of the most extraordinary achievements in the whole history of cinema. The new restoration with a running time of nearly four and a half hours, accompanied by Robert Israel's symphonic score, is the fullest presentation of La Roue to reach the public since 1923. It at last allows audiences today to experience the amazing, poetic vision that Abel Gance brought to the world. The DVD also includes a short film that provides a vivid documentary record of the great work in production, along with a booklet containing an outstanding essay by William M. Drew on the history and impact of La Roue, and comments by Robert Israel on the score.

Widely regarded by the official Soviet press of the time as a prime example of shameless "Western-style" entertainment, Miss Mend was nevertheless hugely popular, becoming one of the most successful Soviet films of the 1920s. The action-packed adventure serial in three feature-length episodes features beautiful location photography, impressive stunt scenes; horse, car and boat chases, radio towers, jazz bands and even a spectacular train wreck, interspersed with visual references to German film classics like Nosferatu, Caligari and Dr. Mabuse. The film's heroine, Vivian Mend, is an elegant urban professional who earns her own living and raises a child without the help of any man. This new 2-disc DVD set was mastered in high definition from superb original 35mm elements and offers special bonus features by film historians Ana Olenina and Maxim Pozdorovkin.

Like the musical Chicago that won the Best Picture Academy Award and five other Oscars in 2002, this original 1927 version descends from a 1926 hit Broadway play by Maurine Watkins. It's a terrifically entertaining mix of humor and melodrama as well as a pungent critique of trash journalism. Frank Urson signed Chicago as director, although it is substantially the work of Cecil B. DeMille and his A-list technical staff. (DeMille apparently judged it unseemly to take full credit for this cynical and secular story while his religious spectacle The King of Kings was still in theatres!) Chicago is silent filmmaking at its peak, with an outstanding score for this edition by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

The five-disc DVD set includes eleven of the joyul modern-dress comedies, westerns, satires, dream-fantasies and romances from 1916-1921 which made Douglas Fairbanks the tremendously popular hero of the American silent cinema. In addition to Fairbank's unique talent , these ebullient films showcase his gifted collaborators including writer Anita Loos and directors Allan Dwan, Victor Fleming , and John Emerson. All the films have been digitally mastered from 35mm or original-negative prints and feature new music scores.

Today, more than 80% of silent cinema is considered lost forever. Some films were claimed by the flammable and unstable film stock of the day. Others were, once upon a time, thought to be worth less than the cost of keeping them. Yet, miraculously, unique copies of celebrated films previously thought lost are occasionally found and restored to delight a new generation. Bardelys the Magnificent joins Monte Cristo as two resurrected classics, both top-of-the-line productions starring John Gilbert, one of the most handsome, passionate and popular stars of the 1920s. Film historians Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta provide a full-length audio essay on Bardelys the Magnificent as well as an enclosed booklet and the thirty-minute documentary Rediscovering John Gilbert.

Discover a time when the truest adventure had the wind at your back and an infinite horizon all around. Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High Seas proudly collects five breathtaking films that preserve the romance, grandeur and allure of windjammers sailing open waters, exquisitely photographed in the style of the time. The Yankee Clipper (1927), produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Rupert Julian, restored to the most complete version available since the film's release, is a feature-length melodrama recreating the real-life race from Foo Chow to Boston for the China tea trade. Around the Horn in a Square Rigger (1933) was filmed by noted sailor and author Alan Villiers documenting the record-breaking 83-day voyage of the 1902 barque Parma from Australia to England in the 1933 Grain Race.

As one of the most iconic personalities of the silent film era, Rudolph Valentino achieved an unprecedented level of fame. This 2-disc DVD set contains four digital reconstructions of "lost" Valentino films and an extensive assortment of bonus short films, rare audio recordings, previously unpublished photos, promotion materials, production stills and other rare items detailing several aspects of Valentino's remarkable life and legacy.