Great Performances (TV Series) Our Town (1989) User Reviews

Quite possibly the best version of this play ever filmed.

[WendyOh! · 10/10 · 2 December 2000]

I've seen the William Holden version, and the Robby Benson version, but this OUR TOWN is by far the best. This is the filmed version of the Tony award winning broadway play, filmed simply on a bare stage in New York city, and it really works well. Our school used it as a template for our production! Featuring stellar performances from Spalding Grey, Eric Stoltz and Penelope Miller, this piece will move you and make you laugh- there's a reason this is an American classic. Watch it with your family..

The most full blooded version of Our Town yet.

[ph-25 · 29 March 2004]

Every once in a while you see a drama that reminds you that most theater and film is very superficial. This 1989 version of Our Town has all the resonance of the 1940 film with an extra dimension of emotion. Spaulding Gray as the stage manager, Eric Stoltz, Penelope Ann Miller are all perfect from minute one. The film was more juvenile and here they are sexual. And the other characters are not so cardboard small town. Their repressions are very real. It took till Jan. 1991 for WNET to broadcast it and it is very expensive to purchase but very much unforgettable and worth it.

Amazing.

[karen-128 · 10/10 · 2 July 2001]

This is just a great great filmed version of a great great play. Watching it was amazing because I've seen this play so many times, and yet for some reason they found a new better way of doing it. Spalding Grey is an inspired choice for the Stage Manager, he's sharp and prickly and much darker than the old friendly guy who usually plays this part. And Penelope Anne Miller and Eric Stoltz as Emily and George are just fantastic, I was very moved by the famous 'soda fountain scene', that if done poorly can ruin the play. The third act with the dead was very moving, I just can't say enough good things about this version of Our Town. Track it down, you won't be sorry.

The Best Version of This Play

[mrtrevenen · 10/10 · 1 December 2006]

Until I saw this version of Our Town I did not really understand the power of Thorton Wilder's play. This version contains real people and not characters lifted from cloying greeting cards. The cast is excellent. When Dr. Gibbs dresses down his son for ignoring the chores, we understand why George cries. We see unstated confusion and conflict between the doctor and his son regarding his mother and then marital tension, loving tension, between the Gibbs when the mother comes home. Penelope Ann Miller elicits the pathos of seeing the ones she loves who do not understand what she now understands about life. Spaulding Gray is quirky and purposefully detached from the characters of the play he is supervising. He is at his best when he lays out the town in the first act description. His use of his hands is excellent.

An Absolute Gem of a Production!

[Gavno · 10/10 · 13 June 2004]

SPOILERS WITHIN!!!

Working as a second shift engineer at a PBS station has it's compensations... and the WNET production of Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN is one of them!

The night that we aired it I didn't get a whole lot of other work done; it grabbed me from start to finish, and I stayed married to my console and program monitors all the way through.

This version has more guts than the 1940s movie version in that it's much more true to Wilder's original intent. This version doesn't "chicken out" on the ending and spare Emily's life. I always considered the Hollywood ending to be an unforgivable act of cowardice.

I've seen the play many times before, but this production startled me in it's final act with a single bit of stagecraft.

The sequence featuring Emily's funeral... mourners singing around the grave. Emily's sudden appearance as she leaves the world of the living is unexpected, and ELECTRIFYING! It's the slickest handling of this part that I've ever seen, anywhere!!!

The following sequence with her as the new arrival to the graveyard, and her attempts to relive the best day of her life are BEAUTIFULLY handled. The performances are absolutely riveting.

I'd STRONGLY recommend this performance for introducing teenagers to the dramatic stage... if it's possible to get use rights, it would make an EXCELLENT classroom teaching tool, especially that amazing final act.

If you get the chance to see this performance DO SO!!!

Best screen version

[walterkuciej · 10/10 · 22 February 2018]

I've seen them all, and agree with the Thornton Wilder Society that this is the best version of the play, most authentic to what Wilder had in mind, and with a magnificent cast.

Even better than 1977

[davidrpowell · 16 May 2007]

As an American literature teacher, I always loved the 1977 public television version of Our Town. Hal Holbrook is just as good as the Stage Manager as he was as Mark Twain, although there are a few places where he sounds like his Mark Twain. Nonetheless, this 1989 version, now offered as a tandem with the earlier version, is absolutely wonderful, just like Emily's moonlight. It is closer to Wilder in that there is just the called-for props. But the emotional edge that Spalding Gray brings to it and the acting across the board is perfect. I know this play backwards and forwards, but I agree with the previous reviewer that the soda fountain scene is sheer emotion and sure to bring some tears to the eye. Sadly, a lot of modern American literature books are no longer including the play in order to be more culturally diverse (with great plays like A Raisin in the Sun), but we need to keep this play alive and use these excellent videos (both offer an interesting comparison for students to consider).

Uneven but generally good adaptation

[rpniew · 6 April 2004]

Penelope Ann Miller is without a doubt the best Emily recorded .. and that is against some pretty heavy competition. Eric Stolz is a little shaky in the beginning; he doesn't play the juvenile George as well as the adolescent George, but it is not an easy part to play. Spalding Gray has his moments as the Stage Manager, but the part should really be played a little more sympathetically -- this is our guide through the play and the town and we should feel an affinity for him. He is too distant and stiff for the part. The underplaying, for a change, of Simon Stimson is a relief and an excellent choice; instead of angry and bitter, he is sad and hopeless -- one feels a bit more sympathetic toward him. The biggest miscalculation in the film is the portrayal of Dr. Gibbs. Wilder did not intend for Dr. Gibbs to be portrayed as small-minded and controlling, and stated as much. Just because Mrs. Gibbs would like to see more of the world does not mean she is a trapped, manipulated housewife. But playing Dr. Gibbs as a man ready to flare up into a temper changes the whole outlook of the play. If people were that cruel and small-minded, why would Emily want to return? (I realize we are talking about George's parents, not Emily's, but it is all part of the overall portrayal of the town.) I am looking for a perfect rendition of the play, and this is not it. (Neither, by the way, is the much-celebrated Paul Newman version, which inexplicably drops entire speeches and comments that are quite important to the play's theme.)

spalding gray is supposed to be talented?

[bbraat · 27 August 2004]

i've never seen spalding gray act before. i don't know how he was in other movies but he was HORRIBLE in this role. his phrasing made little sense, breaking lines up in bizarre places. he seemed to break lines up whenever he needed a breath rather than for any specific purpose. any mediocre actor would have given a better performance on a first reading through the script. "our mountain"? "our town"? he delivered the lines as if he had no connection with the town at all. perhaps someone should have woken him up before the performance. perhaps the director could have gotten him to stop mumbling. didn't anyone realize that they were given this incoherent boob the biggest, most crucial role in the play?