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 hour program shows a picture of 52 years of presidential history unfolding from the perspective of the White House servants, from the time of William Howard Taft to the end of the Eisenhower presidency.

There are some terrific performances in this miniseries, and it also boasts a fine score by Morton Stevens. After not seeing any of this in 25 years, the thrill of watching it again yesterday after finding a copy, was quite great for me!

Excellent post Eric. TV movies and mini-series were often times class productions back in the '70s, with real talent and money behind them. Since 1990 the whole genre has virtually died, making a release like this one to treasure. I've never heard of the publisher but I'll try and track down a review copy (and if I can't, I'll wait for Deepdiscount's next sale

I hope MASADA isn't far behind.

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 multipart TV-movie)
Moses: The Lawgiver (the original six hour cut)
A.D.
Space
Washington: Behind Closed Doors
Roots: The Next Generation (Warners owns this. Apparently the bad sales of the first Roots miniseries scared them off from releasing this)


And a list of great regular TV-movies from the 60s and 70s that have been invisible on TV for two decades, let alone DVD, could be endless! At the top of the list, I would put "The Doomsday Flight" (1966) and "The Man" (1972). I have both from late night airings on WABC circa 1986, and the quality of the prints they were using was dreadful.

I'd love to see:

ISN'T IT SHOCKING? -- Great John Badham mystery-comic-thriller with Alan Alda, music by David Shire, Louise Lasser...great cast!

NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA -- Orson Welles War of the Worlds telefilm.

Among several others...those all-star TV mini-series are a lot of fun (NORTH AND SOUTH, which is actually out there, included).

Moses the Lawgiver has been released in the UK as a two-disc set. Personally, I'm still waiting for Masada as well.

Some mini-series, mostly recent European productions, have turned up on European labels with English soundtracks - Catherine the Great, Julius Caesar, The Crusaders (Germany), Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe, The Seventh Scroll (Holland), the atrocious English-language Depardieu version of Les Miserables (UK), while a few like Noble House, The Great Bookie Robbery, ANZACs and Mountbatten have turned up on obscure Australian labels.

Is MOSES: THE LAWGIVER the same show that was scored by Ennio Morricone, a short suite appearing on the Yo-Yo Ma album?

That's the one. It got released as a two-and-a-half hour feature in Europe (as did Shogun and Masada - retitled The Antagonists), but the DVD is the miniseries version. I remember when it came out, Burt Lancaster gave interviews admitting that he was an atheist who found the whole idea of religion ridiculous, which couldn't have helped the ratings much...

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 novels of the Kent Family Chronicles series, which Universal previously released on VHS (The Bastard, The Rebels, The Seekers). Always found it unfortunate they didn't do any of the other novels in the series or that John Jakes never resumed the series after novel #8.

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 found to my surprise how so many of the little moments like Woodrow Wilson turning out the lights with a "waste not, want not" admonition, or Lillian's encounter as a young child with President Taft are in fact straight out of her memoir. The Louis Gossett, Jr. character of Mercer is fictional and others are composites, but much of what they do reflects pretty accurately what was going on during this era.

Let's hope this release does indeed start a trend of other worthy 70s miniseries getting out on DVD as well.

Eric Paddon wrote: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 found to my surprise how so many of the little moments like Woodrow Wilson turning out the lights with a "waste not, want not" admonition, or Lillian's encounter as a young child with President Taft are in fact straight out of her memoir. The Louis Gossett, Jr. character of Mercer is fictional and others are composites, but much of what they do reflects pretty accurately what was going on during this era.

Let's hope this release does indeed start a trend of other worthy 70s miniseries getting out on DVD as well.

It really felt authentic, too, Eric. It's just so sad, how great mini-series were back in the old days...I'd love to see (among many others) THE FIRST OLYMPICS: ATHENS 1896 dusted off...a great Bruce Broughton score and a terrific cast, too!