Hal Holbrook, who is 87 years old as I write this and still performing (and endlessly rewriting) his one-man Mark Twain show on stage, now has to play “younger,” since the Twain of his stage show is 70 years old. But when Holbrook played Twain in this spectacularly literate and captivating 1967 CBS special, a captured-in-amber performance of his then Broadway hit, Holbrook was a mere lad of 42. Yet the impersonation is as flawless as Twain’s humor is timeless – and what he says about bigotry and war and religion, and even Congress, is just as potent, and important, today. – DB

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