SilentComedyMafia.com

Chris Seguin wrote:Commentary tracks...and lots of 'em!

Ah, did you just offer one, Chris? You'll never beat Steve M. in bit part actor identifications, or David K. in breakneck pace film historic crash courses, but it would be great to hear one by you indeed one of these days!

Uli

Uli,

If you'll send me his contact info, privately, I'll see that he gets in. I suspect that he was caught up in the SPAM filter. Speaking of SPAM, I'll be doing an overhaul of the board sometime this week. We will post the time and day that the board will be unavailable while I perform some long overdue maintenance.

-- Paul

Is there any information on a release date for these collections yet?

I definately want to make sure that I get both of these.

The release date for the Max Davison collection is stil listed as Autumn/Fall. The Female Comedy Teams DVD is due out in October. See: http://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/advan ... x+davidson

Meanwhile, Stefan and Rob Stone gave a great Davidson presentation on the Bonner Sommerkino, where Stefan showcased some of his stills-plus-surviving-footage reconstructions, which in many passages work remarkably well. A glimpse of Hardy and Davidson in Love 'Em and Feed 'Em, courtesy of Rob Stone, was another special treat (as was the live piano by Stephen Horne throughout the show). If it's finds like these that slightly delay the release, that"s just wonderful in my book; this is definitely a DVD to look forward to.

Uli

Stefan just let me know that the Max Davidson set is being released today, March 11.

It's officially up for sale: http://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/index ... ent-movies

Well, after the usual disclaimer that a small contribution to this set might render me biased, I'm happy to say that it even surpassed my already high expectations. Fantastic work on the reconstructions, presentations, and exhaustive supplementary materials, and Love 'em and Feed 'em now ranks near or at the top of lost films I hope will be one day rediscovered. I had seen the surviving footage before and must admit to have been a bit skeptic as to building a whole reconstruction around this snippet, but it succeeds beautifully in giving an idea of what the whole film would be like. Among the other surprises of this and the Female Comedy team sets, to me, are the scores; I had heard Günter Buchwald's as well as Stephen Horne's top-notch work a number of times before in Pordenone and Bristol, but the lively scores of the team of Joachim Bärenz and Christian Roderburg were equally great. I hope we will see more comedy releases within the Edition Filmmuseum series -- indeed a set of Karl Valentin silents has been listed among the upcoming titles for a while now and sounds even more mouthwatering now.

Uli

It's been a couple weeks, but it hasn't been reported here yet -- both discs won a well-deserved award at the Cinema Ritrovato Festival.

"BEST REDISCOVERY OF A FORGOTTEN FILM
Awarded jointly to Max Davidson and Female Comedy Teams
Two priceless collections of silent and early sound slapstick comedies from the Hal Roach studio that highlight neglected and relatively unknown corners of American cultural history as well as film history."
(http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemaritrovato2011_eng/ev/dvdawards2011_en)

(Yes, I know, not neglected by us, or unknown to us, but ....)

Congrats to Munich!

Uli

Congratulations Munich, indeed! And hopefully this will be the impetus for them to mine the Roach vaults even deeper (a much-needed Harry Langdon set? The complete Schmaltz Brothers? A comprehensive Irvin S. Cobb??)
Chris