It was this miniseries, "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna," that first hooked me on Russian history (Russian history is loaded with fantastic stories, far more exciting, glamorous and cruel than this one, but the episode of Anastasia is as enticing an entrance point as anything but Catherine the Great or Ivan the Terrible and we did Catherine the Great here already), a hold that to this day thrills me. It's that good, truly one of the best miniseries of the 1980s. Yes, it takes license, but the real story is not quite as vivacious, and since it was covered in secrecy and scorn, why not invent some details? The only facts in the story are gone by 1918. After that, anyone can have pretty much free reign. Unlike other "true story" miniseries, this one isn't actually altering facts, just adding details.
This is a retelling of the story you may have seen in the Ingrid Bergman-Yul Brynner masterpiece "Anastasia," but that one did not even attempt much truth (sumptuous though it is). This one is closer. First, let's discuss the facts. Not disputed is the revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsar, who was sent to an outpost with his family and a few servants until the Communists finally solidified their power and had the royal family murdered. A few years later, a woman popped up claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of the Tsar. For decades until her death in 1980, the woman swore to it. She had knowledge and even marks on her body that most thought impossible to have unless she was actually Anastasia. Throw in possibly missing bones from the pit where the dead family was tossed and maybe there was a chance. The royal family in exile refused to accept Anna Anderson (as she called herself), mainly for political and financial reasons. By the time this movie was made, that much was the truth. Since then, however, DNA testing has proven that Anna Anderson was indeed not the Grand Duchess. Read Peter Kurth's book (on which this was based) for more details.
In just that description, the story of Anastasia is ripe for miniseriesalization. Royalty, tragedy, mystery, epic span, that's the kind of stuff the American miniseries thrived on. Plus, it has parts for oodles of slumming actors (although I wouldn't call this slumming as it's so beautifully done). It doesn't worry about the truth because it doesn't have to. Telling the story is more important than the story itself in such a murky historical situation, and this one clicks!
In 1916, St. Petersburg was still the domain of the Tsar and his family, the wealthiest and most autocratic of all the European royal families (though not that many would remain by the end of World War I). At a grand ball, we meet them: the Tsar (Omar Sharif), the Tsarina (Claire Bloom), the Dowager Empress (Olivia de Havilland, in a Golden Globe-winning/Emmy-nominated performance), four daughters and young Tsarevich Alexis, the sickly heir to the throne. Okay, fine Omar Sharif is not exactly ideally cast as Nicholas II, but he paints the Tsar with the sympathy this movie desires. Starting off the dancing, he picks Anastasia, who is stopped by her grandmother and told, "you are my special love, you know." Supposedly she was the darling of the family.
A narrator barges in with news from the estimable James Goldman's screenplay that just two months later, "the time was ripe for revolution" based on a number of historical factors. Just to get it out of the way, Tsarina Alexandra confides in her friend Sophie (Andrea Brettlebauer) that "those terrible people" Lenin, Trotsky and the rest are "in exile" and life would be better "if only Rasputin were alive...he was a saint, you know." History has told the tale of Rasputin often enough that we can skip it here. The rising tide of revolution is kept from the children, at least as much as possible, with the Tsarina telling them only half truths.
Even after the Tsar's abdication in the summer of 1917, the royal family still lives in luxury, with tutors and servants aplenty, at least until they are banished to Siberia. The Tsar assures his children "by Christmas, we shall all be in London...what matters most is that we are all together." Ready to go, Anastasia takes one last whirl in the imperial dance floor, covered in darkness. "I shan't be here again. We won't be coming back here. Not ever," is her prophecy to her governess Sasha (Carol Gillies).
At the train station, a surly soldier demands to know why the Tsar has brought so many people, the entire household. The soldier says, "I have orders only for your family and the doctor," but the Tsar tries to cling to a vestige of power and scoffs that "I have endured enough." The soldier backs down and lets everyone on the train, disguised as a Red Cross train. Christmas passes and they are still in Siberia, with governments in Moscow changing. Life is not unbearable...yet.
That doesn't happen until the Communists show up, relieving the army of command. "We did try," the soldier says after being dismissed. "Where are our friends? Where's King George? Where's President Wilson?" an increasingly agitated Tsarina wants to know of her husband, who has the reality of the situation etched on his face. "Where's your mother? Safe in England? How come she can't make them listen. She could always make you listen," the Tsarina snarls. That lacks a little historical accuracy, though Alexandra wouldn't have known that. Maria Fedorovna just barely escaped Russia with her life after a dicey time evading one government or another.
Anastasia (played as a child by Jennifer Dundas along with Christian Bale's Alexis) is cheeky, demanding to know of the Comrade in charge what their crime is and then why he's so hostile to them. "Have you ever been in prison?" she asks. He has, for "printing leaflets." "That's a lot more than I've done," the perceptive princess notes. Alexis, having just delivered a speech to his sister about how he's always known he would die young, decides to prove it by riding a sled down the stairs, a dangerous move for such a severe hemophiliac. Predictably, Alexis is bed-bound and the Comrade is angry, saying, "I have no time to spare...fetch me a doctor from the town, I want another man's opinion" after hearing it could be months before Alexis can be moved.
Rather than going to Moscow as promised, the royal family is taken to remote Yekaterinburg in the driving rain, where their servants are dismissed except for Dr. Markov (Arnold Diamond). "You are of no earthly use to me. You are free to go," the loyal retainers are told, standing in a confused huddle in the rain. Weeks go by and the family is told nothing of the outside world until hearing artillery in the distance, their saviors.
In the middle of the night, they are woken up and told "there is an emergency" and they must be moved. What follows is one of the 20th Century's most defining moments, soaked in truths, half-truths and outright lies by ardent royalists, historical apologists, Communists and everyone else with a theory to share. One era must end in order for a new one to begin. We were told that on a very clinical and rational level by Communist intransigence, though nearly a century later it's become obvious that fear was as much a factor as anything else. The key word in the earlier sentence is "must." In order for the Communists to secure control over the country, there must be no rivals for power. Any rival could undermine their shaky government.
But history isn't our reason for being here. The American miniseries is. The family and the doctor wait in a dark basement cell for the next move, not the one expected. "My orders have finally come. I am to execute you all." An overwhelming volley of shots ring out. With that, the Romanov dynasty comes to a tragic end. The Romanovs-in-exile are the de facto heads of Russia, but there will be no resurrection of rule.
Berlin, 1923. A gaunt young woman in rags (Amy Irving) ascends a bridge, crosses herself and jumps. She is saved and brought to a hospital, forced to stay in the psych ward because no one knows who she is, and that's where attempted suicides go. Clara (Angela Pleasance), apparently convinces she's a refuge from a Dickens miniseries sporting the dumbest of cockney accents, assures the woman, "I'm as sane as you are." Yeah, that's why they have given you 80s crazy person make-up (you know the look I'm talking about).
Dr. Hauser (Edward Fox) takes on the woman's case. He finds out about the large amount of bullet scars on her body, assuming, like everyone else, that "she got them in the war" since they date back to that period. She's also "had at least one child and there are signs of malnutrition." The woman's accent is so upper class British that she can't possibly be working-class German. That's actually a rare misstep in this production, but typical of the time period. In order to be a European aristocrat, one has to be able to speak upper class British. Forget that she's Russian, or maybe German. Anna Anderson was most definitely not British. She has no memories and cannot answer Dr. Hauser's questions. Why did she jump? "I can't imagine," she says rather regally, if frightened.
Well, she doesn't make much of a case for herself with her "I can't remember" routine, which leaves her with scary-as-a-clown Clara. "Once I see a face, I never forget it," Clara keeps telling her, knowing she's seen the mystery woman before. She instantly figures it out, the woman is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and she has a magazine picture under her bed to prove it! "Are you a princess?" Clara asks. Dr. Hauser doesn't initially get very far with her. She can't remember why she has scars, but she knows her native language is Russian. How? "I dream in Russian," but she refuses to speak it. When the police return for their report, they need a picture and the big flash sends her into a rage. "You tried to kill me, but I didn't die!" she yells, going into such a rage that she has to be sedated and put into a padded cell with a straight jacket.
Since the woman has thrown out the name Alexis in her howling, Dr. Hauser asks if it was her dog. "Don't be ridiculous," she chides, but the woman initially refuses to say more than "they lied to us, that's all they ever did. They promised we'd be safe and look what happened." She claims that "they" would kill her if "they knew I was still alive," as Dr. Hauser gets closer to the truth. She then goes on to describe the shooting and notes that she wished she had died. "I'm the only one who is left. Why was I saved? Why take my brother and not me? He might have been the Tsar someday."
Bingo!
"I am her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Anastasia," she finally reveals, managing to convey a regal air through an exhausted body and face.
Dr. Hauser is not convinced, and particularly peeved when it's leaked to the press. But, he's also rational. "How many have there been? Dozens in the last year, they keep cropping up like daisies," he tells his nurse. It's true. There was something of a cottage industry of fake Anastasias, along with fake Olgas, fake TatianasHauser perks up. No one has ever mentioned the dog's name before.
The doctor invites family members to come see her, but the head of the family keeps them away, all except for Prince Erich (a devastatingly handsome Jan Niklaus, who is invented for this story as the Yul Brynner character was in the other version), a very distant relative. "I never thought she'd be so beautiful" is his reaction," since there weren't too many lookers among European royals of the period. Anna, as she is now called, sits in a chair with a stiff back and majestic bearing to receive her visitor. "You've come to test me," she immediately realizes, so she tells Erich what she remembers and what she's been told: she survived, was found by a peasant, was taken to Bucharest and lived there recovering for two years. She remembers nothing of Bucharest, not an address, "no witnesses to anything," as Prince Erich puts it. She married the peasant and bore him a son, but both died, but the baby died and the husband was murdered for her jewels. It's the jewels that interest Dr. Hauser as they had always been cited as a possible way for survival. Sewn into their gowns (a historically accurate fact), the gems could have deflected bullets. Okay, not the zillions that went into the Romanovs, but it's been an important rallying point. She wandered around after that, remembering her paternal grandmother, but got as far as Berlin.
"Drivel. I've never heard such patent drivel in all my life." That's the word of the Grand Duke Cyril (Rex Harrison), the family's leader, and the one with the most to lose should one of the Tsar's daughters be alive (his own relatives had nothing but nasty things to say about him in the decades following the Russian Revolution, and this miniseries treats him no better). Cyril can easily shoot holes in Anna's story, especially the peasant and all that nonsense. Erich decides to "risk it," though Cyril feels there is no risk, and bring Anna to someone who knew her, not a relative who barely every saw her. Grand Duchess Victoria (Rachel Gurney) takes Prince Erich's side and goes off to find people who fit that bill. "You should meet her," Erich tells Cyril. "Never."
Anna is brought to the mansion, where it has been decided Sophie will be the one to meet her. She has been forced to confront many of the frauds, and this one is particularly challenging because "of all the girls, Anna was my favorite," she tells Victoria. It starts off poorly when Anna asks if they have met before. "You should recognize me, Anastasia would!" Sophie barks. But, Anna gets there, though Sophie is unconvinced. She has no items of Anastasia's and she refuses to speak Russian (upper crust British will have to do). "It's not her face, it's not her voice. I don't know who you are," is the judgment. Anna falls to the floor in dejection. Prince Erich is "convinced she is real" and tells the doctor so, because he saw Sophie's face. He refuses to give up.
In fact, Erich is so full of energy for her cause that he takes Anna to his home, buys her a wardrobe and forces her to confront the world. He explains to her that his family was killed by the Bolsheviks and then the fortune was seized when the Kaiser abdicated. "The truth is, we were born to late. We don't belong in the 1920s. I was raised to be a prince and you know what that means. I can talk along with any subject, but I have no useful skills," he tells her. If you are a cynic, this is the time to start wondering why Erich believes her. Is it to regain his lost life? Anna wonders, and his answer is awfully wan. The cynics can still hope that he's a rascal and a liar.
As Erich launches Anna into society, they of course fall in love, a gooey situation that we knew was inevitable and simply have to suffer through because it's a miniseries and these are the rules. "Mama never let us go to restaurants, or if she did, I can't remember," Anna says (it's a pretty safe bet that the Russian royal family never went to a restaurant). "Poor Princess," Erich jokes and then gives her a portrait of a young Anastasia right there in the restaurant.
When a lady friend of Erich's sees him in the restaurant, she gets all catty and demands an introduction. "Isabel von Hohenstauffen...Anastasia Romanov," he smoothly announces to a shocked Isabel (Elke Sommer), who not wonders aloud of Cyril knows, but then snarls at how Anna has so bewitches Erich. "It's simply too amusing, you introducing me to her with a straight face. Me, a Hohenstauffen?" she laughs, though her familial dynasty had been dead for centuries. "It might interest you to know I knew the Romanovs, and you are nothing like them, my dear, nothing. I don't know where you get the nerve...all she wants is money," the aging Isabel intones. "She's an empty-headed bitch," Erich tells Anna, noting that situations like this will occur.
At Erich's summer house, he has umpteen pictures laid out to prompt Anna. "Oh, Erich, is this really going to work?" "It's the only way," he replies, awfully sure of his plan. That's all well and good, but the bad news is that the Dowager Empress has denied her request to be seen. "I only want what's mine, my name," Anna complains, but Erich reminds her of "the power and position" that accompany the name and the family is concerned about all of that, even if she isn't. "We must find a memory in that head of yours that only Anastasia could know, something in no book or photograph," he tells her matter-of-fact. And then day in, day out, he drills her. Eventually, she just happens to remember her mother's brother paying a visit in 1916, which should strike you as odd (it does to Erich) because Germany and Russia were on opposite sides of the war and the Duke of Hesse paying a visit would had to have been done with the utmost secrecy.
The great Olivia de Havilland works her talent effortlessly. Her daughter tries to convince her to see the woman, but the Dowager Empress knows the pitfalls of that, so she rallies the troops. "How many have we?" she asks, before being wheeled in to see them. "Sixteen? Sixteen Romanovs in one room? It's been some time," she marvels, with just a hint of sarcasm. But get her big moment! "Stop!" she tells her retainer. "I wish to make an entrance," she commands and gets up to do it on her own. Decades of experience went into that line and the entrance, all done flawlessly. "There are 47 Romanovs alive in Europe at this time. The issue we must face is, are there 48? We must speak about this Anastasia woman," she commands with an iron whisper, but Cyril is determined to shoot holes in the memory. No one remembers the Duke of Hesse's visit, and he himself has denied it, though she can chalk that up to his "political ambitions." The scene, which is really between Olivia de Havilland and Rex Harrison, two old pros, crackles with perfection. Goldman's writing is thorough and efficient, and the arguments and counterarguments are the summation of the whole movie, delivered without the woman's presence. It's all about politics.
Obviously it's too premature for Maria Fedorovna to see Anna, but she can keep sending the minions, and a train load of them arrives to make their judgments. Princess Olga has brought all of the closest family servants with her at the thrilling conclusion of the miniseries' first portion. She recognizes them all: Sasha, her governess, her tutor, Dr. Markov's children, including Serge (Nicholas Surovy) and the others. "It's not a question of your recognizing them. It's whether they know you," Aunt Olga says. Serge insists it's Anastasia, but the older retainers deny her. "There has been only one resurrection," she is told, and when Sasha denies her, it's over. Prince Erich knows they are all playing politics and exposes the naysayers for their politics (as well as the cheerleaders, who have them too). "The Empress needs proof," Aunt Olga says. "What we know is that we shall never know," she says as final judgement. "I hope you suffer. I hope you all suffer," Anna rails as she runs from the train. "You won't ever see the Empress now," Prince Erich admits, and Anna knows it's true. "We have each other, that's enough," Erich says.
But is it? That route to her grandmother may be closed, but all is not lost. Serge jumps off the train. A newspaper reporter now, Serge "knows a story," for sure, and follows Anna to Erich's summer cottage, claiming "I wouldn't hurt her for the world" to Erich.
Before Serge comes back into things, there is a rather useless scene where Erich proposes to Anna (after giving her a tiara). We know they don't get married because Anna did not marry until years later, and it was to an American. It's her reasons for saying no that are important. As much of a fortune hunter as Erich may be, Anna is obsessed with proving who she is, and will not let anything, not even love or marriage, stand in her way.
Serge wants to take Anna to America, for "publicity." They all feel that if Anna dazzles the American public, it will "put pressure on the family." That's a rather dubious outcome, considering how titled Europe felt about Americans, but Anna doesn't know that. She's a meal ticket for many now. But, where better to put on a grand show than in America, loaded with money and success after the world war, unlike Europe, and dying for royalty in any form. Erich doesn't want to be a part of it and will not go.
She goes anyway, and the adoration starts on the crossing, where the ship's captain lets her man the wheel as she tells stories about being on her father's yacht. "You are a real-life fairy tale," Serge tells her, as telegrams pour into the ship. "After tomorrow, no more privacy. What you will be is a celebrity!" he says, much to her bewilderment, but his own satisfaction. America in the 1920s created more phony celebrities than even 80 or 90 years later. The history books are filled with people and their 15 minutes even before Andy Warhol coined the phrase. And boy did America love royalty!
A mob scene is there to watch Anna disembark, with bands and flowers, the whole deal. Serge's paper, particularly its editor Harvey Coward (Shane Rimmer) have made sure Anna is a sensation wherever she goes, with constant press coverage. She catches on very quickly, giving a royal wave to the crowd at the hotel, where they are flying the Imperial Russian flag. Serge is in it only for the money (his paper is paying for everything), but he knows how to lay it on thick to keep Anna interested. He produces a sketch of Anastasia he did years ago (we saw it in an earlier scene).
Anna is showered in furs, jewels and clothing, on loan, giving her a dizzying sense of self. Swathed in only the best and most luxurious, fit for a princess, Anna is taken to meet New York's Russian emigres, including Darya, a Romanov cousin (Susan Lucci) married to an American. Darya insists she's Anastasia from across the room. "You can't imagine what it means to us, having you here. It means so much," she says, speaking for the whole community, desperate to believe, and all looking for some glamour. And they get it. In a scene reminiscent of the first in the movie, Anna is paraded into a room, announced by her formal title, where rows and rows of elegantly-dressed White Russians bow to her properly and kiss her hand. A single tear runs down Anna's cheek as she walks the line, but one can't help but wonder just what it's for. Is she now so enamored of the idea of being Anastasia, that she revels in the pomp, or is she a tad ashamed? And the crowd doesn't really care if she is Anastasia or not; they want a return to glory, American style, which means faux-European style. Dig the reaction of Princess Troubestskaya (Betty Marsden), whose over the top hand-kissing and insistence that Anastasia has the Tsarina's eyes cause even Darya to gag a bit.
"I feel as though you've changed my whole life," Anna tells Darya. "Not yet, but I will! How can the Empress not embrace you? But she will, you'll see," a confident Darya insists.
Erich, upset at the publicity machine and the changes he feels just from Anna's telegrams, heads off to see the Dowager Empress, who is ill in bed. "Do you think I care what anyone in America thinks? At my age, I don't much care what anyone thinks," she huffs, but she is reading the articles. "She's a pretty thing, I'll give you that. I take it you're in love with her? What's that to me? Is that supposed to sway my feelings?" she asks. Maria wants to believe Anna is Anastasia, but she has to maintain the demeanor of one who doesn't believe, because believing is too politically charged. After giving a speech about being on the throne herself, she asks, "what does she look like, this love of yours," careful to phrase it as such, but the veneer slips a bit when she asks, "does she resemble me at all?" When she realizes she may be revealing too much, she sends Erich off and confides to her daughter she is considering receiving Anna, "just to see the look on Cyril's face," though it's obvious she truly wants to believe her granddaughter is still alive.
They will never meet as the Dowager Empress dies. Anna and Darya get the news while enjoying themselves at a lunch, watching young girls dance. Darya has just confessed to having married her husband because "I had the title and he had the money. Be careful who you envy, Anna, and be careful what you throw away," she wisely tells Anna. She reminds Anna of all that comes with the title, mainly the money, telling her not to put it in front of love. Whatever chance Anna had of being recognized is now officially dead along with the Empress.
Serge has instructed Darya not to tell Anna of the Empress' death, but Anna stops by a store selling Russian artifacts and recognizes items from her past. When the shopkeeper recognizes her, he shows her everything he has, including a Faberge egg that was a gift from the Empress (in fact, the gift would have gone the other way, as her husband started the tradition of giving her the eggs and her son kept it up as long as he could). "Oh, I'm so sorry," the man says after mentioning the Empress. "Don't!" Darya jumps in, but Anna knows something is wrong and Darya has to tell her the truth right there. Initially calm, Anna sees a doll and goes into full hysterics over the entire situation. The script doesn't show it, but Anna knows, even if not fully, that it's over.
Darya is more certain. "He's the only one that counts," she tells Serge, who has started to believe the hoopla he created. "Damn. Damn! Why did the Empress have to die?" he asks. He knows it's over too. Cyril gathers the family in mourning and officially denounces Anna, "this creature living in New York." The European Romanovs are commanded to go along with Cyril's denial. He growls at the press and even threatens to sue her if she continues her quest. "We will not tolerate this folly any longer," he barks and stalks off, followed by the family.
In New York, the emigre community gathers at a church to pay their respects to the Dowager Empress. The same people who clasped Anna to their bosoms are shocked to see her at the church. Darya senses their anger and tells Anna, "I should never have let you come." "Look at her, dressed in black, as if she ever knew the Empress. I actually kissed her hand. The little witch made fools of us," Princess Troubetskaya clucks so Anna can hear. No, Princess, you made fools of yourselves, believing only what you were told and now doing it again, just in reverse. The Princess gets even nastier, and Anna argues. Darya tries to tell her, "they don't matter," but when even the priest ignores her, Anna gets hysterical on the church steps and makes the scene worse. "They never believed in me, not any of them!" she yells. "It's not as if the whole world is against you," Darya tells her. Anna decides there to take Cyril to court, using his words against him. "You can't defy the family," Darya recommends. "No, just watch me," Anna decides and strides off.
The paper re-assigns Serge to another story because the family denial has deflated the story? "Who should you believe? Our articles or every living Romanov?" his boss muses. "She's a dead horse, she's not going anywhere." Not only are the stories over, but the bill paying is also ending. "When a stock stops making money, you unload it," he tells Serge, making him lower the boom. When he gives Anna the news, he also admits he doesn't believe she's Anastasia. "Who in God's name do you think I am?" "I have no idea," he confesses before she slaps him. "You're worse than Cyril, he's a monster, but he doesn't hide it," before answering the door for the men who have come to collect the luxury items on loan. Even Darya turns her back on Anna. Cyril has "ordered" her to turn Anna way. "We must follow him as if he were the Tsar," she reminds Anna. "If I were to stand up to Cyril, I would be in disgrace and I would risk losing Billy wouldn't I? There are more titles in this world than millionaires and I can't risk losing what I have...for anything, not even you" she confesses honestly. "Can you forgive me?" Darya asks. Oh, no! Anna isn't that much of a doormat.
Alone and homeless, Anna has a cup of coffee in a diner, rips up the picture of young Anastasia and Prince Erich comes in to rescue her. Okay, it's a dopey touch, I'll admit it. "You came for me?" "I should have done it long ago. I'm not good without you and you are clearly a disaster without me," he tells her. Erich, the one we expected to be the biggest grabber of all, is her true love, Anna's true love. They even get a bedroom scene.
The next morning, Erich tells Anna of his conversation with the Empress and he thinks she should sue Cyril. They hire a no-nonsense lawyer, Kurt Vermehren (Jerome Willis). He asks her why she wants to bother. "So when the stonemasons go to carve my tombstone, they'll have a name to put on there," she replies. She wants to no money and she knows the case may drag on for years, with Cyril holding her "up to public ridicule." Still, she insists on the suit. "Every history book in print tells us you're dead," he reminds her. "I've found no evidence that supports your claim." Plus, Anna and Erich have no money, whereas Cyril has unlimited resources. Kurt insists on dental tests, ear tests, psychiatric tests, all of it. Against all odds, and all of Kurt's scare tactics, Anna vows to fight. "I don't propose to lose this case, but at this point, I don't have one," he says, convinced to help her when she said she only wanted her name.
Anna undergoes hypnosis where the doctor takes her back to the night of the killing and she either gives a great performance or actually writhes in pain remembering it. Ultimately, Anna and Cyril are in the same room as their lawyers argue. "When I'm done with you Madam, you'll have nothing, you'll be torn to ribbons," the cranky patriarch scowls.
There was no final proof that Anna was or was not Anastasia and after decades of wrangling, Anna moved to the United States as the sort of kookie old lady in the style of Grey Gardens.
Did Anna believe what she was saying? Did she want to be head of a dynasty (which did not allow female heads except under extreme circumstances.
The story of Anna is certainly captivating, but told many times. What makes it work so well here is, first, James Goldman's script. He looks at this from all angles. The condescension of Grand Duke Cyril is natural, but the reactions of Darya and various other people who knew Anastasia is layered with everything but the truth. Everyone here has an angle, even, perhaps, Anna herself. Goldman goes to great lengths to show us Anna only when she believes everything she is saying, but by doubting the story just enough through other, more mercenary characters, it's impossible not to wonder if she's not just giving a performance.
Of course, the actors are next in line. Amy Irving, always a terrific actress, gives a remarkable performance. Too old to play Anna, she nevertheless shatters all of that. She has the regal air of a princess when she needs it, but underneath lurks a broken peasant. Her performance adds to the mystery. Olivia de Havilland cannot possibly equal what Helen Hayes did in "Anastasia," but Hayes had the advantage of a scene with her granddaughter, not at all historically accurate, that de Havilland does not have the chance to play. That's okay, she has plenty to do and really does turn in a fascinating performance, her second-to-last as of this writing, and her best of the late-career roles she took (only Aunt Bessie in "The Woman He Loved" was left after this one). Rex Harrison is appropriately nasty, and Jan Niklas is both romantic and a bit shady. Even Susan Lucci gets caught up in the fun and has a grand time playing a vivacious Russian emigre.
This story just refuses to die because it's so juicy. Anna got so far in her quest to prove she was Anastasia and if she ultimately failed, one would believe that it was a fickle public and politics that doomed her, rather than the truth. In this version, the truth hardly matters. In the 20th Century, the world saw the end to nearly every royal dynasty (the Windsors had position, but no power and the royalty of places like The Netherlands and Monte Carlo in Europe escaped with decorum, but not much else) and their prestige was replaced by the concept of celebrity. One didn't need a title to be a celebrity, but in this story, it sure as hell was a good impetus. That's really the heft behind the story here, good old Jazz Age hucksterism.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Dazzle (1995)
It feels like ages ago that we last met up with a Judith Krantz miniseries. Let's see, I think it was "Mistral's Daughter," a period piece with a moody Stacey Keach and a very robust excited Stefanie Powers. Now we have "Dazzle," the last network miniseries based on a Judith Krantz novel, but this one takes place in the present with neither moodiness, robustness or excitement.
"Dazzle" is another example of the American miniseries rotting, or having rotted. Where so many of Krantz's books were given enormous productions, by 1995, we're stuck with a simple two-nighter that is downright sloppy. Poorly cast and badly acted, it's no more than a featherweight soap. In itself, being soapy is not a miniseries crime, but "Dazzle" has not a shred of humor in it, which leaves us merely jumping from one catastrophe to another. That can get pretty tiring very quickly.
If you feel like it, you can watch Judith's introduction to the miniseries, but I warn you, she's gotten older and even more dedicated to her own books in the decade since "Mistral's Daughter." You can also see just how successful too as the camera swoops inside her mansion from over the pool and the manicured shrubbery.
Once the movie begins, do not try to adjust your television sets. The hazy focus is there on purpose. By 1985, there were no ingenues left, but someone had to play one. It might as well be Lisa Hartman Black, about 20 years on from "Tabitha" and 15 years from the "Valley of the Dolls" remake.
Thin and sexy, Lisa is "Jazz Kilkullen," a celebrity photographer who runs the "Dazzle" studio (wow, only a minute in and we have a use for the title). She glides into the office as the news talks about a recent Los Angeles earthquake, with "aftershocks expected." Lisa's subject today is Alistair Duncan, a publisher apparently handsome enough that everyone else thought he was a movie star. Oh, he's done his research on Lisa, reeling off that she's a "ranch owner, heartbreaker, mankiller." I'm hooked.
And she immediately lives up to her reputation. She has some ideas of what he should wear for the shoot, but boils it all down to, "why don't you just put on the trench coat and take everything else off...I think it could be interesting, you wanted sexy." "And what are you going to take off?" he asks. "My lens cover." Oooohhhh, the vixen! She then shoots him in almost total darkness as he slumps in a leather trench coat making passes at her. The moment he grabs her and she rebuffs him, an aftershock hits. She makes it seem worse than it is, sending him scurrying out in just his pants. Having worked a total of 15 minutes, Lisa is off to visit her family for the weekend.
Lisa's family owns a gigantic ranch bitter than many an East Coast state, run by Papa Cliff Robertson (only the first of our slummers, that Oscar of his nowhere in sight, performance-wise), who admonishes his daughter for wanting a rock 'n' roll bad at the fete as "that is unbridled cacophony." Well, isn't he Mr. Fancy Pants! Next up, "you given any thought to that old biological clock?" Yup, just like that. You see, he has three daughters, and he wants to see the next generation. So we understand that it's a good place, there are not only a heap of young Mexican children running around happily, but a great big cross in the living room.
Actually, it makes sense for Linda Evans to be the matriarch here. She and Lisa could be mother and daughter. Wait, I think it's Linda Evans. I mean, that's what the cast list says, but honestly, there is more Vaseline on the lens than Lucy got in "Mame," so it's very hard to see if it's REALLY Linda Evans. Slave to shoulder pads, even her robe has enhancements. But she's trouble. "Do you really think it's the right time?" she asks Cliff. What her worry is, I guess we'll find out. I assume someone is dying, but I could be wrong.
With the Mariachi band in full swing, the sisters show up. Lisa Eilbacher, long past her sweetheart days in "Monte Carlo" and "War and Remembrance" is the slutty sister baring her midriff, the one who gets out of her limo and immediately sizes up a man in front of his wife. The other sister is the more repressed Kim Ulrich.
Lisa, fetching in what we're told is a vintage 1930s gown, wanders into the party with Mom, wearing one of her more casual "Dynasty" outfits, as Linda whines about whether or not to take a new acting part that would require her to be in Paris in a few days. "Twenty-five years ago, I was the new Ingrid Bergman," she says wistfully. I can only guess it's because her character has a Scandinavian maiden name, because there is nothing else that could POSSIBLY tie those two together! We get a bit more of the drama because Linda hasn't told Cliff yet.
Rounding out the has-beens and never-weres are married couple James Farentino and June Chadwick, the latter of whom expressed such delight at the "pretty costumes" of the natives as Linda gives her a bit of family history. It seems that James keeps June "hidden away," though she prefers to think of it as, "well, sometimes he can't find me."
Start the fireworks, because here comes the love plot! The sledgehammers who hobbled together this script have made damn sure we don't miss it. Mop-topped Bruce Greenwood, "looking up at the stars," walks right into Lisa and spills his food all over her vintage gown and heirloom shawl. She's awfully huffy, but he tells her to "get some perspective, this isn't the Exxon Valdez." For those of you unfamiliar with the 1990s, Exxon Val...oh, look it up, it was a gigantic oil spill, not red sauce on the back of a gown. But, as we well know, miniseries squabblers end up miniseries lovers. She sees his Exxon Valdez and raises him a Hurricane Andrew. So smart, these two.
It's tough to change outfits when sister Lisa E is about to do the young military stud she picked out the minute she showed up. "Why my room?" Lisa H. wants to know. "Because my room was locked." Va va va voom, Lisa H. returns to the party in what most people would describe as a slip. Cliff calls Bruce over to introduce them and he spills wine on her new outfit. Lisa slumps off with a groan that would make Oscar the Grouch proud.
Linda finally confesses to Cliff that she's going to France for the acting job. The scene is played in the dark, presumably because Linda's contract made it so.
Lisa E and Kim are not Linda's children. They belong to Cliff's first wive, Dixie Carter (yes, slumming, Dixie always deserved better). Dixie has lunch in Beverly Hills (sniffing that it's "getting as exclusive as Paris") with Lisa E and Kim, having to admit that her business as a party planner is not going well because "all of my clients...are gone." Dixie seems to have no love lost when it comes to Lisa H. She believes that Lisa H cozies up to Cliff "to be the son he never had," thus the one to inherit the ranch. Oh, and Lisa E has a gigolo, Michael Easton, the kind who grabs her hair and asks "have you been a good girl?"
Banker James Farentino pays a visit to B.D. Wong (perhaps the most unlikely actor to appear in a Judith Krantz miniseries), a movie producer of "chopped sake" pictures who has money to burn before Hong Kong changes hands (a few years in the future, but hey, he's a planner). James has Kilkullen Ranch on his menu of offerings, apparently because the ranch has fallen on hard times. "Land is the only thing that counts," James says, ripping off every novel and/or movie set in the 19th Century. He wants to make sure B.D. takes the bait because "foreclosure is imminent" on the ranch and he refuses to be left without the money. James then meets with Cliff and Lisa H, urging him to sell, but Cliff seems sees through James' scheming. After assuring Cliff that the new owners of the ranch will not turn it into a development, Cliff leaves in a huff, telling James, "I was wrong, you have developed something. A large pain in my ass!"
When father and daughter return to the ranch that evening, Lisa Hartman does something I bet she never expected to do in her career, tend to a dying cow. A whole bunch of Cliff's cows have been shot. Someone is sending a message. Brushing a horse, far more her style, she is found by Bruce, to whom she apologizes, so he invites her to dinner. At that dinner, they find out more about each other. Bruce was born on a ranch, but "after college, got sidetracked to Wall Street," but wants back in because "it's in my blood." Cow patties and all. Lisa offers Bruce only a chaste kiss goodnight at her door.
James' scheming leads him to a liquid lunch with Dixie, who can be bought for martinis and still thinks of herself as "a Savannah debutante." Coincidentally, right after that scene, Lisa is offered "half an issue" of French Vogue, which would keep her out of the country for a while. "I paid my dues," she tells her assistant, refusing to do fashion photography again. She then runs the project by Cliff, expressing her worries, but he tells her to go.
We're in Paris. We know that because the first thing we see is the Eiffel Tower and we hear accordion music. After dealing with snooty models and cigarettes, Lisa huffs, "this is why I hate fashion work." She's busy snapping shots (of models standing with men dresses in riot gear), and a bicycle race is about to mow her down, so Jeffrey Meek, with a broad smile before he does it, as if it were planned, pushes her out of the way, assessing her camera to be okay. "You almost destroyed a beautiful piece of equipment," he tells her, speaking of the camera. Wait, French Vogue didn't close off this area of the park for the shoot? I see. "He's about the greatest photo journalist in the world," Lisa is told. He apparently won a Pulitzer for his work in Tiannamen Square, another nod to the characters knowing their news!
Jeffrey tries to talk to Lisa and they banter. As we learned only a few scenes ago, that leads to love! "Don't you have a war to go cover?" she wryly asks. "It seems we have a pretty good war right here," he replies, the movie's best line. He gives her a flyer for his upcoming show, collects his model girlfriend and they separate.
Don't forget Linda is in France shooting her movie, not showing any emotion upon meeting her suave leading man, Gerard Ismael. She actually falls for his oily lines, telling him, "I do believe I'm going to enjoy working with you."
Lisa takes Lee Purcell with her to the opening of Jeffrey's show. Lisa finds the work "special." "He's special and dangerous," Lee warns her and dashes off. Jeffrey spots Lisa from across the room and gets that grin again. They share a moment over one of Jeffrey's sadder photos and then apologize to each other. He invites her to leave the party (being his party, I guess he can do that), and they share a wine in the back room, where Lisa reminds him they have met before, at a lecture he gave when she was a student. "You offered to buy me a drink and I refused," she reminds him. "Why?" he says wistfully, but she was young. Unfortunately, his model girlfriend invades the room and Lisa leaves.
The next day, Lisa shoots again, this time models in front of burning cars with revolutionaries dresses as mechanics raving red flags. If that sounds like a dream you want explained by your analyst, I can understand. What it's doing here, I can't. The model is late, so they have to stop the shoot. When she arrives, she claims she and Jeffrey were up "all night...you know how he can be." Actually, Lisa doesn't. They haven't spent a night together. Lisa fires the saucy model, though the model sasses that Lisa is simply jealous. Lisa storms over to Jeffrey's hotel room (he is obviously a real artist, because he stays in a fleabag joint) to tell him to "stay away from my models," but he says he wasn't with the model, that she went off with the movie producer after the exhibit. Oops. On top of that, he's saved the photo that Lisa liked best and presents it to her, which make her "feel really stupid." Oh, just that? The concierge rings to ask if Lisa's driver should stay, and of course he's sent home. He says that he does remember the first time they met. "I've been carrying that memory with me for a long time," he whispers before they kiss. You go, Lisa! A man in California, a man in France! Of course, Bruce didn't get this far with her, but Jeffrey has the advantage of Paris.
Finally, Lisa remembers her mother is in France, so she takes nervous Jeffrey to meet her. Lisa gives her a little history on the way, that Linda was often away, but when she was home, "she made magic" though domestic arts. She's so well-rounded, our Linda, who even took her out for ice cream. However, perfect, Linda is not. When Lisa shows up in her dressing room (which has a paper sign with Linda's character's name on it--real fancy), Linda is making out with Gerard, so Lisa dashes out. "I don't know what to say," Linda tells her daughter when she puts on a gigantic oversized outfit with shoulder pads in every layer. "Is he the first?" Lisa asks. "They are just location romances," she rationalizes, since "none outlasted the film," and she only has them on shoots. Furthermore, she's wanted "to feel young and alive." How about plastic surgery instead? Oh, wait, I guess that's not young and alive enough. Lisa forgives her, naturally. Gerard has to be told, and he's a sport about it, kissing a shoulder pad as he walks out.
When Jeffrey finds Lisa in the tub, it's an excuse for one of those corny sex scenes that thinks it's erotic, but is really horribly lame. Jeffrey pours red wine on Lisa and licks it off to violin music, then removes his shirt and it ends. Thankfully. Then it's just bed-bound talk with hundreds of candles around. It's interrupted by Linda, on her way back to Paris, saying, "I long to see you," to her daughter. If she were the hero in a Jane Austen novel, that would sound contemporary.
Instead, she hops in her car, the only movie star in history without a driver. It overheats, so she decides it's a wise idea to walk through a tunnel to get to Paris on a foggy night as a truck barrel towards her.
The news reporter who tells France of Linda's death (in English) notes that she was the daughter of an actress "at the Comedie Francaise." That's something we didn't know! The family gathers in France for the funeral. Photographers snap pictures of Gerard taking obviously staged pictures of Gerard at the casket (staged by Gerard himself, I mean).
Lisa E and Kim have brought Dixie to Paris, though she had to watch the funeral on TV. "I hope you rose to the occasion," she tells Kim, "lots of sympathy, lots of love." But, Kim is still angry that Lisa H got to be Dad's rock. Well, to be fair, it was her mother! Kim is also upset because Lisa H has become "a prisoner of love" to Jeffrey, which drinking Dixie dismisses.
Lisa H decides to stay in France, must to the consternation of Cliff and Bruce. Cliff is worried about the "vandalism on the ranch," but Bruce is upset that Lisa isn't coming back and "might marry this guy." Wait, vandalism? People are shooting cows, not spray painting gang initials on the barn door! James and Dixie have another lunch, where she insists on meeting B.D. because she "wants a piece of the action" when the ranch is inevitably taken from Cliff.
Things go from bad to worse. Cliff hears hooligans and sees them, but as he tries to follow them, the well to which they attached bombs falls over and stops Cliff's car. He escapes with a broken arm and a whole lot of anger, which he aims at James and his "clients." "You tell 'em to keep on trying to kill me, bring a whole army, kill all my cattle, tear up the whole ranch, but they'll never get my land!" he makes clear. And furthermore, when he dies, he's leaving the ranch to the state, which makes James mighty unhappy. B.D. is not afraid. "One man's will must not prevail," he says confidently, urging James to find another way to scare Cliff into selling.
Back to Paris, because of the accordions and famous buildings. Everyone has an angle. While Lisa H is off buying flowers, the model shows up at Jeffrey's apartment to ask him for money because she believes Lisa has blacklisted her. She goes into the bathroom, leaving her underwear, takes the money and departs just as Lisa walks in. When they find the underwear, Jeffrey calls the model "a crazy bitch," and Lisa assumes, as the model wanted her to, that they slept together. He sputters some excuses, which Lisa doesn't buy, but then he hits her with the big one: "I am totally, completely in love with you." He even proposes, and of course she accepts.
That means they have to head to the ranch, and Jeffrey immediately falls in love with it from his helicopter vantage point. His meeting Bruce should be interesting. That happens in the next scene, where Bruce finds Jeffrey and Lisa dancing in the dark. Bruce feigns happiness, but it's obvious he has feelings for her. Even Jeffrey notices it. Jeffrey actually asks Bruce about it two scenes later, when he's plastered, having been to a memorial service for a colleague. Not only does he ask Bruce if he has feelings for Lisa, but he also asks if he's badmouthing him to Lisa. "You tried to tell her I'm a worthless son-of-a-bitch," he says, to which Bruce replies, "you said it, I didn't." This starts a macho brawl on the lawn, stopped only when Lisa intervenes.
Wedding day! Nervous, Lisa goes to recline in the grass in a pose that would be very Playboy if Lisa were wearing less. Cliff discovers here there and they have their umpteenth father-daughter bonding moment. She even gets a cute case of the hiccups, but Cliff and Lee find even that cute! All the guests arrive and everyone is waiting, but Cliff has not returned from Los Angeles with Jeffrey, who sends word via one of Lisa's employees that he's leaving for Rome. Lisa makes it to the airport and Jeffrey's gate faster than the speed of light. She makes it, only to hear that Jeffrey can't go through with marriage because "I'll never be any good at it," that he wants to trot the globe doing what he's always done. Lisa, though upset, is characteristically sanguine: "You go find a war...real life is too hard for you!"
Just when things seem as bad as they can be, we know they will get worse in a miniseries. Cliff, who had taken the helicopter to fetch Jeffrey, has crashed. Poor Lisa, second parent dead in one episode! James breaks the news to Dixie, who plays the scene in full 40s style, in a negligee with a single tear. June phones Lisa E with her sympathy and James cracks, "that sounded real sincere," and tells her to stay close to her as "it is essential we keep them on our side." Michael wants to toast "our first million" with Lisa E, but she slaps the drink out of his hand.
And that would leave us with a will reading. He has left the house to Lisa H, she is allowed to run it, but all three daughters get a third of the ranch. Unfortunately, he was unable to leave the ranch to the state as promised because he died too soon. Lisa E and Kim are downright nasty about the whole thing, with more than a few nasty moments. "This is a bad will, hasty, stubborn...worse, he assumed the three of you could all agree," the lawyer tells Lisa H after the other two leave in a huff.
Lisa doesn't believe the official report of "mechanical malfunction," telling Bruce it was no accident and fits in with the pattern of bad things happening to the ranch. When she finally goes back to work, Lisa is clearly not ready, first biting the head off her agent, Natalia Nogulich. She seems pretty distracted as she has a session with a bunch of Asian children. Alistair shows up to request her company in Malibu, but she turns him down.
Sister Kim and her gorgon of a mother Dixie are waiting for Lisa when she gets home, telling her the house is a mess, the furniture needs to be replaced, etc. Dixie brings up James' name as someone they should talk to and the fact that Lisa can't make any decisions without her sisters. Bruce tells her to get a lawyer, but Lisa says "it's just something the three of us have to work out." She begs Bruce to stay, and he tells her, "you've got me as long as the ranch is here." Battle lines are drawn!
"'Dazzle'" is not shining so bright anymore," Natalia tells Jeffrey, back in LA after not nearly enough time away from the movie (if this were ten years earlier, he would have been gone so long, we would have forgotten him, but here, we're stuck with him). She says Lisa is busy at the ranch and there is mayhem. But, if he would run it, maybe it could be put back on track. "Have you ever thought about taking it easy, cashing it in?" she asks him, dangling lots of money in his face.
Showdown time. Lisa, her sisters, Michael, James, B.D. and assorted extras gather at B.D.'s palatial manse. Everyone but Lisa H is ready to make a deal (that will also net Dixie a ton of money, though she's not allowed to be at the meeting). James starts the meeting by saying that "I'm not sure how much longer my bank can wait for the loan to be paid" and B.D. is afraid the Communists will take over Hong Kong before the official takeover. After B.D. offer billions, they show her plans to turn the ranch into "the most exclusive residential complex in the world." He even compares it to Monte Carlo. "No home would be worth less than $10 million," he says, with B.D. piping in security would be extra tight. "Total refuge from all the dangers of the rotten world," James adds, and B.D., way ahead of his time, says it will be environmentally friendly. The scene is pretty boring because you know where it's heading from the onset, so the fun comes from watching who gets the soft gels and who doesn't. It's ridiculous, as if no two people in the scene were shot at the same time and had to be edited together. "I have this violent need to throw up over this very expensive carpet," Lisa snaps as everyone asks what she thinks.
"You have a moral obligation," to hear everyone out, Kim tells Lisa after she bolts the meeting. A moral obligation? That doesn't even make any sense! "This is one time you are not going to get your way...I promise you," Kim shrieks as Lisa drives away. Yikes, this is going to get ugly! The way she explains it to Bruce is, "sell now and get filthy rich or fight and get scalped by lawyers fees." Bruce assures her, "we'll be 'em." "We?" "We, you and me, I promise," he assures her. Then her knight in shining armor (and long hair) gets a bigger kiss. But, he's not invited to stay.
This is a surprise: Alistair is actually working for B.D. "All of the elements are in place except for her. Use your imagination, she's the only obstacle I have left. Make life difficult for her. It's the plot of every chop sake picture every made," he tells the goofy Brit. "Do the good guys always win?" "Don't be naive, this is the real world. We win," he's told.
Natalia has called a meeting of everyone at "Dazzle." She announces that a new photographer wants to come on board, "someone that will give 'Dazzle' a lift," and that man is Jeffrey! Lisa objects, though the decision is actually not hers alone, as she has two partners (ah, symmetry with her other plot, eh?), and snaps to Natalia, "if you rep him, I'm leaving. It's your choice."
James' wife June is an antiques dealer and when Lisa E and Michael come to her shop, June invites them for tea and scones. Michael declines, but Lisa E says, "I've never resisted a scone," the movie's oddest line. It looks like James is getting his way through his wife.
Ugh, Jeffrey bounces over to Lisa's apartment to see her for the first time since their aborted wedding. "So, what's up?" Lisa asks, pretending nonchalance. He starts one sentence with how Natalia nabbed him to come on board, but ends it with "you can't tell me that you forgot about Paris." Oh, no? I can! I haven't been successful, but I've tried! She asks him to leave, but he kisses her and wears down her resistance very quickly. However, she does tell him she can't trust him, "you finally proved you don't have the power over me anymore. I don't care if you work at 'Dazzle.'" She's had four changes of heart during this scene and he's spoken in whispers the whole time. That kind of confusion only means there will be plenty more of these scenes to follow.
Not that good at what he's being paid to do, Alistair keeps making a nuisance of himself at "Dazzle." We know what is going to happen because there is a top secret automobile prototype in the studio to be shot and Alistair keeps trying to find out what it is, but getting there seems to be quite an arduous bit of plotting. "You won't let me seduce you, how about coming to work for me?" he asks, after begging for yet another date. He tosses out every perk he can think of, but her replay is "not even in your next life." Ouch!
Natalia gets less likeable with every scene. She tells Lisa that apparently Japan went cuckoo for her photographs of those Asian kids and she's been offered a book deal, but Lisa wants to stay put. "One of these days, you're going to have to decide if you want to be a photographer or a rancher," Natalia says, no doubt praying for the former for her 10%. And then she comes out a room giggling with Jeffrey without her jacket on. Jeffrey swears he and Natalia aren't doing anything suspect.
June believes that Lisa E shouldn't be married to a doofus like Michael, but opines that he must be good in bed. "Beds, bathtubs, chandeliers, you name it, I can't blame him here," Lisa E jokes, but then gets serious and admits she's never been in love. June confesses that she doesn't love James, and only married him "for protection," and the backstory is rushed off in a sentence. But June knows what she's doing, asking Lisa E what would have happened if her father had born a son. Ah, there wouldn't be any of the current issues, perhaps! Apparently Lisa E never bothered to think of that before.
A bus carrying Kilkullen Ranch laborers goes off the road and slews of them are taken to the hospital, but apparently a hospital only for Spanish-speakers as we see the "Emergencia" sign. Bruce heroically brings in the patients himself, cut up and bruised as well. But, he's only upset that Lisa never told him Jeffrey was back, for a few months now! She claims she forgot, but he's not buying it. When they go to investigate the crash site, Lisa is convinced it's sabotage and convinced James Farentino is behind it, though the police don't buy that. It seems nothing Lisa can say is for sale! She then hightails it to James' bank and threatens him big time.
Dixie is having trouble keeping her daughters in line. You see, Lisa E is developing a soft spot, admitting that perhaps Lisa H should have the ranch because she grew up there and "it's her way of keeping father alive." "Your sentimentality is as fake as your hair color," Kim snaps. Dixie insists that James is "our financial savior" and she will allow no hitches in the plan! June calls right then and invites Lisa E to dinner, giving off lesbian vibes big time.
Yes, you guessed it. Alistair leaked the photos of the car and the exec blows up. Alistair admits it, but this could bring down "Dazzle" and all of the partners, including Natalia and Jeffrey are rather unforgiving.
Over a nightcap, June talks loving of a girl in boarding school, and we have confirmation. She tells Lisa E it was "pure love." There's the story of the first kiss, which doesn't shoot off firecrackers in her brain because she's not so bright. With the words, "until I met you," Lisa E finally realizes she's being hit on (she's not very bright). "You've never found the right man," June reminds Lisa E, as if a series of Mr. Wrongs means a gal is a lesbian. "What harm could it do just to try it once with me?" June asks, stroking Lisa E's cheek. It obviously keeps happening enough that Michael gets suspicious and follows Lisa E to a boat where she is greeted by June with a big hug and a tiny kiss. See, switching teams wasn't so hard, now was it? Since June is so in love, she confesses James' plan to Lisa E, but swearing "my feelings about you are true." Lisa E storms out with June running behind her crying and begging, "don't leave me!" Michael forces Lisa E into his car, where she demands a divorce. "You want your divorce? I'll give you your divorce in hell," he seethes as he smacks her. Their physical fighting almost causes an accident, so Michael literally dumps her out of the car and speeds off.
Just as Lisa and Bruce are about to enjoy a candlelit dinner on a romantic stormy night, there is a knock at the door and a policewoman brings in terrified soaked Lisa E, caked with blood and bruised up and down. "Thanks for not asking a lot of questions," Lisa E tells her half sister, also admitted, "this is the only place I wanted to come." Lisa reminds her, "this is as much your home as it is mine." It looks like it's two sisters against one, and one lush stepmother.
From Lisa E, Lisa goes to Bruce, telling him she's cold and she wants to get into bed. Oh, and she wants a kiss. "If that's all you wanted, why are you in my bed?" Bruce asks, a fair question to be sure. Yes, she also wants that. We've been waiting for this minute ever since he spilled his food on her vintage dress. Cue the violins, but don't worry, we don't see the sex. Heaven forbid. As usual, the miniseries is sexless, no doubt for all the nuns and kids under 12 who watched them. Even sappier, their next scene (the villains have the scene in between) finds them walking their horses when Bruce proposes to her and she accepts.
When Dixie hears about Lisa E's beating, she uses it as an opportunity to needle Lisa H. She claims Lisa H is brainwashing the other Lisa. "What gives you the right to prevent your own sisters from having what is rightfully theirs?" she demands to know. Lisa is not happy with that, but doesn't get a chance to say anything because Dixie keeps rolling along, nothing how much of a fool Cliff was and that "the only good thing he ever did was die." With that, Lisa E emerges from hiding behind the door and takes her mother from the room lest Lisa tries to kill the witch.
Worm-like Alistair tries one last time to woo Lisa, and once again, she's not at all interested. But, he does tell her how he got the pictures of the prototype car: Natalia! Lisa and her partners fire her, but she says exactly what you would expect her to say. "See how far you get without me." Alistair reports back to B.D. that "'Dazzle' is finished." He's not wrong, because Lisa tells Jeffrey all of their clients have canceled and "there are no bookings in sight." The auto mogul has spread the word quickly. He tries to make woo and she informs him she's getting married.
Just as Jeffrey is processing the latter, a car comes out of nowhere and tries to run them down. Lisa isn't very good at the chase thing. She falls and then she hides in a tiny little car next to a wall, which can easily be rammed by the mysterious big window-tinted car. The driver is pretty bad too, crashing into a railing and passing out. Who is it? Michael, of course! That's hardly suspenseful because we saw him in that car earlier. Lisa E shows up in just enough time to have Michael whisper in her ear before he dies. "Father's death wasn't an accident," Lisa E tells Lisa, "he sabotaged the helicopter." It was James who "put him up to it." That rat is caught at the airport trying to flee the country because I guess all the police need to arrest someone is a deathbed confession. Proof? Pish posh!
Dixie is only worried about the deal. She feels it can still go through even without James. The woman is desperate for her money! Lisa E also tells Kim that Michael has more to say (as he was dying). He fingered Dixie as getting a "finder's fee" from James. "You took a commission on us?" carps an indignant Kim. Dixie then delivers a corker of a monologue, but her daughters are now both squarely against her.
Lisa summons her sisters to the ranch "because I want you to feel something and you can only feel it here." Huh? Well, I guess since we're moments from the end, a last-minute change of heart for Kim is expected. Lisa has a plan. You see, they only need a part of the ranch for grazing, so they can still build something, just not what the villains had in mind. Get this: "We could develop a new town, an urban village, like the old days, like it was in San Luis Capistrano. With real neighborhoods." Jeepers, that's a big project! But, of course her motives are pure. She's not doing it for the money, but to SPEND the money they have doing it because "it's not like we can't afford it."
The house that B.D. owns has such wonderful ethereal lighting. It's hard to figure out how many people are in the room when Dixie, out of desperation, goes to B.D. and tells him there's still a chance, that somehow they can convince Lisa to sell, oh, and that she expects a bigger commission. B.D. knows when he's licked. "I think it's time we took our money and moved on," he tells Dixie
Wedding day! Again! There is good news as the crowd gathers. Lisa E and Kim, who sport the two ugliest bridesmaids dresses (the costume designer out to be shot, but everyone should take comfort in the fact that no matter how much you hate those bridesmaids dresses you have been forced to wear, there is something out there even more atrocious), inform Lisa that they will not sell their pieces of the ranch. Jeffrey shows up, uninvited, determined to get her back and to give her a music box to "remember that I'm always there." That's a total regift! Where would Jeffrey even know where to get a music box and there has been no indication anywhere that Lisa even likes them! She hands it back to him, saying it represents the past and she doesn't want it. Time to regift again. The intrepid photographer walks out very slowly, as if he's getting paid by the second. There is a happy ending when Bruce and Lisa marry and kiss heatedly for the adoring friends and family assembled.
There it is, but I think it should be called "Fizzle" instead of "Dazzle." There are two problems here, and both of them doom "Dazzle" from the start. It's very cheap and it's very poorly cast. There is nothing about Lisa Hartman that says "ranch owner," except the too-tight jeans she wears. She has two totally unappealing leading men, and even the villains are boring. No wonder it was the last Judith Krantz novel turned into a miniseries! It's stupid enough to derail even Judith's train, which up until "Dazzle" was always filled with big expensive productions, no matter how cheesy the plots.
"Dazzle" is another example of the American miniseries rotting, or having rotted. Where so many of Krantz's books were given enormous productions, by 1995, we're stuck with a simple two-nighter that is downright sloppy. Poorly cast and badly acted, it's no more than a featherweight soap. In itself, being soapy is not a miniseries crime, but "Dazzle" has not a shred of humor in it, which leaves us merely jumping from one catastrophe to another. That can get pretty tiring very quickly.
If you feel like it, you can watch Judith's introduction to the miniseries, but I warn you, she's gotten older and even more dedicated to her own books in the decade since "Mistral's Daughter." You can also see just how successful too as the camera swoops inside her mansion from over the pool and the manicured shrubbery.
Once the movie begins, do not try to adjust your television sets. The hazy focus is there on purpose. By 1985, there were no ingenues left, but someone had to play one. It might as well be Lisa Hartman Black, about 20 years on from "Tabitha" and 15 years from the "Valley of the Dolls" remake.
Thin and sexy, Lisa is "Jazz Kilkullen," a celebrity photographer who runs the "Dazzle" studio (wow, only a minute in and we have a use for the title). She glides into the office as the news talks about a recent Los Angeles earthquake, with "aftershocks expected." Lisa's subject today is Alistair Duncan, a publisher apparently handsome enough that everyone else thought he was a movie star. Oh, he's done his research on Lisa, reeling off that she's a "ranch owner, heartbreaker, mankiller." I'm hooked.
And she immediately lives up to her reputation. She has some ideas of what he should wear for the shoot, but boils it all down to, "why don't you just put on the trench coat and take everything else off...I think it could be interesting, you wanted sexy." "And what are you going to take off?" he asks. "My lens cover." Oooohhhh, the vixen! She then shoots him in almost total darkness as he slumps in a leather trench coat making passes at her. The moment he grabs her and she rebuffs him, an aftershock hits. She makes it seem worse than it is, sending him scurrying out in just his pants. Having worked a total of 15 minutes, Lisa is off to visit her family for the weekend.
Lisa's family owns a gigantic ranch bitter than many an East Coast state, run by Papa Cliff Robertson (only the first of our slummers, that Oscar of his nowhere in sight, performance-wise), who admonishes his daughter for wanting a rock 'n' roll bad at the fete as "that is unbridled cacophony." Well, isn't he Mr. Fancy Pants! Next up, "you given any thought to that old biological clock?" Yup, just like that. You see, he has three daughters, and he wants to see the next generation. So we understand that it's a good place, there are not only a heap of young Mexican children running around happily, but a great big cross in the living room.
Actually, it makes sense for Linda Evans to be the matriarch here. She and Lisa could be mother and daughter. Wait, I think it's Linda Evans. I mean, that's what the cast list says, but honestly, there is more Vaseline on the lens than Lucy got in "Mame," so it's very hard to see if it's REALLY Linda Evans. Slave to shoulder pads, even her robe has enhancements. But she's trouble. "Do you really think it's the right time?" she asks Cliff. What her worry is, I guess we'll find out. I assume someone is dying, but I could be wrong.
With the Mariachi band in full swing, the sisters show up. Lisa Eilbacher, long past her sweetheart days in "Monte Carlo" and "War and Remembrance" is the slutty sister baring her midriff, the one who gets out of her limo and immediately sizes up a man in front of his wife. The other sister is the more repressed Kim Ulrich.
Lisa, fetching in what we're told is a vintage 1930s gown, wanders into the party with Mom, wearing one of her more casual "Dynasty" outfits, as Linda whines about whether or not to take a new acting part that would require her to be in Paris in a few days. "Twenty-five years ago, I was the new Ingrid Bergman," she says wistfully. I can only guess it's because her character has a Scandinavian maiden name, because there is nothing else that could POSSIBLY tie those two together! We get a bit more of the drama because Linda hasn't told Cliff yet.
Rounding out the has-beens and never-weres are married couple James Farentino and June Chadwick, the latter of whom expressed such delight at the "pretty costumes" of the natives as Linda gives her a bit of family history. It seems that James keeps June "hidden away," though she prefers to think of it as, "well, sometimes he can't find me."
Start the fireworks, because here comes the love plot! The sledgehammers who hobbled together this script have made damn sure we don't miss it. Mop-topped Bruce Greenwood, "looking up at the stars," walks right into Lisa and spills his food all over her vintage gown and heirloom shawl. She's awfully huffy, but he tells her to "get some perspective, this isn't the Exxon Valdez." For those of you unfamiliar with the 1990s, Exxon Val...oh, look it up, it was a gigantic oil spill, not red sauce on the back of a gown. But, as we well know, miniseries squabblers end up miniseries lovers. She sees his Exxon Valdez and raises him a Hurricane Andrew. So smart, these two.
It's tough to change outfits when sister Lisa E is about to do the young military stud she picked out the minute she showed up. "Why my room?" Lisa H. wants to know. "Because my room was locked." Va va va voom, Lisa H. returns to the party in what most people would describe as a slip. Cliff calls Bruce over to introduce them and he spills wine on her new outfit. Lisa slumps off with a groan that would make Oscar the Grouch proud.
Linda finally confesses to Cliff that she's going to France for the acting job. The scene is played in the dark, presumably because Linda's contract made it so.
Lisa E and Kim are not Linda's children. They belong to Cliff's first wive, Dixie Carter (yes, slumming, Dixie always deserved better). Dixie has lunch in Beverly Hills (sniffing that it's "getting as exclusive as Paris") with Lisa E and Kim, having to admit that her business as a party planner is not going well because "all of my clients...are gone." Dixie seems to have no love lost when it comes to Lisa H. She believes that Lisa H cozies up to Cliff "to be the son he never had," thus the one to inherit the ranch. Oh, and Lisa E has a gigolo, Michael Easton, the kind who grabs her hair and asks "have you been a good girl?"
Banker James Farentino pays a visit to B.D. Wong (perhaps the most unlikely actor to appear in a Judith Krantz miniseries), a movie producer of "chopped sake" pictures who has money to burn before Hong Kong changes hands (a few years in the future, but hey, he's a planner). James has Kilkullen Ranch on his menu of offerings, apparently because the ranch has fallen on hard times. "Land is the only thing that counts," James says, ripping off every novel and/or movie set in the 19th Century. He wants to make sure B.D. takes the bait because "foreclosure is imminent" on the ranch and he refuses to be left without the money. James then meets with Cliff and Lisa H, urging him to sell, but Cliff seems sees through James' scheming. After assuring Cliff that the new owners of the ranch will not turn it into a development, Cliff leaves in a huff, telling James, "I was wrong, you have developed something. A large pain in my ass!"
When father and daughter return to the ranch that evening, Lisa Hartman does something I bet she never expected to do in her career, tend to a dying cow. A whole bunch of Cliff's cows have been shot. Someone is sending a message. Brushing a horse, far more her style, she is found by Bruce, to whom she apologizes, so he invites her to dinner. At that dinner, they find out more about each other. Bruce was born on a ranch, but "after college, got sidetracked to Wall Street," but wants back in because "it's in my blood." Cow patties and all. Lisa offers Bruce only a chaste kiss goodnight at her door.
James' scheming leads him to a liquid lunch with Dixie, who can be bought for martinis and still thinks of herself as "a Savannah debutante." Coincidentally, right after that scene, Lisa is offered "half an issue" of French Vogue, which would keep her out of the country for a while. "I paid my dues," she tells her assistant, refusing to do fashion photography again. She then runs the project by Cliff, expressing her worries, but he tells her to go.
We're in Paris. We know that because the first thing we see is the Eiffel Tower and we hear accordion music. After dealing with snooty models and cigarettes, Lisa huffs, "this is why I hate fashion work." She's busy snapping shots (of models standing with men dresses in riot gear), and a bicycle race is about to mow her down, so Jeffrey Meek, with a broad smile before he does it, as if it were planned, pushes her out of the way, assessing her camera to be okay. "You almost destroyed a beautiful piece of equipment," he tells her, speaking of the camera. Wait, French Vogue didn't close off this area of the park for the shoot? I see. "He's about the greatest photo journalist in the world," Lisa is told. He apparently won a Pulitzer for his work in Tiannamen Square, another nod to the characters knowing their news!
Jeffrey tries to talk to Lisa and they banter. As we learned only a few scenes ago, that leads to love! "Don't you have a war to go cover?" she wryly asks. "It seems we have a pretty good war right here," he replies, the movie's best line. He gives her a flyer for his upcoming show, collects his model girlfriend and they separate.
Don't forget Linda is in France shooting her movie, not showing any emotion upon meeting her suave leading man, Gerard Ismael. She actually falls for his oily lines, telling him, "I do believe I'm going to enjoy working with you."
Lisa takes Lee Purcell with her to the opening of Jeffrey's show. Lisa finds the work "special." "He's special and dangerous," Lee warns her and dashes off. Jeffrey spots Lisa from across the room and gets that grin again. They share a moment over one of Jeffrey's sadder photos and then apologize to each other. He invites her to leave the party (being his party, I guess he can do that), and they share a wine in the back room, where Lisa reminds him they have met before, at a lecture he gave when she was a student. "You offered to buy me a drink and I refused," she reminds him. "Why?" he says wistfully, but she was young. Unfortunately, his model girlfriend invades the room and Lisa leaves.
The next day, Lisa shoots again, this time models in front of burning cars with revolutionaries dresses as mechanics raving red flags. If that sounds like a dream you want explained by your analyst, I can understand. What it's doing here, I can't. The model is late, so they have to stop the shoot. When she arrives, she claims she and Jeffrey were up "all night...you know how he can be." Actually, Lisa doesn't. They haven't spent a night together. Lisa fires the saucy model, though the model sasses that Lisa is simply jealous. Lisa storms over to Jeffrey's hotel room (he is obviously a real artist, because he stays in a fleabag joint) to tell him to "stay away from my models," but he says he wasn't with the model, that she went off with the movie producer after the exhibit. Oops. On top of that, he's saved the photo that Lisa liked best and presents it to her, which make her "feel really stupid." Oh, just that? The concierge rings to ask if Lisa's driver should stay, and of course he's sent home. He says that he does remember the first time they met. "I've been carrying that memory with me for a long time," he whispers before they kiss. You go, Lisa! A man in California, a man in France! Of course, Bruce didn't get this far with her, but Jeffrey has the advantage of Paris.
Finally, Lisa remembers her mother is in France, so she takes nervous Jeffrey to meet her. Lisa gives her a little history on the way, that Linda was often away, but when she was home, "she made magic" though domestic arts. She's so well-rounded, our Linda, who even took her out for ice cream. However, perfect, Linda is not. When Lisa shows up in her dressing room (which has a paper sign with Linda's character's name on it--real fancy), Linda is making out with Gerard, so Lisa dashes out. "I don't know what to say," Linda tells her daughter when she puts on a gigantic oversized outfit with shoulder pads in every layer. "Is he the first?" Lisa asks. "They are just location romances," she rationalizes, since "none outlasted the film," and she only has them on shoots. Furthermore, she's wanted "to feel young and alive." How about plastic surgery instead? Oh, wait, I guess that's not young and alive enough. Lisa forgives her, naturally. Gerard has to be told, and he's a sport about it, kissing a shoulder pad as he walks out.
When Jeffrey finds Lisa in the tub, it's an excuse for one of those corny sex scenes that thinks it's erotic, but is really horribly lame. Jeffrey pours red wine on Lisa and licks it off to violin music, then removes his shirt and it ends. Thankfully. Then it's just bed-bound talk with hundreds of candles around. It's interrupted by Linda, on her way back to Paris, saying, "I long to see you," to her daughter. If she were the hero in a Jane Austen novel, that would sound contemporary.
Instead, she hops in her car, the only movie star in history without a driver. It overheats, so she decides it's a wise idea to walk through a tunnel to get to Paris on a foggy night as a truck barrel towards her.
The news reporter who tells France of Linda's death (in English) notes that she was the daughter of an actress "at the Comedie Francaise." That's something we didn't know! The family gathers in France for the funeral. Photographers snap pictures of Gerard taking obviously staged pictures of Gerard at the casket (staged by Gerard himself, I mean).
Lisa E and Kim have brought Dixie to Paris, though she had to watch the funeral on TV. "I hope you rose to the occasion," she tells Kim, "lots of sympathy, lots of love." But, Kim is still angry that Lisa H got to be Dad's rock. Well, to be fair, it was her mother! Kim is also upset because Lisa H has become "a prisoner of love" to Jeffrey, which drinking Dixie dismisses.
Lisa H decides to stay in France, must to the consternation of Cliff and Bruce. Cliff is worried about the "vandalism on the ranch," but Bruce is upset that Lisa isn't coming back and "might marry this guy." Wait, vandalism? People are shooting cows, not spray painting gang initials on the barn door! James and Dixie have another lunch, where she insists on meeting B.D. because she "wants a piece of the action" when the ranch is inevitably taken from Cliff.
Things go from bad to worse. Cliff hears hooligans and sees them, but as he tries to follow them, the well to which they attached bombs falls over and stops Cliff's car. He escapes with a broken arm and a whole lot of anger, which he aims at James and his "clients." "You tell 'em to keep on trying to kill me, bring a whole army, kill all my cattle, tear up the whole ranch, but they'll never get my land!" he makes clear. And furthermore, when he dies, he's leaving the ranch to the state, which makes James mighty unhappy. B.D. is not afraid. "One man's will must not prevail," he says confidently, urging James to find another way to scare Cliff into selling.
Back to Paris, because of the accordions and famous buildings. Everyone has an angle. While Lisa H is off buying flowers, the model shows up at Jeffrey's apartment to ask him for money because she believes Lisa has blacklisted her. She goes into the bathroom, leaving her underwear, takes the money and departs just as Lisa walks in. When they find the underwear, Jeffrey calls the model "a crazy bitch," and Lisa assumes, as the model wanted her to, that they slept together. He sputters some excuses, which Lisa doesn't buy, but then he hits her with the big one: "I am totally, completely in love with you." He even proposes, and of course she accepts.
That means they have to head to the ranch, and Jeffrey immediately falls in love with it from his helicopter vantage point. His meeting Bruce should be interesting. That happens in the next scene, where Bruce finds Jeffrey and Lisa dancing in the dark. Bruce feigns happiness, but it's obvious he has feelings for her. Even Jeffrey notices it. Jeffrey actually asks Bruce about it two scenes later, when he's plastered, having been to a memorial service for a colleague. Not only does he ask Bruce if he has feelings for Lisa, but he also asks if he's badmouthing him to Lisa. "You tried to tell her I'm a worthless son-of-a-bitch," he says, to which Bruce replies, "you said it, I didn't." This starts a macho brawl on the lawn, stopped only when Lisa intervenes.
Wedding day! Nervous, Lisa goes to recline in the grass in a pose that would be very Playboy if Lisa were wearing less. Cliff discovers here there and they have their umpteenth father-daughter bonding moment. She even gets a cute case of the hiccups, but Cliff and Lee find even that cute! All the guests arrive and everyone is waiting, but Cliff has not returned from Los Angeles with Jeffrey, who sends word via one of Lisa's employees that he's leaving for Rome. Lisa makes it to the airport and Jeffrey's gate faster than the speed of light. She makes it, only to hear that Jeffrey can't go through with marriage because "I'll never be any good at it," that he wants to trot the globe doing what he's always done. Lisa, though upset, is characteristically sanguine: "You go find a war...real life is too hard for you!"
Just when things seem as bad as they can be, we know they will get worse in a miniseries. Cliff, who had taken the helicopter to fetch Jeffrey, has crashed. Poor Lisa, second parent dead in one episode! James breaks the news to Dixie, who plays the scene in full 40s style, in a negligee with a single tear. June phones Lisa E with her sympathy and James cracks, "that sounded real sincere," and tells her to stay close to her as "it is essential we keep them on our side." Michael wants to toast "our first million" with Lisa E, but she slaps the drink out of his hand.
And that would leave us with a will reading. He has left the house to Lisa H, she is allowed to run it, but all three daughters get a third of the ranch. Unfortunately, he was unable to leave the ranch to the state as promised because he died too soon. Lisa E and Kim are downright nasty about the whole thing, with more than a few nasty moments. "This is a bad will, hasty, stubborn...worse, he assumed the three of you could all agree," the lawyer tells Lisa H after the other two leave in a huff.
Lisa doesn't believe the official report of "mechanical malfunction," telling Bruce it was no accident and fits in with the pattern of bad things happening to the ranch. When she finally goes back to work, Lisa is clearly not ready, first biting the head off her agent, Natalia Nogulich. She seems pretty distracted as she has a session with a bunch of Asian children. Alistair shows up to request her company in Malibu, but she turns him down.
Sister Kim and her gorgon of a mother Dixie are waiting for Lisa when she gets home, telling her the house is a mess, the furniture needs to be replaced, etc. Dixie brings up James' name as someone they should talk to and the fact that Lisa can't make any decisions without her sisters. Bruce tells her to get a lawyer, but Lisa says "it's just something the three of us have to work out." She begs Bruce to stay, and he tells her, "you've got me as long as the ranch is here." Battle lines are drawn!
"'Dazzle'" is not shining so bright anymore," Natalia tells Jeffrey, back in LA after not nearly enough time away from the movie (if this were ten years earlier, he would have been gone so long, we would have forgotten him, but here, we're stuck with him). She says Lisa is busy at the ranch and there is mayhem. But, if he would run it, maybe it could be put back on track. "Have you ever thought about taking it easy, cashing it in?" she asks him, dangling lots of money in his face.
Showdown time. Lisa, her sisters, Michael, James, B.D. and assorted extras gather at B.D.'s palatial manse. Everyone but Lisa H is ready to make a deal (that will also net Dixie a ton of money, though she's not allowed to be at the meeting). James starts the meeting by saying that "I'm not sure how much longer my bank can wait for the loan to be paid" and B.D. is afraid the Communists will take over Hong Kong before the official takeover. After B.D. offer billions, they show her plans to turn the ranch into "the most exclusive residential complex in the world." He even compares it to Monte Carlo. "No home would be worth less than $10 million," he says, with B.D. piping in security would be extra tight. "Total refuge from all the dangers of the rotten world," James adds, and B.D., way ahead of his time, says it will be environmentally friendly. The scene is pretty boring because you know where it's heading from the onset, so the fun comes from watching who gets the soft gels and who doesn't. It's ridiculous, as if no two people in the scene were shot at the same time and had to be edited together. "I have this violent need to throw up over this very expensive carpet," Lisa snaps as everyone asks what she thinks.
"You have a moral obligation," to hear everyone out, Kim tells Lisa after she bolts the meeting. A moral obligation? That doesn't even make any sense! "This is one time you are not going to get your way...I promise you," Kim shrieks as Lisa drives away. Yikes, this is going to get ugly! The way she explains it to Bruce is, "sell now and get filthy rich or fight and get scalped by lawyers fees." Bruce assures her, "we'll be 'em." "We?" "We, you and me, I promise," he assures her. Then her knight in shining armor (and long hair) gets a bigger kiss. But, he's not invited to stay.
This is a surprise: Alistair is actually working for B.D. "All of the elements are in place except for her. Use your imagination, she's the only obstacle I have left. Make life difficult for her. It's the plot of every chop sake picture every made," he tells the goofy Brit. "Do the good guys always win?" "Don't be naive, this is the real world. We win," he's told.
Natalia has called a meeting of everyone at "Dazzle." She announces that a new photographer wants to come on board, "someone that will give 'Dazzle' a lift," and that man is Jeffrey! Lisa objects, though the decision is actually not hers alone, as she has two partners (ah, symmetry with her other plot, eh?), and snaps to Natalia, "if you rep him, I'm leaving. It's your choice."
James' wife June is an antiques dealer and when Lisa E and Michael come to her shop, June invites them for tea and scones. Michael declines, but Lisa E says, "I've never resisted a scone," the movie's oddest line. It looks like James is getting his way through his wife.
Ugh, Jeffrey bounces over to Lisa's apartment to see her for the first time since their aborted wedding. "So, what's up?" Lisa asks, pretending nonchalance. He starts one sentence with how Natalia nabbed him to come on board, but ends it with "you can't tell me that you forgot about Paris." Oh, no? I can! I haven't been successful, but I've tried! She asks him to leave, but he kisses her and wears down her resistance very quickly. However, she does tell him she can't trust him, "you finally proved you don't have the power over me anymore. I don't care if you work at 'Dazzle.'" She's had four changes of heart during this scene and he's spoken in whispers the whole time. That kind of confusion only means there will be plenty more of these scenes to follow.
Not that good at what he's being paid to do, Alistair keeps making a nuisance of himself at "Dazzle." We know what is going to happen because there is a top secret automobile prototype in the studio to be shot and Alistair keeps trying to find out what it is, but getting there seems to be quite an arduous bit of plotting. "You won't let me seduce you, how about coming to work for me?" he asks, after begging for yet another date. He tosses out every perk he can think of, but her replay is "not even in your next life." Ouch!
Natalia gets less likeable with every scene. She tells Lisa that apparently Japan went cuckoo for her photographs of those Asian kids and she's been offered a book deal, but Lisa wants to stay put. "One of these days, you're going to have to decide if you want to be a photographer or a rancher," Natalia says, no doubt praying for the former for her 10%. And then she comes out a room giggling with Jeffrey without her jacket on. Jeffrey swears he and Natalia aren't doing anything suspect.
June believes that Lisa E shouldn't be married to a doofus like Michael, but opines that he must be good in bed. "Beds, bathtubs, chandeliers, you name it, I can't blame him here," Lisa E jokes, but then gets serious and admits she's never been in love. June confesses that she doesn't love James, and only married him "for protection," and the backstory is rushed off in a sentence. But June knows what she's doing, asking Lisa E what would have happened if her father had born a son. Ah, there wouldn't be any of the current issues, perhaps! Apparently Lisa E never bothered to think of that before.
A bus carrying Kilkullen Ranch laborers goes off the road and slews of them are taken to the hospital, but apparently a hospital only for Spanish-speakers as we see the "Emergencia" sign. Bruce heroically brings in the patients himself, cut up and bruised as well. But, he's only upset that Lisa never told him Jeffrey was back, for a few months now! She claims she forgot, but he's not buying it. When they go to investigate the crash site, Lisa is convinced it's sabotage and convinced James Farentino is behind it, though the police don't buy that. It seems nothing Lisa can say is for sale! She then hightails it to James' bank and threatens him big time.
Dixie is having trouble keeping her daughters in line. You see, Lisa E is developing a soft spot, admitting that perhaps Lisa H should have the ranch because she grew up there and "it's her way of keeping father alive." "Your sentimentality is as fake as your hair color," Kim snaps. Dixie insists that James is "our financial savior" and she will allow no hitches in the plan! June calls right then and invites Lisa E to dinner, giving off lesbian vibes big time.
Yes, you guessed it. Alistair leaked the photos of the car and the exec blows up. Alistair admits it, but this could bring down "Dazzle" and all of the partners, including Natalia and Jeffrey are rather unforgiving.
Over a nightcap, June talks loving of a girl in boarding school, and we have confirmation. She tells Lisa E it was "pure love." There's the story of the first kiss, which doesn't shoot off firecrackers in her brain because she's not so bright. With the words, "until I met you," Lisa E finally realizes she's being hit on (she's not very bright). "You've never found the right man," June reminds Lisa E, as if a series of Mr. Wrongs means a gal is a lesbian. "What harm could it do just to try it once with me?" June asks, stroking Lisa E's cheek. It obviously keeps happening enough that Michael gets suspicious and follows Lisa E to a boat where she is greeted by June with a big hug and a tiny kiss. See, switching teams wasn't so hard, now was it? Since June is so in love, she confesses James' plan to Lisa E, but swearing "my feelings about you are true." Lisa E storms out with June running behind her crying and begging, "don't leave me!" Michael forces Lisa E into his car, where she demands a divorce. "You want your divorce? I'll give you your divorce in hell," he seethes as he smacks her. Their physical fighting almost causes an accident, so Michael literally dumps her out of the car and speeds off.
Just as Lisa and Bruce are about to enjoy a candlelit dinner on a romantic stormy night, there is a knock at the door and a policewoman brings in terrified soaked Lisa E, caked with blood and bruised up and down. "Thanks for not asking a lot of questions," Lisa E tells her half sister, also admitted, "this is the only place I wanted to come." Lisa reminds her, "this is as much your home as it is mine." It looks like it's two sisters against one, and one lush stepmother.
From Lisa E, Lisa goes to Bruce, telling him she's cold and she wants to get into bed. Oh, and she wants a kiss. "If that's all you wanted, why are you in my bed?" Bruce asks, a fair question to be sure. Yes, she also wants that. We've been waiting for this minute ever since he spilled his food on her vintage dress. Cue the violins, but don't worry, we don't see the sex. Heaven forbid. As usual, the miniseries is sexless, no doubt for all the nuns and kids under 12 who watched them. Even sappier, their next scene (the villains have the scene in between) finds them walking their horses when Bruce proposes to her and she accepts.
When Dixie hears about Lisa E's beating, she uses it as an opportunity to needle Lisa H. She claims Lisa H is brainwashing the other Lisa. "What gives you the right to prevent your own sisters from having what is rightfully theirs?" she demands to know. Lisa is not happy with that, but doesn't get a chance to say anything because Dixie keeps rolling along, nothing how much of a fool Cliff was and that "the only good thing he ever did was die." With that, Lisa E emerges from hiding behind the door and takes her mother from the room lest Lisa tries to kill the witch.
Worm-like Alistair tries one last time to woo Lisa, and once again, she's not at all interested. But, he does tell her how he got the pictures of the prototype car: Natalia! Lisa and her partners fire her, but she says exactly what you would expect her to say. "See how far you get without me." Alistair reports back to B.D. that "'Dazzle' is finished." He's not wrong, because Lisa tells Jeffrey all of their clients have canceled and "there are no bookings in sight." The auto mogul has spread the word quickly. He tries to make woo and she informs him she's getting married.
Just as Jeffrey is processing the latter, a car comes out of nowhere and tries to run them down. Lisa isn't very good at the chase thing. She falls and then she hides in a tiny little car next to a wall, which can easily be rammed by the mysterious big window-tinted car. The driver is pretty bad too, crashing into a railing and passing out. Who is it? Michael, of course! That's hardly suspenseful because we saw him in that car earlier. Lisa E shows up in just enough time to have Michael whisper in her ear before he dies. "Father's death wasn't an accident," Lisa E tells Lisa, "he sabotaged the helicopter." It was James who "put him up to it." That rat is caught at the airport trying to flee the country because I guess all the police need to arrest someone is a deathbed confession. Proof? Pish posh!
Dixie is only worried about the deal. She feels it can still go through even without James. The woman is desperate for her money! Lisa E also tells Kim that Michael has more to say (as he was dying). He fingered Dixie as getting a "finder's fee" from James. "You took a commission on us?" carps an indignant Kim. Dixie then delivers a corker of a monologue, but her daughters are now both squarely against her.
Lisa summons her sisters to the ranch "because I want you to feel something and you can only feel it here." Huh? Well, I guess since we're moments from the end, a last-minute change of heart for Kim is expected. Lisa has a plan. You see, they only need a part of the ranch for grazing, so they can still build something, just not what the villains had in mind. Get this: "We could develop a new town, an urban village, like the old days, like it was in San Luis Capistrano. With real neighborhoods." Jeepers, that's a big project! But, of course her motives are pure. She's not doing it for the money, but to SPEND the money they have doing it because "it's not like we can't afford it."
The house that B.D. owns has such wonderful ethereal lighting. It's hard to figure out how many people are in the room when Dixie, out of desperation, goes to B.D. and tells him there's still a chance, that somehow they can convince Lisa to sell, oh, and that she expects a bigger commission. B.D. knows when he's licked. "I think it's time we took our money and moved on," he tells Dixie
Wedding day! Again! There is good news as the crowd gathers. Lisa E and Kim, who sport the two ugliest bridesmaids dresses (the costume designer out to be shot, but everyone should take comfort in the fact that no matter how much you hate those bridesmaids dresses you have been forced to wear, there is something out there even more atrocious), inform Lisa that they will not sell their pieces of the ranch. Jeffrey shows up, uninvited, determined to get her back and to give her a music box to "remember that I'm always there." That's a total regift! Where would Jeffrey even know where to get a music box and there has been no indication anywhere that Lisa even likes them! She hands it back to him, saying it represents the past and she doesn't want it. Time to regift again. The intrepid photographer walks out very slowly, as if he's getting paid by the second. There is a happy ending when Bruce and Lisa marry and kiss heatedly for the adoring friends and family assembled.
There it is, but I think it should be called "Fizzle" instead of "Dazzle." There are two problems here, and both of them doom "Dazzle" from the start. It's very cheap and it's very poorly cast. There is nothing about Lisa Hartman that says "ranch owner," except the too-tight jeans she wears. She has two totally unappealing leading men, and even the villains are boring. No wonder it was the last Judith Krantz novel turned into a miniseries! It's stupid enough to derail even Judith's train, which up until "Dazzle" was always filled with big expensive productions, no matter how cheesy the plots.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
SEQUEL ALERT: Lace II (1985)
So far, we've avoided miniseries sequels, but I'm afraid we cannot do it any longer, folks. In fact, they are nearly as old as the American miniseries itself. Does anyone remember "Rich Man, Poor Man Book 2?" It has neither the poor man nor the girlfriend and is pretty tough going, especially at 20 or so hours. But, then there is "Roots: The Next Generation," which is fantastic. So, in the first few years of the movement, we got mixed signals on whether sequels were okay or not.
(for the original "Lace" go back to January 30 on this blog)
When it comes to "Lace II," sequels are not okay. "Lace II" is as brain-dead as they come. "Lace" is utterly delightful in its dedication to camp. Very few miniseries actually have lines that everyone knows, but who doesn't know "which one of you bitches is my mother?"
"Lace II" tries to equal that line but you only strike gold once. Having watched "Lace" many times, it never occurred to me to question the paternity of our leading vixen, because it was so much fun just figuring out the maternity. Paternity questions are ho-hum. The excitement of "Lace" was watching three teenagers (played by very mature actresses) hide a pregnancy not only from everyone they knew, but also from the story! Even daytime soap operas couldn't manage that one. For many hours, we are forced to trudge along and find Phoebe's father, a completely uninteresting tale that is not only daft in the telling, but re-invents things that happened in "Lace" very differently, as if we won't remember. Wouldn't the only people watching "Lace II" be "Lace" fans? They won't forget, trust me!
And, "Lace II" is such a bad idea that the Bess Armstrong, revealed to be the bitch of a mother, passed on doing the sequel, in which her character is the clear lead! From the moment she turned it down, everyone else should have also, but noooooooo, the rest are here. "Lace II" has none of the lovable lunacy of the original and is in fact so inept as to be head-scratching. But, that was 1980s American television greed, for you, just toss the product out there and hope for the best.
The credits unroll over a cloying pop song performed by Deniece "Let's Hear It For the Boy" Williams as a humongous billboard of Phoebe Cates is painted over the Palace Theatre (home at that point to "La Cage Aux Folles") in New York City.
Phoebe is stressing over that night's movie premiere. "Mother, what am I going to do about my hair?" she asks Bess Arm...oh, right, she didn't come back, asks Deborah Raffin (a sure sign of miniseries trouble) as non-moms Arielle Dombasle and Brooke Adams fuss over their outfits too. Phoebe looks ridiculous in a clinging red number, but the fans are there to see her and they don't care, all fourteen of them.
Phoebe picks the premiere of her movie to tell the world Deborah is her mother. That doesn't sit well with Deborah's parents, as her mother passes out upon hearing the news that "that floozy" is her granddaughter on TV. Now, Phoebe and Deborah have not only forgiven each other the heartache and hell of "Lace," but have such a good relationship that they sing about West Virginia together as they enter that state to visit Deborah's parents, in matching white turbans, no less. All we've ever known about Deborah's character (or Bess' in the original) is that she was American and went to a European private school. She did not have a lesbian mother or drunken Aunt Hortense to liven things up (since they killed off Aunt Hortense in the first one, Angie Lansbury can't help us out of this muck--not to worry, she did the sequel of "Rage of Angels").
Therefore, we did not know that the very same West Virginia town that birthed famous magazine editor Deborah was also home to astronaut James Read (who has the distinction of being in TWO of the worst miniseries sequels--we'll get to "North and South Book 3" eventually). As the gals are driving into town, there is a parade in his honor, and the town is closed down, half-day, for the celebration. "Banks too?" he says snidely, obviously unimpressed. Reckless Phoebe literally drives into the parade, scattering it all over the place, to the consternation of the town fathers and bandleaders. However, they get over it quickly when they realize it's Phoebe, who gamely poses for pictures as old pals James and Deborah get re-acquainted. "The movie star most men want to be on a desert island with and the astronaut most women want to be in orbit with," the huckster mayor shouts as everyone crowds nearer. Remember, this was before Buzz Aldrin did "Dancing With the Stars," so astronauts still had cache.
Deborah's parents, Bruce Boa and Richena Carey, are quite a pair. Imperious Richena allows no talk at dinner, until Deborah tries to break the ice. After noting that she's illegitimate, thanks, Phoebe starts to get a little snide. Richena says, "well, it's terrible to admit," as everyone braces for the worst, "but I've never seen any of your movies." Relief! Bruce has. "When?" his wife asks. "When I went to Baltimore with the lodge," that city of sin! "You never told me," she sasses back, and Bruce only wants to know "what is going through your mind" when doing her sex scenes. "New dresses, new shoes, new wallpaper, recipes, but I'll tell you something that isn't...the lodge members in Baltimore," Phoebe replies and everyone dissolves into gigantic peals of laughter.
Trouble in husband-land. When Arielle arrives home, her husband is in bed with the secretary, but I give him credit for using a different line than expected. "It isn't EXACTLY as it appears," James Faulkner says. Oh, such clever writing! Arielle throws his clothing out the window and then declares that if he can have a midlife crisis, so can she. It's better than poor Brooke, whose husband has a heart attack on the flight back to London!
Then the plot can finally start. Phoebe wants to meet her father. Deborah produces a picture of a man in a military uniform and says that's her father and he's dead, but Phoebe pushes, so Deborah pulls out the the story of Lucinda Lace she wrote all those years ago in private school and gives Phoebe a missing chapter. "Oh, I better warn you, some of it might be unpleasant." Ah, thank you. Because Phoebe hasn't spent her whole life being unpleasant, suddenly a prude?
The story starts with Michael Fitzpatrick (the only other major role from the first to be recast), the banker with whom "all three girls fell in love," repeating a scene from the original "Lace" but having to reshoot it with two new actors. He's the one who took Deborah to the dance, requiring more reshooting and then in bed afterwards, a third reshot. Deborah falls playing field hockey (yeah, put a wig on the ladies and they look positively...40!) and announces she's "just a little bit pregnant."
Those who remember "Lace" will know that every problem was discussed head on, "srough sick and sin," with everyone putting their thumbs together and imitating Arielle's French accent. Deborah wants an abortion, but how? "There are ways," Arielle notes and skulks around a pharmacy until taking heaps of medication to force one. That doesn't work, and I'm sure Phoebe is thrilled to be reading she was truly unwanted. Her friends think Michael should know, but Deborah refuses because his family has planned his future, but they decide to tell him anyway, until they see him with his fiancee and chicken out. "Three years later, he would die a hero's death in Vietnam," the chapter concludes, and the mystery of Phoebe's father is over. Wow, a 30-minute movie, that wasn't so bad.
It ain't over, don't get excited.
Phoebe isn't upset to have been possibly aborted because, she claims with pride, she had abortions at the same age. Instead, she wants to read the rest of the book, but Deborah says, "it's silly schoolgirl stuff" and takes it away.
Plus, they have to rush back to New York because Deborah has been offered an interview with Walter Gotell, a reclusive Vietnamese "rebel leader" and for $50K, he'll tell his story to her magazine (she thinks that it's because her book on Vietnam was so good). Phoebe is pissed because Deborah won't be with her in Los Angeles, "to make my first Hollywood film." It will only take a week to do everything, so she'll meet Phoebe then. Yes, folks, Deborah Raffin, and her hefty shoulder pads, are off to Vietnam! Who the hell is she, Rambo? In the 80s, Vietnam was a big deal, with the Republican Party trouncing the Left by making it unpatriotic to speak ill of the war, but what in heaven's name is it doing in "Lace II?"
Off to Vietnam Deborah goes, taken from a tourist pack and hidden under a sheet in a boat to bypass the authorities. When she finally gets to the remote area to meet the general, a few guards are murdered and then she meets Christopher Cazenove (another miniseries regular, but second-tier). They instantly despise each other, which means they will, of course, fall in love. She tells him, "I'm not very good on a horse," but that's okay, because they will be riding elephants as "they make less noise," Christopher tells her.
Out in LA, Phoebe writes her name in the cement outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater, which was something no one had done for decades at that point, but her (seemingly decreasing) fans go wild for it.
Christopher, his merry band of bandits and Deborah arrive at their location where they banter like all people who will eventually be in love. She counts out the $50K in hundred dollar bills, until General Walter has her stop at $45K, saying she'll have no voice left for questions. Oh, come on, let her count out the last amount, she got that far! General Walter, who seems about as Vietnamese as Christopher or Deborah, taunts Christopher about his fancy education and then squirms out of being interviewed by Deborah.
I can promise you will be absolutely mystified by the scene Phoebe shoots for the movie. It appears to be some sort of music video, in which a bunch of extras in tacky clothing dance around a pool while Phoebe is shy behind plants and drinks and then gets pushed into the pool. It doesn't make any more sense if you watch it twice or try to puzzle it out, so let's just move on.
After needing just one take, Phoebe goes to her dressing room, where two Asian men (or one, and one in heavy Asian make-up) grab her. They are there to deliver a message and one wants to rape her, but thankfully there is a knock at the door.
Plucky Deborah is kept from General Walter, but not from the truth. She's there to witness the killing of a young man under Christopher's orders. "He told us everything he knew, we can't afford prisoners," he tells Deborah. She wants to contact Phoebe, but is told, "we don't have direct dial." He pulls out a game and she snaps, "I didn't come all this way to play checkers with a stiff-upper-lip sadist." Oooh, that's tellin' him, Deborah. She looks and sounds ridiculous at all times, though somehow, he manages to pull off his "Apocalypse Now" role decently. They play, but argue over British-American word differences like "lift" and "braces." She wants to know what "noble cause" he shares with the general and he rattles off words like freedom and better life, but that's boring. "Most girls fine me irresistible," he tells her and they banter more, before he lowers the boom everyone else has figured out but her. "How long am I going to be here." "It's hard to say. It's rather up to that famous daughter of yours."
Yes, gang, she was lured all the way to Vietnam as a hostage for one million dollars. "You may be overestimating my daughter's affection for me," but he's confident. "The game isn't over," she yells, throwing the table aside. He comes to hit her, she flinches and he merely brushes aside a strand of her hair.
I know what you are thinking: why did they kidnap her and why did they bring her to Vietnam. I have no answers. Of all the people in the world to use as a hostage, a magazine editor with a famous daughter is not the first I would choose. There are far more valuable people. And why schlep her all the way to Vietnam when they could just stash her closer to home and still get the money? I don't think anyone thought of that. So, just suspend all notions of reality and follow it along to the inevitable conclusions you can see coming miles away! I'm not saying it won't be painful getting there...
Phoebe has to ask her producer for the million ransom as an up front payment of her salary, but when he refuses, he threatens to "sue ya." "Go ahead, sue me for every cent I haven't got," while standing naked in her dressing room. Phoebe calls her old pal Terence Rigby, the Greek shipping magnate, and begs him for money, again. She promises never to ask again. He hangs up on her after putting one of his expensive girls on the phone for a few seconds. The magazine can't afford it either. "The next thing for me is a trip to Philadelphia," Phoebe decides, to bilk her father's family out of the pocket change.
She does herself up in kid gloves and a business suit, but her grandfather's secretary isn't fooled. Peter Jeffrey is thrilled to see her because he's never met a movie star, only "presidents and statesmen," but he's confused as to why she's come to see him. Not filling in all the details, she asks for the money and THEN tells him "your son was my father." "You are not his daughter," he says and she goes off on one of her spaz attacks, but then retracts to get all simpering and sweet. Peter tosses her out, insisting his son is not her father and very confidently.
Deborah, wearing white, finds herself in the middle of a war zone when troops storm the not-at-all-hidden rebel enclave. Wait for the moment when Christopher comes rushing by on a horse to scoop her up as bombs explode around them. If that isn't romance, I don't know what is! This much schmaltz and on free TV! The general is dead, so Deborah thinks she's free, but not so. "I read Lace and the other lurid tabloids. Your coming here was my idea, and so was the ransom demand. I even anticipated this eventuality, so nothing's changed," he says. "So much for heroes on white horses," she snaps. "Do heroines still believe in such things?" he ends, closing down that conversation. Wait, you didn't see it coming that Christopher was in charge the whole time?
Remember Brooke Adams? Her husband dies. Remember Arielle? She throws a party where she and her husband do nothing but insult each other while the rest of the guests do equally catty remarking, but Arielle flirts with Patrick Ryecart, who says he'll spirit her away to London and "flaunt" their passion for each other. That's put on hold when a butler brings news of Brooke's hubby's death.
That news is also heard in the Kingdom of Sydon. Remember King Anthony Higgins, the unfailingly polite monarch with the heavy bronzer? We know he's always had a thing for Brooke. So, he dispatches an envoy to the funeral with the message that "the timeless desert sand has been known to assuage deep personal grief."
The kidnappers call Phoebe and want the money, but she gets an extension of seven days. They aren't very good kidnappers, are they? Since when does she get to dictate the terms? So, she follows through on her threat to out the Philadelphia blue-bloods as her family. But, Phoebe rifles through her mother's drawers and finds a secret addendum to the Lucinda Lace book.
Next thing we know, Phoebe shows up at Brooke's hubby's funeral, interrupting the minister with, "I want to know the truth." She does know how to make an entrance. This forces us into ANOTHER flashback, with Deborah very pregnant and the others playing badminton. Deborah goes into labor and tells Brooke the father might not be the man they all think it is. Arielle decides to tell Phoebe what she knows, merely interrupting the flashback to send us into another. This time, Deborah goes, as a reporter, to Vietnam, to tell Michael about their child. "Tell me, are there any atheists in foxholes?" "I'm not sure, but I do know there is an idiot who let you get away," he replies. He apologizes for his family and for listening to them. They declare their love for each other, he'll leave his wife for her after the war, so she shows him pictures of their daughter. He's speechless, for a moment, and then launches into a big doozy that ends with, "I have never been able to have children." Now we know why is father was so sure of himself, eh?
"Before you go into mourning, I need your help to save my mother's life," Phoebe begs of Brooke, and Arielle of course. Phoebe reveals that the chapter about her father was written three times and she needs their help to figure out her paternity and for some money, which neither of them has. So, they have to figure out which of the three stories of Deborah "being violated" is true. King Anthony's name comes up, and so does James Read's, someone we never knew existed back in "Lace." Phoebe quips, "the daughter of a budding astronaut? You might have been a Martian!" That doesn't sit well with Phoebe. She gets snarky and decides to do it all on her own. "Through thick and thin, like hell!"
But, ignoring her tantrum, Arielle and Brooke suddenly remember some details and we're sent into flashback land again (if they just TOLD us what was happening, this could have all been wrapped up in a single evening, rather than over two nights of valuable primetime real estate). They agree to help. Brooks asks, "what do you want us to do?
"I want you to help me find out which one of those bastards is my father," Phoebe snarls to end the first part of the movie. She did that in the first "Lace" and it was a fantastic moment. Here it falls flat
The press wants to know who her father is and she says they will have to wait until her big press conference.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Deborah has decided to turn her situation into "Taming of the Shrew." She knocks Christopher's gun into the water and dashes for his horse. He grabs her, they tussle and he gets her to calm down. He then reads her diary entry about him, which is flattering. "I didn't write what I really thought," she says, the dim bulb.
Phoebe, Arielle and Brooke each take a version of the story to follow it through. Arielle contacts the boy she slept with years ago, the soccer player, because one version says the rapist was on the soccer team. They force Brooke, against her will, to go to Sydon and confront King Anthony, leaving Phoebe to tackle James Read, because she's "the only one who has ever met him," as if asking him about violating a woman years ago would be any less awkward from a stranger? "I am prepared to do anything to get that money," Phoebe tells her mother's pals and is brought into the "sick and sin" pact, she and her camel toe.
Deborah, punked by the locals into eating spicy food, takes advantage of a moment when no one is watching her to get all "Mission Impossible" and escape, though again in white, not at all an obvious color. She stops at every pillar to look around, not very good at this disappearing thing. She comes across Christopher, wounded and passed out from a fierce battle with the other side of whatever he's rebelling against. She wants to run, but she wants to help. Run? Help? Run? Help? I think you know which it is.
First up is Arielle, off to see her former soccer love, hunky Francois Guetary, who has been reduced to being a gym teacher. Arielle drives her fancy car and sits on it all sexy-like, except the car is not fancy and she's not dressed for sexy. He wants to speak to her, and she agrees to go back to his place. The man on the hockey team is Patrick Ryecart, with whom she has been flirting, the world-famous composer. Francois expects a little fumble-and-tickle, but Arielle claims, "I'm pressed for time," stops and adds, "on the ice, you were so formidable" and blows him a kiss goodbye. I used to think anyone with a French accent could get away with anything, but not our Arielle. A combination of bad writing and even worse acting kills that notion.
Brooke goes to Sydon where King Anthony is there to meet her as a helicopter pilot. "Welcome back to my humble home," he tells her as they pull up to his castle. The Queen is none too happy to see her, but the king's young son is excited.
Even wounded and living as a rebel in the jungle, Christopher has his tart tongue. Waking up to find Deborah keeping a vigil at his bedside, he says, "any relation to Florence Nightingale?" "How about a fair trade? I save your life," she says, to which he replies, "and because you were foolishly sentimental, you want me to do the same." Ah, sweet bickering. "I want you to be human for once." "Sorry," he replies. "What are you? What are you doing here anyway?" she thinks to ask. There's a story, thank you for asking. Like Zorba the Greek, he always has a story, this rascal. His father was a diplomat who didn't agree with the government and was killed. That story of tragic boyhood loss leads into the following: "and what are you? Editor? Nurse? Woman? To conclude the interview, I do regard self-sacrifice as an essential part of life" and pulls her in for a kiss. I'm sorry, what? How did we go from his father in front of a firing squad to the cascading of a thousand violins and sex under the mosquito net? Everyone watches their silhouettes from outside and are probably wondering the same thing.
King Anthony has important problems. His peasants are starving because there is no water. "How can I lead them into the modern age?" he wonders. She says she's seen worse people with money. "You must learn to distinguish between unhappiness and misery," he says, with a veiled reference to perhaps someday being his queen, or at least a harem gal. We've had the helicopter, a boring classical recital and a long horse ride and still she hasn't broached the subject of Deborah in the past.
Waking up after a night of gettin' busy, Deborah asks if she can go. He says he so desperately needs the money for the people, and now she's, of course, sympathetic. But what if Phoebe can't get the money. Yeah, that's a problem because he didn't anticipate falling in love with her, but "she has to raise the money." "You aren't human. You just aren't!" she starts, leading into, bar none, the absolute worst dialogue exchange in all of "Lace II." She claims he has "an Orestes Complex, which means, sexually speaking, you're all mixed up." "That's not what you said last night." If this were Jerry Springer, we could cue the audience on that one! "Oh no she didn't!" But, there is no Jerry Springer, so the writers go for more nonsense, such as "Judy. We just made love. You can call me Judy!," her character's name.
Arielle has a box at the symphony all to herself to watch Patrick conduct his orchestra. Watching him, we dissolve into flashback to the dance we saw in "Lace" and though it's refilmed, I will give them credit for remembering that the song playing was "Summer Place." The rest is pretty brand new. Deborah sees Patrick and thinks he looks "miserable," wanting to "cheer him up." They also remember the next song was "Mack the Knife," but at no point in "Lace" did Patrick break into the dance and try to take Deborah. When Michael tells Deborah they can't be together, she accuses him of just "wanting a body." Fleeing Michael, she meets Patrick on the street, where he leads her into a scary taxidermy store. She's creeped out and tries to leave, but he stops her. Violation #1.
Arielle and Patrick go driving through Paris singing opera. Did you know Arielle had a world-class opera voice? Neither did she, but she lip syncs decently. Their attempted seduction of each other is laughable. The puns and the accents are big hazards, but unsubtle Arielle tries to trap him. "I find this conversation increasingly boring," he says. She makes her accusations, they play the longest cat and mouse scene and he declares, "Countess, you have no proof. No proof at all," as she grabs her fur and storms out of his Paris abode.
Things have to start moving faster, because we only have an hour left and two options to go, one that should be somewhat romantic and one that will be just awkward. And then we have to wrap up the plot. I'm so glad we've wasted 3/4 of the whole thing on unimportant gibberish!
Luckily, astronaut James Read happens to be in Paris, so Phoebe doesn't have to trek back to the US to find him. She just has to put on her favorite outfit of a fur and hanky over her head, with sunglasses, and James can see her in the not-so-big crowd, knowing at some point he must follow her, to what turns out to be a very remote location outside the city (where he is staying as well)
The second version of the violation takes place during a brand new time period we didn't even know existed back in "Lace." Somehow, Deborah found time to go home to West Virginia during her fertile few days (the other two possible stories take place at school, reasonably enough). There is a hay ride, songs by a campfire, hide-and-go-seek in the dark and bing-bang-boom, Deborah finds herself in trouble. James traces her to an abandoned barn. Apparently she is the ONLY woman of them all to think to hide in there, giving her alone time with James, who always looks and acts the good guy, so he's not believable as a menacing rapist. Then again, we don't know if this version is the truth, so it could just be (not at all) good storytelling. Where the first version found her abused by a crazy man, this one is worse because we get the "you know you wanted it" rapist. Violation #2.
Phoebe is all dressed up when James arrives, with a fire lit, flowers on display, everything that one would want for a really good seduction. Wait! Wait! A seduction? Isn't he possibly her father? She's going to seduce him into revealing the truth? That's taking a chance, eh? We've gone into trash overdrive, but possible incest? That's too much even for "Lace II." Phoebe calls James and tells him to go out onto his balcony. Naturally, she has the next one over and tells him to "jump" the space between them. "It's a two story drop," he says. "You can do it. One small step for mankind, one little leap for Lili," she giggles. Being an astronaut does not make him particularly coordinated and he almost falls, but is finally able to climb onto her balcony. "It must have been wonderful to grow up on a farm. How big was it?" Phoebe asks after a few glasses of wine. "Pretty big," he says, not talking about his farm, we assume.
When he goes to touch her, she finally realizes this may be too much and reminds him she's just his old gal's "little girl." He removes his hands, but only for a second. "Do you want to go to bed with me?" she asks? "How much?" "Very much." "A million dollars much?" "No, no roll in the hay is worth that much," she replies, with an apt pun for how he might have gotten to be her father. She's the one who mentions incest and he's shocked, denying it completely. "She wanted to be the most important person EVER to come out of Haddington," he says, bursting her bubble about her "good little mother," "and I beat her there too!" he explains, telling Phoebe that Deborah was also so competitive with him, of course she would invent lies about him. Phoebe tosses her threat to him, one million at the Ritz on Saturday, or she goes public. "One thing you should know about astronauts, honey, they don't scare easily," he says and darts from the room.
That leaves only King Anthony. We pick up that flashback where Brooke runs from his room after he tries to have sex with her. That happened in "Lace," so we're good so far. At the same time, Deborah is leaving Michael, so she bumps into King Anthony on the street, but she won't be able to make it back to school since there are no cars around. Crying that "I'll be expelled," she brings out the gallant in him. He sneaks her into his hotel so they can come up with a plan. "My tutor said a good lie is always rooted in the truth," King Anthony tells her, apparently having formulated a plan in his mind already. Speaking of his tutor, coincidentally, "he gets expert tuition in how to make love," he throws out there just in case. He grabs for Deborah, noting "I will not be rejected twice in one night." This version of events is the most idiotic yet. We know King Anthony to be a gentleman at all times, madly in love with Brooke. In fact, he's never bothered to even meet her friends, let alone pick one up on the street. On top of that, "Lace" showed that Brooke did not make it back to school, instead returning to King Anthony's room and making love, most romantically. But, "Lace II" has us believe that in the few moments between when she left and when she returned, Deborah was snuck up to his room and raped AND that after that, Anthony redressed and was ready for more, sweetly, in a snap. Violation #3.
Brooke can't sleep because she has yet to confront King Anthony, despite being in the palace for days. She grabs a robe and goes walking through the palace, where no one is standing guard, and is able to get into the throne room and sit in the queen's chair. King Anthony apparently couldn't sleep either and arrives only a second later, in a caftan. "Did you enjoy what could be...?"he asks. "What could have been?" she corrects him. He gets on his knees and promises to "give it all up" for her. Oh, suddenly he's Edward and she's Wallis Simpson? "Sorry, I forgot my moral restraint, I must wait for a more appropriate time," he claims when she rushes away. Finally, she gets to the threat. She asks if he remembers Deborah, but he doesn't remember. She tells him Deborah is being held for one million dollars ransom and that Phoebe is Deborah's daughter ("ah yes, such scandal reaches even here"). Brooke tells him she intended to blackmail him, but the story is so ridiculous, she's had trouble. "You realize what you're accusing me of is a capital offense in a Muslim country," he says, furious. "I'm not accusing you. I don't believe it, I've never believed it!" "But you want me to deny it! I'm the King of Sydon, how dare you!" Brooke runs from the room in tears. But King Anthony follows, looking so damn in the shadows that there's no resisting him. She's ready to have him right then and there, but he merely kisses her hand and tells her to leave. When daylight comes, she leaves, in the same outfit that brought her there, so they must be her traveling togs (or they filmed the arrival and departure at the same time and didn't think to change her costume).
The press is hounding Phoebe for the revelation of her father, because apparently that's all that's going on in the world. Truly, there are more paparazzi than fans at any given moment. She puts them off, saying she wants to wait for her mother. They insist she fix a time and date, so she does. "Don't forget to show up," one of then says all angry as she drives off. She goes to find Brooke, who is, as always, drunk. "I lost the respect of the only man I ever really loved," she tells Phoebe, who is not at all concerned if it doesn't mean Deborah's release. "We all have to keep praying until midnight," she tells Brooke.
With tears streaming down her face, Phoebe watches the clock tick toward midnight. Finally, a taxi pulls up to the hotel and a man with a briefcase gets out, but we only see the briefcase. He knocks on Phoebe's door just in time. The man is...
...Michael Gough, a banker who has brought the money. He has no idea whose money it is. "Our function was just to deliver it to you," he tells her, "but there was a personal message." There is a note that merely says, "to my daughter, belatedly and with love," but it's not signed.
The money gets to Vietnam in record time, by the next scene! There is no direct calling as Christopher snapped at Deborah before, but apparently wire transfers are all the rage. Deborah is free to go, but Christopher chases after her with a big open-mouthed kiss. "Would you have really killed me?" she asks. "Neither of us will ever know," he replies and Deborah is off to freedom.
Wait! Wait! All that, the kidnapping, the threats, the bickering, the sex, the love, and Deborah just leaves Vietnam without him? Wow, romance just isn't her thing! In the course of this movie, she's been violated three times and held prisoner in Vietnam. No wonder Deborah Raffin signed up after Bess Armstrong passed! Who wouldn't want to play this version of Judy Hale?
Reunited, Deborah chirps, "it's nice to have a rich daughter," but Phoebe says she's not (another problem that I didn't want to mention, because in "Lace," her character was wealthy beyond imagination, and there has been no explanation of where her money went--bad stocks?) and that she got it from dad, "who finally acknowledged me." Phoebe explains how she, Brooke and Arielle "followed Chapter 12 through to its logical conclusion." Logical? In "Lace II?" Logic died the minute the credits started. Hell, logic died the minute they gave "Lace II" the green light.
"If it's any consolation, you have royal blood," Deborah tells Phoebe when the latter insists on knowing the truth. Wow, that's anti-climactic, as opposed to "Lace" where it took ten minutes for Bess Armstrong to walk back to Phoebe's room, while Phoebe did that weird bird-gyration thing in her teddy and they finally met as mother and daughter. Now, our four hours fizzled with one line, and the answer is the dumbest of the three possibilities, though the most inevitable. It wasn't going to be one of the guys who was new to the story, come on! You had this figured out already, I know you did. "He was promised secrecy in return for the money, but why shouldn't I let everyone know?" Phoebe asks. "It would make me feel better." "Then this time, it's up to you," Deborah tells her. "Yes, mother, it is."
It's time for the big announcement. There are droves of reporters and cameras in the hotel. Phoebe arrives, saying, "I don't know what all the fuss is about." You are the one who called the press conference! Your paternity is apparently more important than world peace (or Vietnamese freedom fighters). Arielle and Brooke are there to support Deborah and Phoebe. So is King Anthony, watching from a balcony above the lobby. She...talks...very...slowly...to...take...up...all...the...remaining...time...as...everyone...waits...with...baited...breath. "My...father's...name...is..."
"is"
"his name was"
and she claims Michael was her father. Sure, it's easy to blame the dead guy with no active sperm. I'm sure they are going to be thrilled to death in Philly! Since he was a nobody who died in Vietnam, the press isn't all that excited. Deborah and Brooke are happy with that answer, and of course, so is King Anthony.
The four women hug in slow motion, turn to the cameras and freeze. That's the end of "Lace II."
Not to worry, as of 2011, there has been no "Lace III." I'm sure you are just itching to know who Phoebe's great-great-grandparents are, but alas, the movie just has not been made.
"Lace II" really is abominable. It has an insane story, terrible acting and a storyline that takes so long to tell and goes nowhere, with a hokey ending. "Lace" was delightful cheese all the way through. It knew how to keep the camp sharp, but there is no effort to even try in "Lace II." Turning Phoebe's character into a wonderful daughter is not believable and not at all in the spirit of Shirley Conran's book. It gives Phoebe nothing to play, and even less to poor Brooke and Arielle, who agreed to make this crap. Deborah Raffin no doubt thought she was signing up for greatness. After all, "Lace" was enormously popular, so why the hell not go for a sequel? Well, "Rage of Angels II" should have been a clue. It's one thing to make a sequel to "Roots" or "Rich Man, Poor Man" because those books are true classics, with characters that, even at their worst, have possibilities for more. The story of "Lace" is self-contained. It's a gooey romance saga with excitement and glamour and a big twist, but it all ends neatly. There is absolutely no reason for a sequel, and certainly not because someone gets kidnapped in Vietnam!
But the sequels didn't stop with crap like "Rage of Angels II" or "Lace II." Oh, no. "The Thorn Birds" had one, "V" had one, "North and South" had one (though, to be fair, that one actually came from a third John Jakes' Civil War novel). Hell, even "Hollywood Wives" had a sequel as late as 2005.
We'll just never learn when it comes to sequels. I mean, "Lace II" should cause us to stop and think, but we'll never REALLY learn in the end.
(for the original "Lace" go back to January 30 on this blog)
When it comes to "Lace II," sequels are not okay. "Lace II" is as brain-dead as they come. "Lace" is utterly delightful in its dedication to camp. Very few miniseries actually have lines that everyone knows, but who doesn't know "which one of you bitches is my mother?"
"Lace II" tries to equal that line but you only strike gold once. Having watched "Lace" many times, it never occurred to me to question the paternity of our leading vixen, because it was so much fun just figuring out the maternity. Paternity questions are ho-hum. The excitement of "Lace" was watching three teenagers (played by very mature actresses) hide a pregnancy not only from everyone they knew, but also from the story! Even daytime soap operas couldn't manage that one. For many hours, we are forced to trudge along and find Phoebe's father, a completely uninteresting tale that is not only daft in the telling, but re-invents things that happened in "Lace" very differently, as if we won't remember. Wouldn't the only people watching "Lace II" be "Lace" fans? They won't forget, trust me!
And, "Lace II" is such a bad idea that the Bess Armstrong, revealed to be the bitch of a mother, passed on doing the sequel, in which her character is the clear lead! From the moment she turned it down, everyone else should have also, but noooooooo, the rest are here. "Lace II" has none of the lovable lunacy of the original and is in fact so inept as to be head-scratching. But, that was 1980s American television greed, for you, just toss the product out there and hope for the best.
The credits unroll over a cloying pop song performed by Deniece "Let's Hear It For the Boy" Williams as a humongous billboard of Phoebe Cates is painted over the Palace Theatre (home at that point to "La Cage Aux Folles") in New York City.
Phoebe is stressing over that night's movie premiere. "Mother, what am I going to do about my hair?" she asks Bess Arm...oh, right, she didn't come back, asks Deborah Raffin (a sure sign of miniseries trouble) as non-moms Arielle Dombasle and Brooke Adams fuss over their outfits too. Phoebe looks ridiculous in a clinging red number, but the fans are there to see her and they don't care, all fourteen of them.
Phoebe picks the premiere of her movie to tell the world Deborah is her mother. That doesn't sit well with Deborah's parents, as her mother passes out upon hearing the news that "that floozy" is her granddaughter on TV. Now, Phoebe and Deborah have not only forgiven each other the heartache and hell of "Lace," but have such a good relationship that they sing about West Virginia together as they enter that state to visit Deborah's parents, in matching white turbans, no less. All we've ever known about Deborah's character (or Bess' in the original) is that she was American and went to a European private school. She did not have a lesbian mother or drunken Aunt Hortense to liven things up (since they killed off Aunt Hortense in the first one, Angie Lansbury can't help us out of this muck--not to worry, she did the sequel of "Rage of Angels").
Therefore, we did not know that the very same West Virginia town that birthed famous magazine editor Deborah was also home to astronaut James Read (who has the distinction of being in TWO of the worst miniseries sequels--we'll get to "North and South Book 3" eventually). As the gals are driving into town, there is a parade in his honor, and the town is closed down, half-day, for the celebration. "Banks too?" he says snidely, obviously unimpressed. Reckless Phoebe literally drives into the parade, scattering it all over the place, to the consternation of the town fathers and bandleaders. However, they get over it quickly when they realize it's Phoebe, who gamely poses for pictures as old pals James and Deborah get re-acquainted. "The movie star most men want to be on a desert island with and the astronaut most women want to be in orbit with," the huckster mayor shouts as everyone crowds nearer. Remember, this was before Buzz Aldrin did "Dancing With the Stars," so astronauts still had cache.
Deborah's parents, Bruce Boa and Richena Carey, are quite a pair. Imperious Richena allows no talk at dinner, until Deborah tries to break the ice. After noting that she's illegitimate, thanks, Phoebe starts to get a little snide. Richena says, "well, it's terrible to admit," as everyone braces for the worst, "but I've never seen any of your movies." Relief! Bruce has. "When?" his wife asks. "When I went to Baltimore with the lodge," that city of sin! "You never told me," she sasses back, and Bruce only wants to know "what is going through your mind" when doing her sex scenes. "New dresses, new shoes, new wallpaper, recipes, but I'll tell you something that isn't...the lodge members in Baltimore," Phoebe replies and everyone dissolves into gigantic peals of laughter.
Trouble in husband-land. When Arielle arrives home, her husband is in bed with the secretary, but I give him credit for using a different line than expected. "It isn't EXACTLY as it appears," James Faulkner says. Oh, such clever writing! Arielle throws his clothing out the window and then declares that if he can have a midlife crisis, so can she. It's better than poor Brooke, whose husband has a heart attack on the flight back to London!
Then the plot can finally start. Phoebe wants to meet her father. Deborah produces a picture of a man in a military uniform and says that's her father and he's dead, but Phoebe pushes, so Deborah pulls out the the story of Lucinda Lace she wrote all those years ago in private school and gives Phoebe a missing chapter. "Oh, I better warn you, some of it might be unpleasant." Ah, thank you. Because Phoebe hasn't spent her whole life being unpleasant, suddenly a prude?
The story starts with Michael Fitzpatrick (the only other major role from the first to be recast), the banker with whom "all three girls fell in love," repeating a scene from the original "Lace" but having to reshoot it with two new actors. He's the one who took Deborah to the dance, requiring more reshooting and then in bed afterwards, a third reshot. Deborah falls playing field hockey (yeah, put a wig on the ladies and they look positively...40!) and announces she's "just a little bit pregnant."
Those who remember "Lace" will know that every problem was discussed head on, "srough sick and sin," with everyone putting their thumbs together and imitating Arielle's French accent. Deborah wants an abortion, but how? "There are ways," Arielle notes and skulks around a pharmacy until taking heaps of medication to force one. That doesn't work, and I'm sure Phoebe is thrilled to be reading she was truly unwanted. Her friends think Michael should know, but Deborah refuses because his family has planned his future, but they decide to tell him anyway, until they see him with his fiancee and chicken out. "Three years later, he would die a hero's death in Vietnam," the chapter concludes, and the mystery of Phoebe's father is over. Wow, a 30-minute movie, that wasn't so bad.
It ain't over, don't get excited.
Phoebe isn't upset to have been possibly aborted because, she claims with pride, she had abortions at the same age. Instead, she wants to read the rest of the book, but Deborah says, "it's silly schoolgirl stuff" and takes it away.
Plus, they have to rush back to New York because Deborah has been offered an interview with Walter Gotell, a reclusive Vietnamese "rebel leader" and for $50K, he'll tell his story to her magazine (she thinks that it's because her book on Vietnam was so good). Phoebe is pissed because Deborah won't be with her in Los Angeles, "to make my first Hollywood film." It will only take a week to do everything, so she'll meet Phoebe then. Yes, folks, Deborah Raffin, and her hefty shoulder pads, are off to Vietnam! Who the hell is she, Rambo? In the 80s, Vietnam was a big deal, with the Republican Party trouncing the Left by making it unpatriotic to speak ill of the war, but what in heaven's name is it doing in "Lace II?"
Off to Vietnam Deborah goes, taken from a tourist pack and hidden under a sheet in a boat to bypass the authorities. When she finally gets to the remote area to meet the general, a few guards are murdered and then she meets Christopher Cazenove (another miniseries regular, but second-tier). They instantly despise each other, which means they will, of course, fall in love. She tells him, "I'm not very good on a horse," but that's okay, because they will be riding elephants as "they make less noise," Christopher tells her.
Out in LA, Phoebe writes her name in the cement outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater, which was something no one had done for decades at that point, but her (seemingly decreasing) fans go wild for it.
Christopher, his merry band of bandits and Deborah arrive at their location where they banter like all people who will eventually be in love. She counts out the $50K in hundred dollar bills, until General Walter has her stop at $45K, saying she'll have no voice left for questions. Oh, come on, let her count out the last amount, she got that far! General Walter, who seems about as Vietnamese as Christopher or Deborah, taunts Christopher about his fancy education and then squirms out of being interviewed by Deborah.
I can promise you will be absolutely mystified by the scene Phoebe shoots for the movie. It appears to be some sort of music video, in which a bunch of extras in tacky clothing dance around a pool while Phoebe is shy behind plants and drinks and then gets pushed into the pool. It doesn't make any more sense if you watch it twice or try to puzzle it out, so let's just move on.
After needing just one take, Phoebe goes to her dressing room, where two Asian men (or one, and one in heavy Asian make-up) grab her. They are there to deliver a message and one wants to rape her, but thankfully there is a knock at the door.
Plucky Deborah is kept from General Walter, but not from the truth. She's there to witness the killing of a young man under Christopher's orders. "He told us everything he knew, we can't afford prisoners," he tells Deborah. She wants to contact Phoebe, but is told, "we don't have direct dial." He pulls out a game and she snaps, "I didn't come all this way to play checkers with a stiff-upper-lip sadist." Oooh, that's tellin' him, Deborah. She looks and sounds ridiculous at all times, though somehow, he manages to pull off his "Apocalypse Now" role decently. They play, but argue over British-American word differences like "lift" and "braces." She wants to know what "noble cause" he shares with the general and he rattles off words like freedom and better life, but that's boring. "Most girls fine me irresistible," he tells her and they banter more, before he lowers the boom everyone else has figured out but her. "How long am I going to be here." "It's hard to say. It's rather up to that famous daughter of yours."
Yes, gang, she was lured all the way to Vietnam as a hostage for one million dollars. "You may be overestimating my daughter's affection for me," but he's confident. "The game isn't over," she yells, throwing the table aside. He comes to hit her, she flinches and he merely brushes aside a strand of her hair.
I know what you are thinking: why did they kidnap her and why did they bring her to Vietnam. I have no answers. Of all the people in the world to use as a hostage, a magazine editor with a famous daughter is not the first I would choose. There are far more valuable people. And why schlep her all the way to Vietnam when they could just stash her closer to home and still get the money? I don't think anyone thought of that. So, just suspend all notions of reality and follow it along to the inevitable conclusions you can see coming miles away! I'm not saying it won't be painful getting there...
Phoebe has to ask her producer for the million ransom as an up front payment of her salary, but when he refuses, he threatens to "sue ya." "Go ahead, sue me for every cent I haven't got," while standing naked in her dressing room. Phoebe calls her old pal Terence Rigby, the Greek shipping magnate, and begs him for money, again. She promises never to ask again. He hangs up on her after putting one of his expensive girls on the phone for a few seconds. The magazine can't afford it either. "The next thing for me is a trip to Philadelphia," Phoebe decides, to bilk her father's family out of the pocket change.
She does herself up in kid gloves and a business suit, but her grandfather's secretary isn't fooled. Peter Jeffrey is thrilled to see her because he's never met a movie star, only "presidents and statesmen," but he's confused as to why she's come to see him. Not filling in all the details, she asks for the money and THEN tells him "your son was my father." "You are not his daughter," he says and she goes off on one of her spaz attacks, but then retracts to get all simpering and sweet. Peter tosses her out, insisting his son is not her father and very confidently.
Deborah, wearing white, finds herself in the middle of a war zone when troops storm the not-at-all-hidden rebel enclave. Wait for the moment when Christopher comes rushing by on a horse to scoop her up as bombs explode around them. If that isn't romance, I don't know what is! This much schmaltz and on free TV! The general is dead, so Deborah thinks she's free, but not so. "I read Lace and the other lurid tabloids. Your coming here was my idea, and so was the ransom demand. I even anticipated this eventuality, so nothing's changed," he says. "So much for heroes on white horses," she snaps. "Do heroines still believe in such things?" he ends, closing down that conversation. Wait, you didn't see it coming that Christopher was in charge the whole time?
Remember Brooke Adams? Her husband dies. Remember Arielle? She throws a party where she and her husband do nothing but insult each other while the rest of the guests do equally catty remarking, but Arielle flirts with Patrick Ryecart, who says he'll spirit her away to London and "flaunt" their passion for each other. That's put on hold when a butler brings news of Brooke's hubby's death.
That news is also heard in the Kingdom of Sydon. Remember King Anthony Higgins, the unfailingly polite monarch with the heavy bronzer? We know he's always had a thing for Brooke. So, he dispatches an envoy to the funeral with the message that "the timeless desert sand has been known to assuage deep personal grief."
The kidnappers call Phoebe and want the money, but she gets an extension of seven days. They aren't very good kidnappers, are they? Since when does she get to dictate the terms? So, she follows through on her threat to out the Philadelphia blue-bloods as her family. But, Phoebe rifles through her mother's drawers and finds a secret addendum to the Lucinda Lace book.
Next thing we know, Phoebe shows up at Brooke's hubby's funeral, interrupting the minister with, "I want to know the truth." She does know how to make an entrance. This forces us into ANOTHER flashback, with Deborah very pregnant and the others playing badminton. Deborah goes into labor and tells Brooke the father might not be the man they all think it is. Arielle decides to tell Phoebe what she knows, merely interrupting the flashback to send us into another. This time, Deborah goes, as a reporter, to Vietnam, to tell Michael about their child. "Tell me, are there any atheists in foxholes?" "I'm not sure, but I do know there is an idiot who let you get away," he replies. He apologizes for his family and for listening to them. They declare their love for each other, he'll leave his wife for her after the war, so she shows him pictures of their daughter. He's speechless, for a moment, and then launches into a big doozy that ends with, "I have never been able to have children." Now we know why is father was so sure of himself, eh?
"Before you go into mourning, I need your help to save my mother's life," Phoebe begs of Brooke, and Arielle of course. Phoebe reveals that the chapter about her father was written three times and she needs their help to figure out her paternity and for some money, which neither of them has. So, they have to figure out which of the three stories of Deborah "being violated" is true. King Anthony's name comes up, and so does James Read's, someone we never knew existed back in "Lace." Phoebe quips, "the daughter of a budding astronaut? You might have been a Martian!" That doesn't sit well with Phoebe. She gets snarky and decides to do it all on her own. "Through thick and thin, like hell!"
But, ignoring her tantrum, Arielle and Brooke suddenly remember some details and we're sent into flashback land again (if they just TOLD us what was happening, this could have all been wrapped up in a single evening, rather than over two nights of valuable primetime real estate). They agree to help. Brooks asks, "what do you want us to do?
"I want you to help me find out which one of those bastards is my father," Phoebe snarls to end the first part of the movie. She did that in the first "Lace" and it was a fantastic moment. Here it falls flat
The press wants to know who her father is and she says they will have to wait until her big press conference.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Deborah has decided to turn her situation into "Taming of the Shrew." She knocks Christopher's gun into the water and dashes for his horse. He grabs her, they tussle and he gets her to calm down. He then reads her diary entry about him, which is flattering. "I didn't write what I really thought," she says, the dim bulb.
Phoebe, Arielle and Brooke each take a version of the story to follow it through. Arielle contacts the boy she slept with years ago, the soccer player, because one version says the rapist was on the soccer team. They force Brooke, against her will, to go to Sydon and confront King Anthony, leaving Phoebe to tackle James Read, because she's "the only one who has ever met him," as if asking him about violating a woman years ago would be any less awkward from a stranger? "I am prepared to do anything to get that money," Phoebe tells her mother's pals and is brought into the "sick and sin" pact, she and her camel toe.
Deborah, punked by the locals into eating spicy food, takes advantage of a moment when no one is watching her to get all "Mission Impossible" and escape, though again in white, not at all an obvious color. She stops at every pillar to look around, not very good at this disappearing thing. She comes across Christopher, wounded and passed out from a fierce battle with the other side of whatever he's rebelling against. She wants to run, but she wants to help. Run? Help? Run? Help? I think you know which it is.
First up is Arielle, off to see her former soccer love, hunky Francois Guetary, who has been reduced to being a gym teacher. Arielle drives her fancy car and sits on it all sexy-like, except the car is not fancy and she's not dressed for sexy. He wants to speak to her, and she agrees to go back to his place. The man on the hockey team is Patrick Ryecart, with whom she has been flirting, the world-famous composer. Francois expects a little fumble-and-tickle, but Arielle claims, "I'm pressed for time," stops and adds, "on the ice, you were so formidable" and blows him a kiss goodbye. I used to think anyone with a French accent could get away with anything, but not our Arielle. A combination of bad writing and even worse acting kills that notion.
Brooke goes to Sydon where King Anthony is there to meet her as a helicopter pilot. "Welcome back to my humble home," he tells her as they pull up to his castle. The Queen is none too happy to see her, but the king's young son is excited.
Even wounded and living as a rebel in the jungle, Christopher has his tart tongue. Waking up to find Deborah keeping a vigil at his bedside, he says, "any relation to Florence Nightingale?" "How about a fair trade? I save your life," she says, to which he replies, "and because you were foolishly sentimental, you want me to do the same." Ah, sweet bickering. "I want you to be human for once." "Sorry," he replies. "What are you? What are you doing here anyway?" she thinks to ask. There's a story, thank you for asking. Like Zorba the Greek, he always has a story, this rascal. His father was a diplomat who didn't agree with the government and was killed. That story of tragic boyhood loss leads into the following: "and what are you? Editor? Nurse? Woman? To conclude the interview, I do regard self-sacrifice as an essential part of life" and pulls her in for a kiss. I'm sorry, what? How did we go from his father in front of a firing squad to the cascading of a thousand violins and sex under the mosquito net? Everyone watches their silhouettes from outside and are probably wondering the same thing.
King Anthony has important problems. His peasants are starving because there is no water. "How can I lead them into the modern age?" he wonders. She says she's seen worse people with money. "You must learn to distinguish between unhappiness and misery," he says, with a veiled reference to perhaps someday being his queen, or at least a harem gal. We've had the helicopter, a boring classical recital and a long horse ride and still she hasn't broached the subject of Deborah in the past.
Waking up after a night of gettin' busy, Deborah asks if she can go. He says he so desperately needs the money for the people, and now she's, of course, sympathetic. But what if Phoebe can't get the money. Yeah, that's a problem because he didn't anticipate falling in love with her, but "she has to raise the money." "You aren't human. You just aren't!" she starts, leading into, bar none, the absolute worst dialogue exchange in all of "Lace II." She claims he has "an Orestes Complex, which means, sexually speaking, you're all mixed up." "That's not what you said last night." If this were Jerry Springer, we could cue the audience on that one! "Oh no she didn't!" But, there is no Jerry Springer, so the writers go for more nonsense, such as "Judy. We just made love. You can call me Judy!," her character's name.
Arielle has a box at the symphony all to herself to watch Patrick conduct his orchestra. Watching him, we dissolve into flashback to the dance we saw in "Lace" and though it's refilmed, I will give them credit for remembering that the song playing was "Summer Place." The rest is pretty brand new. Deborah sees Patrick and thinks he looks "miserable," wanting to "cheer him up." They also remember the next song was "Mack the Knife," but at no point in "Lace" did Patrick break into the dance and try to take Deborah. When Michael tells Deborah they can't be together, she accuses him of just "wanting a body." Fleeing Michael, she meets Patrick on the street, where he leads her into a scary taxidermy store. She's creeped out and tries to leave, but he stops her. Violation #1.
Arielle and Patrick go driving through Paris singing opera. Did you know Arielle had a world-class opera voice? Neither did she, but she lip syncs decently. Their attempted seduction of each other is laughable. The puns and the accents are big hazards, but unsubtle Arielle tries to trap him. "I find this conversation increasingly boring," he says. She makes her accusations, they play the longest cat and mouse scene and he declares, "Countess, you have no proof. No proof at all," as she grabs her fur and storms out of his Paris abode.
Things have to start moving faster, because we only have an hour left and two options to go, one that should be somewhat romantic and one that will be just awkward. And then we have to wrap up the plot. I'm so glad we've wasted 3/4 of the whole thing on unimportant gibberish!
Luckily, astronaut James Read happens to be in Paris, so Phoebe doesn't have to trek back to the US to find him. She just has to put on her favorite outfit of a fur and hanky over her head, with sunglasses, and James can see her in the not-so-big crowd, knowing at some point he must follow her, to what turns out to be a very remote location outside the city (where he is staying as well)
The second version of the violation takes place during a brand new time period we didn't even know existed back in "Lace." Somehow, Deborah found time to go home to West Virginia during her fertile few days (the other two possible stories take place at school, reasonably enough). There is a hay ride, songs by a campfire, hide-and-go-seek in the dark and bing-bang-boom, Deborah finds herself in trouble. James traces her to an abandoned barn. Apparently she is the ONLY woman of them all to think to hide in there, giving her alone time with James, who always looks and acts the good guy, so he's not believable as a menacing rapist. Then again, we don't know if this version is the truth, so it could just be (not at all) good storytelling. Where the first version found her abused by a crazy man, this one is worse because we get the "you know you wanted it" rapist. Violation #2.
Phoebe is all dressed up when James arrives, with a fire lit, flowers on display, everything that one would want for a really good seduction. Wait! Wait! A seduction? Isn't he possibly her father? She's going to seduce him into revealing the truth? That's taking a chance, eh? We've gone into trash overdrive, but possible incest? That's too much even for "Lace II." Phoebe calls James and tells him to go out onto his balcony. Naturally, she has the next one over and tells him to "jump" the space between them. "It's a two story drop," he says. "You can do it. One small step for mankind, one little leap for Lili," she giggles. Being an astronaut does not make him particularly coordinated and he almost falls, but is finally able to climb onto her balcony. "It must have been wonderful to grow up on a farm. How big was it?" Phoebe asks after a few glasses of wine. "Pretty big," he says, not talking about his farm, we assume.
When he goes to touch her, she finally realizes this may be too much and reminds him she's just his old gal's "little girl." He removes his hands, but only for a second. "Do you want to go to bed with me?" she asks? "How much?" "Very much." "A million dollars much?" "No, no roll in the hay is worth that much," she replies, with an apt pun for how he might have gotten to be her father. She's the one who mentions incest and he's shocked, denying it completely. "She wanted to be the most important person EVER to come out of Haddington," he says, bursting her bubble about her "good little mother," "and I beat her there too!" he explains, telling Phoebe that Deborah was also so competitive with him, of course she would invent lies about him. Phoebe tosses her threat to him, one million at the Ritz on Saturday, or she goes public. "One thing you should know about astronauts, honey, they don't scare easily," he says and darts from the room.
That leaves only King Anthony. We pick up that flashback where Brooke runs from his room after he tries to have sex with her. That happened in "Lace," so we're good so far. At the same time, Deborah is leaving Michael, so she bumps into King Anthony on the street, but she won't be able to make it back to school since there are no cars around. Crying that "I'll be expelled," she brings out the gallant in him. He sneaks her into his hotel so they can come up with a plan. "My tutor said a good lie is always rooted in the truth," King Anthony tells her, apparently having formulated a plan in his mind already. Speaking of his tutor, coincidentally, "he gets expert tuition in how to make love," he throws out there just in case. He grabs for Deborah, noting "I will not be rejected twice in one night." This version of events is the most idiotic yet. We know King Anthony to be a gentleman at all times, madly in love with Brooke. In fact, he's never bothered to even meet her friends, let alone pick one up on the street. On top of that, "Lace" showed that Brooke did not make it back to school, instead returning to King Anthony's room and making love, most romantically. But, "Lace II" has us believe that in the few moments between when she left and when she returned, Deborah was snuck up to his room and raped AND that after that, Anthony redressed and was ready for more, sweetly, in a snap. Violation #3.
Brooke can't sleep because she has yet to confront King Anthony, despite being in the palace for days. She grabs a robe and goes walking through the palace, where no one is standing guard, and is able to get into the throne room and sit in the queen's chair. King Anthony apparently couldn't sleep either and arrives only a second later, in a caftan. "Did you enjoy what could be...?"he asks. "What could have been?" she corrects him. He gets on his knees and promises to "give it all up" for her. Oh, suddenly he's Edward and she's Wallis Simpson? "Sorry, I forgot my moral restraint, I must wait for a more appropriate time," he claims when she rushes away. Finally, she gets to the threat. She asks if he remembers Deborah, but he doesn't remember. She tells him Deborah is being held for one million dollars ransom and that Phoebe is Deborah's daughter ("ah yes, such scandal reaches even here"). Brooke tells him she intended to blackmail him, but the story is so ridiculous, she's had trouble. "You realize what you're accusing me of is a capital offense in a Muslim country," he says, furious. "I'm not accusing you. I don't believe it, I've never believed it!" "But you want me to deny it! I'm the King of Sydon, how dare you!" Brooke runs from the room in tears. But King Anthony follows, looking so damn in the shadows that there's no resisting him. She's ready to have him right then and there, but he merely kisses her hand and tells her to leave. When daylight comes, she leaves, in the same outfit that brought her there, so they must be her traveling togs (or they filmed the arrival and departure at the same time and didn't think to change her costume).
The press is hounding Phoebe for the revelation of her father, because apparently that's all that's going on in the world. Truly, there are more paparazzi than fans at any given moment. She puts them off, saying she wants to wait for her mother. They insist she fix a time and date, so she does. "Don't forget to show up," one of then says all angry as she drives off. She goes to find Brooke, who is, as always, drunk. "I lost the respect of the only man I ever really loved," she tells Phoebe, who is not at all concerned if it doesn't mean Deborah's release. "We all have to keep praying until midnight," she tells Brooke.
With tears streaming down her face, Phoebe watches the clock tick toward midnight. Finally, a taxi pulls up to the hotel and a man with a briefcase gets out, but we only see the briefcase. He knocks on Phoebe's door just in time. The man is...
...Michael Gough, a banker who has brought the money. He has no idea whose money it is. "Our function was just to deliver it to you," he tells her, "but there was a personal message." There is a note that merely says, "to my daughter, belatedly and with love," but it's not signed.
The money gets to Vietnam in record time, by the next scene! There is no direct calling as Christopher snapped at Deborah before, but apparently wire transfers are all the rage. Deborah is free to go, but Christopher chases after her with a big open-mouthed kiss. "Would you have really killed me?" she asks. "Neither of us will ever know," he replies and Deborah is off to freedom.
Wait! Wait! All that, the kidnapping, the threats, the bickering, the sex, the love, and Deborah just leaves Vietnam without him? Wow, romance just isn't her thing! In the course of this movie, she's been violated three times and held prisoner in Vietnam. No wonder Deborah Raffin signed up after Bess Armstrong passed! Who wouldn't want to play this version of Judy Hale?
Reunited, Deborah chirps, "it's nice to have a rich daughter," but Phoebe says she's not (another problem that I didn't want to mention, because in "Lace," her character was wealthy beyond imagination, and there has been no explanation of where her money went--bad stocks?) and that she got it from dad, "who finally acknowledged me." Phoebe explains how she, Brooke and Arielle "followed Chapter 12 through to its logical conclusion." Logical? In "Lace II?" Logic died the minute the credits started. Hell, logic died the minute they gave "Lace II" the green light.
"If it's any consolation, you have royal blood," Deborah tells Phoebe when the latter insists on knowing the truth. Wow, that's anti-climactic, as opposed to "Lace" where it took ten minutes for Bess Armstrong to walk back to Phoebe's room, while Phoebe did that weird bird-gyration thing in her teddy and they finally met as mother and daughter. Now, our four hours fizzled with one line, and the answer is the dumbest of the three possibilities, though the most inevitable. It wasn't going to be one of the guys who was new to the story, come on! You had this figured out already, I know you did. "He was promised secrecy in return for the money, but why shouldn't I let everyone know?" Phoebe asks. "It would make me feel better." "Then this time, it's up to you," Deborah tells her. "Yes, mother, it is."
It's time for the big announcement. There are droves of reporters and cameras in the hotel. Phoebe arrives, saying, "I don't know what all the fuss is about." You are the one who called the press conference! Your paternity is apparently more important than world peace (or Vietnamese freedom fighters). Arielle and Brooke are there to support Deborah and Phoebe. So is King Anthony, watching from a balcony above the lobby. She...talks...very...slowly...to...take...up...all...the...remaining...time...as...everyone...waits...with...baited...breath. "My...father's...name...is..."
"is"
"his name was"
and she claims Michael was her father. Sure, it's easy to blame the dead guy with no active sperm. I'm sure they are going to be thrilled to death in Philly! Since he was a nobody who died in Vietnam, the press isn't all that excited. Deborah and Brooke are happy with that answer, and of course, so is King Anthony.
The four women hug in slow motion, turn to the cameras and freeze. That's the end of "Lace II."
Not to worry, as of 2011, there has been no "Lace III." I'm sure you are just itching to know who Phoebe's great-great-grandparents are, but alas, the movie just has not been made.
"Lace II" really is abominable. It has an insane story, terrible acting and a storyline that takes so long to tell and goes nowhere, with a hokey ending. "Lace" was delightful cheese all the way through. It knew how to keep the camp sharp, but there is no effort to even try in "Lace II." Turning Phoebe's character into a wonderful daughter is not believable and not at all in the spirit of Shirley Conran's book. It gives Phoebe nothing to play, and even less to poor Brooke and Arielle, who agreed to make this crap. Deborah Raffin no doubt thought she was signing up for greatness. After all, "Lace" was enormously popular, so why the hell not go for a sequel? Well, "Rage of Angels II" should have been a clue. It's one thing to make a sequel to "Roots" or "Rich Man, Poor Man" because those books are true classics, with characters that, even at their worst, have possibilities for more. The story of "Lace" is self-contained. It's a gooey romance saga with excitement and glamour and a big twist, but it all ends neatly. There is absolutely no reason for a sequel, and certainly not because someone gets kidnapped in Vietnam!
But the sequels didn't stop with crap like "Rage of Angels II" or "Lace II." Oh, no. "The Thorn Birds" had one, "V" had one, "North and South" had one (though, to be fair, that one actually came from a third John Jakes' Civil War novel). Hell, even "Hollywood Wives" had a sequel as late as 2005.
We'll just never learn when it comes to sequels. I mean, "Lace II" should cause us to stop and think, but we'll never REALLY learn in the end.
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