July, 2008

Specialty DVD Supplier Flicker Alley Announces PERILS OF THE NEW LAND featuring The Italian (1915) and Traffic In Souls (1913)

Two early features showcasing the immigrant experience, both included in The National Film Registry make their Home Video Debut July 15th.

(Los Angeles, CA) Flicker Alley, LLC, a specialty supplier of fine silent films and classic cinema programming, in association with Film Preservation Associates, today announced that the company will release PERILS OF THE NEW LAND, a new double feature collection of Traffic In Souls (1913) and The Italian (1915), both riveting and important social dramas of the American silent screen. From the earliest years of feature-length film, when movies were dedicated more to advocacy and reform than to escapist entertainment, both films depict new immigrants to America and hazards that await them. Both films are honored with inclusion in The National Film Registry, which selects up to twenty-five “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films” each year. In addition to the features, this two-DVD set, produced by David Shepard from the Blackhawk Films library, presents three short theme-related bonus films from the pioneer Edison company: Police Force, New York City (1910), The Call of the City (1912), and McQuade of the Traffic Squad (1915).

According to legend, Traffic In Souls was filmed surreptitiously at Universal Pictures with the offending producer (Jack Cohn) and director (George Loane Tucker) prepared to buy the picture in case the company wouldn’t release it. Exploiting a recent exposé of prostitution rings, this “white slavery” story proved a huge financial success. Traffic In Souls is a very accomplished work for its time, and makes excellent use of New York City locations.

The Italian, produced for Paramount Pictures by Thomas H. Ince and directed by Reginald Barker, stars George Beban, who was renowned for his ethnic characterizations. It is the story of Beppo, a gondolier who comes to America and settles in lower Manhattan. There he operates a shoeshine business, eventually saving enough money to import his fiancée. Crime and poverty soon impact their lives – and there is no artificial, happy ending.

Blackhawk Films obtained the only known domestic nitrate print of Traffic In Souls in 1972 from the estate of an itinerant showman who traveled with his movies among remote logging camps in northern Minnesota in the years before World War I. When found, this was among the most sought-after of “lost” films; the excellent preservation copy was made in Blackhawk’s own lab. The DVD includes a superb piano score by Philip Carli and an illuminating optional audio essay by University of California Professor Shelley Stamp, author of Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture After the Nickelodeon (Princeton University Press, 2000).

Blackhawk’s handsome print of The Italian is conflated from three sources, but mostly copied from an original nitrate print found in a Maryland barn in 1974. It is tinted like the source copy, and has an optional scene-specific audio essay by Prof. Giorgio Bertellini, a film historian who specializes in race in silent European and American film. Bertellini was most recently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. The compiled score of authentic photoplay music is performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, led by Rodney Sauer, who also provides the music for the three Edison shorts.

“PERILS OF THE NEW LAND” is the fifth DVD title to be released under the Flicker Alley-Film Preservation Associates production and distribution agreement, following “DISCOVERING CINEMA,” “SAVED FROM THE FLAMES,” “GEORGES MÉLIÈS: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA (1896-1913),” and Abel Gance’s “LA ROUE.”

ABOUT THE BLACKHAWK FILMS COLLECTION
Blackhawk Films was founded in 1927 as a producer of film advertising for merchants and as a distributor of regional newsreels. The company made its mark as a nontheatrical distributor with the advent of 16mm sound film in 1933, establishing several regional offices before WWII. In 1947, Blackhawk expanded into sales of used film and soon thereafter began distributing new 8mm and 16mm prints of Laurel & Hardy comedies from Hal Roach Studios as well as titles from such other suppliers such as Fox Movietone, Killiam Shows, and National Telefilm Associates. David Shepard joined Blackhawk as Vice President (1973-1976) and after founding Film Preservation Associates in 1986, acquired the Blackhawk Films library which now comprises some 5,000 titles.

ABOUT FILM PRESERVATION ASSOCIATES
Under the Blackhawk Films Collection banner, Film Preservation Associates has produced over 150 high-quality restorations and presentations of silent films for the home video market, released through independent distributors such as Image Entertainment and Kino on Video. David Shepard has produced many notable titles, including THE ART OF BUSTER KEATON, a special edition DVD of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1925), the hand-colored silent version of Cyrano de Bergerac, and the 7-disc DVD “UNSEEN CINEMA: EARLY AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE FILM 1894-1941,” hailed by the New York Times as “one of the major monuments of the DVD medium.” The 2008 Flicker Alley release of GEORGES MELIES: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA was reviewed by critic Michael Wilmington as “definitely one of the most important DVD releases ever, as well as an unfailing source of cinematic joy and pleasure”.

ABOUT FLICKER ALLEY
Flicker Alley, LLC was founded in 2002 by Jeff Masino. Each Flicker Alley project is the culmination of hundreds of hours of research, digital restoration, and music production. Flicker Alley has partnered with Turner Classic Movies on several historic cable broadcasts including three previously unavailable silent films produced by Howard Hughes, three rarely seen Rudolph Valentino films and new digital editions of J’Accuse and La Roue, by Abel Gance. Flicker Alley is the proud recipient of the National Society of Film Critics’ 2008 Film Heritage Award and the 2008 Willy Haas Award. For more information, please visitwww.flickeralley.com.

Flicker Alley titles are available in North America directly through Flicker Alley (www.flickeralley.com) and through online retailers such as Amazon.com (www.amazon.com). Wholesale orders are handled by Emphasis Entertainment Group, Inc. (astrutz@aol.com). For institutional sales please contact Gartenberg Media Enterprises (gartmedia@nyc.rr.com).