Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934 (2007)

See the movies that changed America! Prohibition, abortion, unions, atheism, the vote for women, organized crime, loan sharking, juvenile justice, homelessness, police corruption, immigration -- in their first decades, movies brought an astonishing range of issues to the screen. Whether exposing abuse or lampooning reform, films put a human face on social problems and connected with audiences in a new way. Movies were entertainment with the power to persuade.

This third groundbreaking set in the Treasures from American Archives series presents over 48 films never before seen on video. Over 12 hours of rare cartoons, newsreel stories, serial episodes, advocacy films, and features. Preserved by the George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Commentary by 20 experts, Digitally mastered from the finest archival sources, Newly recorded music in two-track stereo More than 600 interactive screens about the films and music, 200-page illustrated book with film notes and credits, Postcards from the films

Films include: The Black Hand, How They Rob Men in Chicago, The Voice of the Violin, The Usurer's Grip, From the Submerged, Hope-A Red Cross Seal Story, The Cost of Carelessness, LIghts and Shadows in a City of a Million, The Soul of Youth, A Call for Help from Sing Sing!, 6 Million American Children Are Not in School, Kansas Saloon Smashers, Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce, Trial Marriages, Manhattan Trade School for Girls, The Strong Arm Squad of the Future, A Lively Affair, A Suffragette in Spite of Himself, On to Washington, The Hazards of Helen, Where Are My Children?, The Courage of the Commonplace, Poor Mrs. Jones!, The Crime of Carelessness, Listen to Some Words of Wisdom, Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl, Emigrants Landing at Ellis Island, An American in the Making, Ramonda, Redskin, The United Snakes of America, 100% American, Bud's Recruit, The Reawakening and more!

The acclaimed Treasures series has earned raves and awards for the past seven years including the National Society of Film Critics' Film Heritage Award and the VSDA's Best in Show Non-Theatrical Award.

entertaining movies creatively designed to influence people

Treasures III: Social Issues In American Film, 1900-1934 has a plethora of wonderful films that reflect the hearts and minds of Americans as well as their government at a time of great social change. These films are marvelously restored and they are also very entertaining.

There are many rather short films; one of them depicts steerage class immigrants landing on Ellis Island. It's fascinating to watch the people disembark and carry what little they were able to carry by themselves into their new homeland. The different styles of dress also indicate that there were immigrants from several countries on this ferry boat from the ship to the dock on Ellis Island.

Another film worth mention is The Godless Girl directed by Cecil B. DeMille. This is one of many films that try to entertain BUT also teach people ways of thinking that pleased people in power. We see the "evils" of atheism and the "wonder" of a young woman's coming to believe in God. This film is especially well acted and I highly recommend it. The action is great, too. Of course, in our time there is much more tolerance for those who question the existence of a higher power. The Godless Girl, like so many other films in this set, would never be made today.

The Soul Of Youth is another exposé into the lives of young male orphans having it rough both inside and outside the orphanage. One significant moral of this story is that you shouldn't abandon--or sell--your children.

We also see films about the "black hand," which was the Mafia of its time; and several films including Mr. Nation Wants A Divorce portray recent news events as the story plots for films. In Mr. Nation Wants A Divorce, we see Mr. Nation, husband of Carrie Nation, fighter against liquor, wants a divorce because his wife Carrie Nation has left him to raise their family all on his own.

The Crime Of Carelessness teaches the importance of being careful in the workplace to avoid accidents; and the short newsreels about Prohibition fascinate me.

The four DVDs come with a fine book with black and white pictures telling us more about the films. There's a great deal of information about the films on the four DVDs themselves; and there's audio commentary that will interest you as well.

Overall, my review could never do enough justice to this exceptionally fine four DVD set with its companion book. We learn so much about what was really going on in America--and what the government wanted us to think and do as well. People who love history will relish this set; and people who like silent movies will find many of these films to be rather entertaining and very well acted.
January 24, 2008

Treasures III is NOT region encoded

Just a note to clear up the region-code confusion mentioned at the end of a previous review. The Treasures III DVD set has NO region code (that is, it's "Region 0," not "Region 1"). However, part of the first pressing WAS mistakenly coded "Region 1." These discs have been replacd in undistributed sets, but for any buyers outside North America who have trouble playing these early discs, the National Film Preservation Foundation will send region-free replacement copies at no charge; see their website,[...], and the form at [...].
(I'm curator of the set, so pardon the 5 stars, which I'd award to the 20 audio commentators.)
December 15, 2007

disapointing

HAVING BOUGHT THE FIRST TWO VOLUMES OF THIS SERIES I WAS LOOKING FOREWARD TO THIS THIRD INSTALLEMENT.BUT HAVING VIEWED A SAMPLE OF THIS COLLECTION I WAS VERY DISSAPOINTED.NONE OF THE FOUR FEATURES INCLUDED ARE OUTSTANDING EXAMPLES OF SILENT CINEMA.WHILE THE NUMEROUS SHORTS ARE PRETTY DISPENSABLE.THERE'S NOTHING OF THE QUALITY OF HELL'S HINGES OR LADY WINDERMERES'S FAN [BOTH INCLUDED ON VOLUME'S 1 AND 2]AND THE MANY EDUCATIONAL FILM'S ON THIS SET ARE BORING AND WORTHLESS.I MIGHT ADD THAT THE NFPF ARE GUILTY OF FALSE ADVERTISING AS THEY CLAIM THESE DISC'S ARE REGION FREE WHEN THEY REGION ONE ONLY.SO OVERSEAS BUYER'S BEWARE. December 13, 2007

Magnificent

I now have American Treasures Sets 1, 2, and 3 and 3 is by far the best of the lot. 4 discs filled with fantastic rare older films, silents and early sound pictures centered around social change and politics, transferred from 35mm masters, with new scores (not all piano this time!), extensive background notes and commentaries, and a great book to accompany the films this set is superlative entertainment and education.

For those of us who love silents this set will keep you enthralled for days or weeks. You will learn so much about early 20th century history! Every high school history teacher should show some of the films in this set. Some of my favorite films in this set are From The Submerged, 100% American, The Soul of Youth (surviving William Desmond Taylor film), Poor Mrs. Jones!, The Godless Girl, Where Are My Children?, Ramona, Redskin, Bud's Recruit (King Vidor's earliest surviving silent), Trial Marriages, and The Voice of the Violin.

About the only negative I can come up with for this set is that they didn't get permission to use Carl Davis' magnificent orchestral score for Cecil B. DeMille's last silent The Godless Girl. This score was on Kevin Brownlow's version aired in the UK. What's on the Treasures 3 set for this film is a piano score which, though nice enough, doesn't begin to enhance the film like Mr. Davis' orchestral score. If anyone is buying this set just to get The Godless Girl they might be disappointed to learn that Carl Davis' score is not the one on the film.

Definitely put Treasures 3 on your buying list. You will love it.
November 23, 2007

Historically important but also entertaining

This third volume in the series of Treasures from American archives is the best so far, in my opinion, and is a special treat for every serious silent film enthusiast. Each of the four discs in this great set has an excellent selection of films varying from just one minute in length, to feature films over 2 hours, and spanning three important decades, 1900-1934, which saw some of the biggest changes and developments in recent history. This set is both a visual documentary of those events and changes in American society in the early 20th century, as well as an education, but at the same time also immensely entertaining. This is especially the case with the five outstanding feature films in this set, as well as some of the shorter 10-minute films from around 1912, two of them featuring Mary Pickford.

Other famous names in this set include the 2-hour drama "The Godless Girl" directed by the legendary Cecil B. De Mille in 1928, at which time he had perfected the art of a sophisticated and thoroughly entertaining movie while still getting across an important message. That message is atheism versus religion, as well as exposing the harsh and unfair conditions in some juvenile reformatories at that time, but far from being lecturing in any way, "The Godless Girl" has powerful drama, tragedy, romance, great action and one of the most gripping and almost unbearably suspenseful, drawn-out climaxes I've seen in a long time. The film is on the disc with the theme "Toil and Tyranny" along with other shorter silent films depicting various other facets of American life, good and bad, which became the subject of films, and in the hands of innovative filmmakers such as Lois Weber, the theme of birth control is poignantly portrayed in "Where Are My Children" on the disc entitled `New Women'. Some of the subjects handled in films during the silent era might be quite surprising, and for anyone with a little interest in social history, playing the audio commentary with the films on these DVDs will give much more insight and background information. There is also a comprehensive book with all kinds of information, as well as more notes on the DVDs about each film, and given the special subjects handled in this set, it is probably worthwhile taking advantage of this wealth of resource and information. Personally, I found it a much more satisfying and rewarding experience just to play the commentaries with some films in order to appreciate why some points were important to audiences back then, as well as action in some scenes which I might have overlooked or not fully understood otherwise.

Education and history aside, the five feature films are already treasures in themselves, such as "Redskin" with Richard Dix which features about half the film in two-tone colour using red and green filters; a technique already used in the 1910s but not often employed due to the extra work and expense. In "Redskin" colour is used only for the scenes showing the Navajo and Pueblo Indian people and their land, which I found very appropriate because the red/green system seems to lend itself perfectly to the red and earthy colours of the landscape, the Indian people and their colourful tribal cloths. The story also makes a deep impression and is a relevant subject even today, affecting all kinds of native peoples and wherever different cultures collide. Sent to white man's school as a boy, an Indian chief's son benefits from the best of both worlds, but this only results in him no longer fitting in, nor being accepted in either the white man's world nor his own native culture. Finally, the other feature film I thoroughly enjoyed is "Poor Mrs Jones" in the `New Woman' category, who works endless hard hours on the farm and believes her sister who lives in the city has a much a better life, until she visits her for a week and realizes that the grass is not always greener on the other side. All films are of very high picture quality, and there is a variety of musical scores from traditional piano to orchestral, making it a fine selection which is never boring or monotonous, and which can be enjoyed many times over.
October 25, 2007

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