SpuffyWeb
Sadly Over-hyped
Rijndri
Load of rubbish!!
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
bkoganbing
If Margaret Mitchell were writing Gone With The Wind today I daresay it would have wound up a mini-series like North And South. The Seventies and Eighties were the decades for the television mini-series. Two of them, this one and The Blue And The Gray are Civil War epics and both concentrate on the struggles of two families each on the other side of the great divide of the 1860s.One of the things I liked about the series it showed very clearly the difference in development of the sections. The North gradually got rid of slavery nearly all states had slaves at one point, but slavery doesn't work in an industrial society where workers develop some skills and hence have to be paid for those skills. Not much skill in being an agricultural laborer. But the south was following the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson who saw evil in an industrial society and they stubbornly refused to develop industry. Whereas the North followed Alexander Hamilton's emphasis on manufacturing. The South produced some great military leaders, but was overwhelmed by the North's industrial machine.The Hazards were an industrial family in Pennsylvania, ironmongers from the Lehigh Valley. The Mains were a family of southern planters from South Carolina. Two sons of these families James Read from the Hazards and Patrick Swayze from the Mains become the best of friends at West Point and serve in the Mexican War together. Their comradeship endures because of that common bond though it gets severely tested because of the issue of slavery which is splitting the whole country not to mention whole families. Read and Swayze represent the best in a tradition from both sections, each acknowledges their weakness and each ready to defend their section when the crisis comes.An impeccably cast group of players brings to life the characters of the period. Some name guest stars like Gene Kelly and Robert Mitchum have small roles. So do Johnny Cash as John Brown and Hal Holbrook as Abraham Lincoln.Ironically both men have sisters that are the most radical and dangerous in their families. They also have the juiciest roles in the mini-series. Terri Garber is Swayze's sister and Scarlett O'Hara was Mary Poppins next to her. But Scarlett despite her flirtations and scheming had a great strength of character. Garber's character is one evil vixen as her family learns to their regret.Kirstie Alley is Read's sister and the Hazard family is not sympathy with slavery. But she takes it to the extreme. She's an abolitionist and a feminist something like 140 years ahead of her time. She weds a runaway slave, Georg Stanford Brown from the Main plantation who is later killed at Harper's Ferry. She was as radical as they came from the period. But Brown's death totally unhinges her and she descends to madness. That will be seen in Book Two.In the end as war is upon them the personal friendship endures, but no one knows how this will end. I suspect in 1861 few knew with absolute certainty how it would all end.North And South is what mini-series is all about. So many good ones came out of that era and this is one of the best.
Wendyanneeburke
I've seen this mini series quite a few times. It's rich in its writing , it's casting , it's directing and it gives us one the greatest , most frightening villains; ELKANAH BENT . played with finesse by the amazingly talented PHILLIP CASNOFF, HE is an extremely under rated actor , who , as usual does not disappoint here. This is the first of three miniseries, and to me , this is the best of them this miniseries gives the viewers an idea what people in this time might have been thinking at this most tumultuous time. It caused me to ask many questions for example , why the south was so desperate to hold on to such an inhumane view that was slavery . Of course there was never a reason to enslave our fellow human beings, and this miniseries showed us just how ugly we could get in doing so.the love between orry main and his soul mate Madelaine , was of course the stuff of legends as we were captivated the MINITE Patrick swayze and Leslie Anne Down shared the screen .Book 1, and 2 , are great , but avoid HEAVEN AND HELL .its badly written , , and bares like little resemblance to book one and two . I watched all of it and I found it very dark, poorly cast ) exception s were James read, and Leslie Anne down, and of course Phillip casnoff ,
phd_travel
For those who saw it in the 80s it is worth watching again now it's on DVD and Encore. Yes there are some faults but it's still very very entertaining.The good points: Orry Main - Patrick Swayze delivers a convincing impassioned performance that shows he was really a great actor. He really carried the show. His friendship with George Hazzard is touching and quite inspiring. The sometimes too obvious storyline does bring one through all the major events leading up to and through the Civil War. The on location filming in South Carolina is quite beautiful. The dramatic confrontations and exciting moments even if contrived in origin are pretty exciting.The faults: Yes there are some really cringe inducing bad guys and gals who are so one dimensionally evil for no apparent reason that they are laughable. There is the totally insane Elkanah Bent played with an over accented Philip Casnoff. Then we have the fanatical and annoying abolitionist Virgilia Hazzard played by a pretty demented looking Kirstie Alley. Don't forget the inexplicably evil Ashton Main played by Teri Garber doing a comical Scarlett O'Hara imitation. She must have prepared for the role by watching Gone With the Wind over and over again. Lesley Anne Down plays Madeline Fabray La Motte but her ample figure and East End London hair do make her demure protestations seem fake. The saintliness of Constance Hazzard is nauseating.Despite all the faults and sometimes painfully obvious dialog, it's still a fantastically fun watch and I think the best way to deal with the bad parts is to laugh at them like comic relief. So it's actually a grand sweeping historical drama with an inadvertent comic theme built in. They don't make them like this anymore.
didiermustntdie
liberal rewriting history..a hell lot of dishonest information about the South.but what i 'm concerned is the so called Marxist ideology: if someone is black, poor or stupid then he is honest and respectable.the film presents such stupid mentality as some kind of noble and righteous..people are not equal, although everyone can contribute to the society.we should judge a person according to how much positive effect he/she has on the society, not how much money he has or how much an underdog he has suffered from beingalso, this one compared to GWTW is totally immoral.. too many sex scenes, about every 10 or 15 minutes.everyone is a slut..it's sexually rewriting south tradition