Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free First Class Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
8 new from £4.34
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [1961]
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images

A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [1961]

DVD ~ Sidney Poitier
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.88 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £8.11 (62%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Items for dispatch to UK will be sold by Amazon's Preferred Merchant. (Why?) Gift-wrap available.

8 new from £4.34
Learn about Lovefilm
Amazon's choice for DVD rental.
With a 14 day FREE trial. Learn more

Frequently Bought Together

A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [1961] + Lilies Of The Field [DVD] [1963] + To Sir With Love [DVD] [1967]
Total RRP: £45.97
Price For All Three: £14.64

Show availability and shipping details

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [1961]
71% buy the item featured on this page:
A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [1961] 5.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£4.88
A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [2008]
12% buy
A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [2008] 2.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£5.78
To Sir With Love [DVD] [1967]
8% buy
To Sir With Love [DVD] [1967] 5.0 out of 5 stars (9)
£5.78
Lilies Of The Field [DVD] [1963]
6% buy
Lilies Of The Field [DVD] [1963] 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£3.98
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Actors: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon
  • Directors: Daniel Petrie
  • Writers: Lorraine Hansberry
  • Producers: David Cogan, David Susskind, Philip Rose
  • Format: Black & White, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language English
  • Subtitles: Turkish, Arabic, Czech, Greek, Danish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, Norwegian, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Polish, Swedish
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: PG
  • Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
  • DVD Release Date: 10 Nov 2003
  • Run Time: 123 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0000C24UY
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 13,944 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Reviews

DVD Description
A Raisin in the Sun is a groundbreaking drama celebrating the human spirit, featuring an electrifying performance by Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier (Best Actor, Lilies of the Field, 1963). The Younger family, frustrated with living in their crowded Chicago apartment, sees the arrival of a $10,000 insurance cheque as the answer to their prayers. Matriarch Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil) promptly puts a down payment on a house in an all-white suburban neighbourhood. But the family is divided when Lena entrusts the balance of the money to her mercurial son, Walter Lee (Poitier), against the wishes of her daughter (Diana Sands) and daughter-in-law (Ruby Lee). It takes the strength and integrity of this African-American family to battle against generations of prejudice to try to achieve their piece of the American Dream.

Special Features
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Filmographies

DVD Technical Information:

  • Languages: English, German, Italian
  • Subtitles (movie only): Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish
  • Audio: Mono
  • Aspect Ratio: 1:1.85 Anamorphic Widescreen
  • Black & White
  • Region Code: 2
  • PAL
  • Running Time: 2 hours 3 mins approx.
  • PS2 compatible


See all Reviews

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Lilies Of The Field [DVD] [1963]

Lilies Of The Field [DVD] [1963]

DVD ~ Sidney Poitier
5.0 out of 5 stars (3)  £3.98
A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [2008]

A Raisin In The Sun [DVD] [2008]

DVD ~ Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs
2.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £5.78
To Sir With Love [DVD] [1967]

To Sir With Love [DVD] [1967]

DVD ~ Sidney Poitier
5.0 out of 5 stars (9)  £5.78
In The Heat Of The Night [DVD] [1967]

In The Heat Of The Night [DVD] [1967]

DVD ~ Sidney Poitier
4.9 out of 5 stars (15)  £4.98
The Defiant Ones [DVD] [1958]

The Defiant Ones [DVD] [1958]

DVD ~ Tony Curtis
4.5 out of 5 stars (2)  £5.78
› Explore similar items

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
Check a corresponding box or enter your own tags in the field below
(7)
(3)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "I am a giant, and I'm surrounded by ants.", 29 Jun 2004
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
With perhaps the best cast ever assembled for this play, David Susskind's 1961 production of Raisin in the Sun is a classic film and a landmark achievement during the American civil rights struggles of the early 1960s. Starring a young Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee, Claudia McNeil as his mother Lena Younger, Ruby Dee as his wife Ruth, and Diana Sands as his sister Beneatha, the film closely follows the script of the play, and director Daniel Petrie wisely confines the setting almost entirely to one room, as it is on stage. This intensifies the emotions and interactions of this three-generation family, which share a small, two-bedroom apartment in South Chicago, and makes their longing to break free obvious both visually and emotionally.

Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee is the "giant...surrounded by ants" as he dreams of escaping his job as a chauffeur and investing in a liquor store. Poitier's body language and subtle gestures as he argues about how to spend his mother's ten thousand dollar life insurance check powerfully convey his longings. The close-up of Poitier's slow transition from an insolent and angry young man to a tearful and repentant son in one scene with his mother is unforgettable. Claudia McNeil, as the mother, is stalwart, strong, and full of pride. Ruby Dee, as the devoted wife, trying to decide whether to have an abortion in order to lighten Walter Lee's load, is simultaneously resolute and resigned. Diana Sands, as Beneatha, the agnostic medical student, reflecting the beginning of the "Roots" and "Black Power" movements, provides some comic relief as she practices African "home-from-the-hunt" dances.

At the heart of the play is the issue of discrimination against black people and the limitations on their dreams, and the filming in black and white is appropriate. The small dying houseplant that Lena nurtures remains the major symbol here, as it is in the play, but through the cinematography new symbols emerge. The kitchen cupboard door opens and shuts as family members open and shut themselves to each other and the outside world, and numerous scenes take place between two people with a door in the background, opening and closing as their emotions change. The film quality and its high contrast have withstood the test of time, the sound is good, and the acting, especially as revealed in the close-ups, makes this a classic film, better than any stage version I have ever seen or imagined. Mary Whipple

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great American Classic, 25 Jun 2007
By Jenny J.J.I. "A New Yorker" (That Lives in Northern Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
Some stories leaves a great impression on you and this is one of them. The 1961 film version of "A Raisin in the Sun" reassembled the stage cast, with leading actors Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands as well as Poitier. The plays black director was replaced by Columbia Pictures with a white one, but Hansberry wrote the screenplay adaptation of her own work, saying, "Nobody's going to turn this thing into a minstrel show" (Goudsouzian). Hansberry originally toughened the plays script, adding scenes that emphasized the hopelessness of the ghetto environment, for example, one in which Mama Younger's is overcharged while shopping at an inner-city supermarket and one that shows Walter Lee seeking advice from a white store owner about opening his own business and misinterpreting the businessman's personal frustrations as racism. Columbia rejected this material, as well as eliminating black slang like "bread" for "money," saying that additional polarizing issues lessened the white audience's sympathy for the Younger family. The studio was cautious, because bringing the play to the screen was a financial risk, since there would be no bookings, and no revenue, from the South.

Both the play and later the film version of "A Raisin in the Sun" came at a critical time for black Americans. "In 1960, Negroes were quietly asking for their rights. By 1969, blacks were demanding them. The decade moved from the traditional goal of cultural and academic assimilation to one of almost absolute separatism and the evolution of a black cultural aesthetic" (Bogle). Some critics viewed the play as a "soap opera made successful by American's collective guilt over the Negro Question" (Mapp). But Hansberry's goal was to write about "honest to God, believable, many-sided people who happen to be Negroes" (Leab).

The play touched on universal themes: "marital and generational discord, conformity vs. respect for diversity, struggle for women's rights, idealism vs. cynicism, dangers of misdirected ambition and religion vs. atheistic humanism" (Stevens). Mama Younger rules her family with a potent form of passive aggressive love, smothering her family with her affection, but perhaps failing to teach them how to make independent decisions, precipitating a family crisis. Issues of self-improvement, education, Afro-centrism, parenting, and intra-family bullying releases, in turn, each family member's bottled up rage. The themes in A Raisin in the Sun still resonate, as black Americans continue to search for a middle ground between African heritage and slave-descendant personal histories, and to decide how much to either "assimilate" or to reject the values of white society.

In his autobiography, Producer Philip Rose wrote of Hansberry, "she was brilliant, perceptive, incredibly articulate, well-informed in the literature of the theater, and certainly freely expressive of her very strong opinions." Both the stage and screen versions of "A Raisin in the Sun" were turning points in the way African Americans were portrayed: they appeared, for the first time, as three-dimensional human beings. The dialogue and issues that are discussed reinstate the values upon which America was built. I strongly recommend this excellent film.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A True Classic, 12 Jul 2006
This film is in Black & White but oh, what a great performance from all the acters. Ruby Dee who plays Sidney Poitier's wife was fantastic. We really enjoyed this film. It was real entertainment. Films like this should be on Sky, made available for all to see. A Must in any DVD Collection.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars pure class
Classic, classic, classic. Brilliant story, excellent acting. All the actors in this play live and breathe their respective roles, in fact you will have to search far and wide to... Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2005 by S. Wareham

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
action
Movie where supporting actor outshines lead? 		6 30 minutes ago
drama
Greatest U.S. tv series? 		131 35 minutes ago
drama
Favourite music or song from a film. 		44 36 minutes ago
drama
worst film you've ever seen ? 		395 46 minutes ago
action
Goriest ACTION movies... 		1 6 hours ago
classics
tv series 		0 1 day ago
classics
British Police film. 		12 6 days ago
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

Fun for Everyone

Christmas Gifts
Achieve over 15,000 RPM with our great range of Powerballs.

›Shop the Powerball store

  

Make A Wish

Get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk Wish List Make sure you always get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk Wish List.

›More info on Wish Lists

  

We've Got Converse

Converse
Stock up on your favourite styles with great deals on Converse shoes.

›Shop Converse

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4.5 out of 5 stars (75)£3.86
 Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
4.1 out of 5 stars (464)£6.49
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4.1 out of 5 stars (165)£3.99
 The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
4.2 out of 5 stars (82)£3.86

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates