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

Male and Female (1919)

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, Lila Lee, Raymond Hatton and Theodore Roberts, this comedy-drama explores class division and male-female interaction.

This early DVD edition of Male and Female, produced for laserdisc and VHS videotape home video release in 1997 by David Shepard, has been mastered from a very-good to excellent 35mm print held by the George Eastman Museum. The print and the video transfer are reasonably detailed and display a broad range of greytones. Even on today’s viewing equipment, which is capable of upscaling the older 480i standard video signal to 4K HD monitors, the disc still looks pretty good. While there is the expected crosshatched patterns and other artifacts of early DVD video compression along with the slightly blurry image details that are the result of the standard resolution of the video transfer, the results remain quite watchable today.

The film is accompanied by a music score (with sound effects) performed on keyboards by Sydney Jill Lehman.

While the film deserves an updated high-definition transfer, this disc is still recommended until a Blu-ray Disc edition is released.

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.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good 16mm reduction print that features a broad greyscale range. The black & white image has a slightly blue tinge to it but not so much that it can be considered a color-toned picture.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack comprised of preexisting recordings.

Note that the running time for this edition is approximately half that of other home video editions. The source print may have been for a 1920s rerelease of the film, with the length edited to approximately five reels. This edition was quickly replaced by the Alpha Video edition noted below and this disc is no longer available.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a compiled soundtrack of preexisting musical recordings.

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

This budget DVD edition has been mastered from a very-good 16mm reduction print.

The films are accompanied by canned music from a variety of audio sources.

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.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

This budget DVD edition has been mastered from a very-good 16mm reduction print, and this presentation of Male and Female is identical to Passport Video’s Cecil B. DeMille Classics Collection noted above. Identifying logomarks are superimposed over the lower right corner of the picture to discourage video transfer piracy.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from dopey preexisting recordings. Annoying, at best.

This edition is now out-of-print. Well, it's not much of a loss.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase support Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Other silent era CECIL B. DeMILLE films available on home video.