November 25, 2002 VIDEO BUSINESS MAGAZINE

DVD SPECIAL EDITION REVIEWS - THE GARDEN OF EDEN

By ED HULSE

Flicker Alley, B&W, NR, 78 min. plus supplements, fullscreen, Dolby Digital mono, $24.95, available now; First Run: 1928, NA

Anybody who thinks of silent movies as poorly photographed, extravagantly overacted exercises in hokum should be required to view The Garden of Eden, a sophisticated romantic comedy from 1928. Directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front, Of Mice and Men), this delightful specimen of late-'20s cinematic artistry stars Corrine Griffith, an early Oscar nominee, as an innocent young singer who takes a job in a decadent cabaret and is courted by aging rogue Lowell Sherman and goody two-shoes Charles Ray. Eden is sturdily produced, cleverly written and charmingly acted - in short, it's a superb and virtually unknown example of silent-era filmmaking at its very best. The inaugural release of this small independent supplier, the Eden DVD has been packaged with painstaking care: cover art, liner notes, promotional brochure, menus, supplemental features (including two contemporaneous short subjects, the original 1928 pressbook, lobby cards and still photos) and even the artwork on the disc itself are all excellent, putting to shame many major studio offerings. A newly recorded score of authentic period music arranged and performed by the incomparable Robert Israel is icing on the cake. This disc might appeal mainly to a niche audience, but it deserves wider exposure. We can't imagine specialty product getting any better than this.