“Sing ‘Fly, Birdie, Fly’,” Angela Fish is prompted by her father in a scene from “Bell Boy 13”. She sits at the piano, beckons Douglas MacLean to join her on the bench, and launches into the song. What do I… Read More »When a Pop Tune in a Silent Movie Isn’t Real…or Is It?
There are a number of remarkable things I noticed in the Douglas MacLean comedy “One a Minute” (1921) as I worked on it for the new DVD release. One of them was the character played by African-American actor George Reed,… Read More »George H. Reed
On Tuesday night I rolled the dice and presented yet another obscure, unknown silent comedy film I’d taken a liking to at a show I was accompanying. Sure, I liked the wacky adventures and Fairbanksian enthusiasm of Douglas MacLean in… Read More »Enjoying Douglas MacLean – It’s Not Just Me
I think it might be useful that DVD authoring be taught in film schools and film preservation programs. Not to everybody, and not as a requirement. But it would be a useful elective to offer, or as a sub-section of… Read More »Author! Author!
Marion Davies’ 1923 Historical Rom-Com-Drama is Now Avaiable in a New DVD When Marion Davies’ own collection of nitrate 35mm prints of her films came to the Library of Congress in the 1950s, she couldn’t possibly have predicted that her… Read More »“Little Old New York” Released on DVD
With a number of new major streaming services launching or about to launch, on top of the established Amazon and Netflix platforms already in people’s homes (and on their phones), as a niche-market distributor I can’t help thinking this is… Read More »Because Not Everything Will Stream
I’ve recorded a lot of scores for DVD releases, and it’s always interesting to me which ones stick in my mind, and which ones don’t…and everything in between. Creating is such a subjective process and it’s almost impossible to foretell… Read More »Colleen Moore’s Earliest Surviving Feature
I’ve floated a couple trial balloons as projects to test the waters on another one I wanted to do. My first DVD release was not Accidentally Preserved, actually. You may not know about it because I didn’t send out a… Read More »Trial Balloons and Pickles
Over the last couple years, I’ve had conversations with people who’ve told me how much they like the Accidentally Preserved DVDs I’ve released. Which is really gratifying. What started out as a one-off turned into a short series that wound… Read More »16mm Film Collecting on DVDs
I knew the name Billy Franey because Blackhawk Films sold prints of The Bath Dub (1921). I’d seen this listed in their monthly bulletins over and over growing up. I’d never seen the film, so The Water Plug (1920) was… Read More »Billy Franey and Grover Jones, Dynamic Duo