Product Details

• Actors: Orson Welles, Alan Badel, Beatrice Straight, Bramwell Fletcher, Scott Forbes
• Directors: Peter Brook;Andrew McCullough
• Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: E1 Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: February 9, 2010
• Run Time: 73 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002SF9YUC
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #38,220 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "King Lear: Omnibus - The Historic TV Broadcast" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Shot live for the prestigious Omnibus series, Orson Welles masterfully plays the title role in the Shakespearean classic about a beleaguered king who is betrayed by the greed of his daughters. Broadcast live on CBS.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Landmark Production with fabulous bonus features - A must for Shakespeare lovers, January 31, 2010

By	Steven I. Ramm "Steve Ramm "Anything Phon... (Phila, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: King Lear: Omnibus - The Historic TV Broadcast (DVD)

E1 Entertainment (formerly Koch Home Video) partnered last year with the Archive of American Television to release some extremely rare television shows from their archives on home video. Nearly all of these shows have not been seen by the public since they were broadcast over 50 years ago! Thanks to both early videotape and Kinescopes (live TV broadcasts preserved on film) we are able to re-live what were originally one-time performances. This DVD is one such event.

Actor/Write/Director (and more!) Orson Welles love Shakespeare and mounted many of Shakespeare's classics. In the early days of TV, in the 1950s, Shakespeare was not something the average viewer was expecting to see. And certainly not with the great Welles, who was living in England at that time.

TV was still in its infancy then and experimenting with its programming. This was a time when there were fewer distractions and other entertainment options for the American public. So CBS (under William Paley) created a 90-minute "arts magazine" to be broadcast on Sunday afternoons - remember there were no regular sports broadcasts then - hosted by Britisher Alistair Cooke. It was called "Omnibus". For its third season they came up with a real gem. Welles would make his American TV debut in a 90-minute production of "King Lear", directed by the then 29 year old British Director Peter Brook. Brook's wife, Natasha Parry, would play Cordelia. The sponsors would become "subscribers" so there would be no commercial breaks. And, the script would be revised - leaving out all the subplots - so the actual production ran only 78 minutes! On October 11, 1953 the show aired. And it has not been since - until this release.

E1 has gone the extra step in putting together this package. Preceding the October 11th show we are giving the "preview" which aired the week before. To add to the understanding of Shakespeare we are presented with a 10-minute portion of a later Omnibus show where Dr. Frank Baxter (who helped Walt Disney explain science to kids, like me, in the 1950s in "Our Friend the Atom") gives the history of the Globe Theater. Another 42-minute bonus is a live remote from 1954 at the Yale Shakespeare Festival and a 43-minute episode from 1955 with drama critic Walter Kerr discussing the staging of Shakespeare's plays.

All the prints are in more than acceptable viewing condition and the sound is very good. And all were captured "live".

This is a must for any Shakespeare fan and should be in every school library's DVD collection. There are more "Omnibus" shows coming from the AAT and E1. I can hardly wait for the next one!

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars heavily cut and overacted, June 3, 2010

By	Peregrine Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Lear: Omnibus - The Historic TV Broadcast (DVD)

This Lear is of historical interest - old TV trying to be cultured, but it is a very poor enactment of the play. It seems to belong to the Shakespeare presentations of a century ago.