For those who saw it in the 80s it is worth watching again now it's on DVD and Encore. Yes there are some faults but it's still very very entertaining.The good points: Orry Main - Patrick Swayze delivers a convincing impassioned performance that shows he was really a great actor. He really carried the show. His friendship with George Hazzard is touching and quite inspiring. The sometimes too obvious storyline does bring one through all the major events leading up to and through the Civil War. The on location filming in South Carolina is quite beautiful. The dramatic confrontations and exciting moments even if contrived in origin are pretty exciting.The faults: Yes there are some really cringe inducing bad guys and gals who are so one dimensionally evil for no apparent reason that they are laughable. There is the totally insane Elkanah Bent played with an over accented Philip Casnoff. Then we have the fanatical and annoying abolitionist Virgilia Hazzard played by a pretty demented looking Kirstie Alley. Don't forget the inexplicably evil Ashton Main played by Teri Garber doing a comical Scarlett O'Hara imitation. She must have prepared for the role by watching Gone With the Wind over and over again. Lesley Anne Down plays Madeline Fabray La Motte but her ample figure and East End London hair do make her demure protestations seem fake. The saintliness of Constance Hazzard is nauseating.Despite all the faults and sometimes painfully obvious dialog, it's still a fantastically fun watch and I think the best way to deal with the bad parts is to laugh at them like comic relief. So it's actually a grand sweeping historical drama with an inadvertent comic theme built in. They don't make them like this anymore.

I hope God will save us from crap like this in the future. This one is made in the worst possible American tradition where you can only see good people and bad people. Not to say extremely good people and extremely bad people. And in a well known and just incredibly ignorant and foolish typical American way - people are born this way - good and evil. It has not got much to do with the surrounding society. Jesus! You do not know whether to laugh or cry at this monstrous soap opera. Definitely one of the worse ever made. And talking about bad acting. Lesley-Anne Down must have set an invincible record here. And unbelievable parts like the one Terri Garber makes, makes the whole casting even more ridiculous.

This is the best movie I have ever seen. It has it all tragedy and happiness love and hate. And a deep friendship that not even war can destroy.The most splendid casting I have ever seen. Patrick Swayze and James Read were top grade in this movie.If you see part 1 you will want to see it all. Some of my friends watched part of the movie at my home then went out and bought the movie.I am a civil war buff but this movie got my grandchildren interested in history. Any movie that can get children to learn history is great. I have Books I, II & III and when the girls come up from Florida each year they want to see North & South.

It felt like this series was longer than the Civil War. We got the DVD mainly to observe the progress of Georgina of Upstairs/Downstairs (Lesley-Anne Down). She didn't disappoint and proved to be the best thing about the series. The major problem lies in the fact that the plot strains credulity to such an extreme as to become laughable. The two leads Patrick Swayze and James Read are competent given the impossible tasks they are required to perform and the sappy dialogue they are too often burdened with. Who can accept the following plot lines: A South Carolinian and Pennsylvanian become buddies at West Point while confronting a demonic and sadistic upper-classman named Bent, played with irritating histrionics by Philip Casnoff. After they manage to get the monster dismissed from the academy, our two Lieutenants go to the Mexican War where their nemeses is now their Captain? This series features the greatest number of chance meetings of major characters, often in the midst of battle, than any series in television history. Orry Main (Swayze) is severely wounded in Mexico while George Hazard (Read) survives unscathed, a feat they would repeat in the Civil War where both are called to serve as generals on opposite sides? How these two lieutenants rate such promotions is never explained? Then we see the two generals riding alone at night confronting each other and withholding fire when recognizing each other in the dark and sitting down to chat about the war? Orry later frees George from a Richmond prison, puts him in a canoe alone in his Yankee uniform to paddle back to union lines where he miraculously arrives in time for Christmas Eve at home? Two Main and two Hazard family members meet in the turmoil of the bloody battle of Petersburg and all manage to survive while hundreds die all around them. At the end of the war they all arrive safely at Mount RoyalPlantation to apparently live happily ever after. Too bad it didn't end there. Unfortunately, Book 3 titled "Heaven and Hell" provided little heaven in a murderously hellish script. When I saw a DVD photo of George and Orry's wife Madaline (Down)in a affectionate embrace, I thought does George cheat on Constance, does Madaline cheat on Orry? The author preserves their honor by bringing the arch villain Bent back from the dead so he can sadistically murder Orry and George's wife in the first episode of book 3. For Orry to survive all his horrific battles and die at the hands of a lesser man will not endear many viewers. One should be suspicious of the final book when so many of the original players, including Swayze (you don't see his face in his final scene), failed to reprise their original roles. To have Bend kidnap Charles Main's (Kyle Chandler)son and then walk into a barn where the boy's father is sleeping is another in a long list of unlikely encounters. It goes downhill from there and George and Madeline should not feel comfortable in their final embrace since evil sister-in-law Ashton (Terry Garber), who made Scarlett O'Hara look like a Sunday school teacher, is still lurking in the wings. Too bad the author didn't hang her alongside Bent as she surely deserved the same fate as poor over-zealous abolishonist Virgilia (Kristie Alley). I suggest you enjoy the first two books and skip the third. It's a passable Civil War history if you ignore the totally implausible adventures of the leads. It was nice seeing old pros James Stewart and Robert Mitchum in cameos. Sadly, they both died on the same day after the series was made. Worth watching if only for the performances of Simmons, Down, Alley and Garber who act rings around the men. I felt that this Wolper production was not up to the standard of his previous "The Thorn Birds."