Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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61 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must have for history lovers, 28 April 2005
This series is absolutly fanatastic! I saw 2 espisodes 13 years ago and have been searching for it ever since. When I saw it on Amazon UK I had to have it and went out and bought a multi regional DVD player. It was worth every penny I spent. Historicly speaking this series is as accurate as I have ever seen with any other program. The dirctors managed to cover a 60 year period and hit most of the major points. They cover the infancy of nationalism, liberalism,the Balkan probems with which we still live today, the unification of Germany, the influence of Queen Victoria's family on 19th century European history, rise of marxisim and the inablity of the Hohenzollern, Romanovs, Hapsburg royal houses to recognize the signs of change as it was happening around them. The acting is great and the customs are wonderful. Patrick Stewart makes a wonderful Lenin and Curd Juergens is great as Bismark, Gayle Hunnicutt and Charles Kay are fantastic as the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia. After having read so much about the history of these countries, their royal houses and political conflicts it was wonderful to see them come alive in this show.
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39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Splendid overview of the end of the dynasties, 25 Dec 2004
By A Customer
This series was originally shown on BBC TV in 1974, just as I was becoming interested in this particular period of history. I was spellbound by it when it went out, and thirty years later on DVD it remains just as compelling.In a sequence of plays, not strictly inter-connected, it looks at the closing years of the German Hohenzollerns, the Austrian Habsburgs, and the Russian Romanovs. The acting is first-rate, and the attention to historical detail is very accurate on the whole. Barry Foster makes an amazingly lifelike Kaiser Wilhelm, Laurence Naismith (the elder Emperor Franz Josef), Charles Kay (Tsar Nicholas II) are just as good, and there are equally fine performances from Diane Keen as the young Empress Elisabeth, and Gemma Jones as 'Vicky', the ill-fated Empress Frederick. Michael Hordern's narrative introductions set the scene nicely for each without being intrusive, there are various bonus interviews on the last disc, and a booklet full of useful background information as well as notes on each episode and on the major cast.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and Interesting , 19 Dec 2006
I am a history buff and especially enjoy reading about the late 19th and early 20th century of Europe. To my surprise, the historical details covered in this series were amazingly accurate and as comprehensive as one could include in a dramatic series such as this. Usually, great liberties and inaccuracies, including popular myths or simplifications mar these productions, but not this one. Even people only vaguely familiar with the slow flame-out of monarchy in these central and eastern European empires will be entertained and informed by watching this. I would also add that the acting, costumes and sets were very "theatre" like which I found to be quite "up close and personal" in a good sort of way. My only disappointment was the seemingly incomprehensible failure to cover the final days of the Hapsburg dynasty which was relegated to a single line in the last minute or two of the last episode when the German Kaiser asks an aide whether it is true that "the Austrian emperor has fled"? To me, unlike the overthrow of the German and Russian dynasties, the demise of the Austrian monarchy was a real tragedy. The collapse of Austria-Hungary, unlike the other two empires, resulted in the creation of innumerable small countries unable to defend themselves now against the predatory Nazi and Communist neo-imperial neighbors that followed within a decade. The last Emperor of Austria was a quiet reformer who, had he been given a chance, would have redeemed the failings of the ancien regime of his great uncle and perhaps avoided nearly a century of misery and domination by Germany and the Soviet Union that followed. Unlike the German Kaiser or Tsar Nicholas, who constantly held out against their ministers cries for reform, Kaiser Karl of Austria was on the leading edge of real reform within the Austrian empire which came, alas, too little and too late. This would have been a contrast and an interesting and largely unknown topic for this series to explore. The collapse of the Romanovs is well known to the world due to the assasination of the imperial family, but Americans and most Europeans have scant knowledge of the reason for the "power vacuum" left in the wake of the collapse of a very genial and benign Austria. As Voltaire once said about the Hapsburg empire, "if it did not exist, it would have to have been invented". Its collapse and disintegration proved the truth of Voltaire's words.
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