70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

My mother was a big fan of Mini-Series when they started in the 70s and in a way she got me hooked on them as well.

I have Roots, Roots: The Next Generations, Rich Man, Poor Man (Region 2), Rich Man, Poor Man Book II (Region 2) and I will be getting Centennial when it comes out.

My question is, what other 70s mini-series were there? I'm aware of Holocaust and Jesus of Nazareth but after that my mind goes blank. I can't seem to remember any more and I'm sure that there were.

Any help would be appreciated. These make great Christmas gifts for my mother.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

It seems to me that mini-series were more popular in the 80s than the 70s. Two you might consider are "Shogun," (1980) and my personal favorite "The Thornbirds" (1983), which, in my opinion, is one of the best miniseries of all time.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

I did get Shogun for my mother for Christmas last year and I was planning on The Thornbirds for this Christmas, but with Centennial coming out, I think I may have to change that.

My mother has probalby watched every mini-series that has ever aired.

For myself, I'm only interested in the 70s mini-series.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

Some others might include the BBC productions of Anne of Green Gables (1972) and Anne of Avonlea (1975). I also loved The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970). I watched the latter when I was in college, and for me it was worth every minute--esp. hearing the period music throughout much of the film. We have David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London to thank for that.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

There was a series on NBC called Great Books or something like that which had a lot of miniseries including Little Women, The Rhineman Exchange both of which have been released on DVD. Others not released yet are Captains and Kings, Once an Eagle, The last Convertable and The Man from Intrepid. Other NBC miniseries were Marco Polo and Peter the Great.The Great Books series had a great musical theme song by Elmer Bernstein. I am presuming all of these may belong to Universal but could conceivably be released by Koch Entertainment (Little Women). Hopefully someone else may remember which other stories were broadcast on that show.
Best
Greg

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

According to TVShows on DVD Centennial looks likely to arrive on DVD in July. The article warns that the long lead in time could mean delays might happen but at least someone in Universal seems to be thinking about it.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

I remember that there was a mini series titled Pearl which was about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Angie Dickinson of Police Woman was in it.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

I also remember that both movies Midway and MacArthur had mini series broadcasts boasting extra footage. I am wondering if each will be released with the extra footage on dvd since the only dvds issued were the movie versions.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

"QB VII" (1974) was the very first miniseries and it's on DVD.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

Speaking of Centennial... is that ever going to be released on DVD? My 5th grade teacher showed the class the first several episodes over the course of the school year. I don't remember much about it 27 years later other than I liked it and I'd really love to see it again.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

There were also a number of miniseries done under the Operation Prime Time banner from the late 70's to the early 80s. These miniseries were syndicated to local stations. The earlier ones featured the John Jakes novels. Evening in Byzantium had Mideast terrorists using hijacked planes loaded with bombs to hit targets in the US. Unfortunately none of these are on dvd.

Testimony of Two Men Universal (1977)
The Bastard Universal (1978)
Evening in Byzantium Universal (1978)
The Immigrants Universal (1978)
The Rebels Universal (1978)
The Seekers Universal (1979)
Top of the Hill Paramount (1980)
The Dream Merchants Columbia (1980)
Tourist Fox (1980)
A Woman Called Golda Paramount (1982)
Sadat Columbia (1983)
Jenny's War Columbia (1984)

Also other Universal films such as Gray Lady Down and Earthquake featured
extra footage on tv. Superman - The Movie was also shown over two nights and featured extra footage. I would love to buy copies of these.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

I have a question for anyone that has the R2 Rich Man Poor Man Book II set. Has anyone seen any defects in this set? It looks like I have one "Chapter" that was transfered to the disc with a defect. It's Chapter 9 in the set. The best way to describe the defect is that when there's any motion in a scene, normal motion such as someone walking in a scene, there's a noticeable "blurring" motion resembling a "trailing" effect on the picture. I watched Chapter 19 today and am nearly finished viewing the set and there have been no other issues with the other chapters except for Ch 9. When I was watching Ch 9, there's another thing I noticed about this chapter. It is the only chapter that has a running time of about 49 minutes vs the expected 47 minutes for the other chapters - the usual run-time for most PAL shows and that matches my other PAL run-time episodes for other DVD sets such as the Six Million Dollar Man & Bionic Woman PAL S1/S2 sets and the Rich Man Poor Man Book 1 set.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

The six or seven night mini-series was a phenomenon of American commercials television in the 70s and 80s. They stopped being made when the economics of TV changed. With the audience becoming more and more fractured by the rise of cable and additional broadcast networks the audience share and the advertising revenues needed to sustain such productions vanished. By the mid-90s a "mini-series" might be a 2 or 3 night affair, an extra-long TV movie.

Mini-series fell somewhere between episodic weekly series and made-for-TV movies, and were a great venue for adapting books without all the cutting needed to compress them into a two-hour theatrical time slot. ABC, inventor of the form, called the first mini-series "Novels for television." In later years the nighttime soaps, then shows like Babylon 5, Wiseguy, the later seasons of DS9, and newer series like Lost and Heroes showed that on-going stories could also work in a weekly series format.

Because the economics and history are totally different, it is a mistake to conflate the typically 10 to 13 part British series of roughly the same period with the American-style miniseries. 13 week "seasons" was simply the typical run of a British show, and because reruns and syndication revenue were not big issues in the UK at the time, a "one-off" 13 episode story that would never have a second season was not automatically rejected by the powers that be, as they would have been in the U.S. Over here nobody makes a TV show that runs only one season or only 13 episodes total on purpose. (Except PBS.) None of the business models in commercial TV reward you for doing so.

Similarly the short-seasons of cable networks like F/X and USA reflect an alternative to the 26-week, 22 to 24 episode, standard American television season based on the different busines models that those networks run on. But they are not really comparable to the mini-series per se either. For one thing, shows like The Shield, Resuce Me, Burn Notice and Monk are all intended to run for multiple seasons and to make money in an active syndication market.

BTW, this coming Tuesday, May 13 will see the release of one of the all-time best American mini-series, The Adams Chronicles. Anyone who enjoyed HBO's John Adams should also like this series, which traces the history of four generations of the family from Founding Father John, through diplomat and president John Quincy, businesman and diplomat Charles Francis and critic and literary artist Henry along with their own wives and children. The first three were leading politicians who represented America abroad at critical times (all three, father, son and grandson specifically represented America to Great Brtain, serving as Ambassador to the Court of St. James at critical times - Charles Francis during the Civil War) the last a journalist, historian and novelist.

The mini-series has not been seen since its original broadcasts and has never been released on home video. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Regards,

Joe

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

Been meaning to pick this up sometime. Saw it when it first came on TV and loved it. Anthony Hopkins was simply amazing and made me first aware of this great actor.

Re: 70s Mini-Series On DVD Question

Rich, you might be interested to learn that in QB VII, Anthony Hopkins dubbed in the voice of the judge who was played by the late Jack Hawkins. At that time Hawkins was suffering from throat cancer and his very distinctive voice was too weak to say his lines. Hopkins, who is an excellent mimic in addition to being a consummate actor, provided an uncanny imitation of Hawkins for the production.

Years later he would do the same for Laurence Olivier when missing footage for SPARTACUS was restored, but the audio elements were lost. In a previously excised scene with Tony Curtis, Curtis dubbed himself in and Hopkins did the voice of Olivier.