VCI Entertainment has once again partnered with The Mary Pickford Foundation and have released another classic silent film with the legendary actress. Not too long ago, they give us a great release of Sparrows, and now through the pair of companies, they have released Johanna Enlists onto Blu-ray!  This picture is a 1918 silent comedy which stars Mary Pickford, who also produced the film, and was directed by William Desmond Taylor. The film is based on Rupert Hughes short story The Mobilization of Johanna.

In this picture, a young eccentric, promiscuous, politically incorrect Johanna Renssaller (Mary Pickford, Sparrows, Sleep, My Love) who lives with her parents Ma (Anne Schaffer, The Night Flyer) and Pa Renssaller (Fred Huntley, The Age of Innocence), and does the chores on their farm, is looking for love for a certain type of individual but hasn’t had much in the way of luck. One morning a wealth of soldiers come marching in and stay on the farm, with a couple of them that fall in love with her. Maybe one of them will be the man of her dreams and can live happily ever after. 

Johanna Enlists is an hour-long entertaining movie with a strong story supported by excellent acting from the cast. This is clearly the Mary Pickford show, and she gives her usual excellent performance playing the wild and wooly Johanna.

VCI Entertainment has released Johanna Enlists on Blu-ray. Before the movie begins, there is some information about the transfer, stating that film was taken from a nitrate and copied to 16mm. Also, the first half of reel three no longer exists and stills, titles and new action descriptions were used in its place.

Johanna Enlists was reconstructed by the Library of Congress in cooperation with The Mary Pickford Foundation and given a new 4K scan. The movie looks the best that the film can and could be the holy grail. The image quality for this Blu-ray release is remarkable, all things considered. No, it’s not perfect and no one should expect the picture quality to be perfect, even with the great lengths it took to restore this classic. What I see are several scenes that look amazingly clean with some speckling and minor print damages that appears here and there. Some parts of the film, such as when the soldiers arrive on the farm do look a little blurry and hazy, most likely due to the film elements. Black levels look strong with whites looking bright, maybe a bit too bright in some spots. The grey scale appears to look balanced. The movie has a few scenes which are tinted blue which look marvelous with the color looking quite strong. Film grain is present throughout and no use of DNR or artificial enhancements appear to have been used. Ultimately, I was impressed with how the film looked and was an excellent viewing experience.  

For this Blu-ray, VCI has provided two audio options English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. Both soundtracks sounded flawless with the musical scores coming in clean without any distortions or issues such as popping or crackling. The music is pleasant and robust with either option.

Extras include a photo gallery and a short film from 1912 entitled A Beast at Bay which also stars Mary Pickford and was directed by D.W. Griffith. The image quality for this film also looks excellent despite some vertical lines, a few jump cuts, and some print damage. The Mary Pickford Foundation logo also appears at the bottom right corner of the film.

Johanna Enlists also has a commentary track by author and film historian Marc Wanamaker. The commentary track extra is mentioned on the back of the Blu-ray case but not in the menu on the Blu-ray, but if you toggle the audio on the remote, the commentary is the third option. There is also a DVD in the package for those who watch movies on DVD only.

Silent film and Mary Pickford fans should rejoice over this wonderful release of Johanna Enlists. This Blu-ray will most likely be as good as it gets for the foreseeable future. I certainly appreciate all the efforts made to make the film look and sound as good as it does! VCI has even added some extras to make this a recommended package!

Johanna Enlists

Director – William Desmond Taylor

Cast- Mary Pickford, Anne Schaefer

Country of Origin-USA

Distributor – VCI Entertainment  

Number of Discs – 2 (one Blu-ray and one DVD)

Reviewed by – David Steigman

Date – 6/12/23