The Penalty (1920) on Blu Ray 10/23 from Kino

Little Caesar · Post by **Little Caesar** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:06 am

The subject line pretty much says it all. I hope that Kino will offer an alternate musical score for this edition. I remember watching the previous version on TCM several years ago, and I thought that the musical score was about the most inappropriate score for a silent I have ever heard. If there's an alternate score, I'll definitely consider picking this up.

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 10:25 am

Potentially great news, BUT, if they keep the current "score" as the only option, I ain't buyin'. If there was ever a dealbreaker, the Michael Polher abomination against silent musical scoring is definitely it, and it kept me from buying the DVD. In fact, I don't think there's another score this side of Maria Newman that is so universally reviled among silent film aficionados, except for perhaps the Air atrocity on Flicker Alley's otherwise stupendous color release of A TRIP TO THE MOON.

Mr. Bret Wood, are you listening? Please please PLEASE give us a score worthy of this excellent Chaney film, and I'll pony up the $$ immediately, and tell all my little friends to do it too. Our very own Ben Model has a great score all ready to go; I'd love to hear that on the upcoming Blu.

marcusjsalem · Post by **marcusjsalem** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:48 pm

I could not agree more, this is one of the only films I will watch with the television muted, it's just god awful! To watch it with an appropriate score would be wonderful, and I could finally, truly enjoy watching this film!

BenModel · Post by **BenModel** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:03 pm

There's always my downloadable theatre organ score. Don't know if it synchs with the new version or not, though...

Ben

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 10:51 pm

BenModel wrote:There's always my downloadable theatre organ score. Don't know if it synchs with the new version or not, though...

Ben

Yep, I mentioned your fine score in my post above, and said that Kino should get with you on including it in their new Blu-ray release. I wonder if that might actually be within the realm of possibility...?

BenModel · Post by **BenModel** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:24 pm

I'm going to leave it to Kino to divulge, but I've contacted them and bottom line is you won't need my score for this.

T0m M · Post by **T0m M** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:29 am

The moment I saw the thread title, I automatically dismissed the Blu-Ray, never having been a big fan of the film. However, after reading the comments, I'm wondering if the musical score subliminally turned me off? It's time for a refresher with the mute button engaged. Thxs for the insight gentlemen.

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:44 am

T0m M wrote:The moment I saw the thread title, I automatically dismissed the Blu-Ray, never having been a big fan of the film. However, after reading the comments, I'm wondering if the musical score subliminally turned me off? It's time for a refresher with the mute button engaged. Thxs for the insight gentlemen.

Judging from Ben's last post, I think we can assume that THE PENALTY will no longer be cursed with Michael Polher's aural ruination in the upcoming Blu-ray release. So, if I were you, I'd wait until you can watch this in hi-def with a nice music score. The first time I ever saw it was on the big screen in Seattle, with a live accompaniment by the Four Bricoleurs, and it was fantastic. An excellent Chaney film and performance.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:04 pm

Mont Alto's score for The Penalty -- after our previous score for Les Vampires -- has had us wallowing in melodrama for most of 2012. But we really like this kind of music, it gives us a great opportunity for emotional playing. I've posted one of the tracks from The Penalty over at our home page, a nice minor-key Valse Pathetique by Maurice Baron. This theme is mostly used for the twisted relationships between Chaney and Ethel Terry.

This BluRay is also our first recording with my newly acquired Kawai grand piano, though in most of these arrangements, the piano ends up pretty buried. When Lon plays his piano on-screen, you'll hear it a little more to the front. Grand pianos are very inspiring to play, but can be difficult to record.

Gagman 66 · Post by **Gagman 66** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 1:40 am

Rodney,

Great stuff! Of course the early portion is very familiar. It was used in Robert Israel and Donald Hunsburger's score to THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME on the Image Ultimate Edition DVD. However, the second half of the recording I have never heard before. Pretty deep stuff.

I'm really disappointed that THE PENALTY is not being shown during the TCM Disability in Films Festival this month, instead of THE UNKNOWN. Not a good choice for the event. THE PENALTY or WEST OF ZANZIBAR would have been Perfect.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:14 am

Gagman 66 wrote:Rodney,

Great stuff! Of course the early portion is very familiar. It was used in Robert Israel and Donald Hunsburger's score to THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME on the Image Ultimate Edition DVD. However, the second half of the recording I have never heard before. Pretty deep stuff.

Yep, the dangers of compiled scores... though, of course, in the theaters of the day you would have heard the same pieces repeated every few months anyway. Let's hope they become like old friends. I'm not familiar with the Image Hunchback, but apparently, more than one musician finds that piece a good fit for Chaney. Funny they left out the trio, that's one of the coolest parts of the piece. Even I left out one recap of the "A" theme with an even fancier violin obbligato -- it didn't really work for the movie -- so there's one tidbit left in the old Valse Pathetique for the future.

The Blackbird · Post by **The Blackbird** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:30 pm

Gagman 66 wrote:Rodney,

Great stuff! Of course the early portion is very familiar. It was used in Robert Israel and Donald Hunsburger's score to THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME on the Image Ultimate Edition DVD. However, the second half of the recording I have never heard before. Pretty deep stuff.

I'm really disappointed that THE PENALTY is not being shown during the TCM Disability in Films Festival this month, instead of THE UNKNOWN. Not a good choice for the event. THE PENALTY or WEST OF ZANZIBAR would have been Perfect.

They haven't got a leg to stand on.

Post by **Christopher Jacobs** » Wed Oct 10, 2012 11:35 pm

The Blackbird wrote:
Gagman 66 wrote:Rodney,

Great stuff! Of course the early portion is very familiar. It was used in Robert Israel and Donald Hunsburger's score to THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME on the Image Ultimate Edition DVD. However, the second half of the recording I have never heard before. Pretty deep stuff.

I'm really disappointed that THE PENALTY is not being shown during the TCM Disability in Films Festival this month, instead of THE UNKNOWN. Not a good choice for the event. THE PENALTY or WEST OF ZANZIBAR would have been Perfect.
They haven't got a leg to stand on.

Well, with THE UNKNOWN being an MGM title, TCM obviously embraced a movie that would leave their thumbprint(s) on the series. (Even if the intertitles are still just retranslations from the surviving French material, with different character names and some awkward expressions.) Maybe the choice was to illustrate the dangers of elective surgery without thorough consultation or consideration of all the factors involved.

Mitch Farish · Post by **Mitch Farish** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:37 am

Christopher Jacobs wrote:Maybe the choice was to illustrate the dangers of elective surgery without thorough consultation or consideration of all the factors involved.

I've never been crazy about The Unknown. I mean really, Alonzo figures the ideal way of hiding his deformed thumbs is to become an armless knife thrower and starts from scratch throwing knives with dazzling accuracy, as well as eating, drinking, smoking with his feet - things that become second nature only by living with a disability from infancy. I can't wait until the commenter rips this one to shreds. Even for Tod Browning it was not well thought out.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:52 pm

If you're going to subject one Lon Chaney movie plot to rational analysis, where will it end?

Mitch Farish · Post by **Mitch Farish** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:16 pm

Rodney wrote:If you're going to subject one Lon Chaney movie plot to rational analysis, where will it end?

For me it's a matter of degree. I love Chaney and have a high tolerance for weirdness, but for some reason The Unknown bothers me, and not for the right reasons. For my taste the best Chaney/Browning collaboration is West of Zanzibar. That one bothers me for the right reasons. I'm looking forward to the blu-ray of The Penalty. I've never seen that movie before.

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 2:00 pm

Yeah, they're all twisted fever dreams. David Skal's The Monster Show is very good on how they fed an audience's post-WWI fascination/repulsion with disfigurement and amputation.

Post by **Christopher Jacobs** » Fri Oct 12, 2012 12:15 am

Mitch Farish wrote:
Rodney wrote:If you're going to subject one Lon Chaney movie plot to rational analysis, where will it end?
For me it's a matter of degree. I love Chaney and have a high tolerance for weirdness, but for some reason The Unknown bothers me, and not for the right reasons. For my taste the best Chaney/Browning collaboration is West of Zanzibar. That one bothers me for the right reasons. I'm looking forward to the blu-ray of The Penalty. I've never seen that movie before.

I like most Chaney pictures, some of course much better than others, but high on the list are WEST OF ZANZIBAR and THE UNKNOWN, as well as THE PENALTY. THE PENALTY is very good, amost great, and might have been a brilliantly disturbing masterpiece if not for the cop-out Hollywood ending. I'm looking forward to the Blu-ray, which I'm hoping will look better than my already pretty good 16mm print.

All Darc · Post by **All Darc** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 10:47 am

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" target="_blank

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:45 am

A few other reviews from around the web...

DVD Talk

Ion Cinema

Zombies Don't Run

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:49 am

A review from DVD Savant.

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Thu Nov 01, 2012 1:26 pm

This review from Carl Bennett's Silent Era website is probably the most detailed and accurate review I've seen to date on this film.

bigshot · Post by **bigshot** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:59 pm

Watched the bluray over the weekend on my projection system and it looked great. The tinting was a little oversaturated for my taste, but that might just be me. Music was fine. Nice that the piano Chaney plays is synced to the music. That's better than Steamboat Bill where the music completely misses the reference to the Prisoner's Song.

coolcatdaddy · Post by **coolcatdaddy** » Wed Jan 02, 2013 6:28 pm

I checked out the blu-ray this past weekend with a friend who is a big silents buff. We were both just floored by the last reel - it's almost like a Hollywood tacked-on "happy ending".

I was curious about the original novel the film is based on. It's available online and, yes, the ending is the same.

http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Penalty.html" target="_blank

Rodney · Post by **Rodney** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:21 am

Well... not really the same. It differs in a very key detail.

And thanks for posting that link... that novel features some atrocious writing, doesn't it?

The Penalty (1920) on Blu Ray 10/23 from Kino

The Penalty (1920) on Blu Ray 10/23 from Kino

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