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

The Love Nest (1923)

The Love Nest (1923) is very funny, with Keaton regular Joe Roberts playing a menacing ship captain. If you have not seen the films on this disc, we are certain you will be pleased and amused by all of them.

For material that is quite scuffed or otherwise of distracting state, Kino offers viewer-selectable versions that have been digitally cleaned by computer processing.

Among the supplementary content created for this collection are 15 visual essays featuring contributions from Jack Dragga, Ken Gordon, David Kalat, Bruce Lawton, Steve Massa, Ben Model, David B. Pearson, R. Emmet Sweeney and Patricia Eliot Tobias, a series of alternate and deleted shots from Keaton shorts, a presentation of exerpts from comedy films influenced by Keaton, and Keaton cameos in short films of the late 1920s.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Purchase supports Silent Era.

Supplementary material includes an introduction by preservationist Serge Bromberg; audio commentary on six films by Joseph McBride; a recently-discovered version of The Blacksmith containing four minutes of previously unseen footage; alternate endings for Coney Island and My Wife’s Relations; a video essay by critic David Cairns; a discussion of Keaton’s style by actor Pierre Étaix; an audio recording of Keaton at a 1962 party; and a 184-page booklet with a roundtable discussion with critics Brad Stevens, Jean-Pierre Coursodon and Dan Sallitt, an essay and with detailed notes on each film by Jeffrey Vance; an essay by Serge Bromberg on the two versions of The Blacksmith and other discoveries; an excerpt from Life with Buster Keaton (1951) in cluding a reenactment by Keaton of Roscoe Arbuckle’s “Salomé dance,” first performed in The Cook and the words of Buster Keaton.

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

This remastered DVD collection has been mastered from the best 35mm print materials available. Not all of the source prints are of 35mm quality, however. Some prints are of only good quality as the surviving material is either contrasty and blurred from multiple print duplications or preserved from 16mm reduction prints.

For material that is quite scuffed or otherwise of distracting state, Kino offers viewer-selectable versions that have been digitally cleaned by computer processing.

Among the supplementary content created for this collection are 15 visual essays featuring contributions from Jack Dragga, Ken Gordon, David Kalat, Bruce Lawton, Steve Massa, Ben Model, David B. Pearson, R. Emmet Sweeney and Patricia Eliot Tobias, a series of alternate and deleted shots from Keaton shorts, a presentation of exerpts from comedy films influenced by Keaton, and Keaton cameos in short films of the late 1920s.

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

The video transfer utilized for this DVD is (like the others in this Buster Keaton DVD series) from The Art of Buster Keaton series originally released on laserdisc and VHS videotape in 1994-1995. The Love Nest has been pieced together somewhat but is largely complete. The transfers of the short films are very good, with a generous, open framing.

The films on the disc also feature great music scores by Robert Israel and organist Gaylord Carter. While we have been a longtime fan of the late Carter’s work, we are continually impressed by Israel’s orchestral scores. On more than one occasion, the presence of Israel’s work has been a selling point for us. We enthusiastically recommend these great Buster Keaton films and this disc.

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 boxset is full of low-quality video transfers of short and feature-length films. At the time of its release, the majority of the titles were previously available from other budget disc producers of similar low-quality.

While the temptation is to get three discs for a low price, the quality of prints used for the video transfers are commensurately low.

The Love Nest is available in higher-quality home video editions elsewhere. Not recommended and it’s out-of-print now, anyway. No loss.

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