Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Waxworks (1924)

This creepy anthology drama, directed by Paul Leni, features Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss and Wilhelm Dieterle.

This Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition has been prepared from a conflation of a number of 35mm export prints held by world film archives, including the British Film Institute and La Cinémathèque française. The 2019 digital reconstruction was undertaken by Deutsche Kinematek, Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna and L’Immagine Ritrovata. The main source print is a 35mm nitrate British import print, with inserts to replace missing footage from a 35mm French import print. Substantial digital clean-up was performed to remove (or reduce) evidence of print damage (tears, cupping, sprocket damage, print wear), decomposing color tints and toning in the print, dust, speckling, and other flaws. The results are very-good to excellent, with only occasional visual evidence of the inserts from the worn French print.

The reconstruction retains the English language intertitles in the British source print rather than attempt to reconstruct German intertitles from the English print and a surviving list of Swedish intertitles. No attempt has been made to alter the existing intertitles which allows, among other things, “Spring Heeled Jack” to be retained as the name of Jack the Ripper (presumably a censorship move by the UK distributor or by the British censors who might have been concerned about dredging up the public’s forgotten memories).

The DVD edition fares favorably, as well. Even at the lower image resolution of a DVD, the picture is finely detailed and balanced. This disc may be the choice of those watching the film on a personal computer.

Two optional music scores accompany the film: a straight-forward piano score by Richard Siedhoff, and an expressionistic instrumental score by Bernd Schultheis, Olav Lervik and Jan Kohl performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik.

Supplementary materials includes an audio commentary by film critic Adrian Martin; an interview with restoration artist Julia Wallmüller on the search for the original German version of the film and its reconstruction (20 minutes); an interview with horror film historian Kim Newman (17 minutes); a Paul Leni novelty short (a visual improvement over the Kino edition of the film noted below) accompanied by a piano score performed by Jon Mirsalis (15 minutes); and a 24-page insert booklet with essays by Richard Combs, Philip Kemp and Julia Wallmüller, and with technical information on this edition.

This is our recommended Blu-ray Disc and DVD home video edition of this film for North American collectors.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports the Silent Era website.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

The reconstruction retains the English language intertitles in the British source print rather than attempt to reconstruct German intertitles from the English print and a surviving list of Swedish intertitles. No attempt has been made to alter the existing intertitles which allows, among other things, “Spring Heeled Jack” to be retained as the name of Jack the Ripper (presumably a censorship move by the UK distributor or by the British censors who might have been concerned about dredging up the public’s forgotten memories).

Two optional music scores accompany the film: a straight-forward piano score by Richard Siedhoff, and an expressionistic instrumental score by Bernd Schultheis, Olav Lervik and Jan Kohl performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik.

Supplementary materials includes an audio commentary by film critic Adrian Martin; an interview with restoration artist Julia Wallmüller on the search for the original German version of the film and its reconstruction (20 minutes); an interview with horror film historian Kim Newman (17 minutes); a Paul Leni novelty short (a visual improvement over the Kino edition of the film noted below) accompanied by a piano score performed by Jon Mirsalis (15 minutes); and a 24-page insert booklet with essays by Richard Combs, Philip Kemp and Julia Wallmüller, and with technical information on this edition.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film for European collectors.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Kino International scored a big goal with the release of this DVD edition of a much-respected Paul Leni film. This edition has been mastered from a very-good restoration print produced by the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, with restoration lab work by L’Immagine Retrovata. The print is moderately speckled and dusty, but generally a pleasure to watch except for the sometimes over-saturated colors of the color-toning. English language intertitles from a 1924 British print have been inserted for this edition.

The film is accompanied by a piano score composed and performed by Jon Mirsalis.

Supplemental materials include Paul Leni’s experimental short film Rebus-film No. 1 (1926) from a contrasty reduction print, and an excerpt from The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.