Customer Reviews

Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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.

Don't get me wrong: it's great to finally have this series available on DVD with some great extras thrown. But as a previous reviewer mentioned, the video quality is subpar -- very contrasy and the whites are too bright. Wish they could have done a better transfer than this.

As for the content: if you've seen this series on PBS or Showtime or read the book, you know what a great story and set of characters we have here. I used to live in San Francisco, and Armistead Maupin really captured the City and character types so well. It actually makes me kind of homesick when I watch this series -- it's that good. The cast is outstanding all around, but Laura Linney really anchors this series. It's no suprise that she went on to do bigger projects.

This is the most feel good series on DVD, it is the closest thing to comfort food for your mind and heart. After seeing the first VHS tape of this series, I went out and bought all six of the Tales books. They were good reading when I went out to sea onboard USS Kitty Hawk. I even got other sailors to read them. Of course life at sea can be so boring you'd read the label on a bottle of GP cleaner. I finally saw the whole series when we returned from cruise. I got hold of a fourth generation copy of the series on VHS, since it was out of print at the time. I watched them on my duty day onboard the ship. By the last tape we had quite a crowd watching. It will be nice to finally see a quality copy of the series. I already own More and Further Tales on DVD. I would recommend this and the other series to anyone, although I feel the cast in this series was the best.

Having watched Tales of the City since it's original airing in 1994 on tape, the DVD is a welcome replacement.

The package from Accorn Media is extremely well done and offers lots of extras.

The video quality is very good and exceeds the quality of my off air copies by a long shot. One can see the different film speeds on the DVD, where as on video, you don't due to the so, so resolution of VHS.

I like how they kept the three episodes seperate, like the original series, sans the American Playhouse intros. I liked the special features, especially the behind the scenes footage and the shots of the set being built for the first time. It's interesting to see how the set was constructed, much like a real place along with commentaries by Armistead, Laura Linney and Barbera Garrick etc.

But most of all, I enjoy the story tremendously and have the entire 6 book series in paperback to read at my leasure. Armistead's writing is supurb and I like how the first book was adapted, almost verbatim to the small screen - a rare feat in any case. I love the shots of San Francisco, how the story tells of the 4 main residents (a straight female orig. from Cleveland, a lesbian/dyke/former hippie/fag-hag, a gay male and a womanizing straight guy) of the fictional 28 Barbary Lane apartment and their Landlord, Anna Madrigal (a transexual male to female) and how they all struggle to make a family unit out of their shared experiences living there. I also like how the other characters, especially the Halcyons, who own an ad agency in San Franciso intertwine within the story and the trials and tribulations of Dee Dee Halcyon Day and her arrogant husband Beauchump. While the characters are both gay and straight, Armistead, who's gay himself didn't write just for a gay audience, but for ALL audiences.

I won't go into all the details but suffice it to say, it's a great addition to one's DVD library and is all contained on 3 DVD's in a fold out case.

Very well done in all respects.

This is storytelling at it's best. There are so many storylines that are tied in together. I was born in 78, so I couldn't say whether or not it was a realistic representation of the era and the place, but it seems fairly realistic. There are just so many interesting characters.
Having said that, this isn'ta show for children. I love it and would certainly recommend it to otehrs

Comparing the 'Tales of the City' production to almost any other film production is like comparing a Monet or a Pissarro to Andy Warhol's soup cans. It's not that Warhol's work isn't good, it's that it shrieks at you whereas Monet seduces your senses. The pacing and cinematography of 'Tales' is sublime. As someone who spent a good deal of time in 'The City' during the sixties and seventies (I worked there during those years), I can say that this production allowed me to virtually 'smell' the air there. If you've never been to San Francisco and want to get a 'sense' of 'The City', watch 'Tales'. If you live in San Francisco you know what I mean.

It's not often that a movie or any filmed version of a book is so true to the written page. 'Tales of the City' is. Almost frighteningly so. The filmmakers captured almost everyone as the way I read them - which is really odd when you think about it. But I guess Maupin did a good job of creating characters and scenes that could be translated to video.

The cast is great. Truly gifted and cohesive - which became a problem w/'More Tales of the City' and 'Further Tales of the City'. I found you couldn't replace Chloe Webb as Mona. She *was* Mona. Just as Paul Gross *was* Brian and Marcus D'Amico *was* Mouse. The replacements for the aforementioned actors seemed very 2nd rate. At least Laura Linney and Olympia Duakis stayed on - but in my mind the sequels were a lost cause.

The other actors here are great almost too many to mention, but I will for Barbara Herrick as DeDe and Parker Posey as Connie Bradshaw - both really stand out.

I got 'More Tales...' as a gift a few years back. I will get 'Tales...' as a gift to myself. It's worth owning.

This DVD is promoted as "unedited." However, it is the same version as originally shown on PBS which WAS edited for language. Those replacement dubs of certain 4-letter words remain in this DVD. (When this original series was shown on Showtime a couple years ago, some scenes were shortened, but the actual 4-letter language was intact.) Why couldn't we have had it all?

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.