Larry Semon: The Ultimate Collection Disc 6 - Classic Silent Comedy DVD with Endless Slapstick | Vintage Film Laughs for Movie Nights & Film History Enthusiasts

Reviewing the SILENT HALL OF FAME’s LARRY SEMON: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION.We have to remember that 35mm nitrate master films are rarely available for minor studio films.That said, The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum (no association with ‘Silent Hall of Fame Enterprises’) has a policy of rating each film based on it’s actual picture quality and not on how rare good masters are for that title.Disc 6 includes:“GALL and GOLF” (1917-1 reel) Poor Quality, very soft, lacking detail (some faces are just a blur), looks like a 2nd or 3rd generation VHS copy. The original film is quite good, a direct HD transfer from the film source would be great. << this is the only video copy>>“HINDOOS and HASARDS (1918-1 reel) Fair Quality, it looks like it is mastered from a 9.5mm surviving home movie print: soft. Re-made video titles, the master was likely in French. While an improvement over the first film, contrast is high. Something in the top 1/8th of the screen has been blurred out by “Silent Hall Of Fame”. Water mark? Time Code? << this is the only video copy>>‘GOLF” with Oliver Hardy (1922 ) a rather Fairly Good copy from a 2nd generation 16mm print. Occasionally the whites flair up and wash out. << this is the only video copy>>“The AGENT” with Oliver Hardy (1922) Another Fairly Good copy from a 2nd generation 16mm print. Grapevine Video also offers this under the title “The Sleuth”. As the titles are replaced with plain SHFE titles, their master could have been the same re-issue print.“A SIMPLE SAP” with Billy Gilbert (1928) Another Fairly Good copy from a 2nd generation 16mm print, but this one is soft. Alpha Video also offers this on “Forgotten Funnymen”.Note: this would be the very last Larry Semon short for him to make, and while a funny film most of the gags are re-hashed from his earlier comedies.You will find a few soft slightly washed out 9.5mm home movie prints on some of these.Sadly in some cases this is ALL that survives on that title, however a better digital transfer system such as the Museum has would be a welcome improvement on these.The manufacturer’s description states “most of these films are brand new high resolution transfers made with cutting-edge true frame-by-frame scanning technology, offering superior quality compared to other releases. “ I have seen NO high resolution transfers of any Larry Semon comedies in this DVD series, even the best transfers suffer from digital compression artifacts.The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum has its own HD sprocket-less digital frame transfer system that could do wonders with these prints. But some film archives prefer to do their own digitization rather than risk sending their rare films through any shipping system, risking loss.The bottom line: this is likely the best you will find, but at the Criterion price of $34 this is for the devout Larry Semon fan. Causal fans will likely go for the $6.99 Alpha Video DVDs.