Nitrateville Nonsense:Kid Boots (1926) and Film Preservation Society Blu-ray release

[Richard M Roberts]

https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37344

Okay, this is only technically Nitwitvile nonsense, but since it was posted on Nitwitvile and the NNN’s are discussing it like it’s a valid argument and making Nitwitvile noisemaking regards “repeated frames”, we’ll treat is as them owning the nonsense.

To quote:

“FPS Founder: I can only quote Teddy Roosevelt. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.””

(raises hand) Okay, that’s me, been in this arena for decades, though at my height, I keep the dust and sweat and blood off my face for the most part (but you should see the other fella), so I am indeed allowed to comment on this. Been here, done that, more times than many have had hot dinners, and gee, the majority seem to think our work gets it right.

And this Nitwitvile nonsense is indeed piffle, because if KID BOOTS had been transferred at it’s correct original speed in the first place, there would be no need at all for any repeated frames.

KID BOOTS is a 1926 silent film, no question, by the late 1920’s the S.M.P.T.E standard for projection speed silent or otherwise was 90 feet per minute, or 24 frames per second, not a comedy-killing 21 frames per second, further killing comedy timing by repeating frames to give it that “herky-jerky” unnatural movement This film’s correct projection speed is unquestionably that speed, Paramount’s current “lead archivist”, whomever the hell that may be, notwithstanding.

Like some proof, here it is:

https://www.sfsma.org/kid-boots/

The original cue sheet for KID BOOTS, the PDF file is downloadable at the bottom of the page. If one takes a look at it, it lists KID BOOTS original footage count at 5650 feet. If one adds up the timing of each of the 34 music cue’s duration during the film, it comes out to 57 minutes, basically 10 minutes to the reel, 90 feet per minute, 24 FRAMES A SECOND.

Period, end of argument. I don’t know who the viewers are who found that speed “too fast…..to comprehend the shortest shots in the film” are, but in this world of two second fast-edit shots in theatrical films, television and TV commercials, they are definitely not anything that could be described as an average viewer today.

I know there are some of these twits out there who are apparently not bright enough to watch a silent film at the actual speeds they were originally run, Kit Parker recently had to take down the Youtube videos of one such idiot who was taking our recent Charley Chase silent restorations, stripping them of intertitles and music (no matter, these were definitely special contents copyrighted restorations) and was also slowing the films down so his very-little-grey-cells could comprehend what was going on (we doubt he was laughing at the comedy and getting the jokes at any speed), basically stealing and vandalizing our work.

You see, we get those things right in our own silent film releases, and gee, they all seem to do pretty damn well. So I am indeed entitled to say I will not support a release of KID BOOTS that presents the film in the manner above described. David Shepard has been gone many moons, it’s time his ridiculous concept of “natural speed” for silent film be buried along with him, it never existed.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Ed Watz]

About 20 years ago, I picked up Eddie Cantor’s two silent Paramounts when his grandson Brian Gari was selling them on DVD. The source for both films were Eddie Cantor’s personal 16mm printdowns that he purchased from Paramount in the 1940s. SPECIAL DELIVERY was considered a lost film until Brian made his grandfather’s copy available. Both transfers are very good, if not up to today’s technology standards.

KID BOOTS, as you indicated Richard, runs under an hour. Watching it again after so many years, there’s nothing happening that goes by so quickly that you’d miss it at its correct 24 fps speed. It’s a well-paced silent comedy, and at times it felt like one of Lupino Lane’s fast moving two reelers instead of the Ziegfeld stage production it was loosely based upon.

While I’d like to own a KID BOOTS Blu-Ray upgrade, any efforts to slow down this snappy little film would ruin it for me. I learned my lesson when I bought David Shepard’s CHAPLIN AT ESSANAY set. Silent comedy is not meant to be dismal!