By the end of the 1928/29 Oscar eligibility year, talkies had firmly taken hold in Hollywood. Silent films were all but dead on arrival at the box office. Panicked studios were forced to insert sound sequences into silent films already in production in order to increase audience interest in their films. Artistically, however, the last gasp of the silent era produced films that were far superior to the primitive early talkies.

The eligible films from this year that are most fondly recalled include The Passion of Joan of Arc; The Docks of New York; The Wind; Nosferatu (a 1922 German film film finally making it to the U.S.); The Man With the Movie Camera; Steamboat Bill, Jr.; Show People and Our Dancing Daughters, silent films all, not the clunky Oscar winning musical, The Broadway Melody.

To be fair, The Broadway Melody was the best of the nominated talkies, which also included The Hollywood Revue; In Old Arizona and Alibi. The fifth nominee, The Patriot, Ernst Lubitch’s silent epic about Czarist Russia, is the only film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar that is considered lost.

Long thought to be a lost film as well, a perfect print of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc was found in a Danish mental institution in 1981 resulting in the discovery of the film by new generations. The film, about the trial and burning at the stake of the French saint, is known for its breathtaking close-ups of the trial judges and St. Joan herself, unforgettably portrayed by stage star Maria Falconetti in one of only three film appearances. Originally released with organ accompaniment at the theatres in which it played, the film was re-scored by Ole Schmidt for its 1982 theatrical release and again by Jesper Kyd in 2007, but the DVD version, as well as the print that shows up occasionally on TCM, is accompanied by Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, a magnificent choral and orchestral work performed by vocal group Anonymous 4, soloist Susan Narucki and the Radio Netherlands Philharmonic and Choir. Will Gregory of Pitchfork and Adrian Utley of Portishead are rescoring the film once again for yet another release. What is old is new again.

The seedy waterfront setting of Josef von Sternberg’s The Docks of New York provides the backdrop for one of the most haunting films of the silent era. George Bancroft as the sailor and Betty Compson as the girl he rescues from a suicide attempt are simply unforgettable. Both were nominated for Oscars, albeit for other films that year – he for the early talkie gangster melodrama, Thunderbolt, and she for her carnival worker in another early talkie, The Barker, but it’s their flawless work here for which they are both rightly best remembered.

The Docks of New York has not yet been released on commercial DVD, though it was previously released on VHS.

One of the most harrowing films about mental illness, Victor Sjostrom’s The Wind is a showcase for Lillian Gish as the rancher’s wife left alone on the prairie with nothing but the howling wind for company. It’s easily her best performance ever. The Wind is another film that was released on VHS, but has so far not shown up on DVD.

There have been several DVD releases of F.W. Maurnau’s Nosferatu, the first, though uncredited, film version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Released in Germany in 1922, the film was not released in the U.S. until after Sunrise made Murnau a household name in this country.

The film is highly regarded for its morbid atmosphere which has never been quite equaled, and for character actor Max Schreck’s portrayal of the vampire. Although the actor had appeared in many other films and died in 1936 at the age of 56, rumors persisted even after his death that he was in actuality, a vampire. Willem Dafoe played him as such in his Oscar nominated performance in 2001’s Shadow of the Vampire.

A stunning achievement, Dziga Vertov’s The Man With the Movie Camera is basically a Soviet propaganda film ostensibly showing how life under Lenin was harmonious for all. As a work of art, however, it stands head and shoulders above most films of its era, conveying its ideas without plot, without title cards, just marvelous imagery set to music. The score on the DVD is performed by the Alloy Orchestra based on detailed notes by Vertov.

One of Buster Keaton’s funniest films, Steamboat Bill, Jr. features some of the comedian’s best set pieces as he plays the effete son of a river boat captain who saves the day when a cyclone nearly kills his father and his rival, the father of the girl he loves. Direction is credited to Charles Reisner, but it’s obvious that Keaton improvised and directed his own stunts. It’s available in several DVD versions.

Not yet on DVD, King Vidor’s Show People, a comedyabout the denizens of a Hollywood studio starring Marion Davies and William Haines, and Harry Beaumont’s Our Dancing Daughters, a melodrama about jazz age flippers starring Joan Crawford and Anita Page, were previously released on VHS.

Beaumont’s Oscar winning The Broadway Melody is, however, available on DVD.

The story of two vaudeville sisters, Bessie Love and Anita Page, and the man who comes between them, The Broadway Melody spawned a series of similarly titled films but its primitive use of sound quickly dated it. Songs include “The Broadway Melody”; “You Were Meant for Me” and “The Wedding of the Painted Dolls”. Love, as the older sister, was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.

There is no plot connected to The Hollywood Revue which was a revue of MGM talent of the day from Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford to Marie Dessler, Polly Moran and Bessie Love. The musical highlight is the introduction of “Singin’ in the Rain” sung by Ukulele Ike (Cliff Edwards). It has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive.

The first talkie western as well as the first sound film to be made outside of a sound stage, Irving Cummings’ In Old Arizona, based on a short story by O. Henry, becomes tiresome very fast. Warner Baxter’s rich speaking voice is likely what won him the Best Actor Oscar. There is nothing at all distinguished about his portrayal of the Cisco Kid, played to much better effect by Duncan Renaldo in eh TV series of the 1950s.

In Old Arizona is available on DVD.

Another early talkie, Roland West’s Alibi features a good starring performance by Chester Morris in this otherwise standard gangster melodrama, which is available on DVD.

Frank Lloyd was nominated for Best Director for three films, The Divine Lady, Weary Riverand Drag, winning for The Divine Lady, a well mounted version of the love story of Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson better remembered from the 1941 film, That Hamilton Woman. Both The Divine Lady and the curious combination gangster film and musical, Weary River are avialble from the Warner Archive. The melodrama, Drag, is a lost film.

The big controversy of the second Oscars was Mary Pickford’s Best Actress win over Ruth Chatterton and Jeanne Eagels, two accomplished stage actresses giving standout performances in the tearjerkers Madame X and The Letter, respectively, while Pickford was clearly out of her depth as a flirtatious Southern belle in Coquette, a stage vehicle for Helen Hayes.

Pickford, the most powerful woman in Hollywood, legend has it, turned down an intended nomination for My Best Girl, a charming silent comedy, at the 1927/28 Awards because she felt she was above such things. However, when she saw the excitement that surrounded newcomer Janet Gaynor’s win, she decided she might like one after all and invited the Academy’s Board of Governors to tea at Pickfair, the legendary mansion she shared with then husband Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., to inform them she would be amenable this time around.

Pickford, America’s Sweetheart of the silent era, then pushing forty, was way too old for the part and looks ridiculous throughout. Moreover her declamatory acting style is something that would have been laughed off the stage at the turn-of-the-century.

Neither Coquette; Madame X nor The Letter have been released on commercial DVD. Coquette was previously available on VHS and Madame X, for which Lionel Barrymroe earned a Best Director nomination,was available on laser disc. The Letter was promised as an extra on the DVD of the 1940 remake with Bette Davis, but it was not included in the actual release.

New DVD releases worth checking out include Broken Embraces and The Princess and the Frog.