The Dick Cavett Show - Comic Legends
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bobby Rosengarden, Dick Cavett, Rex Reed, Richard Harris, Truman CapoteBrand: Uni
Producer: Tony Converse
Writer: Raymond Siller
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Shout Factory Theatr
Product features:
- 1. The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends Disc 1 - 325:25 2. The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends Disc 2 - 325:25 3. The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends Disc 3 - 325:25 4. The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends Disc 4 - 325:25 Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION Rating: NR Age: 826663016499 UPC: 826663016499 Manufacturer No: D4D30164
Movie Reviews of The Dick Cavett Show - Comic Legends
Movie Review: Great
Summary: 5 Stars
The Amazon staff reviewer (correction: the acerbic Amazon staff reviewer) is as opinionated as I am. And I don't like his opinions. I've watched both the actors and the comics on 2 of the Cavett sets. I preferred the actors (except for comic standouts) because I became glutted on the humor. And here's where Amazon and I part company. The comics set was hilarious. Hope (an older man) was subtle, with an infinite memory (for his own life), and got most of his zingers across with subtle expressions and gestures. He talked funny too. Groucho's interruptions of the Capote interview were negligible, particularly since Capote was given final billing and only on about 15 minutes. Also Groucho did not rail against nudity in films. He just said in his own way that too much exposure dulls your senses and he preferred the real thing. He was lascivious and salacious and delightful. Groucho a prude??? Lucy showed herself as she really is. She was not particularly funny, nor did she try to be. She cussed like a sailor and was arrogant and off-hand and insoucient and hard-knock wise and one of my favorite episodes. It seemed to me (could easily be wrong) that her real personality (sans "Lucy" and a real shock) lost her the audience. No great loss if so. Woody Allen was the truly funny one, he and Bill Cosby, though I get tired of Cosby after a while, and his conceit. Speaking of conceit. Allen had it in truck loads during his first episode, then made a conscious effort to counteract it in his second. I got the impression during his first episode that Cavett (who is witty himself) was actually competing with Allen for jokes, and it brought out the best in him, they were both funny as hell. I'm an Allen fan anyway. I don't like Jerry Lewis. Maybe a better way to say it is I don't like his humor. I can cross my eyes. That doesn't make me witty. But those who do like Jerry Lewis might like his episode because he becomes quite (maudlin) personal and revealing. I guess a little of his schtick punctuating an otherwise serious conversation is funny, relieves tension. Carol Burnett was just a baby and soft and vulnerable and hilarious, this before she became hard and raw in her later years. She and Cavett sang 2 duets. The Smothers Brothers I thought were smug and clannish, Dick seemed affected and conscious of his image, Tom made a few jokes typical of him, but I was disappointed in the brothers, speaking as a big former fan. Jack Benny was interesting, it was a shock to learn that Isaac Stern had asked him to take his place at a concert at the Met or somewhere equal. He really can play. (So can Woody Allen.) I don't remember whether Benny was funny or not, I just remember that I enjoyed listening to him talk. George Burns was a straight man, but still he got a lot of laughs, particularly (as on his radio show in the mid-forties) with his singing and with his jokes about his singing. It was a delight to see the man behind those movies, Mel Brooks (a "motor-mouth"? go eat a lemon), he was funny and creatve and as frenetic as a dozen Robin Williamses. Finally, I liked Bob Hope better without a script that I ever did with one, and why doesn't Amazon hire someone with some sympathy toward their products to review them? I sigh almost didn't buy this because of the Amazon staff reviewer's remarks. I thought it was a great set, funny, tiresomely so, and I expect like the set with actors it will appreciate as time goes by.
Summary of The Dick Cavett Show - Comic Legends
This 4 disc set highlights all of the amazing comedic talents who appeared on the dick cavett show including woody allen lucille ball mel brooks bill cosby groucho marx & many more! Studio: Uni Dist Corp (music) Release Date: 02/21/2006 Run time: 840 minutes840 minutes (that's fourteen hours, including various bonus features). Four discs. Twelve shows. Eleven famous guests. The Dick Cavett Show ? Comic Legends boasts some big numbers, but what it doesn't have, surprisingly, is a whole lotta laughs. The lineup is certainly impressive, from old school stalwarts like Groucho Marx, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, and George Burns to relative youngsters (at least at the time; the shows were recorded from the late '60s to the mid-'70s) like Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, and the Smothers Brothers. But this is not a procession of mirth-meisters coming out and doing five or ten minutes of one-liners and standup shtick. There are no performances, per se; like guests on Leno, Letterman, or any other TV talk show, the "legends" converse with and are interviewed by the host, sometimes by themselves, sometimes in the company of other celebs. This casual format yields decidedly mixed results. Take Groucho. Pushing 80 at the time of the first of his two Cavett appearances included here (in 1969), he's sharp and witty, telling many stories, offering up a few good lines ("I liked Perry Como's singing, when he was awake"), even warbling a song or two. But his '71 appearance, in which he reveals himself to be a testy old curmudgeon, railing against nudity in movies and feminism ("As long as women are willing to take alimony, they have no right to women's lib") and unwilling to cede the limelight to anyone else (Cavett's conversation with author Truman Capote is ruined by Marx's refusal to shut up), is tedious at best. Cavett fawns over Hope, who tells some nice anecdotes but, in the absence of his writers, simply isn't very funny; nor is Lucy, whom Cavett describes as "a tough, hardened showgirl." But Jerry Lewis is a riot, peppering the conversation with his trademark mugging and slapstick and engaging in an entertaining Q&A with the studio audience; Mel Brooks is manic and motor-mouthed; Benny's deadpan routine, including the usual zingers about his age, cheapness, and bad violin playing, is charming; and Cosby, then in his mid-thirties and years away from becoming the sweater-wearing sage of The Cosby Show, is hip and relaxed in the presence of Cavett, who at other times comes off as stiff and ill at ease. Meanwhile, other guests range from veteran actress Ruth Gordon and cheeky film critic Rex Reed to the two sullen young stars of the film "Zabriskie Point," who manage to bring the proceedings to a grinding halt. Bonus features, as is the case with Shout Factory's various other Cavett compilations, include Cavett's new introductions to each show, along with interviews, outtakes, and more. --Sam Graham
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