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Fawlty Towers - The Complete Collection

Fawlty Towers - The Complete Collection

List Price: $59.98
Your Price: $44.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Right. I'm going to give you a damn good thrashing!"
Review: Right. If you want to know precisely what you get on this spectacular set, then read on. If you, however, like the element of surprise, then don't read it and just order it and bite your nails anticipating all the fantastic little...oh, just read the bloody thing!

Here is exactly all the wonderful little bits of fun that await you on the Fawlty Towers complete collection on 3 DVDs:

These are features every disc shares: Main menu options - Play all episodes, Episode selection, Scene selection, Subtitles (English, German, French). Special features: Director's Commentary, Helpful Staff (Bios of main cast), Guest Registry (Bios of other cast members), Trailers - French & Saunders, Father Ted, The League of Gentlemen, Wallace & Gromit, and BBC America.
Disc One - 4 Episodes: A Touch of Class, The Builders, The Wedding Party, and Hotel Inspectors. Special Features: Interview with John Cleese (1), A visit to Torquay (Home of Fawlty Towers), Footage of the Fawlty Towers hotel, Customer Service tips (Clips)
Disc Two - 4 Episodes: Gourmet Night, The Germans, Communication Problems, and The Psychiatrist. Special Features: Interview with Cleese (2), Interview with Andrew Sachs (Manuel), How to manage your staff (clips)
Disc Three - 4 Episodes: Waldorf Salad, The Kipper and the Corpse, The Anniversary, and Basil the Rat. Interview with Cleese (3), Interview with Prunella Scales (Sybil), Out-takes, Tips for a successful marriage (clips)

Things I learned from Fawlty Towers:

1. One nail isn't strong enough to hang a giant moose head on your wall.
2. When your car doesent work, sometimes it helps to attack it with a tree branch.
3. If you take a guest breakfast in bed and speak to him and he does not move or speak back to you - he may be dead.
4. A burglar alarm and a fire alarm sound quite a lot alike.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cleese is pure gold!!
Review: From the opening of each episode where you see the rearranged letters of Fawlty Towers, you know you are in for a frantic John Cleese ride!! As Basil Fawlty, proprietor of a run down hotel, with his wife (I Knoow...) Sybil, Polly the artist maid/housekeeper/Girl-Friday, to the annoying guests, the ditzy servant that can barely speak English, and the drunken chef, Cleeves delivers non stop humour that made Monthy Python's Flying Circus fly!!

An absolutely riot and every episode a gem!!! Do not miss this, especially if you are a MPFC fan!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CLASSIC COMEDY AT IT'S BEST!
Review: I bought this collection of episodes just recently. I really enjoyed the comedy in the show. There are some quite amazing things that take place at Fawlty Towers, but it's all good fun. John Cleese is a natural and this show highlights this wonderful man, because he portrays his character very well!
This is good stuff! I highly recommend it- even if you're not familiar with it, because neither was I!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Darkly Humorous
Review: Living a life of quiet desperation is the English way For Basil in this series. It is a dark comedy with slapstick thrown in for the unwary.
Cleese is a comic genius in his role with a supporting cast of characters that combine to make this BBC series one of the funniest.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fun
Review: Unless you're a die hard Cleese fan I'd skip the interviews which are a tad boring and go straight to the good stuff. The firt couple of shows are a little slow but it gets better as it goes along and will soon have you laughing merrily.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "He's From Barcelona"
Review: This series is the funniest TV I've ever seen! My wife generally doesn't get Brit humor. She walks away puzzled over how I could find Python funny.

Fawlty Towers is something else entirely. I made her watch once and she became an instant believer. Between the clever running jokes and John Cleese's brilliant physical humor, I still find myself gasping for breath between belly laughs even after seeing these episodes for the thousanth time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This sitcom is outstanding according to a couple of Brits.
Review: While installing cable for Cox Communications in Orange County California I met many interesting people. At one house I installed for this British couple who could not say enough good things about this show. Once they started talking about Fawlty Towers they could not stop smiling. It was the first time I had ever heard of the show and ever since I could not wait to see them all. So for what this is worth. Buy It!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: the main problem with the audio commentaries
Review: You hear lots of constricted breathing, swallowing, phlegm swishing, slurping of drinks, scratching or other playing with oneself for sometimes minutes at a time, chain smoking sounds, clogged nasal passages, etc. It's truly revolting, and I'm glad I got through them all and plan never to turn the commentaries on again. (This information got lost from my first review attempt.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cleese and comedy never better!
Review: What can I say - simply the best EVER comedy series made! Incredible writing and execution makes Fawlty Towers unparalelled in its comic brilliance. Thank god they never made a third series for fear of spoiling what was already perfect. Although an episode revolving around the Major would have been fun. A great box set although an interview with Connie Booth wouldn't have gone astray. An absolute must have box set for any fan of genuinely brilliant comedy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: excellent comedy... disgusting, revolting audio commentaries
Review: The writing by John Cleese and Connie Booth is excellent. The cast is almost always great: delivery, timing, etc. The humor for some may be an acquired taste (e.g., the negativism and minor violence may turn some people off). Overall, it's very high-quality farce, of a level rarely seen on weekly television!

I'm a big fan of John Cleese, and his interviews are very interesting (informative, analytical, etc.). One disappointment is that Connie Booth was not interviewed.

The directors speak of the simplicity of today's digital editing, but it obviously wasn't used in the production of these DVDs (e.g., to remove the green flashes and other defects; to erase the boom shadows the directors kept pointing out). However, the visual quality is very watchable as is.

MY BIG COMPLAINT is with the AUDIO COMMENTARIES (first six by John Howard Davies, second six by Bob Spiers). After watching the first commentary, I hoped they would fix the audio problems for the second episode; after watching the first six episodes, I hoped someone knowledgeable would improve the sound for the second director -- no such luck. ...

A second problem is that the original audio level is either too low or completely off during the commentaries (maybe so that no personal sounds are missed ;-). The saving grace is that you can have the subtitles on, plus they programmed properly (unlike too many DVDs) so that the remote's audio button works.

In general, I love audio commentaries. I've heard worse content (e.g., when a producer who had nothing to do with creative decisions hogs a commentary, saying nothing more than "isn't that great" about everything). The first director was often lacking information -- following the trend of many poor commentaries where the commentator just wings it, not having seen or thought about the material in years. He had to be censored several times (note the poorly worded apology inserted into the DVD packaging). One memorable inappropriate comment left in, after praising Connie Booth for her writing and other abilities, was when he said the best thing about Connie Booth is her legs. Then during the scene where she goes braless, he was censored for a long period (I wonder what he said). The second director had more information, although sometimes redundant, but his personal sounds were even more disgusting. Blow your nose before you begin, drink without slurping, don't chain smoke and smack your phlegm while you're trying to communicate, and stop playing with yourself!

Despite the problems, the DVD set is worth purchasing.


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