IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

Attention, silent film fans,

Back on January 2nd, I posted about a Kickstarter to scan and release Marion Davies’ 1923 silent Little Old New York on DVD.  Happily, the Kickstarter was a success, and the DVD will be offered to the general public through other retail outlets beginning November 19th.

Here’s the full press release from Undercrank Productions:

MARION DAVIES STARS IN “LITTLE OLD NEW YORK” HISTORICAL COMEDY-DRAMA MEGA-PRODUCTION IN NEW DVD FROM UNDERCRANK PRODUCTIONS

Another in a String of 1920s Davies Blockbuster Hits, Preserved By the Library of Congress and Scanned in 2K from 35mm Nitrate Print Comes to Home Video In a Quality Release With New Score

NEW YORK, N.Y. (THURSDAY October 31, 2019) – Undercrank Productions (www.undercrankproductions.com) announced today that the Marion Davies film Little Old New York (1923) will be released on DVD on November 19, 2019.

Little Old New York (1923) possesses a lavish production scale and strong ensemble cast and delivers the same top-notch entertainment to as Davies’ 1922 blockbuster hit When Knighthood Was in Flower, also released by Undercrank Productions. Marion Davies’ silent films have been having something of a renaissance recently, with her Show People (1928) screened at last year’s TCM Classic Film Festival and the network’s having licensed two of the Undercrank-released Davies films for air on their “Silent Sunday Nights” programming.

Little Old New York stars Marion Davies as Patricia O’Day, an Irish immigrant who poses as her younger brother Patrick in order to claim a family inheritance. Along the way she encounters famous nineteenth century New Yorkers like John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Robert Fulton. Harrison Ford (the one from the 1920s, and not Indiana Jones) plays Larry Delavan, who has expected to receive that inheritance and to back Fulton’s steamship. Patrick O’Day’s appearance in New York stands to ruin everything for him, which is further complicated by Patricia’s falling in love with Delavan…who believes she is Patrick. Everything nearly unravels after a championship bout between pugilists played by Louis Wolheim and Harry Watson, Jr., but all is righted in the end.

William Randolph Heart spared little expense as producer. An exact replica of Fulton’s Clermont was built along with Joseph Urban’s detailed costumes and sets including an elaborate exterior showing the quaint houses, streets and waterfront of Lower Manhattan. The film was primarily shot at Hearst’s Cosmopolitan-International studio on 127th Street, one of the most important production facilities in New York. Midway through production, on February 18, 1923, a disastrous fire burned down the studio. Fortunately, the negative of Little Old New York was saved and the film was completed on time despite significant setbacks. The film had a novel premiere on the ocean liner Leviathan on July 28, 1923 and opened on August 1, 1923 at the newly-renovated Cosmopolitan Theatre in Columbus Circle.

This new DVD edition presents the film in a new 2K digital scan made from a 35mm nitrate print in the Marion Davies collection of the Library of Congress, and features a new theatre organ score by Ben Model. An excerpt from Hold Fast (1916) in which Harry Watson, Jr. and comedy partner George Bickel do their famous boxing routine is included as a bonus.

LITTLE OLD NEW YORK (1923)
Cosmopolitan Productions
Director: Sidney Olcott
Starring Marion Davies, with Harrison Ford, Harry Watson, Jr., Louis Wolheim, Courtenay Foote, Mahlon Hamilton, Sam Hardy, Andrew Dillon, Charles Kennedy, Charles Judels, Gypsy O’Brien
new musical score: Ben Model
Running time: 108 mins
Original Release Date: August 1, 1923

BONUS:
HOLD FAST (1916) – excerpt
Director: Louis Myll
Starring Harry Watson, Jr. and George Bickel
new musical score: Ben Model
Running time: 6 mins
Original Release Date: March 15, 1916

Genre: Drama/Comedy/Romance
DVD Release Date: November 19, 2019
DVD Suggested Retail Price: $19.95

TOTAL RUNNING TIME 114 min – B&W – stereo – NTSC – not rated – Region: 0
New musical score composed and performed by Ben Model
Produced for home video by Ben Model/Undercrank Productions,
in association with Edward Lorusso
Films preserved by the Library of Congress
Released by Undercrank Productions

ABOUT BEN MODEL

Ben Model is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists and has been a resident film pianist at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) since 1984 and for the Library of Congress since 2008. He accompanies silent films on piano and theatre organ regularly at MoMA, the Library of Congress, the Silent Clowns Film Series (NYC), and at many theatres and schools around the US and internationally. His composed silent film scores are performed regularly by orchestras and concert bands around the U.S. and Canada. His recorded scores can be heard on numerous releases from Kino Lorber, Milestone Films and on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Model is a Visiting Professor of Film at Wesleyan University, where he teaches silent film history. He is also the archivist for the Ernie Kovacs/Edie Adams collection and has programmed three DVD box sets of Kovacs’ TV shows for Shout Factory, as well as MVD’s “Here’s Edie: The Edie Adams Television Shows”. He is based in New York City. Website: silentfilmmusic.com, Twitter and Instagram @silentfilmmusic.

ABOUT UNDERCRANK PRODUCTIONS

Undercrank Productions is a distributor and producer of quality DVD/BluRay releases of the undiscovered classics of the silent screen. Undercrank Prods. works with both archives and private collectors to bring undeservedly overlooked gems of silent cinema from film cans to film fans. The label has a co-branding agreement with the Library of Congress that has enabled it to release several DVDs of rare and important silent comedies preserved by the Library: The Mishaps of Musty Suffer vols 1 and 2, The Family Secret starring Baby Peggy, two volumes of The Marcel Perez Collection, the first of which was awarded “Special Mention” at the Cinema Ritrovato’s annual DVD competition in 2016 – and The Alice Howell Collection. Additionally Undercrank has released three long-unseen 1922 Marion Davies films preserved by the Library of Congress – When Knighthood Was in Flower, The Bride’s Play and Beauty’s Worth, as well as a DVD of early “Kinetophone” sound films made in 1913 by the Thomas Edison Company and restored by the Library of Congress.
undercrankproductions.com