NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

BIG thanks to my friend, David S., for sending me this Blu-ray!

ADDITION: Film Preservation Society Blu-ray (November 2023): Film Preservation Society have transferred William S. Hart's Wolf Lowry to Blu-ray as part of their ongoing Biograph Project. They are an organization dedicated to finding, saving, and restoring America’s silent film heritage with their restorations screened at multiple film festivals.

This Blu-ray contains the 1917 feature film, Wolf Lowry, starring William S. Hart, as well as the Hart-directed 1915 two-reel Western, Bad Buck of Santa Ynez (1915) and the D.W. Griffith directed The Sheriff’s Baby (1913.)

Wolf Lowry (1913) was scanned and restored in 4K resolution from material preserved at the Library of Congress. The main source was a 28mm tinted Pathescope print licensed by S.A. Lynch Enterprises, which took control of Triangle in 1917. By 1918 Lynch had reissued 16 Triangle Films, often shortened and re-titled. In the process, Hart and Ince were cut from the credits and the final sequence was shortened. This edition restores the original ending from a tinted 35mm nitrate fragment preserved at the Library of Congress.

Bad Buck of Santa Ynez (1915) was scanned and restored in 4K resolution from a two reel 35mm nitrate print preserved at the Library of Congress. Originally released by Kay Bee Pictures in 1915, this print is from a 1924 re-issue by Tri-Stone Pictures. The main title was only a few frames long and had to be digitally lengthened.

"The Sheriff's Baby" (1913) was scanned and restored in 4K resolution
from a 35mm acetate fine grain copy of a 1920s Aywon reissue print preserved at the Museum of Modern Art. The original intertitles have been reconstructed based on copyright records at the Library of Congress.

I'd say the 1080i image quality is pretty good - we can get very forgiving when the film was released before anyone we know was born. There are predictable rough patches - shrinkage, warping, vertical scratches, light marks, some colors leak into the bear conclusion of Wolf Lowry etc. I was just very pleased to see the three films at all. I liked the tints in the main feature.

NOTE: We have added 70 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Film Preservation Society use a lossy 2.0 channel Dolby track. This HD presentation of Wolf Lowry has a supportive piano score that I don't know much about. It comes through crisp and clean. The Film Preservation Society include original intertitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Film Preservation Society Blu-ray offers only the two westerns as extras; a 1915 two-reeler directed by Hart, Bad Buck of Santa Ynez (1915) and the D.W. Griffith directed The Sheriff’s Baby (1913.) No other supplements.

William S. Hart's Wolf Lowry leans more to a romance than a rough-and-tumble western. William S. Hart directs and plays hard-ass Tom "Wolf" Lowry, but he falls head over heels for Mary Davis, who has been searching for her missing sweetheart, Owen Thorpe in the wilds of the pioneering Olde West. Mary agrees to wed Tom before Owen miraculously resurfaces. What will Tom do? Bad Buck of Santa Ynez involves an outlaw on the run who comes upon a widow and her small child. When the child is bitten by a snake, the outlaw risks his life by riding into town to get a doctor. With a similar theme, D.W. Griffith's The Sheriff’s Baby follows three outlaws, Henry B. Walthall, Harry Carey and Lionel Barrymore, on the run from a posse. They put their lives on the line to save an infant who's mother has passed on - abandoning the baby. So, a nice triple feature of silent era westerns about the unselfish side of humanity. Let's have more modern films following these 'primordial soup of cinema' gems. We support the Film Preservation Society, their restorations, and their Blu-ray releases. Recommended!

Gary Tooze