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The Lathe of Heaven (1980) DVD Bruce Davison & Kevin Conway

Regular price $19.99

The Lathe of Heaven 1980 DVD (Playable in North America - The US, Canada, Mexico, etc.) Color. Beautifully re-mastered. New, lower price!

Starring: Bruce Davison, Peyton E. Park, Niki Flacks, Kevin Conway, Vandi Clark, Margaret Avery, Bernedette Whitehead, Jo Livingston, Jane Roberts. Written by Roger Swaybill, Diane English based on the novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Directed by Fred Barzyck, David R. Loxton.

This haunting adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's genre-classic novel was broadcast but once on PBS in 1980. Reportedly PBS's most requested program, the made-for-TV film was at last rebroadcast in 2000. Set in Portland, Oregon, in the near future, The Lathe of Heaven stars Bruce Davison as George Orr, who, to put it mildly, has a dream problem. Not only do his dreams come true, but they "change reality back to the Stone Age."

Kevin Conway costars as Dr. Haber, a dream specialist who instantly recognizes George's gift and tries to harness it to make the whole world right. But, as George notes, "Unlimited power means unlimited danger." The increasingly megalomaniacal Haber uses George to try to cure the world's ills, from overpopulation to war, resulting in, for starters, a devastating plague and even alien invasion

"Lathe of Heaven is one of the few great works of science fiction that will stand the test of time, and is still as intriguing and thought provoking as it was back in 1980." - Media Market Update

 In January of 2018 Ms. Le Guin passed away. Here is a small bit from her LA Times obituary:

"Acclaimed science-fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin died Monday in her hometown of Portland, Ore., her agent confirmed.

Le Guin was born Oct. 21, 1929, the daughter of Alfred Louis Kroeber, an acclaimed anthropologist who recorded Native American oral histories, and Theodora Kroeber, who penned the widely read book about a California Indian, "Ishi in Two Worlds."

She was raised in Berkeley, got her undergraduate degree at Radcliffe followed by a master's degree at Columbia in French and Italian literature and then earned a Fulbright scholarship that took her to France. It was there that she met her husband, Charles Le Guin. Together they settled in Portland, Ore.

"I love concrete facts, whether they're real or invented," she told The Times in 1985. "Part of the grip of fantasy is the day-to-day realism of the story."

Yet Le Guin shied away from cuteness. When the National Book Foundation honored her with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014, she took the stage and criticized the audience. "Books, you know, they're not just commodities," she told the room full of major publishers. "The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art."

She will be missed.