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Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
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The
Kentucky Derby
(1922)

This Universal adventure drama, directed by King Baggot, stars Reginald Denny and Lillian Rich, with Emmett King, Gertrude Astor, Lionel Belmore, Kingsley Benedict and Bert Woodruff.

Loving the Classics
2025 DVD edition

The Kentucky Derby (1922), black & white, 60 minutes, not rated.

Loving the Classics,
no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at ? Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to ? fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.99.
Release date: 20 February 2025
Country of origin: USA

This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

For now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .

Alpha Video
2015 DVD edition

The Kentucky Derby (1922), black & white, 57 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7684D, UPC 0-89218-76849-0.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 7.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 30 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 4 August 2015.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 2 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered at standard-resolution from an 8mm reduction print and it looks as awful as you might expect. The picture contains the usual amount of dust, speckling, scratches and schmutz, with some mild frame jitters. Some intertitles and insert shots will be cut-off around all sides of the picture due to the tight cropping in the source material and the tight video transfer framing. The resulting blurry image will test the patience of many viewers. We have to wonder if a projector was set-up to cast a picture on the wall and a video camera was used to capture the image, the transfer is so poor.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting mono jazz music sources abruptly edited together.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .