Product Details

• Actors: Hal Holbrook
• Directors: Paul Bogart
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: April 27, 1999
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000IPGJ
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,105 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #6 in	Video > Documentary > History > American History & Culture
  #30 in	Video > Special Interests > History

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hal Holbrook-Mark Twain Tonight, April 30, 2000

By	Mark Marcus (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mark Twain Tonight (DVD)

Having seen Hal Holbrook perform live in Mark Twain Tonight, I was delighted to aquire the DVD of his 1967 television broadcast performance. I have long believed, and this DVD confirms that Mark Twain Tonight is easily one of the greatest treasures of the American stage in the last half of the 20th Century. That Mr. Holbrook has performed Mark Twain every year since 1954, in over 2000 shows, is nothing short of miraculous. This 90 minute performance brings the wisdom, humor and humanity of one of the most morally insightful men of the 19th century to life. His words continue to be as hilarious, poignant and relevent in the 21st century as they were in his own time.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thirty Years in the Making, November 24, 1999

By	Fred Halwe (San Antonio, Texas) - See all my reviews

In 1967, I was a twenty-ish high school English teacher who sat down one evening, out of a sense of professional obligation, to watch a TV production of some guy named Hal Holbrook doing a one-man show called MARK TWAIN TONIGHT. It blew me away (though we didn't talk like that in 1967). Ever since, I've had a blank videotape sitting atop my TV, waiting to pirate a copy of the certain re-broadcast, whenever the industry moguls ran out of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND reruns. Of course, it never happened! Instead, I paid cash money for the 33-rpm record, and scratched my way to this or that band for partly appreciative teen English students. As always, the trick to life is to keep living. Today I blew the dust off my 30 year-old videotape and set it aside. My review is thirty years in the making. All you young English teachers, take note: on a scale of one-to-five stars, this performance of Mr. Holbrook is a six. Maybe seven!

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Holbrook's Mark Twain, December 6, 1999

By A Customer

If there has ever been a polished performance, this is it! I've been fortunate to see Holbrook do this show live on three occasions. He really catches the essence of Twain's marvellous story- telling, which sets the tone for later artists such as Gene Shepard and Garrison Keillor. Hal Holbrook changed his show at every performance, and this video features him at the peak of his craft. From ghost stories to humorous anecdotes to shaggy dog yarns and tall tales, this video has them all. You'll want to watch it many times.