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Ray Bradbury's Electric Grandmother
Actor(s): Maureen Stapleton, Edward Herrmann, Robert McNaughton
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0079474546109
Format(s): NTSCColor
Label: LCA
Language(s): English Original Language
Manufacturer: LCA
Number Of Items: 1
Product Group: Video
Address: 1981
Publisher: LCA
Running Time: 50unknown-units
Studio: LCA
UPC: 079474546109
Editorial Reviews
Product Description:
Plot Summary for Electric Grandmother, The (1982) (TV) To a family whose children are traumatized by the death of their mother, help comes in a most bizarre way. They receive three pieces, that when joined together, give a recording for an offer for an electric grandmother. They go to a bizarre factory, where they customize their new grandmother, and within a short time, she arrives. The android is equipped with everything needed as a parent and the boys are charmed. The daughter, however, still misses her mother and she bears no welcome for this interloper...
Customer Reviews Average rating - 5.0
Rating - 5 Date: 2008-06-13
Content: As a retired school teacher, I have seen this video once a year for 25 years 5-7 times a day. I would cry every time, every class, every period. My kids thought I was crazy. I think that it is more truly appreciated as we get older, watch our parents and grandparents become older, that the child becomes the parent and vice versa. The story of the grandmother finally breaking through to Agatha is tender and true, but the ending holds the true message of the story....the circle of life. I always found that my high school kids got the message better, above and beyond the quirky grandma with milk pouring from her fingertips, as evidenced in their papers and reviews.
Have you seen the Twilight Zone version? Of course it's in black and white, and doesn't really do justice to the tenderness of Bradbury's tale. Plus it ends when the children leave home, defeating the true beauty of the story by leaving off the grandmother's eventual return. It comes off a bit darker, grandma is stiffer, and of course doesn't come back, bringing with her the sounds and memories from their childhoods.
I'm all for a DVD version. I bet the Educational Service Houses have them; it's still popular fodder for English classes. It is certainly one that needs to be preserved. Maybe we should start playing it in nursing homes now.
Summary: The Ending Holds the Magic
Rating - 5 Date: 2006-03-14
Content: When I heard that Maureen Stapleton passed, I immediately remembered her as her character in this movie. My brother and I watched this movie over and over and over when we were 4 and 7 years old, respectively. It is touching and appropriate, a wonderful, timeless family classic. We later found out that it was filmed at a house in the town where we lived, so any time we drove past the house, we excitedly pointed out the "Electric Grandmother House" to anybody within earshot.
Summary: Must have seen it dozens of times
Rating - 4 Date: 2006-02-16
Content: This is available on DVD now. It's an import, but it's region 0 or NTSC. You can buy it on e-bay from $25-$40.
Just thought you'd like to know!!
Summary: DVD is available
Rating - 5 Date: 2006-01-20
Content: This is an excellent children's movie. I saw it as a child myself when it first came on Nickelodeon (you know, back in the stone age of the 80's?).
Maureen Stapleton plays the "Electric Grandmother" who is a robot bought by an widower inventor for his children. The "grandmother" is extremely caring and friendly and it's hard to accept the fact that she's supposed to be none other than a robot, but anyhow, it's a good film about life and adjusting to new things.
The father decides that his children need a maternal role figure. He goes to a factory where there's an elderly man, who specializes in making "electrical grandmothers." The children choose the eye colors, etc. until they have their very own version of a gradnmother.
After the grandmother is built and sent to live with the children via helicopter, then the eldest child named Abigail decides she resents her new "grandmother," so she acts like a spoiled brat throughout the film; although, you can't blame the character for reacting that way because after all, the child has just lost her mother, but eventually the little girl along with her fellow siblings learns to love her new "grandmother," and sadly, the "grandmother" must be sent away because she's on borrowed time, which is probably symbolic of death, in a sense, and so the eldest child, Abigail gets upset, of course, (who wouldn't she's already lost her mother and now her "grandmother"), so when the grandmother is getting ready to go into her box and leave via helicopter again, the little girl starts running away, visibly upset and then all the sudden a car comes whilring around the corner right before the little girl says to her "grnadmother," "Grandma, I hate you!" Then, the grandmother says, "Abigail!" Then, the grandmother gets run over after trying to prevent Abigail from getting hit, then everyone cries and then, (I cried as a child because I thought "grandmother" was dead) and lo and behold...she's alive!
Eventually, the children grow up and the "grandmother" returns and takes care of them until their old age and the film ends.
I highly recommend this to anyone, who has children, but be forewarned that death is a motif in this film, so it might not be suitable for younger viewers.
It really should be released on DVD because it's a poignant family film.
Summary: Delightful, fun, yet sad--all wrapped into one movie!
Rating - 5 Date: 2005-12-28
Content: "Timothy, Timothy.... never you fear. Trouble won't, trouble you... now that I'm here. I know a secret.... that grandmother's know. Trust me, you'll find it. And help you to grow."
Holy cow. I still remember that darn song! The last time I saw this movie was back in the early 80's as a 5th grader watching HBO. Of course this was back in the times when most cable companies carried only HBO as a premium channel. This movie is so child and family oriented I was suprised just now to find out it was created by Ray Bradbury. It was so happy and touching that I could barely remember any dark aspects of the film. To this day, as a 32 yr old pediatrician, I can still remember those scenes where the grandma would serve milk out of her finger, the three kids growing old at the end of the movie when they're robotic grandmother returns, and even how the grandmother hated her grey hair-- unbeknownst to her this was chosen by the little girl whom she had the most trouble connecting to.
It's so funny, or perhaps tragic in some ways, how these little weird films shown to me by HBO as a child have stuck into my memory This film is one. "The Learning Tree" is another. And finally, the now cult classic "Midnight Madness."
As soon as this film is made for DVD I'm buyin!
Summary: Pure Childhood HBO Nostalgia
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