Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 10

Once teenage dreamers, the three leads of "Rich Man, Poor Man" are about as adult as possible when Chapter 10 starts.  Peter Strauss is running for public office, supported in words, but not spirit, by his wife Susan Blakely, who has just miscarried, and Nick Nolte wants to leave the merchant marines to start a yacht charter business on the French Riviera.  For once, it's Nick who seems the happiest of the lead characters, though that can always change quickly as the plot starts to come to its climax.

It's 1962, Marseilles.  Nick and his buddy Herbert Jefferson are still technically tied to the merchant marines and thus the merciless and very childish hazing of muscular moron William Smith.  After enjoying two days away, they come back to two day's worth of dirty dishes, cleaned up just in time for William Smith to dirty the whole kitchen again.  He's s different kind of villain than any other in the movie.  The first was Ed Asner, an immigrant with crushed dreams that proved too heavy to bear, but not a bad man at heart.  Then there was Robert Reed, who deflowered the leading lady and has been playing puppeteer with the lives of the leads for decades, though not without their knowledge of agreement, a manipulative man who likes to enjoy power, but also does good with it.  William Smith is just a cartoon bully.  He looks like a cartoon villain and is written like one, so ridiculously evil that he's not even worth enjoying as a character because you know he'll get his miniseries comeuppance in a big way (though, not to ruin anything, it only partially happens here--we have to wait for "Rich Man, Poor Man Book II" to get the true end of his inane plotting).  He's the prototype for a lot of miniseries villains to come, the main one being Adolph Hitler.  Even in the miniseries that are told from Hitler's point of view, or try to imbibe the story with some semblance of German sympathy, Hitler is always the raving lunatic who will meet the bad end, so let him overact the hell out of his scenes because our leads will always end up just fine (well, except in "The Bunker," where he is the lead).

In a truly grotesque piece of business that is handled with "Rich Man, Poor Man's" usual flair for knowing exactly what to show and what not to show, William Smith follows his favorite target, Herbert Jefferson, into his cabin where he more than suggests they are going to have sex.  Herbert Jefferson tries to fight him off, but William Smith puts him in a choke hold and the camera pans down to his foot closing the door.  William Smith emerges smiling and sated when Nick Nolte sees him.  Nick goes to his friend, but we only HEAR him say, "it's alright, I'm okay" and then Nick is in the dining room where we know he's going to exact some sort of revenge.

He throws his drink in William Smith's face and they agree to a rumble.  Nick was warned not to fight, lest someone recognize him from his past life as a boxer and remember the crime from which he's running.  The two tussle with the rest of the crew watching and Nick actually knocks him out.  "I've seen that guy fight as Sunnyside Gardens," one of the crew members says, right before William pulls a knife and jams it into Nick's leg in a surprise attack.  Nick beats him to a bloody pulp.  No use being upset as they take William Smith off in a stretcher, looking like he's lost an eye.  The character deserved it he was merely a plot device to bring Nick back to reality.  The captain doesn't turn him into the French authorities, but he does tell him to leave ship in NYC, where the man who recognized him knows he can cash in on what he knows.

Back in New York, Peter has become a popular politician fighting against the corruption of the old guard, running for a state senate seat, but losing steam.  Wife Susan Blakely is a shellacked politician's wife with a hairdo and wardrobe that bore even her.  His campaign manager, Van Johnson, has brought his wife along, played by the 1950s most questionable Oscar winner, Dorothy Malone.  She's an old hand at surviving politics.  She has a dose of realism and a big drink for Susan (which has already started to become a problem for the latter).  Dorothy and Susan watch as Peter, Van and the others start to play politics every bit as hard as what he's supposedly fighting.

While Dorothy and Susan are enjoying their drinks, a call comes in that Peter's mother, Dorothy McGuire, is very ill.  "Damn it," he curses, having to leave politics for his mother, who used to be the darling of his life but has turned into a petty annoyance (in truth, the character has been turned from a wonderfully-developed and understanding woman into a rather idiotic shrew, so it's hard to work up a whole lot of sympathy).

As Nick's boat steams into the New York harbor, one cannot help but notice a IMMENSE error.  The camera pans around the buildings and comes to rest on the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center.  Watching such a noticeable camera move is obviously a shock to anyone watching "Rich Man, Poor Man" after 2001 will obviously be startled by the gleaming towers, but that's not the problem.  The problem is that it's 1962, more than a decade before they were completed and years before they were even started!  That's simply bad editing.  No one noticed that?

William Jefferson and Nick Nolte have to part, at least for now, their dreams of chartering yachts in France put on hold.  Nick returns to the fleabag where he had hidden out before shipping off to find out that Peter had stopped by looking for him.  "Want me to get him?" his friend asks.  "What I want, in this order, is a bottle, a blonde, something to eat and a newspaper," Nick decides.  Nick realizes he's been recognized on the boat and he's told the mob guys are still after him, so Nick needs a gun.

Just as Nick is given the gun, Peter comes into the room, starting at the barrel of it.  It's a hokey go-to-commercial moment that we will see over and over again in the ensuing years, and one that even daytime soap operas had down pat by 1976.  It would take nighttime soap operas to make a moment like that carry interest for an entire summer, rather than through a few minutes of advertising for cat chow and bleach alternatives.

The brothers have not seen each other in many years, and it may seem strange that a VIP like Peter Strauss, risking being caught in a seedy motel with his on-the-lam brother, a gun and a hooker (the blonde is still there), has to deliver the news about their mother in person, but that's drama for you.  Peter simply drops the news about their mother's condition amid all the squalor and the two drive upstate.  Nick is the chattier one, seemingly proud of his brother.  Peter is most happy to announce he's "finally" married Susan.  They seem as different as, well, a rich man and a poor man, but even Peter takes a swig out of the bottle as they dash to face mom in the hospital.

Dorothy McGuire has made it through all of "Rich Man, Poor Man," including the weird character transformation, and she certainly deserves the hospital deathbed scene you knew was coming the moment we heard she was sick.  It even starts with a priest, a monsignor, no less, having just administered last rights.  "She's been holding on until you could get here," he tells Peter.  The doctor isn't even sure she can hear, but no actress is going to give up this chance!  She seems catatonic, clutching rosary beads, but then her hand twitches.  She speaks, incomprehensibly, asking for Peter, not realizing it's her other son there with her.  "Is that you?" she asks him, slowly.  He pulls out a present he long ago promised her, a scarf with a Mediterranean map, lying a little and saying he already has his operation going and his son back with him.  She has a slow apology for short-changing him.  "I gave so much to [Peter], there wasn't enough left over for you," she says, no doubt sparking water works in millions of viewers.  "Try not to hate me," she asks and then asks Nick to hold her as she finally dies.  It's interesting to note that Peter has not been in the room the whole time.  It's her wayward son, the one she discarded, who is with her as she breathes her last.  Nick acts the moment beautifully, quietly realizing the impact of the moment.

Susan is out in the hallway, not having seen Susan since her night with Robert Reed, but he can only handle so much emotion.  "Am I the only one who needs a drink around here?" he asks.  Robert Reed, sporting gray hair and a weird accent, weirder than before, is at the funeral.  He also hasn't seen Susan or Nick since the night as his house.  "I hope we can get together, discuss old times," he says like the cunning fox he is, but Susan is mature now.  "I'm really not one for discussing old times," she retorts, pulling her hand away from his.  Peter is the only person there who doesn't know the secrets that could still split them all.

However, Susan, in yet another turban, can't help but remember the past and as Nick drinks heavily, he's a little fuzzy on things.  Peter brings up the fact that Nick set the fire that fateful night at Robert's place, asking him why he set the fire.  Luckily, the conversation steers clear of the exchanged glance Nick and Susan shared that night, but when a guest calls Peter away, Susan plays martyr and snaps at Nick, "now would be as good a time as any to tell him."  "There's nothing to tell.  Really.  Truth is, my eyes were so burned from that fire, everything is a blur," he gallantly replies.  Susan has a panic attack and Nick comforts her, but one of Peter's political cronies storms in with good news, though Peter seems oblivious to the fact that it's a bad time; Nick and Susan clearly see the absurdity.

It's a moment like the above that begs the question, once again, of just who is the rich man and who is the poor man?  On the surface, life has sucked for Nick, yet he's always content, always able to deal with what life throws him, while Peter has boxed himself into a shrink-wrapped life that is rather unpleasant and entirely too clinical.  Unfortunately, the acting isn't always consistent enough to completely power this question, but at least the writing realizes it.  A lot of bigger and grander miniseries will be coming that ask bigger and grander questions in far more stilted or laughable ways.  "Rich Man, Poor Man" yet again glosses over the truth with a light touch, just enough to make one aware that it has not spiraled into epic boredom, grasping to get to the end because it has to (take that "Scarlett").

The brothers meet in the kitchen in the middle of the night and it's the first time they use the title words to describe each other.  It turns out Nick is richer by almost $50K, a complete surprise to him.  You see, the last time they met, when Nick gave Peter the $3K he felt he owed Peter for Ed bailing him out of jail, Peter took the money and invested it.  It's grown into piles of money, money Nick can use to finance the dream he had with Herbert Jefferson in France.

As Nick and Herbert depart, and after Nick says "I'm running out of people to hate," finally aware that his brother has never been his enemy," Peter promises to find Nick's son for him.

On election night, the race is close, but it seems Peter is winning when of course more drama gets in the way.  Susan is at home, drunk as hell smashing her beloved photographic history with a hammer.  "I want to take you to bed," Peter says, meaning put her to bed, but Susan has a different take on it.  "You won't be the first, and if I play my cards right, you won't be the last either!" she spits.  Miniseries mantra: when things seem good, they are about to go downhill quickly.  Susan is a crying mess when the press arrives at Peter's house to announce he's won the election.  It's his most exalted moment and her biggest nightmare.  There is no happiness for someone without unhappiness for someone else.

If Chapter 10 taught any lesson, it's that those who seem to be at the bottom have nothing to lose and all to gain.  Nick is a man running for his life who walks into a huge amount of money and can finally set his life on course.  Meanwhile, Peter is a man at the top, which is a tough place to be because one cannot go any higher, one can only fall, and with the mess Susan has turned into, she's threatening to drag him down with her.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 9

The brothers of "Rich Man, Poor Man" seem to be going through a change.  Who is good and who is bad?  It's hard to tell.  Sure, Nick Nolte has to leave the country for pissing off the Mafia, but it's self-protection.  It's Peter Strauss as the hard-nosed businessman who is becoming less attractive.  Age and money have given him an ego, but then again, the people around him (his mother, his boss, even Susan Blakely) are also fairly unpleasant people, nothing like the hopeful innocents who celebrated the end of World War II.  As we pick up the story in 1962,  it's unclear who is to be admired anymore.

Peter is breaking up the financial partnership with Ray Milland, who is as upset as Peter's mother.  "Who retires at 35?" Ray asks.  "He has no time for anything, not even his mother," Dorothy complains.  The next step is politics, as local bosses try to draft him into running, not caring what party he's affiliated with.  He also proposes to Susan AGAIN and she puts him off AGAIN, though her reasons are wearing awfully thin, so thankfully this time, she agrees to marry him!  Yes, in fact, here is a television moment that is different: a wedding begins the episode rather than ending it.  


I'm not entirely sure what Susan's outfit is all about: turban on her head, fur-ringed around the neck.  Dorothy talks during the wedding, telling an uninterested Ray she wishes her other son were there, but "he's in South America, the merchant marines."  Give that about eight seconds to settle in and we're doing 70s stereotyping without apology.  Nick gets off his ship and there is a man resting on the ground with his sombrero over his face.  


Nick sees a fight going on at the wharf, where insanely muscular William Smith almost kills a guy with his bare hands.  They take an instant dislike to each other.  


In high contrast, Peter is on the golf course, the ultimate rich man's enclave.  He's playing with his old pal Tim McIntire, who wants to replace him at the company and is also dating Kim Darby.  Peter tells him Kim is seriously mentally wigged out, but Tim doesn't believe him.


From there, Peter goes to meet the political bigwigs, headed by none other than Van Johnson (wearing a big wig on his head, FYI).  They want Peter to run, but Peter takes the high road: no deals or anything without his knowledge.  Basically, he doesn't want to be in any one's back pocket.  You have to laugh at that sort of naiveté, and I'm sure audiences in 1976 did, as they would elect unknown Jimmy Carter over known quantity Gerald Ford, their first chance to blot the stain of Watergate.  Unctuous Van agrees to the terms, though with a glint in his eye that says, "yeah, whatever."


Nick meets another seagoing reject, Herbert Jefferson Jr.  Herbert is friendly, but Nick tries to keep to himself.  In comes William Smith, who slings every racial epithet at Herbert Jefferson, with whom he refuses to be in the same room.  Nick doesn't say a thing, but finds Herbert Jefferson later to explain that he can't be caught fighting or else someone will recognize him.  


Still going with the fur theme, this time on her peignoir, Susan is very pregnant and very ill-tempered.  She yaps at Peter any chance she gets and though she denies missing her old life, she clearly does.  As Peter is about to leave for the day, Susan starts having horrible pain.  She's lost the baby.  


Waiting outside his home when Peter gets there is nutso Kim Darby, who tells him, "I wish it were her who died," not at all what Peter wants to hear, and she continues shouting through the door when he locks her out.  Alone, he can have his first breakdown of the entire miniseries.  However, he always makes conversation swing back to himself, even with Susan at the hospital where he offers to get out of politics if she doesn't like it, but since he feels he can fix the entire system from within, he wants to keep at it.  She has no choice but to agree.  


At a stopover in the French Riviera, Nick (who kind of speaks a bit of French) and Herbert Jefferson decide to buy a boat in order to give charter tours so they can live there the whole time.  However, the boat costs $15K.  Nick somehow thinks he can get the money and his son and live comfortably there.  


Despite Peter's warning, Tim marries Kim, giving Dorothy and Ray a chance to bitch to each other again.  Even at her wedding, Kim starts in on Peter.  It's at the wedding that Susan gets to meet Van and the rest of the political team.  They have their own ideas about what to do with Susan during the campaign, none of which seem to thrill her.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 8

"Rich Man, Poor Man" is a whole lot more exciting for the poor man right now.  Attracting trouble like a magnet, Nick Nolte re-entered the boxing world, still intent on finding his wife and kid, only to come up against Mafia-backed boxing superstar George Maharis, not to mention George's sexually voracious wife.  By the time Episode 7 ended, Nick needed to leave the country quickly.  As for Peter Strauss, he's become a bland businessman, though a rich one, still wanting Susan, though he makes no effort to see her unless they happen to end up at the same party where he finds out she's divorced.

Susan is dealing with a cantankerous son, who has a rather bad attitude and still doesn't understand why his parents are divorced.  He's supposed to go on a field trip, giving Susan an excuse to spend the day with Peter.  "You're right on time," Susan tells him when he arrives.  "Give or take 13 years," Peter chirps, as in love with her as ever.  Their day consists of Charlie Chaplin movies and a goony Italian restaurant with checkered table cloths and a man with an accordion.  They argue at dinner for absolutely no reason, except to postpone yet again the two of them having more than two minutes of possible happiness.  But, a kiss softens the moment and leads to Peter and Susan FINALLY having sex for the first time...ever!

Peter proposes, but Susan prevaricates over and over, substituting witty remarks for real answers.  When Susan returns home, she finds Bill Bixby there, much to her son's delight, but the dread of the set designer, because Bill loves nothing more than to chew the scenery.  He even turns on the waterworks in a grand piece of manipulation.  He livens up things, that's for sure, but his style is on a different planet than rock-ribbed Susan and Peter.  "I want to come home," Bill tells her, and if she agrees, there goes Peter's latest attempt to be with Susan.  But, you knew that was coming, because "Rich Man, Poor Man" is nothing if not stalwart in its plotting: when people are happy, the universe steps in to botch it up.

Nick had been sent to NYC by his boxing manager Norman Fell to escape the mob and the police, and instead of going to Norman's friend to get him immediately into the merchant marines, Nick pays a visit to the private investigator he's been using to find his wife and son (not that the guy has done anything but soak Nick).  The PI tells him there are people looking for Nick and he wants nothing to do with him.  It will take $500 to get Nick into the merchant marines.

The only place he can go for that kind of cash is his brother.  Peter isn't at home but Dorothy McGuire is.  Peter's new found wealth has been a boon to her, as she now dresses like a fancy lady, wearing jewels and even plays cards with the maid.  When Nick arrives at the house, Dorothy is so shocked she faints.  There's a lot of catch up to do, and Dorothy goes into her poor little old lady routine that she's so honed on Peter, but Nick is tougher than his brother and hits her up for the money he needs.  She assures him Peter will not find out, "not the way he pinches pennies these days."  Despite the problems Nick has caused over the years, Dorothy does tell him "I wish we had longer."

Dorothy is not at all happy when Peter brings Susan Blakely.  The old lady finds Susan's behavior, divorce, parenting skills and just about everything else shameful.  She thinks Susan is after Peter's money.  "What's she doing, looking over the place before she moves in?  And where do I go? Into the maid's room...?" Dorothy wonders, the annoying personality of the character front and center, a long way from the loving and understanding mother who helped her horrible husband run a bakery while she proudly raised her sons.  "I will not have that slut in my house!" she demands.  "She is not a slut and this is not your house," Peter replies angrily.  When Dorothy refuses to even speak to Susan, Peter threatens to cut her off financially, more proof that he's become a scary self-focused businessman.

Also not happy with Peter is his boss, Ray Milland.  His scheming daughter, Kim Darby (the one who poisoned Dorothy against Susan), has convinced him that Peter has "seduced" her and Ray insists they get married, complete with full partnership and stock.  Peter develops a spine and tells Ray off with huge gumption.  "I'm sick and tired of dragging you into the 20th century with you fighting me every step of the way," he begins, then tossing everything at Ray that's been built up over the years, not to mention quitting.  Maybe there is a bit of an idealist left in this character after all.  Somehow, this tirade works and Ray way too suddenly realizes his daughter has been lying and gets over his anger.  It's a very bizarre scene that spins way too fast.

Digging his new-found cojones, Peter offers to "take care" of Bill Bixby for Susan, so he summons Bill and offers him a job that will keep him from New York City.  The money he tosses at Bill is attractive, but Peter forbids him from even saying goodbye to his son.  "You can write him a nice letter," Peter snarls before Bill asks for a car too.

Hours before he's supposed to ship out, Nick is cornered by the mob (in a movie theater, no less).  However, he manages to evade all 428 goons and get to his ship.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 5

Chapter 5 starts things fresh in "Rich Man, Poor Man."  Ed Asner has succumbed to his failures, having bailed Nick Nolte out of one last jam, pulling the rug out from Peter Strauss' dream in the process.  However, Ed is the failure of the past and Nick is the failure of the present.  "Rich Man, Poor Man" hinges on the future of the American dream and somehow, plucky Peter Strauss will come to represent that, good and bad.

It's now 1950 and prodigal son Nick is returning to his small hometown, but wife Talia Shire is not allowed to detrain with him.  "This ain't a social call," he tells her, though she's so far into wild overacting (her gum chewing would do a 1930s moll proud), that she isn't really paying attention anyway.  Also on the train with them is Normal Fell, Nick's boxing manager.  Didn't know Nick was a boxer?  Yeah, we kind of skipped that part, so Normal has some dialogue with a fellow train passenger to clear it all up.

When Nick arrives on his street, he finds the long-discussed supermarket has indeed put his family out of business and his house is actually nowhere to be found.  An unkindly neighbor who remembers Nick as "a little gangster" can't help.  "They just left, that's all I know," she says, before deciding to tell him that his pa, Ed Asner, offed himself.

Nick, who has played more scenes in the rain than a duck, is somewhat dumbstruck, but all is literally sunshine and roses for Peter, who is graduating from college and has been offered a "teaching fellowship" at Columbia.  There at graduation is the ever-weird Robert Reed, more fey than ever, asking about Susan.  He informs Peter that he tracks Susan and she's no longer an actress.  He takes delight in torturing these two, even though they have no idea they are being tortured.  "She's in the book, under her maiden name," he advises Peter should he want to go to NYC and see her.

Things are also going very well for Peter at Ray Milland's department store, where old Ray feels paternal to him and even gives him a fancy watch and a job offer, in that order.  "What would the job be?" Peter asks.  "Just what you've been doing, little bit of this little bit of that, only more so," Ray says, with is either the worst description of a retail job in television history or the best offer the CIA could give without having to be specific.  When Ray hears the only other offer Peter has is teaching, he launches into a tirade about progress and money that would make old Adam Smith come back to life.  It is also a speech that contains most of the nuggets adding up to so many of "Rich Man, Poor Man's" themes.

Ray calms down enough to inform Peter that he has "a new gimmick they've come up with to scare you...high cholesterol!"  It's 1950, remember, a time when people wrapped butter sticks in bacon.  So, he needs some help running the store, some help that comes with "zing" and freshness, but NOT a business school "snot."

When Peter tells his mother the news, Dorothy McGuire, who has turned into a sickly old lady in the three years since we last saw her, isn't impressed with the money Ray has offered or the diploma Peter shows her.  However, she may be going around the bend a little because she wishes Ed could see the diploma, and Peter has to remind her he's dead.  She feels since no body was ever discovered, "he's somewhere this minute laughing up his sleeve."  She's also gone all guilt-mother-from-hell on him.  When he says he's going to New York, she says, "don't worry about me, I'll just eat a nice can of beans of something."  She tells her son to remind his friend to "drive carefully...I don't know what'll happen to me if something happens to you."  Well, it seems she wouldn't bother with mourning, that's for sure.  It's a shame that the writing for this character has become downright bad because Mother Jordache has been one of the most consistently complex and interesting characters, with McGuire giving a fantastic performance.

Since he is going to New York City anyway, Peter decides to look up Susan.  She's living in Greenwich Village with now-husband and still-sloshed Bill Bixby and a baby.  Bill and Peter do not exactly hit it off, with Bill tossing nasty quips about "the Great American Dream" Peter's way, though Peter doesn't get too riled.

Susan has taken up photography, but has yet to sell a photo.  She long ago realized acting wasn't her thing, though she can still quote her beloved "As You Like It."  A very uncomfortable dinner follows, complete with a vamp girlfriend of Susan's and Bill's increasingly bad attitude.  Peter sleeps with the vamp, but leaves at 4am to get to his knew job, though she gets awfully crazy about it.  First she plays the lonely card and then hurls an ash tray at his head.

Drunken Bill couldn't be pulled from sleep and had an article due ("this month's rent"), so Susan finished it for him.  Actress, photographer, writer.  An argument ensues because Bill is jealous of Peter.  "You're having your name taken out of the telephone book!" he roars.  "Oh, really?" she replies.  "No, O'Reilly." Crickets.  The argument continues, but Bill manages to joke his way back into Susan's good graces.



Peter has been "working pretty hard" at the store, but still keeps in touch with his economics professor, Lawrence Pressman, a rather bland character until he invites Peter to attend a rally against killing the Rosenbergs.  That instantly makes him a lefty, which was not a good thing to be in 1950.

Peter is frustrated at his stagnating life (which is actually going pretty well) and more fits from his mother, and right before a big fight of Nick's, Talia goes into labor with their first child.  He packs her off to the hospital with Norman while Nick stays and fights.  Nick, still in his gloves, rushes to the hospital to find out he has a son.  "There ain't nothing in the world's gonna stop me now," he says.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 4

Episode 3 of "Rich Man, Poor Man" was something of a reminder episode, a chance to catch up with the characters without too much happening.  Peter is still trying to work his way through college, Susan is in NYC trying to become an actress and Nick is trying to make a life with family in California, despite a quick affair with the household maid.

Drunken Nick wants to dance with Talia Shire, out with her rich boyfriend, but the rich kids beat him up badly and toss him into the water.  Talia chirps, "I wouldn't go home with him!" as she helps Nick out of the water and to her home since her dad is out of town.

In his little college town, Peter has an appointment with Robert Reed's pal Ray Milland, so important he has pictures of world leaders on his wall.  Department store magnate Ray gives him a job, though he's not happy about it because college kids haven't worked out well in the past.  "I expect an honest day's work.  Do that and you've got a job.  Fail and you're gone with the wind," Ray bellows.  Not only does he work, but he's on the track team and studies economics with vigor while being harassed by Kim Darby, Ray's daughter who has the hots for him.

During a study break to ski, Peter helps Kim, who fakes an injury to get his attention.  "It just kin of throbs all over," she says, trying to be flirtatious when coming off as just annoying.  When he takes her home, Ray doesn't recognize him at first, but soon realizes he's the one responsible for the store's wonderful window displays.  He's supportive of Peter, especially knowing that his daughter likes him.  That does not thrill Peter.  "What's wrong with her her?" his roommate asks.  "She's a nut, that's what's wrong with her," Peter moans.

Peter and his roommate come up with a business idea to start a ski lodge out of an abandoned building, but need $3000 to get it up and running.  Papa Ed Asner is reluctant to give him the seed money, but Mama Dorothy McGuire convinces him by saying, "I feel it.  It's our chance to have something.  I feel it in my bones."

While in NYC arranging or supplies, Peter decides to go see Susan's play, the one where she has one line, which happens to be the curtain line, delivered in just a slip.  "Tell her to bring a friend, a nympho, with money," his roommate tells him before sending him backstage for a long-delayed reunion.  She doesn't even notice him, racing into Bill Bixby's arms and then his apartment.  They are basically living in sin because his wife won't agree to a divorce.

Nick is arrested for statutory rape of Talia Shire, which brings scowling Ed out to California, with the $3000 it will cost to get him out of the scrape.  She's pregnant and claims Nick is the father.  Hmmmm, I wonder if that's the same $3000 Peter needed for his ski lodge idea.  Nick wonders how Talia knows the kid is his.  "Because I know," she says.  The charges are dropped if Nick will leave town, much to the delight of his social-climbing family members.  "I did it so the one member of the family who is worth a damn won't have to go through life with a jailbird brother around his neck," Ed says, saying the slate is now clear with them, "the last time I ever want to see or hear from you."  Nick yells after him that, "I'm gonna pay you back, Pa, every last scent, even if I have to jam it down your throat!"

A letter arrives from dad to Peter without the promised $3000.

Now we're cooking again!  After some very slow times, the plot is lurching back, with the brothers pitted against each other by circumstance, not even intentional hatred or disagreement.

How can Peter get the money?  He places a call to Kim Darby.

Nick leaves his family and his job, though not before the rich kids come after him again (although the rich kids look even older than Nick playing teenagers--this in the pre-Botox age).  When one of them insults Talia, Nick beats the hell out of him.

Not only did Nick and Peter have a need for the money, but so do Ed and Dorothy, as the long-planned supermarket is finally about to open, right next door to the bakery, certainly to finally put them out of business.  He comes home to an eviction notice (with two months warning) and Dorothy leaving their bedroom.  She's hopping mad that he bailed out Nick (referring to him as  "perfect stranger")  and wasted the $3000.  "I've got my price too.  $30 a week, but I want my back pay!  It's a bargain rate.  $30 a week for 20 years, I've figured it all out, it's $30,000.  You put $30,000 on the table and I'll talk to you, not before!" she screams at him.  He leaves, with Dorothy shouting at him.

Peter is explaining his business proposal to Ray and Kim when a call comes to Ray's house from his mother.  "I don't know where he is.  He's been gone all day," she says in a trance.  "This time, he's gone for good."  Indeed, what is the most notable failed American dream (remember, the big overall theme of "Rich Man, Poor Man) so far has reached its conclusion.  On a rainy night, Ed takes his rowboat out one last time.  Another one looks to be snuffed out when Talia shows up, in a drenching rain storm, having been tossed out by her father and having lost the baby, to follow Nick out of their small town.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 3

At the end of Chapter 2, Peter Strauss was joyous as the news that his hard-bitten father was giving him money for college as his wastrel brother Nick Nolte was shipped off to family in California to avoid the rap for a fire he started after seeing his brother's girlfriend, Susan Blakely, in town robber baron Robert Reed's bed.

The story skips to California, 1947.  Nick is living with his father's brother, sister-in-law and children, all of them thoroughly bland and ridiculously bourgeois, which means they have a maid they don't need, quiet Irish lass Fionnula Flanagan.  Luckily for Nick, the family is going on vacation, leaving him in charge of the house and the gas station they run.  It's during down time at the station that Nick learns to box.

A bunch of rich teenagers come to get gas one day and Nick meets flirty Talia Shire.  The rest of the kids are obnoxious, so Nick lets the air out of a tire just to spite them.  Not only has he made a date with Talia, but Fionnula is hot after him, showing it first by making him a world-class meal, then showing up naked to share a bath with him.  One hell of a leap, no?  When the appointed hour to meet Talia arrives, Nick is hooked in Fionnula's arms, she being the one who talks about St. Sebastian, sending Nick to the encyclopedia to figure out that reference.

The ever-egalitarian Nick doesn't understand why Fionnula would want to be a maid, and "wait on my fat uncle," but she likes her life.  Things get more than a bit gooey with these two, who go riding on horseback to shoot bunnies and pick flowers, not to mention rehash the stories of their lives (well, mostly his).  She stops him from the former, saying, "you're bigger than he is and he can't fight back."  Another miniseries rule can be seen a mile away: when things are too good to be true, watch out!

Back in upstate New York, things are pretty much the same.  Peter is still playing delivery boy for his father while being worshipped by his mother.  Dorothy is full of complaints about her life and Ed growls with the same arguments.

Peter goes fishing on Robert Reed's land and is invited to lunch.  As always, Robert likes playing savior, getting Peter a job to help pay for college, and mentioning his new boss has some "nubile young daughters."  That brings the conversation around to Susan, though Robert doesn't reveal too much

Speaking of Susan, she's moved to New York City to become an actress.  Waiting in agent Steve Allen's office, she is introduced to colossal blowhard Bill Bixby.  But, before she can get to know him, she's called into Steve's office to read for a one-line part.  She is told to return later "with a bathing suit."  Bill is waiting to take her out to lunch, where he delights her with pompous stories.  A day of binge drinking by both is interrupted by Susan's line reading in the suit, which apparently gets her the part.  Champagne loosens her lips about her past, and Bill, claiming to be falling in love with her but acting as gay as all get out, delights in the details.  "I think I'm falling in love with you," he keeps saying.

Nick and Fionnula have continued their affair even with the return of Nick's family, though they are very quiet and careful about it.  However, his uncle is suspicious, grilling Nick with the threatening calm of an SS Agent, finally revealing that he heard the sounds coming from Fionnula's room.  "I want you to say you are sorry for the filthy thing that has taken place under my roof," his uncle rages.  The uncle threatens to have her deported, so "she will promise me anything I want," he says triumphantly.  The next morning, not only does Fionnula tell Nick "we are over," but also that she's going to finally give in and let her boss have his way with her.  Nick runs from the house in horror.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 2

When we last left "Rich Man, Poor Man," Susan Blakely was getting on a bus for a ride that could ruin her relationship with Peter Strauss, such a good boy that he can't even fathom having sex with her.  His brother Nick Nolte easily could, and watching all of them is town buzzard Robert Reed, whose motives have yet to become apparent.  

Mama Dorothy McGuire has told Peter that he can have a suit for his birthday, but didn't run it by her husband, Ed Asner.  "People are very generous with my money," he scowls and hurls a book at her (it's only a paperback, but still!).  Dorothy chides him that she works just as hard as he does, behind the counter of their bakery, "eight hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year."  But, her complaints are stopped dead in their tracks by his oafish brutality, which alternates between pure anger and nasty sarcasm.  By the end of an exceedingly well-acted scene, we find out at least one reason for Ed's ire.  Not that he admits it, but he's scared of what will happen when the plans for a large town supermarket come to fruition and puts all of the locals out of business.  

Susan has taken the bus to meet a man from the hospital, but he's not there when she arrives on the bus.  She's unsure of what to do, so when unctuous Robert Reed, the town big shot, drives up an offers to take her to a place where "they serve daiquiris," she accepts.  Cue the alcoholism?  This is the second time we've seen her loving the sauce, but no, not yet.  She gets hammered on them as Robert, decimating his Mike Brady image, asks her age.  She's eighteen and he feigns disappointment, saying, "I had always hoped to contribute to the delinquency of a minor before I go."  He may not know it, but Robert Reed is setting miniseries villains on their path.  Cut out the slave overseers and Hitler, I mean the smooth guys who charm everyone and then reveal themselves to be rats.  They will become far more over-the-top and obvious, but remember, "Rich Man, Poor Man" is only the beginning.  Think of Philip Casnoff in "North and South."  He is handsome, rich, endearing...at least on the surface and then turns into one hell of a reprobate.  

Since Susan is completely wasted, Robert takes her to his palatial home.  He may seem gayer than Liberace in a store full of sequins, but he's plays all man when he slips off a robe and gets into bed with Susan.  This is only 1976, so that's all we see, but I don't believe that to be entirely the fault of censors, because it leaves open the question of whether or not she wanted it too.  The cad then deposits cash in her purse while she slumbers.  That's a villainous trick if ever there was one.  Only after she gets home and basks in the glow of sex that she sees the cash, but doesn't object.  

When Nick leaves the bakery with a dirty cup, morose Dorothy tells Peter, "I don't know how two boys can be so different...when I found out I was pregnant with [Nick] I cried.  I just sat down and cried."  In her own way, she's as responsible for his inability to lead a good life as his oafish father.  

A friend of Nick's spots Susan getting in Robert's car, and he can't wait to tell Nick the news.  They hop the fence at the manse and sneak through the greenhouse to get to the main building, where they eventually see Robert naked making drinks.  "I wish that stupid brother of mine could..." Nick says, stopping that cruel sentence when an even uglier notion comes to mind.  He lights fires in the greenhouse because Peter is on "civil defense" that night and would have to respond to a fire alert.  The fire blazes out of control very quickly, interrupting an inane conversation between Robert and Susan.  Nick's friend catches fire and is badly burned.  Because Nick helps him, he's around long enough for Susan to see him from the window.  Robert wants to get Susan out quickly, via the back road.  "If you're worried about my reputation, it's already shot."  "Mine isn't," he retorts.  Yes, what will the boys at the bar think of him seducing a teenage female?  Nick drops his friend off callously, with big threats not to tell anyone they were there.  

As for Susan, she decides to brush off Robert, freaked by knowing Nick has seen her.  At home, Gloria has found her stash of cash and the note that went with it.  She knows Susan has to leave their small town.  

We know the miniseries maxim on bad luck: when things are at their worst, put on a smile, because they are about to get worse.  Peter is rejected by the local college (where Robert has a lot of pull, FYI).  Peter finally tracks down Susan, whom he hasn't seen since the night they didn't have sex for the first time, but she's emotionless because her mind is already in NYC.  She's put their shared dreams aside since taking up with a rich man for money.  "Maybe I just grew up," she says, though Peter only confesses his eternal love.  

Peter gets a teeny birthday party from his immediate family, though Ed is already drunk.  There wasn't enough money for the suit Dorothy wanted to buy him, so they settled for a shirt.  This too starts an argument, with Ed berating her for wishing they had more money.  "Can't we even pretend for one day that we're a family?  Why do we have to keep tearing at each other?" she asks through tears.  "Just one big happy family," Nick quips as Peter comforts his mother.  

Peter makes the arrangements for Nick to leave town and when he tells Ed, his father says something curious about his wife.  "Promise me you'll always take care of her, no matter what happens to me."  Peter is confused, so drunken Ed tells him the story of how he came to America: he killed an Englishman for his money.  Undaunted, Peter actually feels sorry for Ed and volunteers to take over bakery duty for him, but Ed calls it his "penance" for the two men he's killed, for dashing the hopes of his wife, all of Nicks problems and everything else, "the sins of the father" as he calls them.  "I'm sorry, I tried to do my best," he tells Peter to end the conversation.  

Remember, innocent Peter knows nothing of the true circumstances swirling around Nick's hasty escape from town.  Nick doesn't reveal anything either, muttering that he hit his father for all the time he got hit, non-specific and not believable either.  "Is it because of me?  The fight?  Is that why you're leaving?" he asks.  Now here comes one of those great moments of truth where a character has the power of the future in his hands, to make it or kill it.  Nick admits to setting the fire, but when Peter asks him why, he pauses.  Should he tell him about Susan?  He pauses, the tarnished side of him wanting to tell the truth, but the true good side of him saying merely, "beats me."  He's preserved Peter's future with that one little lie.  "Happy birthday, buddy boy," he chirps as his bus pulls away.  Dorothy shows up a moment too late to bid her son goodbye, but she's not really there for him.  She's there to tell Peter that Ed has decided to give him all of his savings for college.  

On the bus, tears fill Nick's eyes. 

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 1

NOTE: I will be posting notes about "this miniseries per episode rather than as a whole.  Hey, if TV can do it, so can I.

It's said that "Rich Man, Poor Man" is the first American miniseries.  Chronologically, that's not true, but in terms of what it did for the genre, it's hard to disagree.  "Rich Man, Poor Man" took Irwin Shaw's novel and put most of it on television, for over nine hours (it dropped one of the main characters and re-assigned her plots elsewhere).  It was a gigantic success, and one that definitely drew the lines for a whole new sub-genre of television.

As often happens in Hollywood, there was an immediate race to capitalize on its success, but that turned out to be good news!  Instead of cheap imitations, everyone worked hard with their projects, looking to be the next "Rich Man, Poor Man."  The books chosen for miniseries adaptation in the late 70s were almost always excellent choices.  We need look no further than "Roots" or "Centennial" as proof, but there are plenty of fantastic examples. 

"Rich Man, Poor Man" did not just decree that major novels were no longer too big for the small screen in the United States or that its audiences had larger attention spans than expected.  It actually set a whole lot of rules that would hold for the span of the network miniseries glory days.  Take, for example, the slumming movie star.  "Rich Man, Poor Man" has plenty of them (though they all turn in stellar work).  But, at the same time, it also took a chance on newer talent to fill the leads: Nick Nolte, Peter Strauss and Susan Blakely.  The latter two would remain fixtures of the genre and go on to great television careers, while the former went big-time Hollywood.  For the next decade, the miniseries wasn't always afraid to try unknowns, because you might just hit the next Nick or Peter on the way up.

"Rich Man, Poor Man" is also a long saga.  It's not a historical piece per se, not yet giving us the grandeur of the Civil War or World War II epics, but it does set down the patterns for multi-generational pieces.  It is also a grand romance piece.  It's a very serious romance story, but the great epic love-based miniseries, serious and laughable, would take cues from "Rich Man, Poor Man."

Just as a point of fact, "Rich Man, Poor Man" did not win the Emmy for...well, that's the problem.  There was a category for "Best Limited Series," but the nominations for "Rich Man, Poor Man" were not all in that category, spread over a variety of categories.  Just about every actor in the piece was nominated (only Ed Asner won), but across many categories.  Hollywood wasn't quite sure what to do with these pieces yet.  But, in the category of "Best Limited Series," "Rich Man, Poor Man" was up against one forgotten network piece and the rest were from PBS, including the winner, "Upstairs Downstairs."  It's hard to disagree with that outcome, but can you imagine a year in the 90s, 00s or 10s where so much greatness would even happen in one year?

Most striking to me is that almost 40 years later, "Rich Man, Poor Man" still holds up as towering entertainment.  That's hard to say for most network miniseries.  The genre had become so corrupted just 20 years later that it barely resembled even the palest copy of something as brave as "Rich Man, Poor Man."  Yes, the performances are a bit odd, but there's a reason for that: is this a TV series or a movie?  Which type of acting is required?  No one quite knew yet.  If you look to the British miniseries for advice, you go for the wildness that Ed Asner provides (though he's marvelous), but if you look at series TV for advice, you get the gentler performances of Strauss and Blakely (Nolte is in a world of his own, as usual).  So, that is forgiven.  The story, really very simple, still has great emotional pull and everything is so precise that it still feels important.  A miniseries this well done not need to drip history and costumes.  It just needs to grip with story and characters, which "Rich Man, Poor Man" does from the onset.

Just as an FYI, we're not discussing "Rich Man, Poor Man" Book 2 right now.  There's no reason to ruin the beauty of this piece with that ghastly garbage.

We begin with the celebrations of VE Day in Port Phillip, New York.  Note two things here already.  The war is already over, so this is not a story of military heroics, and we're in a tiny American town, not the big city.  Things may grow larger, but at heart, this is a small story.

While everyone celebrates outside with fireworks, yelling, singing and merriment, baker Ed Asner is singing the German national anthem as he prepares the bread.  "They can hear you clear out in the street," his disapproving wife Dorothy McGuire, clutching an American flag, chides him.  "Where do ya think ya are?" she asks, "Germany?"  "No, madame, hell," he replies and takes another swig from a bottle.

Nolte is watching the celebrations atop a football goal post, unimpressed and detached.

As for Peter's girlfriend Susan Blakely, she's almost as unbelievably sweet as he is.  We encounter her reading "Gone With the Wind" to maimed veterans, complete with different voices for the characters.  Of course, she is, it's the great American novel, or at least one of them.  Peter plays his bugle outside the window and begs her to come down, but duty first, she has to stay with the patients.  Don't worry, he'll play some patriotic music for the wounded.

At the town bonfire, Peter is asked by the whole population to play something, so he toots "America the Beautiful."  Nick sneers, "how corny can you get" and leaves with his friend, only to sneak into a movie theater to see a World War II picture, "Wake Island."  Nick gets in trouble there with some snarky comments, causing one man to tell him to shut up "until you earn a fighting man's right to talk."  This goads bad boy Nick to go even further, so the GI takes him into the alley to beat the hell out of him, but it's Nick who does the punishing.

In case you missed that Peter is good and Nick is bad, check out Peter's reaction to a rich kid who makes light of the fact that Peter has to be up at 5am to delivery baked goods.  "Get thee to a bunery," the kid jokes.  Peter looks serious as he walks over to him...and passes him, to thank the soda jerk on duty at the diner for letting them have an impromptu dance there.  Nick would have trashed the place.  Peter is darn pissed, but he only complains to Susan.  Wanna-be actress Susan wants them to move to NYC and get married.  Unfortunately, reality isn't quite the same.  All Susan can really hope for, as her nagging single mother Gloria Grahame (as usual, giving the least subtle of performances) reminds her, is a job at the town factory that employs nearly everyone.

The wee hours of the morning are hopping at the main household.  Ed leers at Dorothy on the bed, drunk, and when she gets religious, he cracks, "Jesus, Mary, Joseph and you.  Four saints, too crowded" and sleeps on the chair.  Nick and Peter still share a bed and when Nick gets in, he taunts Peter every way he can, but his suggestions that he should have long taken Susan is what annoys Peter most.  This leads to a physical fight where Nick overpowers Peter, but Ed walks in and decks Nick hard across the face, refusing to acknowledge Peter may have had anything to do with it (he just gets a sweet touch to the cheek).  And in just these few scenes, we have the entire family dynamic.

Well, not quite.  Ed is far more complex than just being a drunken bully.  When he hears Peter has applied to college, he tells him he can't go because they have no money, but Peter says he's applied for scholarships, so Ed turns it around to make Peter seem ungrateful for having what he does.  "What about the sins of the fathers?  You believe that kids have to pay for what their fathers did?" he asks in a very ugly way.  Peter says he doesn't believe it.  "You better hope it's not true," Ed says with a guffaw.  This incredibly rich character has only had a few lines in a few scenes, and yet we're unable to figure him out so far.  Does he love his family?  Part of it?  His job?  His adopted country?  We have only conflicting evidence so far.  Dorothy even says as much, that something has actually happened to turn him "mean," because when she met him, he was quite the opposite.

The miniseries has its first absolutely classic scene when Ed is called to school because Nick has gotten in trouble with his French teacher.  Nick has made a cartoon of her where she says, "je suis tres chaud."  Ed, playing a humble immigrant, meekly says he doesn't understand forcing her to translate, adding, "in very bad French."  "I don't understand, I thought my son was here to learn to write good French," Ed replies.  The teacher misses the sarcasm and insults Ed, basically calling him stupid.  Ed plays every line for laughs, turning each point against the teacher with a deadpan humor she doesn't get at all, making her angrier and angrier.  By the end of the scene, Ed has turned it all against her and even slapped her as well.  He issues a threat to her not to take out this episode on his son.  Here's yet another layer to him: for a man who has nothing but contempt for his family, he's certainly leaped to Nick's defense in a bountiful way, yet when Nick thanks him, Ed turns dark again and snaps, "you don't owe me a damn thing."  This only brings more questions about this man's motives.  Given scenes like this, is it any wonder Ed Asner won an Emmy?

As if the black wounded soldier who offers Susan $800 to get started as an actress, but underlines it with an invitation to a meal with him that is too much of a quid pro quo for her to understand isn't enough, Susan has to contend with Nick.  Peter has a gig playing trumpet in a club and she goes to watch and adore.  Nick shows up and flirts with her, but it's Peter she necks with in the car.  She only wants him.  Nick's temper is a topic of conversation for them, because the whole town has seen his bad behavior.  "He's really weird.  I don't know what's wrong with him," Peter notes.  Susan does, because it's the same reason she's antsy: she hates small-town life and it's driving her (and Nick) batty.  She has a scheme to move to Greenwich Village with Peter and start a life, but he's old-fashioned.  He wants college and marriage first, even though she says, "we can skip the marriage part," awfully progressive for 1945.

The car in which they are making out belongs to supremely creepy Robert Reed, who basically owns and runs everything in town.  "What are you doing in my car?" he asks.  "We're discussing post-war priorities," Peter sasses, to which Robert laughs and adds, "ask a stupid question, get a foolish answer" while leering at Susan.  He doesn't mind the kids fooling around in his car, he's just come out for the booze in the glove compartment and even shares it with them, also offering them a ride home when they are through.

The car ride home is a doozy, with Robert turning every line into a double entendre, but there's also something sad and pathetic about him.  He offers Peter help getting into college and offers Susan a host of wickedness.  Susan is already in a snit because Peter has forgotten tonight was supposed to be their first time (Gloria is away and Susan has dinner all planned).  "This isn't something you do lightly," Peter says.  "This isn't something you do at all," Susan growls.

Time passes with Susan and Peter not speaking, though of course he calls once she's stopped holding the phone waiting, so she gets on the bus to the rendezvous with the black soldier.

The first episode has done what it set out to do: introduce us to the main characters, but not in a perfunctory way.  We learn so much about them, but it's what we don't learn (Ed's secrets, what makes Nick so rebellious, why Dorothy settled for Ed, Susan's yearnings) that will make us excited for the second episode.  No gasping cliffhangers, not yet.  Only sensational writing and actors who make it matter.