Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780790758145 Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC ISBN: 0790758148 Label: BBC Warner Manufacturer: BBC Warner Number Of Items: 6 Publisher: BBC Warner Release Date: January 14, 2003 Running Time: 603 minutes Studio: BBC Warner Theatrical Release Date: 1969 Sales Rank: 24024
Description: The miniseries that started in all! In 1969, a internationally-acclaimed BBC show began airing on the fledgling public broadcasting network. The Forsyte Saga, in telling the remarkable story of a nouveau riche English family, introduced America to a new kind of TV. Millions of Americans devoted the next half-year of their lives to following the frank treatment of all sins, foibles and peccadillos of the Forsytes and their circle. The series was so popular that Masterpiece Theatre was created to meet the new demand for great literary adaptations. With a cast of 150, 2000 separate costumes and over 100 sets, this sprawling yet intimate saga continues to move, provoke and entrance viewers today. In 1879, Jo Forsyte(Kenneth More) initiates the first rift in the Forsyte clan by leaving his wife to live illicitly with Helene (Lana Morris), who was governess to his daughter. Jo's cousin Soames (Eric Porter) sets his mind to marry Irene (Nyree Dawn Porter), who accepts him only after many refusals. These and other decisions made in the Victorian age will shape the family's destiny for decades to come.
Amazon.com: This first half of the 1967 original, 26-episode British television series (which aired on PBS two years later and inspired the creation of Masterpiece Theatre) is both literary soap opera and sprawling, Dickensian tale of love, money, and destiny fatefully intertwined. Set in the late Victorian era, the early chapters of The Forsyte Saga (based on several works by John Galsworthy) merrily buzz with a large and hopelessly confusing roster of Forsyte kin, most creaking with age and cackling ridiculously over family gossip. As these elders pass on, a core cast including Eric Porter as Soames, an acquisitive "man of property," Nyree Dawn Porter as the ethereal Irene, and Kenneth More as Jolyon--the family's artistic black sheep--becomes our key players, wrestling with their definitions of "value" (i.e., that which can be measured versus that which can't), procreating, and stumbling in the dark for happiness. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Family Rating PG13
Besides my interest in British movies from this era, I look for movies I will enjoy and I feel comfortable having on my shelf for my grandchildren to run across. Although the story was fascinating as it ... Read More
Rating: - pity ! no translation !
I am very surprised that in very elegant and technicaly perfect DVD
I don't find any translation to a non-English language. Y. Remetz
Rating: - a trail of destruction
Many story threads are woven into this mammoth drama, one being the tale of a woman who leaves a trail of destruction in her wake. It covers three generations at the time when the West was undergoing the ... Read More
Rating: - Very enjoyable product
I had been looking for the original version of the Forsyte Saga for many months and I was very pleasantly surprised to find it Amazon (I should have known). I had been warned that the soundtrack would be a ... Read More
Rating: - Do the subtitles work in HDTV format?
I have not purchased this set yet, but would love to. However, it is
essential that the subtitles for the hearing impaired work. I have found
that many British series do not have them at all, ... Read More
- Family Rating PG13
- pity ! no translation !