I agree complete with your review, Andy! And another thing about "Backstairs At The White House" that helps elevate it is that so much of what's depicted is dead accurate. I had a chance after revisiting this miniseries to read Lillian Rogers Parks' original memoir, written in 1961, and fo...

Kong 76 is a flawed film in many ways, but not IMO because of Jessica Lange. I think her performance holds up very well given the kind of character she was being asked to play (plus she looks so great in the native costume). I think of all the Kong 76 leads, Bridges was ultimately the weakest link. ...

I would say there's absolutely no reason to hold on to the previous release. The supplements from there are ported over or fixed so you can toss that one out if you have this one now.

Yeah, that "Overture" had me scratching my head too. Also, I have to give a thumbs down to the commentary track because (1) it's misleading in that Fay Wray is only heard twice for a sum total of about 20 seconds just to say it was a great experience doing the film and (2) Harryhausen and ...

I picked up the four DVD set today at Best Buy and first thing I watched was this reconstruction of the lost spider pit sequence. I am impressed! Their reconstruction blended seamlessly with the original Kong footage that you never would have known this was done recently. This sort of thing should n...

I had long thought that one of the few old Laser Disc sets I was going to hold on to forever was the "Ultimate Oz" set of the mid-90s because the first DVD release by Warners was unbelievably botched with a weak transfer and fewer supplements. They also botched the "Jitterbug" su...

So far, the only thing about this film that has excited me is that it got Universal to release Widescreen DVDs of the two Toho Kong films they own the US versions of!

Even absent those remarks, I think anyone would have had a hard time displacing Charlton Heston as everyone's image of Moses. Ironically, Heston once said that he was frequently mistaken for Lancaster by people during the 60s. Some other big miniseries that would be nice on DVD would be the three no...

I have no idea who owns the rights to these (Backstairs was licensed by this obscure company, Acorn Video, from the original producer, Ed Friendly) but here's a list of notable miniseries that have yet to be released (and how many I wonder, remember a lot of these?). Masada Vanished (the first multi...

The 1979 NBC miniseries "Backstairs At The White House", not seen anywhere since it's second airing in 1980, has finally come out on DVD in a four disc boxed set that is well worth picking up! Based on the memoirs of White House seamstress Lillian Rogers Parks (Leslie Uggams), the nine hou...

It's amusing to see Rod in that kind of context of game show host. Game show collectors like me also have him playing on the game show "You Don't Say" where he's even more wacky!

Glad to hear that both music scores are available to listen to on this new release, but out of curiosity does this release restore the Churchill quote that had to do with the Battle at the end ("Never was so much..." or something like that) which was replaced in other DVD release by a Chur...

The episode that suffers most from truncation in terms of Hitchcock wraparounds appears to be "Baby Sitter" with Thelma Ritter. On that episode, there is no Hitch intro at all, it just goes straight from opening music to episode title!

"Fun for fans. I may be wrong but -- if memory serves -- this is the very first game show released in the DVD medium" That's true for a DVD set devoted to a game show but a couple vintage game show episodes have made their way out on DVD in other sets. Season 2 of the "Dick Van Dyke S...

I won't be transporting the free-for-alls I've had at other places regarding the original Battlestar Galactica versus the new show, but I only want to comment on this point. "which die-hard fans of the old show objected to for about five minutes...until it was clear that the new version is a fa...