Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 29, 2019

Note: This version of this film is available as part of The Buster Keaton Collection: Volume 2.

One of the little tidbits that was revealed in a passing comment by Charles Cohen in a supplement included on The Great Buster: A Celebration was that Cohen Media Group had acquired all but one of Buster Keaton’s silent films some time ago, and that the entire catalog was being brought up “to 4K standards”. I posited in our The Great Buster: A Celebration Blu-ray review that Cohen’s comment might augur well for future Keaton film releases from Cohen Media Group and/or Cohen Film Collection, and that prediction came true a couple of months ago with the release of The Buster Keaton Collection: Volume 1, which contained two of Keaton's all time classic films, The General and Steamboat Bill, Jr.. Cohen is now offering classic comedy fans a second dose of one of the immortals of silent cinema.

As with the first volume of Keaton classics from Cohen, both of the films in this second Buster Keaton volume have had previous Blu-ray releases courtesy of Kino. For a plot summary and the opportunity to compare screenshots between the Kino and Cohen versions, I refer you to my colleague Casey Broadwater's Sherlock Jr. / Three Ages Blu- ray review. I will only add that some younger fans who are unaware of this film may be intrigued by the fact that it offers a conceit mimicked decades later by Woody Allen in one of his better remembered comedies, The Purple Rose of Cairo. As Casey gets into in his review, Sherlock Jr. proves that contemporary reactions to films can't always be trusted, at least in terms of longer lasting reputations, as Sherlock Jr. stands as one of Keaton's more audacious efforts from both a technical and storytelling perspective.

Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sherlock Jr. is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.32:1. The presentation begins with the following information:

This film has been restored from a first generation interpositive safety held at the Cohen Film Collection. This element was selected after analyzing 17 elements and comparing 15 of them.

Some missing shots in the positive duplicate were replaced with a second generation internegative of the Cohen Film Collection and a third generation safety print of the Harvard Archive. The "The End" intertitle was digitally recreated from a third generation safety print of the Cohen Film Collection.

The restoration work was carried out by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in 2015.

Casey gave generally high marks to the Kino presentation of Sherlock Jr. , but at least in terms of damage and arguably in terms of grain resolution to my eyes the Cohen version is the better looking of the two transfers. As with the Kino release, and as alluded in the above verbiage, there are a few selected moments that definitely look more "dupe-y", with a downgrade in clarity and contrast and at times a slight uptick in coarseness of the grain field, but this is by and large a very beautiful rendering of a film that has a fair number of opticals in it. It can look slightly darker at times than the Kino, something that can tend to mask grain, but the presentation looks completely organic and free of any over aggressive digital tampering.

Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sherlock Jr. features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track offering a new orchestral score by Timothy Brock. It's a perhaps surprisingly tame, if still playful, score, one that really doesn't go for any over boisterous orchestration, but which kind of ambles along genially enough. Fidelity is excellent, and there's good separation between orchestral sections.

Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Cohen has released this first set of Keaton films on one disc, and so the supplements are not necessarily tied only to one individual film.

• Buster Keaton: The Great Stone Face (1080p; 4:26) is another assortment of very brief talking head assessments of Keaton, along with snippets from films. All of these folks were seen in the first volume on the similar supplements included on that release.


• Buster Keaton: The Comedian (1080p; 3:51) is more of the same.


• Sherlock Jr. Restoration Trailer (1080p; 1:23)


• The Navigator Restoration Trailer (1080p; 1:01)

Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cohen continues to mine the considerable oeuvre of Buster Keaton, and Sherlock Jr. stands as one of his most unique achievements. It may not be laugh out loud hilarious as consistently as some other Keaton films, but it's a technical marvel and has a fair number of guffaw worthy gags. Cohen has provided a release with solid technical merits, but it could probably up the ante with more significant supplementary items. Recommended .