The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916) on Blu-Ray

Actor :              Anna Pavlova, Rupert Julian, Wadsworth Harris, Douglas Gerrard, Jack Holt
Director:           Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley
Genre:              Drama
Year:                1916
Studio:             Milestone
Length:            112 minutes
Released:        02/27/18
Rating:             Not Rated
Format:            Anamorphic, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Misc:                NTSC
Language:       English
Subtitles:         N/A
Dubbed:           N/A

DESCRIPTION:

The Dumb Girl of Portici has been long overdue for recognition as one of pioneer filmmaker Lois Weber s finest creations and a landmark in women s cinema. The blockbuster film was Universal s most expensive to date and featured an enormous cast, large-scale sets, and an ambitious story. For Weber, The Dumb Girl of Portici represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the incomparable prima ballerina, Anna Pavlova. Pavlova was appearing with the Boston Opera Company in D. F. E. Auber s 1829 La Muette de Portici, portraying Fenella, a wordless fisher-girl living during the Spanish occupation of Naples in the mid-17th century,who is seduced and abandoned by a Spanish nobleman. In the opera and in Weber s stirring drama, the betrayal of Fenella and the oppression of her people inspire her brother to foment a revolution.