Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection [Special Edition] [3 Discs]

Fawlty Towers: Comp. Coll.(3pc)

Overview

A delightfully manic comedy about an ill-mannered innkeeper, created by and starring `Monty Python' alum John Cleese and his then-wife, Connie Booth. Inspired by a real-life hotelier, the series won legions of fans as soon as it premiered on the BBC in September 1975. A second series of six episodes ran in February 1979.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/20/2009
UPC:	0883929094615
Original Release:	1975
Rating:	NR
Source:	Bbc Warner
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Full Frame]
Language:	English
Time:	6:14:00
Sales rank:	812

Special Features

Exclusive Commentary by John Cleese; 2009 Extended Interviews - Includes Exclusive Interview with Connie Booth; Accompanying booklet; Interviews with John Cleese, Prunella Scales and Andrew Sachs; ; Series 1 Director's Commentary by John Howard Davies; Series 2 Director's Commentary by Bob Spiers; Artist Profiles; Outtakes; Torquay Tourist Guide (Short Documentary Film); Cheap Tatty Review

Editorial Reviews

While working with Monty Python, John Cleese stayed at a hotel in the British coastal resort town of Torquay whose manager was "wonderfully rude," meaning that when Cleese asked him what time the next bus out of town was, the manager threw the bus schedule at him and told Cleese to look it up himself. This manager also threw Eric Idle's suitcase into the street, believing it was a bomb after Idle left it unattended for a moment, and repeatedly chided the table manners of American Pythoner Terry Gilliam. This "wonderfully rude" character left such an impression on Cleese that he sat down with his wife and writing partner Connie Booth and created Fawlty Towers, a comedy about the world's most obnoxious hotel manager, in a seaside resort town in Britain. The show only ran for 12 episodes on the BBC, two six episode stints in 1975 and 1979, and Fawlty Towers has become one of the most widely recognized and admired British TV programs of all time. The British Film Institute recently ranked it as the best British TV program ever. Cleese starred as Basil Fawlty, the overbearing, xenophobic, cosmically rude hotel manager, Prunella Scales played his faithful gossipy wife Sybil, and Andrew Sachs played the dimwitted, endearing Spanish waiter Manuel, whose poor grasp of generally everything -- including English -- causes Basil interminable grief. Fawlty Towers combined the best of Britcoms: a dry wit, a healthy sense of absurdism, and a streak of bawdy humor and bodily function jokes that normally make American TV producers cringe. Fawlty Towers's legacy is very sturdy today on all sides of the Atlantic, and should be a welcome sight for anyone whose grown weary of the repetitive state of sitcoms today.