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

With Sitting Bull at the Spirit Lake Massacre (1927)

This Western drama, directed by Robert North Bradbury, stars Bryant Washburn, Chief Yowlachie, Anne Schaefer, Jay Morley, Shirley Palmer, James O’Neil, Bob Bradbury Jr. (Bob Steele) and Fred Warren.

Washburn’s moustache looks ridiculously out of place in a western.

Surprise! Surprise! This Alpha Video DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good 16mm reduction print, which has the usual amount of vertical scratches, speckling and dust with some minor print damage — some of it likely to be hard duplicated from the 35mm source materials. Still not the sharpest picture available but you normally would not see this level of picture quality from an Alpha Video release.

The film is accompanied by a compiled music score of preexisting orchestral recordings that are, at least, of better audio quality than usual. Not always thematically appropriate to the film’s action but better audio.

Recommended until a higher-quality disc is released as this appears to be the only available home video edition of the film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .