Mark Twain Tonight

Hal Holbrook Director: Paul Bogart Paul Bogart

Overview

"Hal Holbrook's famous one-man show in which he plays Mark Twain comes to DVD with a standard full-frame transfer that preserves the original broadcast aspect ratio. The English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital Stereo. There are neither subtitles n

Product Details

Release Date:	03/29/2005
UPC:	0032031189195
Original Release:	1967
Rating:	NR
Source:	KULTUR VIDEO
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital]
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	787

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Hal Holbrook

Mark Twain

Technical Credits

David Susskind

Producer

Scene Index

Scene Selections
25. Scene Selections
1. Program start [:45]
2. Whiskey-train-long dog [3:18]
3. Smoke rings [1:03]
4. Half a gallon [:56]
5. The water closet [3:19]
6. Reporter & congress [1:31]
7. His grandfather's old ram [20:51]
8. A hymn book [2:15]
9. The silent lie [3:22]
10. Huck & Jim [16:00]
11. Lower than the angels [3:52]
12. Lynching [3:23]
13. The creator's pet [8:11]
14. Ghost story [6:49]
15. Hannibal boyhood [1:30]
16. Piloting at sunrise [2:49]
17. Gold rush [3:21]
18. 70th escape & Satan [4:50]
19. Mary Ann [3:56]
20. End credits [:58]

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About Hal Holbrook
Awards & Accolades

Editorial Reviews

This landmark 1967 CBS production established the so-called one-man show as a legitimate entertainment and educational medium -- and no wonder. In it, Hal Holbrook, then in his early forties, portrays an aging Mark Twain with such doddering charm and such folksy wisdom that viewers could believe a miracle has somehow resurrected Mr. Twain to tell one more story or two. One story tells about the night Twain got lost in a hotel searching for a bathroom, dressed only in a nightshirt. "I looked like an envelope with no address on it." Another tells about the politician who could talk for a whole week "without getting rid of a single idea." He says there once was a comely young lady with a disposition so gentle that if you had something she wanted, you could have it. During his performance, Holbrook wears a white suit, falls asleep, loses his train of thought, teeters across the stage between a desk and a podium, smokes a cigar (a habit Twain began at age nine), and coughs up anecdotes about a woman with a glass eye who lent it to another woman and about a missionary couple eaten by cannibals who later apologized to grieving relatives, claiming the meal was an accident. Holbrook went on to a distinguished career in motion pictures and television after his one-man show, first performed on Broadway. But he never did anything better than Mark Twain Tonight. That is not to say that his later work was weak; it is to say that his performance as Mark Twain was so strong that it was impossible to top it. Because the material in the production is timeless -- and Holbrook's performance nearly perfect -- Mark Twain Tonight will remain fresh and relevant for as long as people enjoy good stories and good storytellers.