Cecil B. DeMille DVDs, from http://www.bachfilms.com

My thanks to Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien for the information that the French company Bach Films have released ten Cecil B. DeMille silents on DVD. The titles are:

The Cheat (1915) – with Sessue Hayakawa, Fannie Ward
Carmen (1915) – with Geraldine Farrar, Wallace Reid
Joan the Woman (1917) – Geraldine Farrar and Raymond Hatton
The Whispering Chorus (1918) – with Raymond Hatton and Kathlyn Williams
Old Wives for New (1918) – with Elliott Dexter and Florence Vidor
Don’t Change Your Husband (1919) – with Elliott Dexter and Gloria Swanson
Male and Female (1919) – with Thomas Meighan and Gloria Swanson
Why Change Your Wife (1920) – with Thomas Meighan and Gloria Swanson
The Affairs of Anatol (1921) – Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid
Manslaughter (1922) – with Leatrice Joy and Thomas Meighan

All are retailing at 7.00€. All are Region 2, and appear to have French titles only. I can’t find any information about the music. At any rate, it’s a remarkable selection, with perhaps Joan the Woman, starring the opera singer Geraldine Farrar (who enjoyed a surprisingly successful career in silent films, given that her chief asset – her voice – was absent), the outstanding classic if you had to go for just one.

I’d not heard of Bach Films before now. Other silent DVDs on their list are D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1922), Broken Blossoms (1919), Intolerance (1916) and Sally of the Sawdust (1925), all of them accompanied by assorted Griffith Biograph shorts; Douglas Fairbanks in The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), The Black Pirate (1926) and The Iron Mask (1929); and Tod Browning’s Shadows (1922).

I don’t attempt to keep up with all silent film DVD releases here on The Bioscope, because there are other well-established sources that provide such a service very well. Check out the Silent Films on DVD section on Silent Era, or the impressively-extensive Silent Films on DVD site.