Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

This is Francis X. Bushman (2021)

This documentary, directed by Lon Davis and narrated by Francis X. Bushman’s grandson Academy Award–winning film technician Chris Bushman and, by way of vintage audio recordings, by Bushman himself.

The documentary is accompanied by a music score compiled and performed by Frederick Hodges and Richard Chon.

Supplemental material includes a video introduction by Lon Davis “Why Francis X. Bushman?”; one of the earliest recovered films of Bushman’s career, Two Men and a Girl (1911), from a 16mm reduction print held by the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum; the one-reel drama The Thirteenth Man (1913) [fragment] starring Bushman, from surviving 35mm materials with a music score compiled and arranged by Frederick Hodges; the one-reel drama Dawn and Twilight (1914) restored from a rare 8mm reduction print, with a music score by Frederick Hodges and Richard Chon; a fragment of Lois Weber’s The Marriage Clause (1926) with Francis X. Bushman, Billie Dove and Warner Oland from an abridged 16mm reduction print held by the Library of Congress; a trailer for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925); a 1957 radio episode of Suspense: “The City That Was” (1957) narrated by Bushman; and an image gallery (72 images).

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .