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I was lucky enough to catch this movie on a US tour in 1979 or 80. Carmine Coppola (Frances Ford Coppola's father and the composer of much of the music for the Godfather movies) composed a score and it was shown in large halls with to the accompaniment of the local symphony orchestra. The film was (at that time) newly restored. Some missing reels had been found and the film was re-edited to Abel Gance's original specs. Among the new (for 1927) features were some colorization and a multi-screen trypitch effect. Most of the movie was shown on a main mid screen, but occasionally two identical auxillary screens placed on either side of the main screen were incorporated. In some scenes, the three screens were used to achieve a wide-screen effect (early Cinerama?). In others, they showed other related scenes, quite similar to the multi-screen effects in "Woodstock" and other 1970s movies. There were also scenes incorporating quick cuts, supposedly "invented" in MTV music videos. One scene in particular has Napoleon planning his strategy for a battle. Napoleon is shown thinking on one screen while maps and symbols representing troops are shown on the auxillary screens. The troop indicators are shown moving in stop-action as the battle unfolds in Napoleon's mind. Many of the scenes last less than one second. Truly effective!

It was a long movie (over 3 hours) in this version. The movie covers the rise of Napoleon, from his youth to his ascendancy to Emperor. As I recall, there was at the time (1927) a plan to produce a sequel covering the empire days and the fall of Napoleon, but Gance's relationship with the French movie makers soured. Plus the introduction of sound kind of threw everything off at that time, so the sequel was never made.