I hadn’t heard of 13 Washington Square until it was announced by Kino Lorber several months ago. The movie immediately caught my attention, not so much because of the cast, since none of them rang a bell at first, but due to its premise of a rich man marrying a middle-lower class woman which was and still is taboo to this day.
13 Washington Square is a silent romantic comedy from 1928 in which an aristocratic mother, Mrs. De Peyster (silent movie legend Alice Joyce, The Noose) attempts to stop her son Jack De Peyster (George Lewis, Charlie Chan in the Secret Service) from marrying Mary Morgan (Helen Foster, The Road to Ruin) who lives in a different social class, as she is the daughter of a grocer and not part of an upper-class society. Mrs. De Peyster disguises herself as a working-class person and with her maid Mathilde (Zasu Pitts, Ruggles of Red Gap) they plan to stop the lovers before they wed. But Mrs. De Peyster crosses paths with a thief named Pyecroft (Jean Hersholt, Mark of the Vampire) who is planning to rob the De Peyster’s home. As the film progresses, Pyecroft the robber becomes Pyecroft the deacon who also becomes part of the scheme to stop the kids from marrying.
13 Washington Square is an amusing, fun matinee type of flick. Running just over an hour, the film moves at a brisk pace. Admittedly, some of the comedic moments were dated but the lack of laughter did not stop me from enjoying the movie. The cast play their roles perfectly, with Zasu Pitts stealing the show!
Given a brand-new 4K restoration from Universal Pictures, Kino Lorber presents 13 Washington Square on Blu-ray. The 4K transfer for the movie is nothing short of spectacular. Yes, there are some print damages, including a faint vertical line on the left-hand side that you can barely see for about half the film and a few speckles here and there, but this film will never look any better than it does on this release. The clarity and sharpness of the picture overall is crisp and clean. The grey scale is perfectly balanced with the image boasting a lot of rich, deep textures. This picture quality is nothing short of remarkable!
Kino uses English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 for this release and the audio, which is basically the musical score by Tom Howe, is flawless. The music isn’t over-powerful during the action scenes and remains at a comfortable pleasant tone throughout.
The lone extra for this release is an audio commentary by film historian Nora Fiore who goes into details about the picture, the cast and crew. Pretty much what one would expect in a commentary.
For those who have not seen this picture, 13 Washington Square is certainly worth a spin and this release from Kino is the best way to watch it due to the superb image and audio quality.
13 Washington Square
Director- Melville Brown
Cast- Jean Hersholt, Alice Joyce
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date-9/25/20