The Charles Dickens Collection (Oliver Twist / Martin Chuzzlewit / Bleak House / Hard Times / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend)

The Charles Dickens Collection (Oliver Twist / Martin Chuzzlewit / Bleak House / Hard Times / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend)
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/27/2005 Rating: Nr
Customer Review: serious problems
There is a reason that so many after market retailers here on amazon have these at a steep discount. In my case, three of the six DVDs refused to play on my high end, very expensive Onkio DVD player. Of those three, one refused to play on my Dell computer. The remaining reminded me of a joke told to me by a Stanford Ph.D. mathematician-philosopher. The tools of a mathematician are pencil, paper, and waste paper basket. The tools of a philosopher are paper and pencil. These stories were originally serials in magazines. Dickens had to submit so many words on a scheduled basis and did not have a firm ideal of where the story was going. This is in sharp contrast to Kipling who would take his finished work and make several passes of cutting out whole sentences to compact the story down to a fast paced adventure. Dickens did not do this when the stories were published in book form. These programs are very long winded. They could have been easily edited down to 1/2 of their length without losing any of their content.
Customer Review: Dickens, Dickens and More Dickens
Anyone who likes the novels of Charles Dickens would, I believe, like this series. Anyone familiar with the BBC productions of the Dickens' novels would like this series. Anyone curious about 19th century English society would like this series. And lastly, anyone who just likes to see a good story well acted would like this series.