The Blue and the Gray (The Complete Miniseries)

List Price: $27.95 Discount Price: $18.00

Customer Reviews:

Some dramatic moments + Fighting scnenes not so good as other Civil war movies = Worth watching once. [Posted on 2008-04-17]
This movie has some dramatic moments. For example, the scene where Mary was killed by a strayed bullet while her husband was fighting on the front line and survived! The fiighting scnenes are not so good as other Civil war movies such as " God and Generals". The acting is so so. It's worth watching once.

AWESOME [Posted on 2008-06-02]
I am Michelle Mensen's daughter. I am watching this movie at school right now. It is Awesome. It can be very sad at times but over all it is very easy for me to watch it and not fall asleep (That happens a lot!). I say buy this. You won't return it!!

I like it! [Posted on 2008-07-19]
I'm a re-enactor and I watched this miniseries. It isn't very authentic but I like the storys and the actors are good. For colectors of civil-war-movies it does not missing !!

The Complete Miniseries is the one you want [Posted on 2008-07-27]
I first saw the complete miniseries in stores in 2001 when the set came out. The thing that really caught my intrest about it was the fact that it was based on the works of Bruce Catton. This had me returning to look at it, trying to decide if I wanted to spend the money (and believe me, I didn't really have enough money to spend on myself for what this cost at that time). Well, things got settled for me when I ended up getting it for Christmas from my folks.

Now I don't remember seeing the miniseries when it originally aired in 1982. At the time the first part originally aired I was just over a month from my 8th birthday. Though watching it my folks began to remember seeing it back in '82 and suggested maybe I might have seen bits and pieces or maybe it came on after I went to bed. Either way, after getting the DVD set none of that mattered as now I can watch it whenever I please.

Years later I was in my local Borders and in their advirtisement flyer they announced "The Blue and the Gray - Recut." I was excited, wondering what had been left out on the original DVD. That is I was excited until I saw the run time. Something was wrong, it looked too short compared to what I had at home. Was I wrong and it actually was longer? I mean it had been a while since I'd watched things, maybe I was imagining the set at home was longer. But when I checked I came away with 381 minutes versus 296 minutes. Recut? I'm guessing that must mean either editted for folks with a short attention span or the folks at Sony figured no one would have seen the earlier DVD and were counting on over twenty years from the original airing for memories to fade.

There is no way I'd advise anyone to purchase the Recut version as it cheats you out of 85 minutes. Sure, you probably don't get the recap of what's already happened and there's probably only one set of opening and closing credits. But figure all told that eliminates twenty to twenty-six minutes tops. That still leaves plenty cut out. Which you get with the Complete Miniseries set.

The story itself centers around two characters Jonas Steele (Stacy Keach) and John Geyser (John Hammond IV), son of a Virginia farmer. It begins just after John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, as evidenced by a discussion between John and his friend Jonathan, a free black man who lives in a cabin on the Geyser Farm who runs his own pottery buisness. One of four boys in the Geyser family, John is the least intrested in farm work, instead being an artist. This results in his folks allowing him to travel north to Gettysburg where his uncle, his mother's sister's husband, runs the local paper. There John gets his first job as a sketch artist and his first assignment is to attend the trial of John Brown.

It is at the trial that John first meets Jonas Steele, a Pinkerton Detective who earlier in his life used to ride with John Brown. Because of his current life Jonas wants to keep things a bit hush hush as certain individuals wouldn't understand. Seeing John sketch in during the trial he confronts him at a local tavern, explaining how his sketch could ruin his life. Being the understanding sort, John quickly alters the image of Jonas so no one can recgonize him, thus beginning a friendship between the two. After the trial the two travel back to Gettysburg where Jonas is introduced to the Hales, John's uncle and aunt's family. Jonas falls for their eldest daughter, eventually marrying her.

Christmas of 1860 John returns home for the holiday. The talk is of secession, which leads John's sister and her fiancee to get married right then and there as he knows his home state of Mississippi will undoubtedly soon follow suit. During the party the local sheriff and some runaway slave hunters show up. Turns out Jonathan has been harboring a couple of runaways in his cabin. The runaways are taken back, but because Jonathan's a free man he's hanged as his life is supposedly worthless. This leads John to denounce his home and swear he won't fight for the South.

However, John also can't fight for the North either as he can't risk the possibility of firing on any of his brothers, all of whom sign up to fight for the South as do all three of his male Hale cousins. It is thanks to a chance encounter with the newly inagurated Lincoln that John get's his answer to his quandry. Even when he first went to work for his uncle he admitted that he wanted to some day work for a major paper such as Harper's Weekly. Lincoln convinces him the best course of action for someone who can't fight for either side is to become a war correspondent, which results in his getting a job with Harper's.

Jonas, meanwhile, had served as a bodyguard to Lincoln and becomes a scout in the Union Army. His first duty as a scout is during the Battle of First Bull Run (Manassas). As the war progresses he finds himself working for each successive commander of the Army of the Potomac. Sadly, the war transforms Jonas a little in Mary, his wife, is killed during the Battle of Gettysburg. He becomes filled with hate because of it, something he later tells John is what keeps him going. Despite this, Jonas is able to keep doing his job and doing it well. He also cronfronts the very man, now a Confederate Major, who had Jonathan killed.

The Blue and the Gray was the kind of TV miniseries one might have expected in the '80s. Which is to say it was filled with an ensemble cast of some well known stars from the time including Gregory Peck, Rip Torn, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Vaughn, and Julia Duffy. The story itself provides hours of entertainment as it touches on various elements of the war. Some well known such as First Bull Run (Manassas) and Gettysburg. Some lesser known such as the Confederacy's observation ballon made out of womens dresses and folks in Vicksburg having to live off horse and mule meat during the Siege of Vicksburg. In addition to these the miniseires has it's light-hearted moments, such as John's youngest brother sneaking him and their two surviving cousins in the Union army into a barn dance on the Virginia penisula during the fighting or when John and Jonas bet on whether or not John can successfully miss a shot at a Prussian officer when the two duel (John's shot probably causes the guy to wet his pants but he did win the bet).

Is it worth spending more money to get the Complete Miniseries over the Recut version of "The Blue and the Gray?" Well, $7 to $8 gets you another 85 minutes. But more than that, it ensures you see the full miniseries. No scenes are missing so you don't have to ask what you're missing out on. That's certainly worth the difference.

Blue and the Gray Recut version [Posted on 2008-10-28]
I will admit that I didn't understand what the Recut version was. It was purchased to use in my class at school. It will be OK for that; but it leaves out some integral parts if you want to understand the whole story line. I wouldn't recommend it is you want the whole story behind the characters and not just the basic Civil War battle portrayals.

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