Product Description

A special one-man show that captures the flamboyant humor and irreverence of Mark Twain by using the words of Twain, his stinging commentary on politics, the art of lying, religion, patriotism, etc.
Genre: Performing Arts - Theater
Rating: NR
Release Date: 30-NOV-1999
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4219 in DVD
• Brand: HOLBROOK,HAL
• Released on: 1999-11-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Come meet Mark Twain. OK, true, the humorist has been dead for more years than we care to remember, and not many of us around today were alive to hear what he sounded like. But Hal Holbrook is so spectacular in his one-man performance that you could swear you were listening to Twain himself. The gravelly voice, the lined face, the slow shuffle, and cigar-induced throat clearings seem so natural that you'll have difficulty recognizing Holbrook beneath the white suit, the gray hair, and the handlebar mustache.

Mark Twain Tonight! began as a Broadway show in the 1960s and was filmed as a CBS special in 1967. Yet you'd never know it, because the humor, which is more than a century old, is still laugh-out-loud funny today. Twain--I mean, Holbrook--gives a monologue that is rambling, intelligent, and humorous as he culls together commentary from a variety of Twain sources. From dachshund hounds, politics, and patriotism to cigar smoking, memory loss, and religion, this 90-minute video leaps from subject to subject as we're entertained by material that's as fresh today as it was when it was written in the 1800s. --Jenny Brown

Review
By the time Hal Holbrook made his big-screen debut in 1966's The Group, a lot of people were curious to see what he really looked like. This is because the now-veteran actor had spent more than a dozen years under white hair and latex touring as Mark Twain in a one-man show that remains an institution.

Always a busy big-screen actor in subordinate roles, Holbrook is probably best known as Twain (an Emmy and a Tony all but cemented that status), but he also played Abraham Lincoln in a series of TV specials and in the miniseries North and South, John Adams in the miniseries George Washington and World War II Gen. George C. Marshall in the Emmy-winning Los Alamos drama Day One.

His other work on the small screen has been ubiquitous across the decades, from The Ed Sullivan Show in the '50s to Disneyland in the early '70s to The West Wing and The Sopranos. A Holbrook character can align with the forces of good (the kindly mentor type in Wall Street) or evil (he headed the conglomerate of shady lawyers in The Firm). But in terms of career benchmarks, the must-sees include Mark Twain Tonight! (1967, Kultur, unrated, $30): An American classic preserved. --Mike Clark, USA Today

Customer Reviews

Hal Holbrook-Mark Twain Tonight
Having seen Hal Holbrook perform live in Mark Twain Tonight, I was delighted to aquire the DVD of his 1967 television broadcast performance. I have long believed, and this DVD confirms that Mark Twain Tonight is easily one of the greatest treasures of the American stage in the last half of the 20th Century. That Mr. Holbrook has performed Mark Twain every year since 1954, in over 2000 shows, is nothing short of miraculous. This 90 minute performance brings the wisdom, humor and humanity of one of the most morally insightful men of the 19th century to life. His words continue to be as hilarious, poignant and relevent in the 21st century as they were in his own time.

Thirty Years in the Making
In 1967, I was a twenty-ish high school English teacher who sat down one evening, out of a sense of professional obligation, to watch a TV production of some guy named Hal Holbrook doing a one-man show called MARK TWAIN TONIGHT. It blew me away (though we didn't talk like that in 1967). Ever since, I've had a blank videotape sitting atop my TV, waiting to pirate a copy of the certain re-broadcast, whenever the industry moguls ran out of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND reruns. Of course, it never happened! Instead, I paid cash money for the 33-rpm record, and scratched my way to this or that band for partly appreciative teen English students. As always, the trick to life is to keep living. Today I blew the dust off my 30 year-old videotape and set it aside. My review is thirty years in the making. All you young English teachers, take note: on a scale of one-to-five stars, this performance of Mr. Holbrook is a six. Maybe seven!

Holbrook's Mark Twain
If there has ever been a polished performance, this is it! I've been fortunate to see Holbrook do this show live on three occasions. He really catches the essence of Twain's marvellous story- telling, which sets the tone for later artists such as Gene Shepard and Garrison Keillor. Hal Holbrook changed his show at every performance, and this video features him at the peak of his craft. From ghost stories to humorous anecdotes to shaggy dog yarns and tall tales, this video has them all. You'll want to watch it many times.