East Of Eden (1981/TV Mini-Series/Acorn Media DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C-     Episodes: C

 

 

Some literature should be left alone and unlike the James Dean/Elia Kazan film from 1955, this 1981 TV Mini-Series version of John Steinbeck’s East Of Eden (1981) plays more like a sappy melodrama and nighttime soap opera than literary adaptation.  Jane Seymour (escaping her Bond Girl image) stars along with Warren Oates, Karen Allen, Howard Duff, Anne Baxter, Richard Mazur, Lloyd Bridges, M. Emmet Walsh, Timothy Carey, Hart Bochner, Timothy Bottoms and Sam Bottoms, so you have a good cast.

 

However, at 382 minutes (!!!), this just goes on and on and on and on and on.  It also seems aimed more at a female audience than a male one and that is more obvious now than it might have been when it did decent ratings in its time.  If you like the cast and/or the book and are curious, you might want to check it out, but I would skip it otherwise.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is fuzzy and throughout with poor color and does not do justice to the hard work of Director of Photography Frank Stanley (Magnum Force, 10, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Grease 2) especially considering there is some money on the screen here.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is also down a generation or so, hurting the dialogue and score by Lee Holdridge.  The only extras include interviews and text on some of the cast as filmographies and text on Steinbeck.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo