Regeneration (1923) User Reviews

Hard to Say

[boblipton · 5/10 · 3 August 2016]

I would have preferred to write this review without giving this film a numerical rating, because it just about doesn't exist any more. All but one reel is missing and of that single reel, about 80 percent is gone. Nitrate decomposition has gotten almost everything but about a minute at the beginning and some of the titles. That's a bit strange, because title sequences were usually printed on a cheaper film stock and, with black backgrounds for the white letters, with more silver nitrate, there was a greater chance for chemical reactions with the nitrate film stock.

The IMDb, however, does not let me write in the comments section without rating the film, so I have assigned it a placeholder rating of 5. I have done this to write something about this movie I want you to read.

if you are reading this, you have a great interest in old films. They all need your help if this important record of who we have been is to survive. Please do what you can to help. Otherwise, no one will be able to see even this almost vanished record.

"I don't bother work, work don't bother me."

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 3 January 2017]

As a couple of other posters for the film mentioned, this one is almost unwatchable from the standpoint of following a story, having severe nitrate degradation and only snippets of the picture popping up in which one can see some of the characters. Apparently the story takes place on or about a sailing ship, and one can barely make out some title cards that reference a treasure map and the fact that it's missing. The quote in my summary line is one of the surviving bits of narration the film offers.

If one was to turn on a TV and unexpectedly come across this offering, what you'd primarily see is what I'd best describe as the work of a lava lamp on steroids, only in black and white and not color. The thought actually occurred to me that if it was in color, it might come close to resembling a bad acid trip. Or maybe a good one, the bubbly composition of the swirling globules can seem somewhat hypnotic.

Because there's not even a single complete frame, one might wonder what value there might have been in showing this on Turner Classics. That point is answered in an opening screen narrative that states the presentation was offered for the sake of history and to heighten the importance of film preservation. Of this I would wholeheartedly agree, as my understanding is that the number of film shorts from this period that have been lost completely approaches ninety percent.

This is Why We Need Film Preservation

[Michael_Elliott · 4 December 2016]

Regeneration (1923)

Sadly, this 1923 film is just one of thousands that are currently lost. The survival rate of silents are extremely low but they're even lower for these type of race pictures. Thankfully one reel survives but it's in such poor condition that there's actually only a couple minutes of footage that you can actually see. The decomposition is really bad on the reel so the majority of the eleven-minute running time is just ugly footage that is in such bad shape that you can't even see anything. As the disc warns, this is exactly why we need film preservation so that other films or fragments can at least be saved for future film buffs. This footage can be found on Kino's Pioneers of African-American Cinema.