Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Triple Feature Drama Classics Volume 2 (1926-1934)

Contents: The Black Pirate (1926), The Iron Mask (1929) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934).

Navarre Corporation has released a line of budget triple feature DVDs whose collective content spans from the silent era to latter day camp classics. The quality ranges from the usual budget video 16mm reduction prints to transfers of surprising quality (for budget video) from 35mm prints.

This collection focuses on swashbuckling action films.

— Carl Bennett

This early DVD collection of low-budget presentations of the silent films has been surprassed in better-quality home video editions. An edition of the original part-talkie version of The Iron Mask has been released on DVD by Kino International. The Technicolor version of The Black Pirate has also been released on DVD in a quality edition by Kino International.

The third film in the set is Alexander Korda’s sound film production of The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) starring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. The video transfer has been prepared from a contrasty and blurry 16mm reduction print. The film can be tough going for viewers used to transfers from quality 35mm prints.

Oddly, the disc’s main menu features artwork from the Kino International home video editions of The Iron Mask and The Black Pirate, and also the Madacy Entertainment DVD edition of The Scarlet Pimpernel. A viewer familiar with those home video editions might at first assume that this collection is a repackaging of those transfers. Such is not the case for The Black Pirate and The Iron Mask. Having not seen Madacy's edition of The Scarlet Pimpernel, we cannot say with certainty that the Navarre and Madacy transfers are the same.

For our comparative reviews of the individual silent films in this collection, see our The Iron Mask on home video and The Black Pirate on home video pages.

By far, the best-looking film in this subpar collection is The Black Pirate. For collectors who might want to supplement their DVD copies of the Technicolor edition of The Black Pirate with the black & white version, we recommend this disc. The rerelease edition of The Iron Mask with its narration by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is a curiosity item and The Scarlet Pimpernel is a sound film plus, despite its substandard print. Certainly, this DVD collection is worth its modest cost for serious and casual collectors of silent films.

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