Backstairs at the White House
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DVD details
Actor: Leslie Nielsen, Leslie Uggams, Louis Gossett Jr., Olivia Cole, Robert HooksCinematographer: Robert L. Morrison
Editor: Paul LaMastra
Editor: Roy E. Peterson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 444 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-11-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Acorn Media
DVD Reviews of Backstairs at the White House
DVD Review: White House in the open!
Summary: 4 Stars
A thoroughly enjoyable peek at White House protocol , famous people, and the ones backstairs. I am taking my time viewing each tape, for it has much to offer.DVD Review: Backstairs at the Whitehouse
Summary: 5 Stars
I have waiting so long for this wonderful mini seris . I am a history buff, and when it was shown on TV many years ago, I could not wait til the next night to watch. I was hoping it would never end. To get the view point of life in The White House thru the eyes and life of two maids, mom and daughter and seeing how life was back then was fasinating to say the least. Besides the fact it is based on a true story. I recomend the movie to anyone who enjoys a great true story and or history.DVD Review: IRRESISTIBLE
Summary: 5 Stars
WONDERFUL MOVIE, GREAT ACTING AND ACTORS. GREAT PERSPECTED ON THE GOINGS ON IN LIVING QUARTERS OF THE WHITE HOUSE.GLOWS WITH WARMTH,HUMOR AND TENDERNESS.....DVD Review: Backstairs at the White House
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm sure it's a wonderful movie but I had to return it,due to the fact that it is a 4-disc set and one of them was missing.DVD Review: Wow- the time is now!
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this series on PBS back in the days (it was made in 64?) Anyway, i re-acquainted myself with it and ordered it in time for Obama's inauguration. This is a story of a 'family' in any sense who worked at the White House. The woman its mainly about worked through 8 presidents as a maid and eventually became a supervisor and her daughter worked there as well and wrote her biography. It covers so much history, from World War I, through the swinging 20's in to the Great Depression, FDR and through to JFK Inauguration. It focuses on the African Americans who served behind the scenes for the most part in keeping the President and his families secrets and caring for them through some of the most difficult adminstrations and times in American History. From when discrimination was still rampant and the 'hired help' had to come in the backdoor and not be seen.
The cast is the best! Leslie Uggams, Louis Gossett Jr (with hair!) and many others. I think PBS should bring this series back again.
Description of Backstairs at the White House
The classic miniseries about two remarkable women and the eight First Families they servedTheir unrivaled behind-the-scenes access gives White House staff a uniquely personal view of history in the making. Two remarkable women in one family served as White House maids over a period spanning five decades and eight administrations-from Taft to Eisenhower. Their story and a half-century of American history unfold in this star-studded drama, nominated for 11 Emmy? Awards.
From the golden age of television miniseries comes this prestigious 1979 production based on Lillian Rogers Parks's memoir, My Thirty Years at the White House, a real-life American Upstairs/Downstairs that chronicles her family's tenure on the White House servant staff through eight presidential administrations. Emmy nominee Oliva Cole stars as Maggie, a proud matriarch with "indomitable spirit and unfailing spunk," and who is determined that her children "are not going to have street ways." She becomes the first colored maid on the presidential family floor, beginning with the William Howard Taft administration. Her polio-stricken daughter, Lillian (portrayed as an adult by Leslie Uggams) eventually joins her during Herbert Hoover's administration and likewise rises through the ranks to to become a trusted confidante of the First Families.
Backstairs at the White House works on several levels. It is the inspiring personal story of two extraordinary women who had a unique and privileged perspective of the people and events that shaped the first half of the 20th century. It also presents vivid snapshots of the presidents and their families in all their quirks (Mrs. Taft felt that bearded servants brought bad luck), failings, and greatness, as well as such now-obscure personages as New York critic Alexander Woolcott. The stellar cast is comprised of stage and screen veterans and TV favorites. Robert Vaughn (as Woodrow Wilson), Celeste Holm (as Florence Harding), and Ed Flanders (as Calvin Coolidge) were nominated for Emmys, as was Roots costar Louis Gossett Jr. as houseman Levi Mercer. Also notable are a pre-Airplane Leslie Nielsen as chief White House usher Ike Hoover, Cloris Leachman as the chilly supervising housekeeper Mrs. Jaffray, Victor Buono and Julie Harris as reluctant president William Howard Taft and his more formidable wife "Nellie," Eileen Heckart as energetic Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry Morgan, giving 'em hell as Harry Truman. Backstairs at the White can be melodramatic ("You're not married to me, you're married to the White House," Lillian's estranged husband tells her at one point), but it never descends to soap opera. The Emmy-winning makeup is convincing, and the Emmy-nominated screenplay does an admirable job of compressing more than 50 years of history. "What is heard within the walls of the White House is to be forgotten," Maggie is instructed early in her employ. Luckily, daughter Lillian ignored this directive to create a compelling document that puts a human face on the occupants of the real West Wing. --Donald Liebenson
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