Lee Novak I saw this Great series when it first aired. NICK NOLTE,ED ASNER and WILLIAM SMITH as FALCONETTI swipe the limelight,but of course,WILLIAM SMITH tops them all in the few episodes he appeared. WILLIAM SMITH a Highly Intelligent man who speaks several languages,a Korean war Veteran and former College Professor creates the Villain that goes down as the BEST Villain in Cinematic History. WILLIAM SMITH is SO good,that for the second series(RMPM Book 2)NOT an Irwin Shaw based work,into 17 out of 21 episodes and an EMMY nomination. Irwin Shaw wrote the Character of FALCONETTI as a Ship-Board Bloated Bully with a Turnip head. Glad the producers of this Series went the OTHER direction in casting Big BILL SMITH. After this grand show(not without script flaws)had it's run,BILL SMITH became SO popular,he was given his Own square on the Hollywood Squares game show,and went off to do the sequel. BILL SMITH of TV's "Laredo" etc etc etc landed the Role that put him "On the map". A great series depicting post World War II and the German/American upstate NY Jordache Family and the hard-Luck of Both Brothers with their rugged childhood,wild insane genes,trying to cope. The title I believe refers to ONLY Rudy Jordache(PETER STRAUSS) AS both A Rich Man AND a Poor man and NOT what would believe of Tom Jordache being the "Poor Man".

parky36 Give me a break, the father owns a business and saves a whopping $3 grand over a lifetime; and next to a supermarket?! I would have walked in, and bargained with the best of my bread. But no this author needs a Valium and get over his stinky thoughts. One thing learned in business never be upset about Guitar Center opening next to your music store. For all the products they don't carry, you carry and their advertising dollar brings in the clients into your store as well at no cost to you. That Supermarket could have been the best thing for him had he negotiated with the landlord instead of whining about it. What was the matter with the wife, lazy perhaps? Get in there, wake up early, and start baking the bread. That is life.The kids a loser never making a dime either, and statutory rape is a stretch, the girl being 17 and I am guessing him 18 or 19 is not statutory rape if she consented. A legal blunder if there ever was one. All the assault as well this author likes living in an age of violence gets it all redeemed. Right, that is what I call a screw loose.This author advocating slavery no one is paying anyone. Stinky thoughts as well. I bet the rich brother never paid his "servants" social security so really he is the one breaking the law. Her fear of being an illegal alien obviously has zero founding. Fear and greed I hope we are over that today. It is time for hope and generosity.My mother was German and never behaved like this. Now I did have Jewish friends growing up who did have parents complaining about everything. Sorry but this one is a loser with pessimistic intent.Here is a wonderful tale of good and evil with an elder telling his son a war he is waging: "My son it is between two wolves. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." The boy took this in for a few minutes and then asked, "Which wolf won?" His grandfather answered, "The one I feed." The writer has nothing but the evil wolf.This also reminds me of a story called "McTeague: A Story of San Francisco" (1899)by Frank Norris later made into one of the last silent films called "Greed" by MGM. If you can sit through it, it obviously is where this writer got most of his ideas. No charity from anywhere here leads me to believe either the writer is obsessively negative, or he is riding on the back of "McTeague".Frank Norris wrote another story called "The Octopus: A Story of California" (1901)if you really want a look at historical basis for some of the worst robber barons. In fact it was on the heels of a famous case in the 1886 of Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad where the issue was over taxing of fencing, and the result was a robber baron in charge of writing up the headers for the Supreme Court (the court abstract), and lied about the case and claimed this was a case of corporate rights to freedom of speech. When the Chief Justice asked about the writeup he was huckstered into thinking that was argued. That Chief Justice died before he could ever straighten out that evil record. Nothing was further from the truth and we are living today with that corporate lie that the 14th amendment is also for corporations. If I were African American I would be very upset.On those heals came the robber barons which Frank Norris wrote his famous unfinished trilogy of Wheat, The Chicago Board of Trade, and the railroads infiltrating all aspects of life. The results were moral stories and good endings with people redeemed and those evil, damned. Bottom line is it was in part Frank Norris's writings that were the inspiration for the Sherman Anti Trust Act and the end to the robber barons trusts.Unfortunately the Bush years did further damage to all of this repealing just about everything which resulted in the financial collapse starting in 2007. This author did not hit any of those points and is to me a obsessive pessimist.Now ask yourself what is the writer's intent. I would like to see another Frank Norris come into our world, but I do not find him anywhere. Too bad too in his day the publisher couldn't keep the copies printed fast enough. This author is far from that. Wonder what his take is on Apple Computer or Microsoft. Missed those completely.

Putzberger Anyone interested in American popular culture should hunt down a DVD of "Rich Man, Poor Man." With its epic length (12 episodes!), "RMPM" established the television miniseries as the premier way to dramatize popular literature -- for a decade after it aired, every sweeps month bulged with middlebrow seriousness: "Roots," "The Thorn Birds," "Winds of War," etc etc. With its epic cast (half of Hollywood), "RMPM" established the miniseries as a respectable way for an out-of-work TV actor to make a quick buck between game-show gigs (Mike Brady, Darrin Stephens and Stanley Roper all made some residuals off this sucker). Beyond its historical significance, though, "Rich Man Poor Man" is just a soap opera masquerading as some grand statement about the middle of the 20th Century. Don't get me wrong -- as a soap opera, it delivers. There's plenty of sex, scenery and histrionics, the lattermost generally delivered by Susan Blakely ("All I ever see of you anymore is that skinny kiester disappearing through the door!" screams our horny, alcoholic political wife). As art, it falls pretty short.Part of the problem is the Irwin Shaw novel on which it is based. Shaw had plenty of ambition, but was a far better storyteller than moralist so his books are like rivers -- they wander wide but don't run very deep. The title "Rich Man, Poor Man" alludes to the class distinctions Shaw tries (and fails) to explore over 25 years and about 900 pages. TV producers are far more literal-minded than novelists so they assumed "Rich Man, Poor Man" is a description of the book's two main male characters, the brothers Rudy (Rich Man) and Tom (Poor Man) Jordache. This rather limited vision excludes the other Jordache sibling, sister Gretchen, whose character is combined with Rudy's first girlfriend and first wife into Julie, played by the plucky Miss Blakely. Since she's actually three women, Julie comes off as a little schizophrenic -- she careens from dewy young thing to long-suffering wife to desperate housewife to pathetic drunk, sometimes in the same scene. To her everlasting credit, Blakely almost manages to pull it off (why didn't she have a better career after this show? She should at least have scored some 80s nighttime soap or a few memorable disease-of-the-week movies. Were her standards too high? Too low?). Without a stable female character, "RMPM" is forced to make its point by contrasting the wildly divergent paths the two brothers follow. Rudy becomes a successful businessman. Tom becomes a blue-collar drifter. So I guess that in post-WWII America, different men do different things. Wow.Still, "RMPM" is a pretty gripping story, and for the most part it's well-acted. Blakely, as said before, is laboring under some awfully heavy demands and acquits herself admirably. Ed Asner, as the German-born patriarch of the Jordache family, dominates the early episodes and deserves the Emmy he picked up (he must have a room full of them at home, and he's earned every single one of them). Dorothy MacGuire as Mama Jordache, and Gloria Grahame as the mother of the ill-fated Julie, are both a bit shrewish and frumpy but I'm pretty sure Irwin Shaw had some issues with his Mom that he was trying to work out here. Peter Strauss is a tad insubstantial as Rudy but he manages to convey a certain phony charm that makes the character meteoric rise believable. Nick Nolte is brilliant as the gruff, violent but ultimately honorable Tom Jordache. He never appears to be acting, but you always know what he's feeling and his performance seemed to be a harbinger of more great things than the man has delivered over the past few decades ("Affliction" was great, but it seemed long overdue). As for the small army of guest stars who drop in to chew a little scenery and collect a paycheck, well, they look like they're having fun. The only genuinely embarrassing performance comes, inexplicably, from Bill Bixby, who directed this mighty mess. He cast himself as Julie's first husband and figured that playing a frustrated writer meant imitating Charles Nelson Reilly. When Julie catches him cheating, you're surprised to see a woman follow him out of the bedroom.

John I remember when I first saw this miniseries. Week after week, I would literally swallow the episode in and then hungrily wait for the next one!The storyline was great, the acting was great, and the settings were great. I laughed, I cried, I clutched my chair in anticipation during the tense scenes. In short, I loved it!This was the first time I had seen Nick Nolte and he was GREAT! That year, Ed Asner won the Emmy and the Golden Globe for Best Leading Actor in a series, but I think Nolte was robbed. Nolte was fantastic!