Product Details

• Actors: Susan Hampshire, Philip Latham, John Gielgud, Barbara Murray, Moray Watson
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Acorn Media
• DVD Release Date: February 27, 2001
• Run Time: 467 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000056C0M
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,295 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Pallisers, Set 2" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

PALLISERS SET 2 - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even better than the first set, January 19, 2001

By 

F. Behrens "Frank Behrens" (Keene, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pallisers, Set 2 (DVD)

It was cruel of Acorn Media to make us wait so many months between our viewing of <The Pallisers> episodes 1-8 and the now available middle third of the complete series, episodes 9-17. I resisted the temptation to view the first set again to re-establish in my mind the myriad relationships between the host of characters, but I thought it would all come back again--which it did, especially with the help of the invaluable booklet provided with the first set.

If anything, these middle episodes are even more fascinating (though by a slim margin) than the earlier ones. Plantagenet (Philip Latham) is much more serious and his confrontation with his rebellious older son is a telling one. His lady (Susan Hampshire) is more mature, certainly more nearsighted, but still bubbly and fun to watch, especially as she tries to manipulate Phineas Finn (Donal McCann) into a cabinet post and her rustic female relation (Jo Kendall) into a marriage.

There is a wealth of comic characters besides the plain-speaking Ms. Kendall. Derek Jacobi is perfect as Lord Fawn with ridiculous side-burns and a total incapacity for winning a wife. Sarah Badell is a knockout as Lizzie Eustace who is determined to keep "The Eustace Diamonds" in her own possession even though it means lying about one burglary only to bring about another. The slimy man of the cloth she marries, the Reverend Emilius (Anthony Ainely), is your typical hypocritical villain of the period; but the delightful Terence Alexander portrays a much more honest villain as Lord George.

Even the old and dying Duke of Omnium (Roland Culver) has a little fun with his pretty blonde nurse; and one of his dying wishes is that someone do something about the foxes in the woods, because he knows his heir, Plantagenet, will think only of finances and politics.

On the serious side, we have the religious fanatic Robert Kennedy (Derek Godfrey) who believes that happiness is possible only in Heaven and makes a hell on earth for his wife (Anna Massey). And we have the socially unacceptable but politically useful Mr. Bonteen (Peter Sallis) whose hatred of Finn leads to.... Well, never mind. Better see what happens for yourself. Trollope never quite mastered the well-wrought novel, but he did create two entire worlds of very believable people in his Barchester and in the Palliser novels. He had to fill up three volumes (the lending libraries insisted on this to increase their profits) and also had to consider serializing his works first. So there are many plot lines to follow, most of which intermix either dramatically or thematically. And need it be mentioned that the production values, though relatively low budget, and the acting are a joy to behold?

Unhappily this set ends with a real cliffhanger and it will be a long wait until "late this year," which is when Acorn Media promises the next and final set.

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, Romance, Death in Jolly Old England, May 24, 2011

By 

Terripen - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Pallisers, Set 2 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw Set 1 in a pawn shop, came home to check out the series, liked what I read so I bought it. Then I needed Sets 2 & 3. If you like to see wonderful acting, beautiful sets and enjoyable dialogue, then this series is a keeper. Susan Hampshire shows why she is such a beautiful and professional actress. I had seen her in The Barchester Chronicles, Monarch of the Glen and The Grand. She's a joy to watch. Also present are several other British actors from other British shows I have watched. Dereck Jacobi is always a pleasure, Peter Sallis in a serious role, and Penelope Keith even younger than in Good Neighbors. Well worth the time.

4.0 out of 5 stars Glencora's Waltz, March 14, 2007

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Pallisers, Set 2 (DVD)

The second set of DVDs in the BBC 26-part series "The Pallisers" from the mid 1970s is every bit as good as the first, and features at its core superb performances by Barbara Murray as the sharp and cagey Madame Max Goesler, Philip Latham as the stodgy but goodhearted Plantagent Palliser, and the charming Susan Hampshire as his impish wife, Lady Glencora. These DVDs cover the actions of Trollope's key novels in the Palliser sequence, PHINEAS FINN and THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS, which detail the doings among the highest political and moneyed set in the United Kingdom of the 1860s. They bring in several new characters, including the tiny, scheming, melodramatic Lizzie Eustace (Sarah Badel), the bumptious Adelaide Palliser (Jo Kendall), and the lazy and entitled dandy Gerald Maule (Jeremy Clyde, late of the British Invasion music duo Chad and Jeremy, in an absolutely first-rate performance). The casting is not everything it could be--John hallam is probably no one's idea of the Byronic and dashing Lord Chiltern--, but for the most part the performances are terrific. Watch for Peter Sallis's fine work as the pompous Mr. Bonteen in the last DVD in this set at one of Lady Glencora's parties as she plies him with drink to start his tongue wagging so as to expose his conceit and arrogance to his fellow party members: it's one of the best performances of a person getting drunker and drunker I've ever seen. The episodes involve murder, death, two diamond thefts, and incredible amounts of scheming and jockeying for position and power, but the pleasure of Trollope (which this series well captures) is his evocation of character and conscience. You feel like you know these people, even if they lived a century and a half earlier.