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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 0012569034334 Format: Color, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: January 13, 1993 Running Time: 89 minutes Sales Rank: 1297 Studio: Warner Home Video
Amazon.com: Athol Fugard's Broadway hit was a heartbreaking microcosmic examination of the effects of the racist apartheid policies on both blacks and whites in South Africa. This taped stage production features terrific performances from Matthew Broderick and particularly from Zakes Mokae. Mokae is a waiter in a small tea shop, owned by Broderick's family. He has also been a surrogate father to Harold (Broderick), whose real father is an abusive, hospitalized drunk. Though Broderick dearly loves Mokae, his world is turned upside down by the prospect of his father's imminent return. When Mokae tries to help him prepare for the inevitable, Broderick instead turns his anger on the black worker, unleashing racist vitriol that culminates in a shockingly degrading moment that forever cuts these two friends off from each other. Powerful material that is superbly acted. --Marshall Fine
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - "The way we want life to be...a world without collisions."
This powerful three-character play, set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1950, considers the interwoven relationships of young Harold (Hally), the seventeen-year-old son of the white proprietor of a tea room, and the two African men who have worked there for years. Hally has always considered Sam, the waiter, as a kind of father substitute, looking to him for guidance about the real world, since his undependable, alcoholic father has been living in an institution. When Hally's father is released from the hospital, Hally's fear of the future leads him to turn on Sam, releasing racial prejudice ... Read More
Rating: - Great Performances of a Phenomenal Show
Having seen both this version televised and a live performance of "Master Harold and the Boys", I can't think of a play that has touched me more. It is a truely wrentching look at the effect that prejudice and peer pressure can have on a loving relationshp. The performances in this production are outstanding - a side of Matthew Broderick's talent that will amaze. John Kani as Willie and Zakes Mokae as Sam give equally impressive performances. Highly recommended...but make sure you've got a box of tissues on-hand!
Rating: - Preserving great performances of a heartbreaking drama
This 1984 filming of the most famous South African play preserves the most accomplished work of the adolescent Matthew Broderick and a heartbreaking performance by the great South African actor Zakes Mokae, who played Sam in the first production (at Yale in 1982).Although very, very talkie, and unabashedly a record of a stage work with three actors on a fairly simple set, the film is not visually static. There are many closeups, seemingly more often of reaction shots than of the speaker.
The play is set in 1950, two years after the enactment of apartheid restrictions in South Africa. ... Read More
Rating: - Intruiging Look at Race Relations
Matthew Broderick is outstanding and race relations in South Africa are portrayed in a fresh and most importantly in a way that is neither depressing nor glamorized. Master Harold and the Boys continues to be one of my favorite plays of all time and this version perfectly captures the essence of what the play attempted to convey. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys fine acting and a very important message posed in a new and refreshing way.
Rating: - Master Harold and the Boys
If you need convincing that Matthew Broderick is a fine actor, this is the film you must see.
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