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

The Bride’s Play (1922)

This drama of Ireland, directed by George W. Terwilliger, features Marion Davies and Jack O’Brien, with Frank Shannon, Wyndham Standing, Carlton Miller and Richard Cummings.

This DVD-R edition, produced for home video by Edward Lorusso, has been mastered in high-definition at a slightly faster-than-natural speed from an excellent 35mm print held by the Library of Congress. The print is marked with speckling, dust, a small amount of emulsion chipping, processing flaws, some image instability, and the occasional light emulsion scratches. The slightly windowboxed transfer will appear as full-frame on most television monitors. Of note: there are a few examples where reel marker cards have been allowed to remain in the presentation and flash by in a second — this is not a big issue, but the markers could have been edited out of the transfer to keep them from pulling the viewer out of the film’s narrative. Overall, the visual results are excellent.

The film is presented with a fine stereo music score composed and performed on digital piano by Ben Model.

As this disc appears to be the sole available DVD of the film, this will remain our recommended home video edition for a long time. Enthusiastically recommended!

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