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Just got my copy of Kino's new Griffith box set yesterday, and finally got to see the underrated The Avenging Conscience and the early Biograph Edgar Allen Poe for the first time and in beautiful transfers of fine quality prints (will post a review separately).

Anyway, I quick spot-checked the fantastic and long-awaited Brownlow documentary "Father of Film" and was amazed not to hear James Mason's distinctive voice doing the narration. It is now read by Lindsay Anderson, and has some slight but significant rewording in spots. Anderson also often sounds a bit more tired and less enthusiastic than Mason did, but otherwise does a creditable job. I was wondering if there was some major reason for replacing the narration track, or whether Brownlow just wanted to update or clarify/qualify some of the information and since Mason is dead he had to redo the entire thing. Anybody know for sure? In any case it's great to see this again with such fine picture quality instead of my aging and deteriorating VHS recorded at EP! I guess I just miss Mason's authoritative and familiar presentation of the material.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs

I believe Anderson always was the original narrator. Mason would of been long dead by the time the Griffith doc. was made in the 90's and that would of made the entire project down right creepy.

Gary J.

Yes, that's correct. Lindsay Anderson narrated all the Brownlow-Gill projects after UNKNOWN CHAPLIN in 1983 as I recall. In-fact this whole post through me. The only two documentaries that James Mason ever did for Thames/Photo-Play Productions were HOLLYWOOD, and the Chaplin one. Anderson narrated both the Keaton, and Lloyd documentaries A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW in 1987, and THE THIRD GENIUS in 1989.

FATHER OF FILM is fabulous and the Main-title Theme Carl Davis composed literally gives me the Chills! I only saw this once on TCM many years ago, though I still have the recording. That was probably about 1999, or so.

Yes, I think Christopher has got this confused with the relevant episode of Hollywood...

Has anybody had a problem with THE STRUGGLE? It seems to skip Chapter One and go directly to Chapter Two. Doesn't matter whether you choose "play disc" or "Chapter Selection", it doesn't want to play Chapter One. If you try to scan backwards from Chapter Two, the video freezes.

Anybody else have this problem?

Re: THE STRUGGLE, my copy simply freezes up after the Kino logo, and won't start playing until skipping to chapter 4. Must be a disc pressing or encoding error of some kind. Now do I need to send it back to DVD Planet or directly to Kino, or are all the discs like this at present?

Re: THE FATHER OF FILM -- oops! Yes it was Lindsay Anderson and I most likely was confusing it with the "Hollywood" episode dealing with Griffith. However, on comparing the two versions again, my old recording from the PBS American Masters series most definitely has a different version of the narration with different inflections, different wording at times, and even different editing. Anderson's voice is a bit higher pitched and more forceful on the tape (sounding more like James Mason's "Hollywood" narration) than on the new DVD version. Perhaps the DVD was mastered from an earlier or later cut of the documentary than the one that aired in the U.S.

It's still a superb show, just a bit disconcerting after seeing the other version so often. Not sure which narration I prefer yet, until I get the chance to watch both straight through back to back or alternating from one to the other.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs

azjazzman wrote:Has anybody had a problem with THE STRUGGLE?

Jessica, do you know anything about this? I haven't bought my set yet, should I wait?

Did anyone who had a problem with THE STRUGGLE on this set ever get a playable copy? I ordered the set in the last Deep Discount sale, found that THE STRUGGLE wouldn't play chapters 1-3, returned it (the entire set) and got a replacement but it does exactly the same thing.

How many returns to Deep Discount before I get one that plays, or will I even get one that plays? Suggestions?

I had the same trouble with THE STRUGGLE, but after experimenting a while, I finally got it to play. I can't guarantee that this will work for everybody, but this was my solution:

When the disc skipped to chapter 4, I let it play for about a minute, then hit "Fast Reverse" all the way back to the beginning. When the menu came up, I hit "Play" and it started playing normally, but with skips. Every time I hit a skip, I FRed back to where it skipped, and played it through till it skipped again, repeating this procedure for each skip until I got to chapter 4. Then I went back to the main menu, hit "Play," and wonder of wonders, the first three chapters played through without any skips! The rest of the movie played smoothly from there.

Again, I hit upon this solution through trial and error. It's time-consuming, and it may not work for everybody -- but it worked for me, and you're welcome to try it yourself. Good luck!

I think a replacement disc program from Kino is in order here...

My copy of this film is doing the same thing as well - starts with the Kino logo, freezes, then immediately skips to chapter 4, then if I try to rewind back to see the first 3 chapters, it either freezes or stops the disc completely.

filmJan wrote:My copy of this film is doing the same thing as well - starts with the Kino logo, freezes, then immediately skips to chapter 4, then if I try to rewind back to see the first 3 chapters, it either freezes or stops the disc completely.

Hey, why do you think they call it THE STRUGGLE?

Thank you! I'm here all week!

Mike S.

When Father of Film was first seen on PBS in NYC, it opened with a special title card and photo of Lillan Gish who had just recently passed on. I saved that VHS.

CoffeeDan wrote:I had the same trouble with THE STRUGGLE, but after experimenting a while, I finally got it to play. I can't guarantee that this will work for everybody, but this was my solution:

When the disc skipped to chapter 4, I let it play for about a minute, then hit "Fast Reverse" all the way back to the beginning. When the menu came up, I hit "Play" and it started playing normally, but with skips. Every time I hit a skip, I FRed back to where it skipped, and played it through till it skipped again, repeating this procedure for each skip until I got to chapter 4. Then I went back to the main menu, hit "Play," and wonder of wonders, the first three chapters played through without any skips! The rest of the movie played smoothly from there.

Again, I hit upon this solution through trial and error. It's time-consuming, and it may not work for everybody -- but it worked for me, and you're welcome to try it yourself. Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestion, and it almost worked. I got it to back up into the third chapter, but it wouldn't fast reverse any further back than that. I might give it another try after giving the disc a bit of a rest!

Haven't heard any updates about re-pressings (doubtless thousands must be clamoring for it, right?) but I can usually play all of THE STRUGGLE by going in reverse from chapter 4 and then letting it play from the beginning. (And I'm one who actually LIKES the film, despite certain flaws. It's far more interesting as a cinematic early talkie than many others from the period, but apparently was not what audiences and critics wanted, and certainly not what they expected from Griffith.)

However, I just discoved a couple weeks ago that the D. W. GRIFFITH FATHER OF FILM documentary often freezes up and/or skips when played on a classroom Samsung player, though it plays fine on my DVD players at home. Very frustrating.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs
http://hpr1.com/film