The Merv Griffin Show - 40 of the Most Interesting People of Our Time
by Various
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DVD details
Actor: Merv GriffinDirector: Various
Brand: Bayside ENT Dist
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Box set, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Special Edition
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 530 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Alpha Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of The Merv Griffin Show - 40 of the Most Interesting People of Our Time
DVD Review: Merv deserves better . . .
Summary: 3 Stars
Prior to becoming an entertainment mogul, the late Merv Griffin was a television talk show pioneer. The Merv Griffin Show ran from 1962 to 1986. With so much material to choose from, putting together a representative `best of' collection is a monumental challenge. The road taken here, selecting the `40 of the Most Interesting People of All Time', is questionable, and probably a bit presumptuous, as the inclusion of some guests is debatable. Still, this collection has some interesting, humorous, and historically significant content.
The three disc collection is arranged as follows: Disc 1 - Greatest Hollywood Legends, Disc 2 - Greatest Comedians, and Disc 3 - Extraordinary Guests. On Disc 3, most of the `extraordinary guests' are political figures, including Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The segments devoted to each guest are generally longer, making this perhaps the most significant disc in the set. Disc 1, does include some of the great Hollywood legends, but the time given to each person is rather brief, and leaves you just wanting more. Guests at the beginning of their careers like Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Christopher Reeve, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tom Hanks, had not yet achieved `legendary' status, but these younger stars (who are middle aged now) were probably included to help with the marketing.
Disc 2 is the shortest in length, and probably has the weakest collection of guests. When you think of great comedians, Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, Billy Crystal and Totie Fields may not be the first names that spring to mind. The editors clearly fumbled the ball here, as they certainly could have added more interviews with other more significant comedians. Didn't stars like Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis, Don Knotts, Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Rodney Dangerfield, or the Smothers Brothers, ever appear on Merv?
While the selection process for this compilation was an immense task, there is little doubt that the editors could have done a better job. This set was reissued in 2007 with a bonus disk, with interviews with John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and Gene Autry. Adding a disc just for three guests, when two of them (Wayne and Reagan) were already featured in the set, calls the judgment of the editors even more into question. For whatever reasons, no further sets of The Merv Griffin Show have been forthcoming, which is a shame, given the hours and hours of great material that is available. Sadly, it appears that The Merv Griffin Show's legacy is not being very well served at all. The used price of this set has dropped big time, so you may be able to get it for a mere fraction of the retail price.
Description of The Merv Griffin Show - 40 of the Most Interesting People of Our Time
As host of his eponymous talk show for nearly a quarter of a century, Merv Griffin said his audience saw him as "every mother's favorite son-in-law." Merv was the man who brought glamour and laughter into America's homes, but didn't shy away from spotlighting serious cultural leaders, controversial figures of the day, or mostly unknowns like Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Cruise. The three-discs of this initial set are filled with almost nine hours of remarkable interviews, including four United States Presidents (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan); Hollywood royalty like John Wayne, Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles; and titled royalty like Princess Grace. Culled from the 5,500 shows and 25,000 guests that appeared on the award-winning, critically acclaimed talk-show during its historic broadcast run, The Merv Griffin Show: 40 Of The Most Interesting People Of All Time. Merv Griffin was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 Daytime Emmys, adding another Emmy to the sixteen he already owns; he also was the sole honoree at the 2005 Museum of Television and Radio Gala, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York attended by more than a thousand industry leaders and celebrities. Provocative, intimate and always entertaining, The Merv Griffin Show: 40 Of The Most Interesting People Of All Time hearkens back to an era when the art of conversation was truly an art!A goldmine of archived interviews with some of the most entertaining and influential people in 20th-century America, The Merv Griffin Show: 40 of the Most Interesting People of Our Time is both a pleasure and an educational resource. Using material gathered from a quarter-century of The Merv Griffin Show (1962 to 1986), this three-disc boxed set captures a number of newsworthy figures in very relaxed circumstances, open and funny, speaking freely about their careers or views on world affairs. Griffin, often kidded by Johnny Carson (whose brother, Dick Carson, directed Griffin's program) for producing what The Tonight Show host often called "Merv's fabulous theme shows," actually looks, in retrospect, like a very capable interviewer who can challenge his guests without the sting of confrontation. Thus, when Griffin asks Richard Nixon in 1967 if running for the presidency a second time won't be difficult because of Nixon's reputation as a "loser," the question doesn't seem provocative so much as probing--yet the effect is the same, i.e., getting Nixon to answer a tough query.
Each interview excerpt feels substantial; there are no quick sound bites here. Among the great moments is frequent guest Orson Welles's last appearance on the show in 1985, taped mere hours before his death. Welles, at 70, speaks of old age and the burden of regret and a stricken conscience. He also reflects on great pain from his career and personal life, without getting specific or maudlin. And, uncharacteristically, he speaks frankly and lovingly about women from his past, including Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich. There's also footage from Griffin's visit with Ingrid Bergman in Cannes, 1973, during the actress' brief reign as president of that year's film festival jury. Absolutely lovely and luminous, Bergman discusses contemporary movies, the end of the star system, and returning to the stage. From 1981 is a pleasant chat with David Niven, virtually co-interviewed by Griffin and chatty, previous guest Robert Blake. Roger Vadim and then-wife Jane Fonda drop by in 1967 on their way to begin production of Barbarella; Grace Kelly, in 1976, destroys the myth of royal idleness while discussing her schedule in Monaco; and Lord Laurence Olivier speaks warmly about his children and playing girls in his early, pantomime roles.
Jack Benny and John Wayne are each honored with lengthy, rich segments, the Duke with a montage of clips from numerous appearances (the best from a black-tie show in New York, where Hollywood's most iconic movie cowboy never seemed more cosmopolitan), and Benny spending an hour telling delightful stories from his movie career. (He adored Ernst Lubitsch, who directed him in To Be or Not to Be.) The world of politics and journalism is represented by Martin Luther King Jr., whose 1967 interview explains principles of nonviolence; Robert F. Kennedy, also from 1967, who articulates the frustration of young people and details America's quagmire in Vietnam; Walter Cronkite, championing real television journalism in the days before cable news; and Gerald R. Ford, who tells an astonishing story about meeting his father--very briefly, only once--during his teens. --Tom Keogh
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