Customer Reviews

The Scarlet Letter (World Classics Collection) [VHS]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This movie is terrible! We watched it as a suppliment to the 2 tape video by PBS. We watched this movie again just for comic relief. The acting was absolutley horrid! The narrators named "Roger Chillingworth" as "Roger Chillingsworth" not only was this spoken, it appeared on the screen numerous times. The scene where Hester is to "Let down her long brown hair" the actress let down her almost shoulder length hair... the scene on the scaffold with the old man in the nylon jumpsuit looks like he was hired off a Mannhatten street corner... Don't get me started on the night scaffold scene where the huge "meteor" appears... great 10 cent special effects.... Hester's "velcro" "A" put a nice touch for a 1600s setting... With modern car noise, and disgusting acting, i bet Nathaniel Hawthorne is rollling in his grave!!

Don't buy, unless you want to introduce students with a classic (which many think is boring) novel, in a un-planned comedic way.

I chuckle when I think how bad this movie really is!

Initially, this video seems like a skit from Saturday Night Live. The "professors" are paradies of themselves, and I've seen better acting from 2nd grade students. The video is boring and dated. And if I was bored with it, I can only imagine how much my eighth-graders would have been turned off. I would have given it "no-stars" but that wasn't an option. Other than that, it was fine.

I watched this movie with my 11th grade American Literature students. Many of them are really struggling with the novel. All I can say is we got a really good laugh out of this video. The acting is atrocious, and the special effects and costumes are ridiculous!!! (I don't think that Puritans wore earrings.) All drama students know that actors are supposed to face the camera or audience and speak loudly! It isn't worth buying, but I can say that it gave some stressed out students a little bit of comic relief from a difficult novel. We laughed until we cried, especially when the "A" appeared in the sky. So Monty Python!

You know I was just thinking, about how much better a root canal would be than this "movie." This "movie" is terrible to say the least. I've seen better costumes in a 5th grade school play. Acting? What acting!!! This is absolutely terrible, and I should think that if MST3K ever get back together, this should be their first target. Absolutely terrible. AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

There is so much wrong with this video I hardly know where to begin. The character of Chillingworth is mispronounced and written "ChillingSworth". The scenes depicted are not like the scenes in the text. The velcro adds a nice comedic touch. The "scholars" misplace the women's movement and the writing of this novel in history. The acting could not have been worse. And I never reached the end of it, it was so bad. I actually show it to my sophomores to teach them to read things for themselves rather than have others interpret the text for them and as a comedic break during the reading of the novel.

Our English class had a hoot over this video. The flashing A in the sky, which looked like some sort of weird LSD trip ("Look, the A in the sky!" *enter seizure-inducing flashing colors*), and Pearls funny little temper tantrum sent the students into torrents of laughter. Bad acting and effects. It sounded like Pearl was related to Shatner.
"I.will.kiss.you.now.Father."

Very good. It stayed with the plot, unlike the version with Demi Moore, in which indians attack the village and Hester and Arthur fool around in some grain.