Product Details

• Actors: Olympia Dukakis, Donald Moffat, Chloe Webb, Laura Linney, Marcus D'Amico
• Directors: Alastair Reid
• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 3
• Studio: Acorn Media
• VHS Release Date: February 25, 2003
• Run Time: 300 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006BT19
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #50,395 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

• This is item 1 in The Tales of the City Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
"The City" in question is San Francisco, and the tales are novelist Armistead Maupin's, his romantic, affectionate, and spirited homage to the glory days of his hometown. Maupin's idea of SF's glory days isn't the drug-filled Summer of Love (1967), but rather the drug-filled lust-in of the late '70s. Replacing acid with coke and ludes, psychedelia for disco, this six-hour miniseries (which caused controversy for its open drug use, nudity, and direct depiction of homosexuality upon its initial airing on PBS) follows the romantic struggles and identity crises of a colorful cast of characters. The action--as addictive as the drugs the characters ingest--is seen mostly from the innocent point of view of Mary Ann, the city's newest culture-shocked resident--so its presentation is rather decadent and hedonistic. Because the story originally ran as a daily serial in the San Francisco Chronicle before being compiled into a novel, its serialized structure suffers from typical soap-opera mawkishness and the need to shock with ridiculous revelations. Thankfully, this degeneration mostly occurs during the final two hours, allowing you to just enjoy the personalities and hilarious and often-touching interactions of the richly drawn characters before they're manipulated by plot devices. The performances are all outstanding, especially Chloe Webb's spacey ex-hippie Mona, Marcus D'Amico's romantically doomed Michael, and Olympia Dukakis's Anna Madrigal, the enigmatic mother hen/landlady of many of the film's central characters. --Dave McCoy

From the Back Cover
In the freewheeling San Francisco of the 1970s, fresh-faced midwesterner Mary Ann Singleton arrives for a visit and decides to stay. But only when she moves into the funky apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane does it become clear just how far from Cleveland she really is. Based on Armistead Maupin's groundbreaking stories about a cast of characters in search of love across the whole spectrum of sexual experience, Tales of the City evokes both a unique time and place and the universal yearning for connection. This Peabody Award-winning PBS miniseries stars Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck), Donald Moffat (Clear and Present Danger), Laura Linney (You Can Count on Me), Marcus D'Amico (Full Metal Jacket) and Chloe Webb (Sid & Nancy) as Mona Ramsey. Also featuring Thomas Gibson (Dharma & Greg), Billy Campbell (Once and Again) and Paul Gross (Due South).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

226 of 230 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars BEWARE: THIS VERSION IS EDITED, June 11, 2003

By	hewasacloud "hewasacloud" (Gloucester, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales of the City (Collector's Edition) (DVD)

I've been waiting for "Tales of the City" to come out on DVD for years.
The first intallment of this series is excellent ****** The actors give such fun, humane and real performances. The entire production is a true gem. However, though the DVD box claims it is the unedited version,
all of the "curse" words are over-dubbed with "clean" words. Unfortunately, this really alters the dialogue is certain scenes.
Being such a fan of the series, I sadly returned my copy, and will

continue to watch it on VHS, unless they put out a truly "unedited" DVD.

146 of 147 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Would have been perfect, but..., January 12, 2004

By	S. Antonio Arch (Toronto & Grand Cayman) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tales of the City (Collector's Edition) (DVD)

To begin, I give Tales of the City itself five stars. I would give it ten if I could. I get sentimental every time I catch it on TV, loved it on PBS ten years ago and just as much now.

My problem is with this DVD Collector's edition. It states very clearly on the box that this is the original, unrated, unedited version. Which is why I buy it, take it home and wait for one of my favourite scenes. Finally Brian picks up Connie Bradshaw at the Laundromat and I'm waiting for that wonderful post-coital confrontation. And I realise that the dialogue has been DUBBED OVER. Over the course of the next three hundred minutes I agonise over the several other scenes that have been cleaned up.

This boxed set is beautiful. It has some wonderful extras including rehearsals and commentaries, but the dialogue has been tampered with and yes it does absolutely detract from the story

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, Romance & Mystery at 28 Barbary Lane, March 26, 2003

By	M. Hart "Sci-Fi Fan" (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tales of the City (Collector's Edition) (DVD)

Thanks to writer Armistead Maupin, 28 Barbary Lane has become one of the most famous addresses in San Francisco; but it is fictitious. The address is the location of an apartment building created by Maupin when he began writing a fictitious weekly serial called "Tales of the City" for a local San Francisco Newspaper called the "San Francisco Chronicle" in 1976. After 13 years of weekly installments, Maupin converted them into a collection of six books. The first book, named "Tales of the City", was turned into a 6-hour TV miniseries by the BBC in 1993. When it aired on PBS in the U.S. in 1994, it caused quite a controversy not only for its honest depiction of gay characters, but also for showing men kissing one another and frequent drug use. The story's main character is the eccentric owner/landlady of the apartment building, Mrs. Anna Madrigal, played by the very talented Olympia Dukakis. Mrs. Madrigal is a free spirit choosing to live life to its fullest, including the growing of marijuana that she shares freely with her residents. Her residents are also a very interesting set of people including Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb), Michael 'Mouse' Tolliver (Marcus D'Amico), Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney), Brian Hawkins (Paul Gross) and Norman Williams (Stanley DeSantis).

Taking place in the mid-1970's, the story begins with Mary Ann deciding to remain and move to San Francisco while visiting from the Midwest. She finds an advertisement for an available apartment at 28 Barbary Lane. She goes there, meets Mrs. Madrigal and immediately moves in. Mary Ann then finds a job as a secretary for the very wealthy Edgar Warfield Halcyon (Donald Moffat), who also employs his son-in-law, Beauchamp Talbot Day (Thomas Gibson). Beauchamp's marriage to Edgar's daughter, Deirdre Denise 'DeDe' Ligon Halcyon Day (Barbara Garrick), is rather dysfunctional with both engaging in extramarital activities. Mona also works for Edgar Halycon, but gets into trouble with her outspoken views. Mona and Michael, who is gay, become very good friends and spend a lot time with each other. Over the course of the story, ties between many of the residents of 28 Barbary Lane and their common acquaintances (but not necessarily known) are shown. One of the common acquaintances is Dr. Jon Philip Fielding (Bill Campbell), who is De De's gynecologist, but also knows both Beauchamp and Michael. Other well-known actors played minor roles in the miniseries including Ian McKellan (known more as Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy), McLean Stevenson (known more as the bumbling C.O. Lt. Colonel Henry Blake in the 1972 TV series "M*A*S*H"), Rod Steiger (known for many roles including Komarovsky in the 1965 film "Dr. Zhivago"), Swoosie Kurtz (played in the 1988 film "Dangerous Liaisons") and Janeane Garofalo (played in the 1997 film "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion"). Armistead Maupin also makes a brief cameo appearance as a writer in a window.

Overall, "Tales of the City" was very well done by the BBC and I rate it with 5 out of 5 stars. Sequels to the series were made later, but not all of the original actors reprised their roles to the disappointment of many fans. The two actors most commonly missed in the later sequels are Chloe Webb and Marcus D'Amico, whose roles as Mona Ramsey and Michael Tolliver were replaced by Nina Siemaszko and Paul Hopkins respectively. Admittedly, the chemistry that existed between Mona and Michael with the original actors in "Tales of the City" did not come across as effectively with their replacements in the sequels. Of the two miniseries sequels, the first ("More Tales of the City") is better than the second ("Further Tales of the City"). Each is based on the second and third of Maupin's books.