goldensilents

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Don't think I have The Michigan Kid. Who's in it? The Speiler was in terrible shape - tons of artifacts and scratches on practically every frame. Too much to do anything with. Drove my eyes crazy. That's what I do with a lot of my personal restorations - get rid of the worst of the artifacts in a print, like ugly splotches that show up on the actors' faces (those in particular I like to get rid of, especially in close ups). So anyone who gets my restorations won't be subjected to as many ugly artifacts because I painstakingly go through every single frame (250,000 frames is the typical size of a silent movie) and fix hundreds of the worst frames. Sort of like what Criterion did with The Third Man and other restorations of theirs where they fixed damaged frames, only my process is much more laborious because I can't afford the software they use. I only have limited money to spend on DVDs so I make my purchases count by only getting what I am really interested in. If I've previously seen a halfway decent print of a film that I was bored by, and someone comes out with a better print of the same film, I won't usually spend the money because the film itself wasn't one I fell in love with.

That's nice. I think it's their third time showing it.

What do you do personally to promote silent films to friends and family? Have any good tips you can share with others, or some neat testimonies?

Anything is better than the Grapevine print! Rubber Tires was just an ok movie, I wouldn't care about a better print on that one. I'm more interested in foreign silents these days.

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> I rarely visit IMDB. That's odd. I'm there every day checking facts. Not that they're always accurate, but it's a starting point.

I rarely pre-order anything in case there are problems. I'll no doubt order them the first day they are for sale.

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>I forgot to mention THE VIKING, but I have brought that up several times in the past. Thank you! I don't mind buying the DVD at all. Then I get both films without logo bugs or background noise. I have a new big HDTV to enjoy them on too.

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I seem to remember that. I wonder if we'll ever find out why they took it off the schedule.

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I guess I could kinda say I saw it, but not really. Back in 2004 or 05 I bought a tape off eBay with an almost unwatchable print of Monte Cristo. It was from that seller (who shall be nameless) who used to sell total crap of rare old American films on blurry tapes with substituted foreign title cards (many from Russia) and missing opening credits more often than not. I stopped buying from him pretty quickly because I got rather disgusted with his quality and paying 40 bucks a clip for something I could barely see. I could never in good conscience sell films that looked like that to another living soul. I'd feel guilty and just couldn't do it. From what I remember of it it looked like a good version although I much prefer Robert Donat in the later talkie. In fact that film is on tonight.

Someone at TCM is playing games. I don't like it.

Turns out TCM has removed Glorious Betsy from their May schedule. I saw it there the other day at this link: http://www.tcm.com/schedule/month/?cid=N&timezone=EST&oid=5/1/2009 And now it is gone.

Turns out TCM has removed Glorious Betsy from their May schedule. I saw it there the other day at this link: http://www.tcm.com/schedule/month/?cid=N&timezone=EST&oid=5/1/2009 And now it is gone.

It's cons like that that make me glad I run a tight ship on my own message board. I have too much respect for the long term members of Golden Silents ever to pull a stunt like that. People care deeply about silents and old films who are posting on these boards and I think it's childish to start rumors like that with the intent to trip people up and get them excited over nothing. I was suspicious from the get go about that guy on another board who claimed he knew someone with Four Devils reels. Everyone got all excited and the thread expanded for several pages with everyone being conned by this guy -- who chose an Adolph Hitler picture for his avatar. Then he conveniently disappeared and didn't come back. He was probably laughing at everyone at that board at the success of his lies. Thankfully I was wise enough to refrain from expanding the rumors at my own board. Now I am very suspicious about any of these rumors. I feel that if something really important were to be found it would be announced openly by a studio who owned the picture. I saw Glorious Betsy listed on the full page month schedule for May, or at least I did the other day. Also The White Sister.

Yes I've seen that link before, been awhile though. People I've talked to say Norma and Constance don't market well. For some reason the same people claim Marion Davies doesn't sell well either! I dunno, sometimes I think they say dumb things like that because they really haven't tried and it takes too much time, energy, and money to get a film restored and done right with a proper score, new title cards when needed, etc. I don't think it would be old copyrights holding them back because I would imagine quite a few Norma, Connie and Marion early films would be PD, even some of their post 1922 films are probably PD because they weren't renewed in their 28th year. It's too bad there isn't enough trust in these circles that they could take one rare film from one of these ladies and do a community project to get it to DVD, and any proceeds could go to charity or film restoration. For instance have a few fans divide up making new title cards if needed, have another fan group such as amateur musicians come up with a simple but effective score (or find a pianist who might do it cheap), find fans with a small DVD production group who could sell the restoration directly from a website instead of having to go to a middle man.

Don't know much except they're a film company based in Ohio. You could probably dig a little deeper if you search the engines. At least they are working on projects instead of giving up.

It seems like I won this auction so I hope it helps.

A lot of people were turned on to silents via Silents Please, it seems. Those truncated scenes even back then were old to the people watching -- yet immeasurably charming and inspiring.

Thankfully I don't play tricks like that on the good people at my message board.

I heard on the news that if it was going to show up on your computer that it would be more likely to show up later in the day and that's exactly what happened. Around 5pm I got the Avast! siren warning pop up which said the computer had a virus and I think it must have been this one, although the one that invaded my system I think was called monkica or something like that. I deleted it and did a full system scan and another scan with Malwarebytes and it seems to be clean right now. But I am going to be vigilant anyway and do scans every day, maybe twice a day, for the next week or so. I totally agree with you about the printing money garbage. Didn't they learn anything from the Weimar Republic? Those stupid politicians of both parties should be forced to watch Griffith's Isn't Life Wonderful (1924) to see what's coming to America because of their stupidity and trampling on our fine Constitution.