The Craving

Truth be told, I haven't seen nearly enough silent films. Being a fan of preservation in general, it's amazing that the main feature and included shorts on this disc have survived in as good condition as they have after more than a hundred years.

The Craving is an odd title for a film and on first viewing the story is a bit hard to follow as well, but this was when movies were still a brand-new art form. Star/director Ford plays Carroll Wayles, a scientist who is trying to invent the world's most powerful explosive. His weakness is that of alcohol- he used to be a heavy drinker but has since given it up for his own good (for a historical perspective, this was two years before Prohibition in the United States.) Another scientist from India named Kasarib (Peter Gerald) pays him a visit, hoping to steal his research and claim it as his own. He orders his step-daughter Beulah (Mae Gaston) to help him by seducing Wayles. Knowing of his prior alcoholism, he decides the best way for her to get his secrets successfully is to give him a drink.

The highlight of this 51-minute film is a flashback sequence that explains why Wayles decided to stop drinking- at a tavern he once got inebriated and saw small women appearing in his glass, cavorting on the counter and climbing into his pockets. The film uses early visual effects to show this, and they are quite convincing. If you look hard enough you can see some lines in the picture where these effects were inserted, but likely nobody in 1918 would have been looking for them. The rest of the film is shot more conventionally with no such effects, but the film's posters and publicity material pushed this scene as the highlight.

The narrative is a bit difficult to follow if you aren't used to early silent films. I personally had to view it twice in order to understand it enough to write this review. Other silent films I have seen showed most of the spoken dialogue onscreen as intertitles (where the filmed action pauses while words appear onscreen), but here many of the characters speak with no indication as to what they are saying exactly. In some cases, the text only summarizes what they are saying and where the story is heading for a little more uneven enjoyment of the final film.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-Ray
Undercrank Productions has released this title on a single-layer burned BD-R disc, housed in a standard Blu-Ray case. The front cover art mimics the movie's release posters showcasing the visual effects sequence, but no printed insert is included inside. The main menu allows you to select any portion, with a "Play All" option first showing the "Film Pioneer" extra and then the short films in chronological order leading up to The Craving.

Original prints and negatives of The Craving were lost, but a Dutch print was found in good condition for this restoration. Naturally the included intertitles were in Dutch, so they have been translated back to English and inserted here in lettering which mimics the original style, but are obviously from a new digital source rather than an original film print. Additonally, a handful of scenes were missing from the print and onscreen text is shown explaining what happened during them (the same is done with the other three short films included here.)

That said, the high-def presentation is amazingly good and is a great example of how film has always had a naturally high resolution long before even standard-def video existed. Obviously the movie is shot in black and white, but scenes are tinted different shades of yellow throughout; this was common in that era even though the first silent films to appear on home video were shown in straight black and white. The elements are very clean for being over 100 years old, there are a few slight marks and scratches but still far less than I've seen on some films closer to the middle of the century. Details such as backgrounds and clothes are as clear as you'd expect from a movie of any age; the only real flaw is some shots which are quite dark in the corners.

While the best movie palaces of the silent era had mighty pipe organs, smaller theaters made do with a simple piano and that's what we hear on this release. Ben Model recorded new music accompaniments for the films on this disc, encoded in 2-channel Dolby Digital. The stereo recording provides a nice spaciousness across all channels adding well-suited music cues to the endeavor. 

While The Craving is the title of this release, it's best appreciated using the "Play All" option on the main menu which plays the following before the movie:

• Francis Ford, Film Pioneer (HD 9:00) is a "video essay" done for this disc release that brings newcomers up to speed on the featured star and director, who was one of Universal's first stars. The more-remembered John Ford was his younger brother, who directed Francis in his later years. In the early part of the 20th century, there was a pandemic that forced theaters to close for an extended period very similar to the recent COVID situation.
• When the Tables Turned (HD 11:00) is a short film from 1911. The opening scenes are lost but onscreen text explains what happens. It's a somewhat humorous story of an actress visiting Texas and outsmarting a gang of cowboys that kidnaps her.
• The Post Telegrapher (HD 24:00) from 1912 is a standard early cinema "Cowboys and Indians" story where telegraph wires are taken out during an invasion and a man climbs up a pole to restore service and send for help. The elements used here show significantly more wear and damage than the other films, but detail is still well-preserved all things considered.
• Unmasked (HD 11:00) from 1917 is about a thief at a "masked ball" party.
• Excerpt from Screen Snapshots (HD film transfer, 3:00) shows footage of Ford behind the camera during film production.

This is easily the oldest film I've ever seen on Blu-Ray, and the format shows the high resolution that film has had for over 100 years. Granted with the missing scene and re-constructed intertitles one does have to be  a bit forgiving, but other films of this era have been lost entirely. The piece on Francis Ford's history as well as the other three short films included provide a good background for those going into this blind, and will hopefully motivate them to check out other such releases from Undercrank Productions. The early special effects sequence in The Craving easily makes it worth the price of admission. Recommended