Uncle Tom's Cabin

Take a look back at Hollywood during the mid to late 1920s, and you're bound to hear about director Harry Pollard. Not only did he receive the exact same salary that King Vidor made at MGM, but he had also enough clout at Universal to demand a high-budget passion project like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" be made. After all, the book he was basing the film upon had sold more copies than any other book that wasn't the Bible.

With an incredible new restoration on the Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, early Hollywood's struggle to depict the harsh realities of slavery in America is up for display in what's sure to be the definitive home entertainment release of the film.

Eliza (Margarita Fischer) is a slave living on a Kentucky plantation when the father figure in her life, Uncle Tom (James B. Lowe), is sold to a rival landowner. Her quest to find and free Tom is upset by a sadistic man named Simon Legree (George Siegmann). The story is based upon Harriett Beecher Stowe's original novel, which laid bare many of the atrocities done to Black people in America in the 1800s.

Let me say from the outset before I dig into anything else: "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is an incredibly racist film made by a man who saw the demonization of a Southern plantation owner in Stowe's novel as a wrong to be righted. There were even worries about American audiences not accepting a love affair between two Black characters in the film. Pollard retorted that the stigma was lost because white actors played those characters. Again, this is a film very much of its time. Read anything about it, and you'll be met with stories about production delays and halts aplenty. It was almost as if the entire production were cursed.

All in all, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" remains as one of the most lavishly produced silent epics ever made. It may seem like a retort to D.W. Griffith's 1915 epic "The Birth of a Nation," but not without the smug white ego massaging we see come across in so much of popular media today.

As for the Blu-ray in question, Kino Lorber has truly gone the extra mile and loaded this release with features any history buff is bound to love. There's a great-looking 2K restoration of the original 1927 release and the complete 1958 version with narration by Raymond Massey. If you're interested at all about the many adaptations of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and how this one differs, I'd urge you to pick this Blu-ray up. The booklet essay by film historian David Pierce is extensive enough to warrant a purchase. Other special features include:

� Audio commentary by historian Edward J. Blum
� New 2K master of the 1914 World Film version starring Sam Lucas
� New 2K master of the 1910 Vitagraph version directed by J. Stuart Blackton

"Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Kino Lorber Blu-ray
$29.95
https://www.kinolorber.com/product/uncle-toms-cabin-blu-ray