The Shakedown (Blu-ray) by Stuart Galbraith IV Made at the cusp between the end of the silent film era and the dawn of talkies, The Shakedown (1929) is a boxing melodrama directed by William Wyler, making one of his first important films after mostly churning out short Westerns for Universal. Many classics including Dead End (1937), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Detective Story (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Friendly Persuasion (1956), and Ben-Hur (1959), still lay in his future. With the coming of sound, Universal junked most of its silent film holdings. The Shakedown was among the hundreds of silent titles considered lost until a 35mm dupe negative was discovered, and it's presented here in a new 4K restoration financed by Universal. The surviving elements show their age and, as a movie, The Shakedown isn&#3...Read the entire review »