Mark Twain Tonight

Buy For: $29.99
Usually ships in 24 hours


Add to Cart


Compare New & Used Prices From All Available Merchants:

Starring: Hal Holbrook
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Type: DVD
Directed By: Paul Bogart
Studio: KULTUR VIDEO
Release Date: 1999-11-30
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

What a great performance!
Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain. He brings the man to life along with the wit and wisdom of the humorist. How sad that we have no such observer of humanity now. I would love to hear Twain commenting on humanity today.

Well pleased.
It was delivered in a timely manner and am very pleased with the DVD. Haven't had a chance to view it as of yet but will after Christmas. Thanks. B. Richter

Mark Twain Tonight - a classic for my collection
Mark Twain Tonight is now a valued item in my personal library of classics. One of my professors at college was inspired to impersonate Mark Twain based on this performance. I would highly recommend this educational & entertaining dvd for anyone who wants more than Hollywood mindless entertainment.

Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain
Saw this presentation years ago as a kid and watched it again now and its still great. Our kid enjoys it, too, so, Mark Twain (and Halbrook) hasn't lost his charm.

Mark Twain Tonight.
Long before Spalding Gray brought one-man performance monologues into the mainstream, 40-year-old actor Hal Holbrook perfected this wonderful stage persona as an homage to the elderly author of "Huckleberry Finn" and many other treasures of American literature. His resemblance to Twain is uncanny, his diction impeccable, and the commentary--all folksy wisdom and homespun anecdotes about politics and religion, women, aging, cannibals, and more --came from his long-running Broadway show. This program was a landmark in TV history, and minted Holbrook's reputation. Today it is as enlightening and entertaining as ever.