Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved. |
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The
Pace That Kills
(1928)
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This independent exploitation drama was directed by Norton S. Parker and William A. O’Connor, and features Owen Gorin and Virginia Roye, with Thelma Daniels, Florence Turner and Florence Dudley.
Country boy Eddie (Gorin) travels to the big city to find his lost sister (Dudley). Innocence is soon corrupted, with dimpled cutie Fannie (Roye) introducing the boy to the demon drug Cocaine. When Eddie finds his jazz baby sister, she immediately disowns him and her past life that he represents. Eddie’s pursuit of her is sidetracked by his growing dependence of the drug, and he and Fannie soon lose their jobs and fall into decline.
Cocaine, marijuana, morphine, opium and heroin are all represented in the film. Assume that the moral is: Don’t go to the big, bad city, young people, lest you lose your soul.
Roye turns in a fine, varied performance; pop-eyed Gorin is less convincing and often looks like a Night of the Living Dead cast member in the second half of the film. Thelma Daniels’ hairstyle certainly looks old-fashioned for 1928 . . . likely on purpose.
— Carl Bennett
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 Kino Classics
2024 Blu-ray Disc edition
The Pace That Kills (1928), black & white, 65 minutes, not rated, with The Cocaine Fiends (1935), black & white, 63 minutes, not rated.
Kino Lorber, K26700, UPC 7-38329-26700-1.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in pillarboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) 24 fps progressive scan image encoded in SDR AVC format at 39.6 Mbps average video bit rate; DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 1.6 Mbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 8 chapter stops; standard BD keepcase; $29.95.
Release date: 30 July 2024.
Country of origin: USA
Ratings (1-10): video: 8 / audio: 9 / additional content: 9 / overall: 8.
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This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from a 4K high-resolution scan of the 35mm camera negative held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and from a 2K scan of a good to very-good 35mm print held by the Library of Congress. The conflated presentation spans from good to excellent, with some dust, a moderate amount of speckling, schmutz, fine vertical scratches, filmbase perforations, substantial nitrate decomposition (in the second print), and other print flaws present. Despite these flaws, this presentation is quite watchable.
The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on piano by Meg Morley.
Supplemental material includes the 1935 remake of The Pace That Kills also known as The Cocaine Fiends; audio commentary for The Pace That Kills by film historian Anthony Slide; audio commentary for The Cocaine Fiends by Eric Schaefer, author of Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films; the 1973 rerelease trailer for The Cocaine Fiends; and a gallery of exploitation trailers.
Sight unseen, we would have assumed that silent era exploitation films such as this would not have survived in materials that look even this good. We are pleased to have been wrong. This is our recommended home video edition of the film.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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 Grapevine Video
2013 DVD edition
The Pace That Kills (1928), black & white, 64 minutes, not rated, with Felix Finds Out (192?), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated.
Grapevine Video, no catalog number, UPC 8-42614-10541-8.
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 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $14.95.
Release date: 17 January 2013.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has likely been mastered from a 16mm reduction print.
The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed by David Knudtson.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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 Alpha Video
2016 DVD edition
The Pace That Kills (1928), black & white, 64 minutes, not rated.
Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 7867D, UPC 0-89218-78679-1.
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 4.0 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 29 November 2016.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print.
The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.
Our copy of this disc will not play cleanly in any of the four Blu-ray Disc, DVD and laptop players we tried; we had trouble with four discs manufactured by Alpha Video in 2016-2017, which may indicate a formatting or duplication incompatibility on Alpha’s part.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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This
Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .
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Other FILMS FROM 1928 available on home video.
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