Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Wild and Woolly (1917)

Douglas Fairbanks stars in this comedy-drama from the John Emerson-Anita Loos writing team of a rich, eastern dude who longs for the western life and copes with different circumstances than he expects in Arizona. Eileen Percy, Sam de Grasse, Calvert Carter, Charles Stevens, Walter Bytell, Joseph Singleton and Tom Wilson ably support.

This DVD edition has been mastered from a very-good 35mm print struck in the 1950s (possibly held by the Museum of Modern Art). The video transfer may play acceptably on old CRT standard-definition televisions or on computer screens but is hard to tolerate with its (vertical!) pixels that are easily detected and distracting on high-definition monitors. Intertitles are presented in still frames that do little to minimize the coarse effect. The source material has a moderate amount of dust, speckling, emulsion scuffing, and other minor print flaws. This makes us yearn for a new HD scan released on Blu-ray Disc.

The film is accompanied by a witty, frenetic music score performed on a Fotoplayer by Robert Israel. Bravo, Mr. Israel!

Supplemental material includes a 32-page booklet with film notes by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta; production stills and pressbook reproductions; an audio essay for A Modern Musketeer by Vance and Maietta; and a reproduction of Fairbanks’ first film contract. This boxset collection won an award at Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2009 for excellence.

Despite the less-than-acceptable video transfer, this is (for the time being) our recommended home video edition of the film.

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

This DVD edition has been mastered from a fair-to-good 8mm reduction print, that was originally prepared by Blackhawk Films, with a few sections that are flat and grey. Some care has been taken in the video transfer to center intertitles than were presented off-center in the source print. Still . . . for the money . . . lousy, lousy, lousy.

The film is accompanied by a combination of prerecorded music segments that includes a small emsemble of violin, viola and piano, woodwinds and piano, full orchestra, and synthesizer and electric guitar, among so many others. The supplemental material is nothing more than a series of still frames from this substandard source print. Ridiculous.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is available from TELEVISTA through . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from ALPHA VIDEO through . . .

Other WESTERN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.