Mont Alto to release THE MARK OF ZORRO

[Rodney]

The second title in Mont Alto's self-released "Private Reserve" series will be Douglas Fairbanks' first costume swashbuckler, The Mark of Zorro (1920).

Douglas Fairbanks pioneered the double role of Zorro and the foppish Don Diego, combining action and comedy in a delightful romp that established the tradition of the masked superhero. The success of this film changed Fairbanks from a successful light comedian to America’s top action star.

This 1920 silent film, newly transferred from a fine-grain safety print of the original negative courtesy of Film Preservation Associates, is accompanied by the five-piece Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra using historic “photoplay music” to create an authentic, exciting, and compelling score of the kind heard in movie theaters in the 1920s. Extras include

• An optional commentary track with Rodney Sauer and Fairbanks experts John Tibbetts and Denise Morrison
  
  A gallery of John Tibbetts’ Fairbanks artwork
  
  A short "practical guide to silent film scoring" video
  
  Optional subtitles that identify the pieces used in the score and their composers

Flicker Alley, working with Lobster Films, is also releasing this transfer, with the same score, as part of the Douglas Fairbanks boxed set due out November 18, but there will be some differences. Principally, they have run it through a digital restoration program. Their version looks beautifully clean, and the image is more stable; but it also crops the film a small but noticeable amount, and the stabilized titles are perfectly static, whereas the originals look more like part of the film. For these reasons I decided to release the “pre digital-cleanup” version on our DVD. Also, Flicker Alley will probably not be using the commentary track or other extras that are on this DVD.

Despite its early (1920) filming date, previous releases of The Mark of Zorro on laser disc and DVD have been at 24 fps--and it actually works pretty well (and is quite zippy) at that speed. This transfer was slowed to a more historically accurate 20 fps. I was worried about it being sluggish when I heard about it, but I found that the humor of the film (especially Fairbanks’ fun with the Don Diego persona) works much better at the more natural speed, and the athletics are less cartoonish. Those horse chases at the end are still plenty undercranked, even at the slower speed!

Like The General, this DVD will be available only from us at our live shows and by mail order through our web site, http://www.mont-alto.com/recordings.html#MarkOfZorro. It is unlikely to ever be available from the usual major distributors, except of course as part of the Douglas Fairbanks boxed set.

The street date is Wednesday August 27, to coincide with our premiere screening at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder, and orders placed now will be shipped on that date.

"Mont Alto are my favorite silent film orchestra and it's hard to rave about them without repeating what I've said in other reviews. Suffice to say that I have yet to hear a score of theirs that wasn't excellent." -- John Sinnott, who hasn't heard this score yet, in a DVDTalk.com review of The Italian.[/list]

[Rodney]

Mont Alto's Private Edition release of THE MARK OF ZORRO is now shipping!



And to celebrate, I've put three excerpts of the score on the web site for free download, ranging from exciting to highly romantic:

http://www.mont-alto.com/recordings.html#MarkOfZorro

The DVD cost is $20, plus $5 shipping and handling. If you want more recordings, I'll refund the extra shipping, or contact me for exact payment.

Check out the "Perils of the New Land" section for some other new Mont Alto audio files from "The Italian."

And if you're in Colorado, stop by Chautauqua Auditorium tonight at 7:30 to see us play the score live.

[Nosferatu]

Did you opt out of the more cleaned up picture or is that the one you prefer? I heard the Flicker Alley sets had problems and had a send back program. Either way, great for someone that only wants Zorro and not the other features.

[Rodney]

It's a complicated story, but the cleanup was done in such a way that there would have been a great deal of effort and expense involved for me to be able to use the cleaner version on our Private Reserve release. I was willing to do that, but in comparing the pre- and post-cleanup video, I actually found I liked some aspects of the pre-cleaned video better. For instance, when watching intertitles on a film print, there are little imperfections that dance around in the dark parts of the screen that really remind the viewer that it's film. In the digitally cleaned and stabilized version, the titles are so clean and stable that they look very modern, perhaps artificial. Also, image stabilization requires that a certain amount of the edge of the image be cropped -- so that the algorithm has room to move the image around frame by frame -- and this transfer had no overscan to spare, so I was able to show a slightly larger amount of the image than on the Flicker Alley release.

On the minus side, throughout (but particularly noticeable towards the beginning of the film) there is some jitter in the film on the Private Reserve version that is fixed on the Flicker Alley set, and of course all those frame scratches and flaws in the source material are there in their full glory.

The Private Reserve version has an optional commentary track by myself, John Tibbetts, and Denise Morrison; where we discuss Fairbanks, the filming of the movie, the music on this release, the source novel, and the huge influence the film had on popular culture. I also made a very short (five minute) featurette that shows how compiled musical scores are created, and discusses how they were used historically in silent movie theaters.

It comes down to: if you only want The Mark of Zorro, you want the commentary track, and a more "film-like" viewing experience (warts and all), the Private Reserve version is fine and inexpensive. If you want a cleaner, more stable image, and especially if you want another dozen or so entertaining Fairbanks films, get the boxed set. If you've already got the boxed set, you don't need the Private Reserve version unless of course you're a huge John Tibbetts fan.

[Nosferatu]

Thanks for the information. When I made the previous post I had already ordered the DVD from your website. I was going to buy it a year ago but I didn't want to create a google check out account. I like the points that you brought up about how your DVD version is more unique with the extras and more of the film being preserved for viewing. I had the Kino version which is not bad. How would you compare the cleanliness of your release compared to the Kino DVD? I know the Kino version runs too fast, 24 fps, and the score for piano only, fits well. Normally I don't like piano scores.

[Nosferatu]

I received the Mont Alto dvd today. So far I have a freeze at 00:26:20. Hopefully no more. I noticed the readable portion of the disc seems to have a squiggly lined circle that travels at the halfway point thru the diameter and inside this area it is a lighter color than the outside of it.

[Rodney]

Sorry about that! I had one other person who had trouble playing it on a laptop DVD drive -- was this a computer or stand-alone player that gave you trouble? The DVD is "manufactured," not a DVD-R, and I tested it on several different systems before releasing it, and it generally behaves well.

[Nosferatu]

A standard Magnavox DVD player. I didn't notice it on my progressive scan Sony player. That was the only freeze and it was only for two seconds so I'll live.