Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls (1981)

Universally adored as perhaps THE ne plus ultra camp classic of all time, the 1967 film version of Jacqueline Susann's smut-fueled roman a clef "Valley of the Dolls," is one of those movies from which you cannot turn away.  It lures you in, traps you and won't let you go.  For decades, you will be quoting the lines.  And no, you don't have to be a drag queen to appreciate the myriad treasures of that film.  The performance of Patty Duke alone should have had the Academy changing the rules to take back Oscars from actors who go this far outside of good acting.

But alas, we're not here to discuss the 1967 "Valley of the Dolls" (though if you would like to, let me know, because I can go on for hours and hours), but the 1981 remake, which added the author's name to the official title though she was already dead.  This remake resets the piece in 1981, which automatically knocks out any chance of figuring out which characters in the original were based on celebrities (Is Neely Judy Garland?  Is Helen Ethel Merman?), and let's face it, 1981 was not nearly as deliciously cheesy a time as 1967.  But, a bit more faithful to the Susann novel than the original movie (at least until the half an hour or so), this remake, which spawned a very brief television series, certainly has its goofy charms as well.  It tries very hard to create some classic lines of its own, but none of them compare.

Because of Patty Duke's immortal performance, the presence of Susan Hayward and the tragedy that would befall Sharon Tate only a few years later, people tend to think of the original as having an A-List cast, but that's anything but true (how's life today, Barbara Parkins?).  So, this remake gets by with a B-Level cast just the same, though none of them are in any danger of stepping over the line into immortality from this piece of nonsense.

Before jumping in, let's give credit where it's due.  Well, credit and blame.  The original novel "Valley of the Dolls" was a gigantic sensation in its time.  Partially due to Susann's willingness to play her part nationwide, sales of the book skyrocketed and trashy literature had a new heroine.  It was "Peyton Place" but twenty times dirtier and more fascinating because of it.  So, of course it had to be a movie.  And of course Susann had to write more books in this vein before dying tragically young(ish). 

And that folks, is the central problem with the 1981 "Valley of the Dolls."  Nearly two decades of familiarity, a movie version and a sexual revolution later, the actions of the characters and their sexual liberties seem almost tame here.  Why do it at all?  With Mr. Susann, Irving Mansfield as an executive producer, I suppose we have our answer.

Note: because the characters in "Valley of the Dolls" are so well-known, I'm going to use character names here.

The first thing to notice is a song by Dionne Warwick, who sang the title song in the original, but it's not that song, just some pale imitation called "What Became of Me?" by no less than Sammy Cahn of all people.  That sets the tone for the next four hours, pale imitation.

Forget New York City and Broadway, by 1981, the were as decaying as Helen Lawson's career.  For 1981, it's all about Los Angeles and Hollywood.  Ann Welles (Catherine Hicks) has graduated from a legal secretary to a full-fledged lawyer, though still for an entertainment agency.  Ann is still somewhat mousy to start, wearing a suit that she tells a co-worker "I sewed when I was 16," an outfit that is so buttoned up and free of skin it could be worn by a nun.

Ann has to work on some contracts to please superstar and notorious bitch Helen Lawson (slumming Jean Simmons).  We first encounter Helen in a screening room watching a terrifically awful movie musical number performed by Tony Polar (Bert Convy) to Jennifer North (Veronica Hamel).  "Damn her!  I want her out.  I want her out of the picture!" Helen screams, going into the projection room, knocking the movie off the projector.  As she trashes the room, she berates the poor nobody editor with lines like, "didn't anyone ever tell you 'Fanfare' is a Helen Lawson picture?"  The movie's director Lyon Burke (David Birney) calms him down, telling him that she only rages because she's old and Jennifer is young and pretty.  He then has to placate Helen, which he does, though she still wants Jennifer fired.  "You've heard all those rumors about her doing pornos," is her rationalization, though she's also jealous because she assumes Lyon is sleeping with Jennifer.  "You get rid of that tramp or I'll put everyone connected with this film on welfare," Helen rails before storming out.  The lines are a hoot, but it's Jean Simmons, drawing on decades of experience, who makes them work.  Unlike Susan Hayward, who played every role as a "broad," it doesn't come as naturally to Jean, making it all the more impressive.

The head of the law firm is Henry Bellamy (James Coburn), who has gone over the Helen Lawson contract and found out that Helen holds all the cards.  To make sure we understand just how important Henry is, their meeting is interrupted by a call from Rome, from Carlo.  Do we need to ask Carlo who?  (Ponti, we assume).  Ann admires Henry's artwork and Henry is quite taken with her, inviting her to lunch, you know, to discuss business. 

On the movie set, Lyon is shooting a scene with Tony and Jennifer, though Tony is both unable to ride a bike and remember lines.  "It's okay," Lyon says, the only director in history to be calmer than anyone else on the shoot.  He pulls Jennifer aside to tell her to cue him, and Jennifer takes the opportunity to make sure Lyon won't fire her at Helen's insistence.  When she returns to help Tony, all he can do is ask her out on a date. 

That night, Tony picks Jennifer up, but she won't get in the car until he opens the door.  "I never let superstars take me for granted," she jokes.  They take a ride around the Hollywood Hills, bonding over shared experiences of childhood poverty (via one-liners).  He takes her back to his house, where she's on guard.  When she asks him if he's ever been in love, he replies, "not until now."  That's her cue to pull away.  "I want to be more than a one-night stand," she says, assuming she's just another notch on the bedpost, but Tony assures her, "you mean much more to me than that." 

Lyon meets with Henry and Ann, the only woman he so far hasn't charmed and promised to call, where Ann summarizes their position with Helen: $5million at stake.  Lyon wants to fire her and recast, but Henry refuses.  She's the star.  Lyon also will not fire Jennifer, threatening to quit if it comes to that.  "I suppose it's time to stop catering to her," Henry says of Helen and then decides to talk about casting another role, another one that has enraged Helen. 

It's at this point that Lyon notices Ann and invites her out for a drink.  Instead, Ann suggests going to a showcase where her roommate Neely O'Hara (Lisa Hartman) is performing because Ann thinks she would be perfect for the role in the movie.  This gives Neely an opportunity to tear into a truly awful rock song that shows off absolutely no talent at all, but somehow Lyon is bewitched.  I'm not sure what the plot of the movie is, but the number we've seen so far (Tony's with Jennifer) was an old-time type and Neely sings rock.  "You're not supposed to be able to find talent like that anymore, right?  Wrong!" Lyon tells Ann after agreeing to give Neely a vocal and screen test.  No, Lyon, you should never have to find "talent" like that.  For some reason, this has Lyon going glassy-eyed and talking about the serious types of movies he wants to make.  And that is followed by him inviting Ann back to his house, saying he's forward because he has no times for games.  "Sorry Lyon, no games, no score," says out Miss Priss. 

So much ground is covered in that scene, it's amazing, especially because it's handled so ineptly! 

Anyway, at 6am the next morning, Neely is laying down her vocal track.  She has a lot of trouble and she's very nervous, though Lyon has an infinite amount of patience, as usual..  Cue the first "doll."  Neely downs a pill to perk her up and suddenly she can perform the song perfectly (or perfectly badly, if you are on the outside of the movie).  The screen test is done with Neely dressed like a Mandrell sister.  It takes ten days, but Neely gets the part.  Ann has known, so she has a bottle of champagne ready to celebrate and Lyon himself shows up at their apartment to drop off the script...and to invite Ann out on a second date. 

They stay in, where now it's Ann's turn to go glassy-eyed and tell her life story in a bland monologue.  Lyon plays less attention than I did, only wanting to kiss her, which he does, of course.

Get ready folks, it's Neely's first day on the set.  She's so nervous that someone offers her "a little help...to take the edge off."  More Tic Tacs, I mean dolls.  Remember when I said I didn't know what "Fanfare" was about?  And remember when I told you to get ready?  On the first, I'm more confused than ever and on the second, you better make sure you're prepared.  Neely's first day on the set is as the leader of an elaborate production number where she and a bunch of girls come off a cruise ship in cheerleader outfits dong choreography so ridiculous it looks like it was lifted from the Village People's "Can't Stop the Music."  Neely wears hot pants to distinguish her from the rest of the girls.  Amazingly, her first take is perfect. 

Also on the set are Tony and Jennifer, having a giggle over a terrible meal she made.  Cue Miriam (Broadway legend Carol Lawrence), Tony's controlling sister, who snorts to Jennifer, "I saw your centerfold...do you do that sort of thing often?"  The conversation is a catfight waiting to happen, but Jennifer retains the upper hand.  Miriam warns Tony not to "get involved," but Tony tells her, "you manage my business affairs" and he'll take care of Jennifer.

In her most efficient demeanor, Ann goes to Helen's trailer to suspend her, and Helen is outraged, though Ann manages to chide her for her behavior because she is "someone I've loved all of my life."  Idol worship has to be put on hold as Helen hears more of Neely's production number being shot and storms out.  This part takes on the second story of a double decker bus with the band dressed in sailor outfits.  Why?  Beats the hell out of me!  Helen gets even angrier because "that's my song!"  "Not anymore," Lyon says, informing her that the picture is being reshot around the younger cast.  "What's my next shot?" a defeated Helen asks, even taking a moment to thank Ann for her harsh words. 

Because of the way Ann has handled Helen, Henry buys her a painting and puts her in charge of everything regarding "Fanfare" while he's out of town.  "Beware of Lyon.  He has a way of devouring baby moguls," a phrase Ann had just coined for people so young in the business who rise so high.  This means she has to be on the set all the time.  She invades the pastries, but Neely doesn't because she's busy popping pills.  When Henry calls to inform Lyon that they have decided to give Neely two extra numbers (musicals by 1981 barely had two, let alone two extra!), he also talks to Ann, who is so super smart about everything she knows exactly how much money it costs every time Tony can't remember his lines. 

Anyone in screenwriting classes should take notes on a scene between Tony and Jennifer, because it's everything one should not do in constructing a scene.  Jennifer, emerging from the pool, somehow gets to the subject of children and Tony says he loves them, but never thought about having any.  "Are you trying to tell me something?" he asks.  "No," she says.  She takes five steps.  "Not really," she says.  Pours lemonade.  "Well, think about it," she says.  Giving himself nearly a full minute to ham it up, Bert-as-Tony registers about 15 facial expressions and slowly walks over to Jennifer to ask if she's pregnant.  She's "not sure," but wants to prepare him so he can prepare Miriam.  The scene should have taken 10 seconds, not 10 years. 

It's been decided to do an all-out "media blitz" on Neely and turn her into a star in five minutes.  In order to act, record, model, pose and live through it all, Neely needs more and more dolls.  She's so wired that her faithful Teddi Casablana (Steve Inwood), who presumably is still "not a fag" in the immortal words of 1967, gives her dolls to sleep.  "We're streetfighters, you and me...we're going to show this town who we really are," Teddi tells her, for reasons I can't comprehend because there has been no establishment of his character or who the hell he even is!  "Teddi, love me," Neely says as she pulls him close to her. 

Steel yourselves, it's time for a Jean Simmons number.  No, not Gene Simmons, Jean Simmons.  Only because Margaret Whiting handled the vocals and a mobile pulled concentration away from her, was Susan Hayward able to pull off "I'll Plant My Own Tree" in the original movie version.  Jean is not so lucky.  Stuck on a sound stage that looks like the old set of "Hollywood Palace," on a block with a band around her, poor Jean is drenched in a red dress so voluminous it must have come from "Gone With the Wind," she lip syncs to someone who is definitely no Margaret Whiting.  Thankfully, it soon turns into a duet with Tony, and since Bert Convy can actually sing, he melds with her ghost vocalist better than when said vocalist sings solo.  I ask again the question of "what the hell is this movie about?"  The two are dressed for something from the 50s, though the song sounds like vintage 70s Carpenters.  When that scene is done, the movie is officially full shot and since the sound stage is so enormous, it can be used for the wrap party. 

Helen asks Henry if he indeed would have canceled the picture if she hasn't "backed down on Jennifer North."  Absolutely he would have.  "Ann did a good job of bluffing me down, but it's nice to know I still have some clout," she says wistfully.  You want to rethink that, Helen?  Whatever this movie is about, it ain't gonna be good!  Jennifer informs Tony she's pregnant and he goes to the microphone to announce his engagement to Jennifer.  Even Helen claps at this news, though Miriam is is pissed.  "When you have a moment, meet me in your dressing room.  It's urgent.  And don't tell Tony," she hisses at Jennifer.  Before she can go, she has to accept congratulations from Ann and Neely, while everyone else spreads good cheer to Tony.

Lyon gets a call from Paris, telling him his new art film there is a go, but the call actually sounds like it's from 1967, because Lyon tells Ann she's coming with him, but she has her job in LA.  "Is that suddenly more important than us?" he asks.  "Either come with me or forget about it," he snaps when she offers to take long weekends in Paris.  She says no and he walks out.

Now what is so urgent that Miriam had to drag Jennifer away from the party?  "I don't dislike you, Jennifer, I never did...now I think you really care," Miriam says, and then makes Jennifer promise to keep this conversation a secret.  "There is no easy way to say this," she starts.  It seems that Tony's father (not hers, FYI), "died in the back ward of a mental hospital, a vegetable."  Ouch!  Tony was only four and given a lot of tests, only to find out he was born "with a death sentence over him...he was going to die the same way his father did."  Mugging to the back row of the balcony and lays out some fancy medical terms that essentially add up to the fact that Tony is soon to be a goner.  She has the paperwork to prove it.  "He's going to die.  He's dying right now.  Only first he's going to become a helpless child, only it won't be in the back ward of a mental hospital.  I've already picked the best sanitarium there is.  There only thing I can hope is that he doesn't know what is happening to him," Miriam dramatically tells Jennifer, who dissolves into tears of her own.  Jennifer asks what will happen if she has a child, and of course Miriam says it's not at all possible.  Uh oh.

Tony has been making plans in Jennifer's absence, culminating in a desire to fly to Rome the next day to get married.  Jennifer wants a drink first.  Is that okay, wonders Tony?  She assures him it is.  I think at this point, Jennifer is no longer worried about the health of her never-to-be-born fetus, and a glass of wine won't make things any worse.  In fact, she tells him that she would like to go on a very very long honeymoon together and a baby would be in the way.  "Let's put off having this baby," she says, to which Tony angrily replies, "you want to kill it?"  She makes it sound like she wants a few years of alone time with him before they settle into family life.  "After we kill our child, we can have a ball.  We can celebrate!" Tony snarls.  "Are you just a lousy ambitious actress on the make?" he fumes, asking her if she's just been using him until the picture ended?  "I can't go through with it, Tony, I can't," she says simply.  "I'm going on the concert tour and you can go tot hell," he says before storming out.  This is 1981 and not 1967, so Jennifer can have an abortion free, clear and legally. 

Jennifer then goes to Paris when she buys her own dolls at a news stand.  She becomes an addicted mess very quickly in a rat trap of an apartment (though with strong windows because closing just one mutes all the tolling bells of the city) which she can't pay for. 

Neely becomes an overnight sensation, the kind that is mobbed by fans when she tries to walk down Hollywood Boulevard (you know, where all the fans hang out and thus stars are bound to be mobbed).  A fan puts a sticker saying "I Love Neely" over Helen Lawson's billing on a poster for "Fanfare."  She and Teddi fight over her career.  He feels Ann and Henry have stymied it by controlling it so tightly, and she won't fight them. 

As for Ann, she's on her way up as well.  She has bought a best-seller to turn into a movie...no, a musical for Neely, and she's reminded that "there is a great part in it for Jennifer," though no one has heard from her.  Ann has scads of men leaving her messages proposing dates, but she ignores them all.  She misses Lyon. 

In a seedy Parisian bar, a blond woman with a severe haircut and big shoulder pads buys Jennifer a drink, saying she's an artist.  "I've been watching you for some minutes and I can tell you are a very unhappy woman," Vivienne (Camille Spary) opines.  She invites Jennifer to her studio for some wine.  "Why not?" Jennifer tartly replies.  Anything for free booze.  Vivienne offers Jennifer a modeling job, and Jennifer collapses, not having eaten since she started on the dolls.  Vivienne offers to help her.  "You need someone.   You shouldn't be alone," she says.  Remember, folks, what a severe haircut meant in 1981. 

Guess who is nominated for Best Supporting Actress?  Neely!  Yup, word comes via telegram (apparently also from 1967).  Oh, what award is this?  I have no idea, no one actually says.  It can't be an Oscar, because that would be a trademark violation, and last I checked, they didn't send nominees telegrams ahead of the announcement.  Guess who is not nominated for Best Actress?  Helen, and Ann feels sorry for her.  "This started out as a Helen Lawson picture," she whines to Henry and then asks him, "could you arrange for one of those Lifetime Achievement Awards" for Helen.  He can arrange that, no problem.  This definitely isn't the Oscars.  They discuss Lyon's time in Paris, where apparently he's already made his movie and it tanked.  That was quick!

It's the night of the awards and Army Archerd is playing himself on the red carpet.  He interviews Helen first.  Does she think Neely will win?  "Oh, I'm rooting for her," she says with a recognizable sneer.  He has to be fed the name of Tony's date.  When Neely shows up, whoever designed the costumes for this movie should be shot.  Starting with the tightly braided hair, it's a mess from top to bottom (hey, it's an awards show, we're allowed to judge the outfits).  Teddi doesn't let her answer anything, doing it himself.  Ann and Henry come together and Lyon jumps out from the crowd to greet them.

"Look at that hair!" Henry says, supposedly lovingly, when Neely is announced as the winner and kisses everyone in the cast on her way up.  Everyone except for Helen, that is.  Helen is backstage wearing a giant frown and puffing on a cigarette, unhappily watching on a monitor. 

The fur flies backstage.  "Those pills must have affected your mind, you thanked everyone but the star of the picture," Helen snaps.  "I thanked everyone who helped me," Neely retorts.  "You look like a porcupine in heat," Helen notices (and she's right).  "You're a hag...has-been of the year," Neely says when Nathan Lane, of all people, playing a stage hand, tries to get Helen onto the stage.  Helen gives Neely a resounding slap across the face and is then help by two women, but soon escapes in time to pull off Helen's wig to reveal her natural gray hair just as Helen's name is announced on stage.

Neely takes the wig and holds it over a toilet so Helen can see it, dropping it down and chirping, "go get it, Miss Lawson," as she flushes.  Nathan Lane is about to have a heart attack in his attempt to get Helen on, and she finally decides to go with her gray hair (which is a really bad wig--you can see the wig line!).  She's a pro, strutting out on stage and accepting the award with a joke about her hair and noting that she's in good company getting this award, with Helen Hayes and Laurence Olivier.  And then she tops it all by saying that, "when I was very young, I had a walk-on in a movie about Mary, Queen of Scots" who famously died wearing a wig, covering gray hair.  "I'm glad I showed you mine while we still have time to get to know each other," Helen says to a rapturous crowd and strides off stage a self-possessed veteran.  Take that, you newcomer swine, Neely O'Hara! 

At a celebratory lunch, Teddi fires away at Henry and Ann.  "I'm serving notice right now...unless you are prepared to renegotiate," he warns.  Henry and Ann agree, but then Henry says that "everything is negotiable except her hair," cutting Teddi down to his first job as a hair stylist.  "The amateurs have a tendency to bring everybody down to their level," Henry snarls, "and in this case, that's intolerable."  He storms out and then Teddi storms out, so Neely has to run after him.  "That's baby's in trouble.  She's far down the road," Lyon notes to Ann, who has worked her addiction into the shooting schedule.  Lyon wants to direct the picture and Ann, wearing the same color as the booth and therefore blending into it, won't give him a firm yes or no on that.

Neely passes out during a recording session and awakes to find Teddi gone.  She follows him to a bar where he's canoodling with another woman.  Neely throws a drink in the woman's face and slaps Teddi.  "You pig, you slob," Teddi spits out, "you make me sick.  You disgust me."  Neely falls up against a parked car, in her tight Spandex pants and then drives away, deprived of the howler of a monologue Patty Duke got around this time in the original version.  Instead, she gets a trip in an elevator where she pushes all the buttons and cries.  She heads to the roof, tries to get some dolls and accidentally drops them over. 

Henry gets the news first and calls Ann, but Lyon picks up and refuses to let Ann have the phone for no apparent reason but to be macho and waste a few moments.  When Ann and company arrive, Neely is still on the roof and the reporters are watching from below.  "Is there anyway we can help?" Lyon asks a policeman?  "Hey, maybe!" he says and lets Lyon and Ann up to the roof.  Teddi is stopped by a reporter who has one question: "why?"  He blames Henry and the "exclusive contract."  When Teddi tries to go up, they won't let him. 

Instead, Ann and Lyon are harnessed and sent to the edge to help her.  Uh huh, right!  Because both of them are such great negotiators.  "Don't you remember all the dreaming we shared in that crummy apartment?" Ann begs of Neely.  Why is she doing it?  Because Teddi is "cheating on me."  "You're going to turn him into the world's #1 stud," if she jumps, Lyon asks her.  "Is he that good?  Is he that good in the sack?" Lyon continues.  That's the most ridiculous line of reasoning, but it seems to work.  It gets Neely to accept a cup of coffee from Ann so Lyon and the rescue team can grab her. 

"I really wanted to die and come back to see what everyone thought of it, like the dailies," Neely blubbers in the ambulance.  Lyon and Ann take this seriously, but the cop on hand, if I'm not mistaken, is having trouble stifling a laugh. 

A way-too-long sequence of scenes where the movie wants us to think there might be something between Henry and Ann ends with Lyon showing up at her apartment very jealous.  "Move in with me," Ann suggests.  "I want to make love to you, not do the dishes," Lyon answers, in his usual sexist way, though with this odd non-sequiter.

Remember Jennifer?  You do?  I had quite forgotten about her since it's been oodles of time since we last saw her in Paris with Vivienne, the artist with the severe haircut.  She has heard the news about Neely and calls Ann to find out how she is.  A painter friend of Vivienne's named Robaire (David Hess), wants to paint Jennifer too.  "For a hundred francs an hour," Vivienne says, "that's what I pay her."  "Ah, but you get extras," he points out, causing all eyes to look at the floor.  Jennifer has the opportunity to buy more dolls, does, but doesn't take any.  Instead, she returns to Vivienne to tell her, "I'm living a life that's not me" and announces she's moving out. 

Typically, Lyon wants to get back to directing.  "Without my work, I just don't feel alive," he tells her as a break-up line, in this, the first scene we've seen of Lyon and Ann since they declared their love for each other.  Lyon hasn't made a lick of sense since his first scene, so are we surprised?

His directing gig is in Paris, with Francoise (Britt Ekland) handling business affairs.  Lyon makes a reference to taxes.  "You should move to Europe, only poor people pay taxes here," Francoise says, apparently in the park of the script written before the events of 1789. 

Neely arrives home from the hospital with three men in tow.  He notes that he should have brought flowers.  "Get some lilies, Teddi.  For yourself.  I've signed with Famous World Talent," Neely says confidently.  Honey, if you signed with an agency named Famous World Talent, you have bigger problems than addiction!  "Get out, Teddi.  Your bags will be downstairs tomorrow," she says.  "Teddi, you lose, split," one of her new agents warns.  She then does a press conference at the Bellamy offices, back to her blonde hair.  She's not upset about losing the role in Ann's movie because "it's too soon after my high wire act above Wilshire Boulevard," she notes, but apparently a music tour will be fine for her sanity. 

Jennifer is still posing for Vivienne, who introduces her to Enid Marshall (Tricia O'Neill). Enid is an agent who wants her back in the states to do commercials.  As for Ann, she's decided she wants to spend the night at Henry's, and does.  Ewwwwww. 

In Paris, Lyon and Francoise attend a fashion show (why? who the hell knows?) that is spoken entirely in English, and he sees Jennifer with her gal pals.  He asks her to dinner, at a place where they pour wine out of miniature cannons.  Jennifer goes through her tale of woe, making it clear she's no longer a) on drugs or b) with Vivienne.  After spending a lot of the night with Lyon, she wakes him up to say she's going back to LA.

Enid takes Jennifer to meet cosmetics mogul Kevin Gilmore (Gary Collins), who can't get enough of Jennifer.  "We've been testing your photos all over America and what we've come up with is, despite your looks, women all over America love you!" he tells her.  Okay, I guess that's a compliment.  He wants her to model cosmetics, to be the "Now Woman."  What follows is, of course, a montage of Jennifer's cheesecake shots for the cosmetics.  If Veronica Hamel weren't so stunning, it would probably be laughable.  While becoming a success, she starts seeing Kevin, who teaches her to fish.  "You mean, I have the pleasure or re-opening your beach house?" she asks.  "Re-opening my life," he replies, as he's been alone since his wife died.  He tells her that happy story with a roaring fire.  Not only was the wife sick, but apparently a horrible person as she was dying.  "Too bad you never had any children, you'd still have a part of her," Jennifer lovingly coos, obviously thinking of her own situation.  She's finally found a man who doesn't love her just for her looks and that makes her happy, though you couldn't real tell from the wooden acting what it is Kevin really feels. 

Well, unfortunately, Neely has started hitting the dolls and booze again and the tour is suffering.  "You want me to function, right?  I just need a little help," she tells a worried Ann.  Neely says she's bored talking about herself (that's news), so what about Ann?  Does she think about Lyon?  "I try not to," she says.  Lyon's new movie, his second made in the blink of an eye, is a giant hit, and Francoise has a new movie lined up for him, but he wants to go back to LA so he can not only director, but write, his new movie. 

It turns out that Henry and Kevin are old friends, so they take their women to lunch, but Ann notices something isn't quite right with Jennifer, so it's time for an emergency trip to the powder room, ladies only.  Ann wants her to see a doctor, and she agrees.  "Make it in the morning.  I have a photo session in the afternoon," Jennifer tells her.  In the middle of her shoot, Jennifer get an important call telling her to rush back to the doctor, to "something called an Oncologist...it means a specialist in tumors," Jennifer tells Ann.  The rather diffident doctor diagnoses breast cancer, which has spread into her body.  "You're telling me, I'm dying?"  "Once again," says the doctor nastily, explaining that it's not hopeless, but it's not looking too good unless she does aggressive treatment, starting with a double mastectomy.  The bitchy doctor has one negative thing after another to tell Jennifer, who asks if she can have children.  "To even think about children at this point is completely unrealistic," the doctor replies, with all the warmth of an Alaskan nun. 

"I'll do whatever I have to do, not here, not LA," Jennifer finally agrees, picking New York City so Kevin won't know.  She doesn't want him to know anything because of how he lost his first wife.  "I'll write you a prescription for some tranquilizers," is the doctor's end line.  Yippee, more dolls!

Jennifer lies to Kevin, at first, but he's figured out she's sick because her answering service called his answering service.  So, she tells him the truth, but tells him, "I won't put you through that again."  He loves her too much to let her go and insists they will get married that weekend, "even if it's in the hospital...and we can adopt a couple of children."  It all seems so perfect until she wakes up that night, sees Kevin crying outside and comes up with a new plan.  One that involves a whole bottle of dolls.  Finding her dead is a sure way to make Kevin feel better! 

Not only is Jennifer North the most sympathetic character in "Valley of the Dolls," but Veronica Hamel gives the movie's best performance, so spending the final hour without her is going to be pretty damn painful.  Missing Gary Collins?  Not so much.

Neely insists on performing that night, but Ann is asked to be there because "she's been acting really weird lately."  Poor Ann, always there to hold everyone's hands.  The concert gives us another chance for a Lisa Hartman song.  The arena looks like it seats 74 comfortably, and not two of them can clap in time with another.  Neely starts off with a ballad, but it soon turns into a up-tempo song where she gets to smile and snap her hair back and forth a lot.  If she's dedicating this to Jennifer, no thanks!  Ah, that's not the dedication song.  Neely stops the show to mention Jennifer's death and THEN dedicates a song to her (killing more time through bad singing).  At least this one is a ballad, but after just a verse, she is too upset to finish and dashes off the stage.  Ann wants to stay and help Neely, who wants to be alone and promises to call her in the morning. 

Alone in her dressing room, Neely hears voices saying "they are going to kill you," so she bolts to the stage, where finally she allows herself to be taken to the hospital.  The funky camera angles and running make-up tell us she's fully crazy, fully hooked on dolls.  Things get worse at the hospital, where she is in a full "amphetamine psychosis" and runs around the halls like a lunatic.  This can mean only one thing, a trip to the Betty Ford Cen...some fancy rehab in Southern California that caters to the rich and famous.  Getting there, a clearly disturbed Neely asks Ann, "is Jen going to join us?"  "No, honey, she can't," Ann says sympathetically.

Ann's co-worker sets her up to go on a lunch date with Lyon by telling her he's a writer with his first script and she needs to meet him.  Ann actually likes the script idea, about a girl from Kansas with problems, aka "The Neely O'Hara Story" in a nutshell.  He also apologizes to her.  "I'm still in love with you," is supposed to cover all of his nonsense.  Pig that he is, he says, "what I'd like to try is to make a commitment, a real commitment."  Try? 

"Henry, Lyon and I were married last night in Las Vegas," Ann tells Henry, who has been courting Ann for "nearly a year now."  He's understandably upset, mainly because he doesn't think Lyon is good enough.  Ann's reply?  "I still believe in love.  And if you love someone, you marry him," she snaps, proof that Lyon's 60s mentality has rubbed off on her big time. 

I guess the news has shocked Henry worse than expected, because he has a heart attack that very day!  Ann calls Lyon to tell him she has to stay at the office "to make contingency plans."  When she gets home, the King and Queen of Selfishville have a whopper of a conversation.  "Why did this have to happen right after I told him about us?" she asks.  "Coincidence?" he answers, seriously.  King tells Queen that she's expected to run the office because Henry has "groomed her for it," which lights her up.  King then thinks of himself, being alone without her so many hours, noting, "I won't have an excuse not to finish the script."  These two get worse and worse with every scene!  Lyon has always been unbearable, but Ann used to have her good moments.

In rehab, where "this is no such thing as instant therapy," according to a doctor, Neely is actually the sanest of the bunch.  There's a woman who tells her "if I leave here, they'll kill me."  "Who?"  "The Russians."  Um, yeah.  Neely wisely chooses to worry about the fact that she's lost the ability to sing.

Ann and Lyon have many reasons to celebrate.  He has finished the script and she's been promoted to "run the production end of the film division."  Lyon claims to be very proud of her and also claims that he'll be fine with her increased workload.  Even better for him, she's already negotiated a contract for the rights to his movie, provided Neely stars in it (in her own story?).  Neely is still in rehab, but she has her voice back.  Apparently it was all in her mind, explains the doctor, or some man in a white coat pretending to be a doctor, because his explanation isn't based at all in medical science.  There's no denying she has her voice back, because she's giving her fellow patients an impromptu concert, belting out another rock song to an audience who can't clap well (okay, it's a sanitarium, they have an excise).  She pulls up one of the men from the crowd and it's...

...Tony!  Yup, 163 hours later, we meet Tony again.  He's in the institution withering away, just like Miriam promised he would be.  He's something of a zombie, and doesn't recognize Lyon or Ann.  The unhelpful doctor, who discloses Tony's condition willingly to Lyon and Ann, suggests it's time for a nap and takes him away so Ann and Lyon can talk to Neely about the movie.  Neely thinks she only needs "a month or two" more of rehab, and Lyon is just fine with that.  Is he starting to care about someone else?

Out on her own, Neely is assured by Lyon that "you are going to be wonderful" and that he will protect her during the filming process.  Is she worried about going back to Kansas to shoot?  Nah, she's okay with it, now that she's clean.  Ann will not be attending because she's too busy at the office, Lyon says rather nastily (good, his selfishness is back).  There's a great deal of tension between husband and wife at the office where she has to make sure the business end of the movie is okay, butting heads with his creative needs.  Actually, Ann tries to smooth things over, but Lyon is too focused on himself to work on the marriage.

The rushes from Neely's picture impress everyone (except me, to whom it seems just plain badly acted), and Ann puts in a call to Lyon on set in Kansas.  He's busy in a bar pumping up Neely's ego.  "You always made me feel like someone special," she tells him, apparently not realizing that he's thinking more of her body than her psyche.  When he invites her into his motel room, she begins to understand, but she goes anyway.  He gets the message from Ann, but declines to call her back.  Not thinking of Neely's issues, he offers her cognac, but she remembers them before falling into his arms for big kissing. 

When Lyon returns home, Ann greets him with, "I missed the hell out of you."  "Sometimes I forget how lovely you really are," he says.  That's a troubling line, but she doesn't catch it.  It's not until she's watching the dailies that she hears about "the special coaching" Neely is getting, "eight hours of rehearsal every night," according to others in the room.  Ann storms out to "think about it," but loyal Henry is "here if you need me."

She rushes to the location where they are shooting, barges into Neely's trailer and finds Neely and her husband kissing.  "Oh, Ann, I'm sorry," Neely pouts before ditching the trailer.  Why is he sleeping with her?  He has a few choice reasons:
"Part of it's the work, you put people together..."
"Neely needs to feel love"
"Part of it's us.  Your work.  You don't seem to need anything these days."

The first makes no sense, the second is a cop-out and the third finally gets to some truth.  Ann realizes that and goes for the kill.  "Aren't we really talking about what you need, Lyon?" she asks, apparently unaware that for the last four hours, that's all they've talked about.  "My career threatens your masculinity, it always has.  It didn't have to, that's what's so sad."  Bingo, she's finally gotten it!  "I'm good with film.  I'm not good with commitment.  I do love you and I wish you would give this another shot," he says, turning from anger to guilt in one sentence.  "You finish your picture and then get out of my life," Ann says, making the right decision.  Ann can't hate Neely, and in fact reassures her that they are fine and nothing can hinder her continued recovery.  "We're friends and we're always going to be friends.  That's a deal."  Wow, that's one forgiving friend! 

"Well, that's done," Lyon tells Neely.  "I'd like to see you after we finish," he also says, as if the last scene didn't happen!  What a cad! Is there no limit to this character's corrosive selfishness?  "As far as we're concerned, it's a wrap," Neely tells him, which would be a decent line to throw in his face if she wasn't crying.  It just seems cheesy delivered that way. 

Dionne and her song are back, which cues the end of the movie.  Ann strides to her car, where she forces us to watch a flashback of Ann and Tony's Greatest Moments before driving off.  That's not quite the end Jacqueline Susann had in mind, but it is a happy ending, of sorts.

The miniseries movement was not above remakes, but "Valley of the Dolls" was an odd choice.  There was no way to remake the original movie or even the Susann novel because that time had long passed.  So, someone had the bright idea to modernize it.  Not bright, bad.  The gasps it elicited in the 1960s were the gasps of the coming sexual revolution, of the Women's Liberation movement, of paperbacks that could only be sold in certain stores.  In 1981, what's to gasp about?  Only a new angle on the story could have made this work, and there is no possible new angle.  So, we're left with a cartoonish story, vapid acting (except for Veronica Hamel and Jean Simmons, who do their best with what they have) and a script that tries way too hard to make itself seem important.  It's not, with the exception of a few lines.  By 1981, "Valley of the Dolls" was simply another insider's look at Hollywood, which was nothing new. 

The Deliberate Stranger (1986)

Television Golden Boy Mark Harmon (still golden in his golden years on "NCIS") plays serial killer Ted Bundy in "The Deliberate Stranger."  Aired three years before Bundy's death, it does lack the finale we all know, but it is instead allowed to go into the details of the crimes much more deeply.  I admit this miniseries has the same gene of exploitation of all true crime miniseries, but since Ted Bundy was anything but typical, there are some big, and very positive differences, in "The Deliberate Stranger." 

Though the first half of the movie drags, the second half is so tense it acts like a sleek horror or mystery movie.  Bundy's case is so utterly fascinating because Bundy was so unique, so full of sophisticated charm that he fooled people for so long, and even when caught, maintained a superiority complex that baffled everyone who came into contact with him.  This gives Mark Harmon a lot to play with, leading an excellent cast of detectives and reporters on a nightmare ride. 

The prologue starts us in the tradition of classic thrillers: a young woman is walking alone, then followed without realizing it.  Her steps remain slow, but the man's get faster and faster until...he's grabbed her.

Just so we're clear, the miniseries is based on the book by reporter Richard Larsen, spanning the years 1974-1979 and it's not a celebration of Bundy, but rather of the men who chased and prosecuted him.  This is actually stated, lest we dare make a hero out of Bundy.  No, no.  That kind of film would have to wait another 20 years or so.

When first encountered, Ted Bundy couldn't be more charming.  Mark Harmon in his prime was a total hunk, an ideal choice to play the handsome and suave Bundy.  He's about to go to law school full time in Utah and has a lovely girlfriend Cas (Glynnis O'Connor).  At a party, he meets Richard Larsen (George Grizzard).  They and the hosts trade witty banter as everyone tries to get Ted to stay in Seattle and continue his life there.  "Sometimes the sight of Ted makes me a little wistful," Richard says, envying Ted's youth and possibilities.

Cas is worried because Ted might meet other women, and he can always win an argument with her, with his "psych major" mind, not to mention her raging insecurities.  Then again, if you are going to argue with a handsome man in just a towel while he's shaving, you better have a damn good arsenal behind you.

Meanwhile, in this July of 1974, the police are trying to tie together a string of murders up and down the coast.  "Some kind of nut is walking around with an alarm clock of madness in his head just ticking away," says Detective Sam Davies (M. Emmet Walsh).  The movie cuts between the detectives rattling off all of the recent missing women and Ted smiling as he drives to make his latest kill.  He spots a woman sunbathing alone and moves in, with a classic Bundy maneuver.  Sporting a dazzling smile and a fake cast and sling, he asks her for help getting his sailboat from the car.  "Flattery and a broken arm will get you just about..." she says, adding "anywhere" at the precise second he says it too, another occasion for that smile.  They go to his car, where of course there is no sailboat.  She notices it, wisely enough, but he says he has to get it from his parents' house, which scares her off.  She mentions she has a husband and has to go back to wait for him.  But, Ted isn't without another female for long.  Last we see of her, she agrees to help and Ted returns to the park afterwards to make a second kill! 

He's supposed to meet Cas and her daughter afterward, and he's awfully snappish when he does.  Obviously not happy with the two women he's murdered, he is downright mean to Cas, who just wants to know if they are going out to dinner as planned.  "Maybe," he says.  "That's what I like about women," he adds sarcastically, "maybe means a lifelong promise." 

Later that night, the second girl he abducted, from the bathroom, is still missing, and her friends are concerned.  One has to even tell her mother, who breaks down hysterically with the knowledge only a mother could have that something is definitely wrong. 

At another party with Richard present, Ted brings his two co-workers, one of whom, Martha (Deborah Goodrich) has just started that day.  It's a Republican fundraiser, which shocks Martha.  "You're just kind of like a JFK, so I just figured you were a Democrat," she chirps.  He impresses her by saying he grew up wealthy and loves caviar, on top of keeping everyone important liking him.  "What I wouldn't give to have his future," Richard says, to which Ken Wolverton (Lawrence Pressman) replies, "we'll always say 'we knew him when.'"  Yeah, okay, we get it.  After nearly 30 minutes, we get that Ted Bundy is sweet and lovable, attractive in so many ways to everyone he meets.  Another fundraiser full of groaner lines like these and...well, I won't finish that sentence..

The woman who escaped Ted's clutches in the park sees a news report about one of the missing girls, whom she had seen go off with Ted.  She remembers Ted's name and the color of the VW.  This is a big break for the Detectives, including Bob Keppel (Frederic Forrest) and Robert Dunn (John Ashton).  They have two more girls who have been lucky enough to escape from Ted and so many of the details are the same.

Cas reads about this in the newspaper and finds all of the products needed to make a fake cast, and as she's putting together the pieces, Ted calls.  She rattles off another conversation full of her problems and he quiets her down, but when she hangs up, she calls the police and reports what she knows, but hangs up before giving too much information.  I know that may sound corny, but "The Deliberate Stranger" aims to present the story in less of a documentary fashion and more as a thriller.  That's exactly the kind of suspenseful moment that would be tucked into a thriller. 

"Well, fellas, this Ted is leaving town," a cocky Bundy says to the television when he chuckles over news of the investigation.  He then goes to say goodbye to Richard before leaving.  Of course Richard is now becoming interested in the story of all the missing girls, so the timing is perfect.  He also has to leave Cas, who won't let him sleep.  First, she babbles about her family in Salt Lake City that "might try to convert you" to being a Mormon and then it's "is it because I didn't like it that time you wanted to..." before he kisses her to shut her up.  Another tantalizing clue, especially because we find out that Cas and Ted don't have sex.  He has very strong views on that subject, we find out.  "Sex without love, all that naked grappling to me has all the appeal of watching Washington play San Jose in the cold rain of Husky Stadium," he notes as he assures Cas that he loves her.  This finally quiets her, but now Ted is bug-eyed and alert. 

Another stop before leaving his to his home, where he spends two seconds with his mother (Bonnie Bartlett).  She seems like an okay enough lady, but clearly Ted has issues with her, though he hides them during the quick conversation and peck goodbye. 

Off to Salt Lake City.  His brother drove him there and Ted promises to return to Seattle soon for his car.  "Wouldn't know what to do without my VW," he laughs.  It's then that the police are discovering more corpses.  Mrs. Rose (Rita Zohar), the hysterical mother from earlier, is determined to find out what happened to her daughter and follows the police to the scene of the body dump.  They send her home, but soon the detectives are at her house asking for a piece of her hair.  It turns out to be a match for Mrs. Rose's daughter. who knows what the police have to say before they can even knock on her door.  The detectives, especially Keppel become obsessed with the case (to the point where his wife nags him for not paying her and their baby enough attention). 

And the last point is an issue.  The allure of the Ted Bundy case was Ted himself, so unbelievably clean-scrubbed and handsome, not what the world knew of serial killers, who had always tended to be social outcasts.  Obviously a miniseries of Bundy killings one after another would not be possible (not to mention tedious and tasteless), but focusing on the detectives is just plain boring.  Of course watching them put the pieces together as Ted keeps steps ahead of them is fun.  It always is in these types of stories, but since the audience knows everything before the cops, this method of presentation cuts down on the suspense.  If, perhaps, Ted were shown doing everything but killing, and the audience found the clues along with the detectives, the movie might not lose its spark so often.  It has plenty of spark and thrill, but it also drags at times like these.

However, the detectives and their case are a whole lot more exciting than Cas.  Every time she's on, it means another whiny breakdown.  Yes, of course, she tells a co-worker, she's wondered if her Ted who drives a VW is the killer Ted who drives a VW, but she's so low on self-esteem that she's afraid to lose Ted's validating love.  Blah, blah, blah.

In Salt Lake City, Ted piles up the body count, but the sling is gone.  All he needs is his charm and his unassuming intelligence.  He goes for the "I'm new in town" routine and the "I'm just a poor student" routine and it works on the girls.  He zeroes in on Katie (Terry Farrell) when he observes her playing football with her friends.  This one he has to chase, but she likes the fact that she finds him parked outside of her house in his VW.  He calls Martha to get a report on what's new in Seattle, unsettled a bit that Richard is now writing stories on the case, but hanging up with a broad smile to know they have no clues leading to him. 

It's Halloween and Katie is dressed in the flimsiest of little togas.  Very drunk, she goes to get cigarettes.  Her friend warns her that "Romeo," as they call stalking Ted, "might be out there," but she's not afraid.  She should be, because he nabs her.  He then puts in a call to Cas, giving her hope again, before having dinner with her parents.  They fawn over him like everyone else.  Katie's parents go to the police when she isn't found, but they are too busy to pay attention to one girl, not seeing any pattern in Ted's new hunting ground.

A week later, sporting a mustache, he pretends to be a cop, stopping a woman named Susan (Emily Longstreth) at a mall to tell her he's seen a man breaking into her car.  The vehicle is perfectly fine, and he invents an elaborate ruse to get her into his car, flashing a fake police badge to make her feel comfortable.  She doesn't question why she can't drive her car or why he's driving an increasingly beat up VW.  She actually manages to escape and goes to the police for real.  As always after an incident, he calls Cas, telling her "sometimes I feel like you're the only one who keeps me from falling into a black pit," which of course thrills her, but also speaks to his increasing desperation.  Having fooled her again, he's all smiles and can comfortably listen to news reports of his various crimes. 

The scene where Katie's parents identify her remains is positively heartbreaking, television heart-tugging at its best.

But it's followed by another Cas scene where she refuses to admit she feels the truth.  Her friend once again tries to force her to open up, noting that the killings in Seattle have stopped and started in Salt Lake City.  "Every time I talk to him, he's so wonderful.  His letters are so wonderful.  He even sends little poems sometimes," she agonizes. 

Almost as a joke, the Seattle cops suggest "maybe he took his act on the road" and decide to check missing persons in all states.  "We would need a computer," Davies notes.  It's just then that Cas shows up at the station to discuss Ted.  Her prattle annoys the desk cop, who chooses not to take her story any more seriously than the "thousands" he tells her he's received. Her story goes into the pile with the rest, right under the noses of the detectives.

Cas and her daughter go to Salt Lake City for Christmas where they decorate a tree, sing carols with her family and do everything but watch the Osmonds.  It's purposely saccharine, though with a few hints of Ted craziness, such as when the kid says, "someday he's going to be my dad," and he retorts coldly, "yeah, when I'm rich."  He tells Cas in bed he wants a son and a boat for a their summer home, dreaming again of riches while Cas just wants kids.  He's not really listening to her.  "I've never been happier," she tells him. 

As soon as he watches Cas' plane take off, he goes out on the prowl at a ski lodge.  In a bold move, he snatches a woman in the lodge and carries her dead body out into the snow.   The woman's boyfriend calls the police and Aspen Detective Mike Fisher (Ben Masters) is sent to investigate. 

Ted calls Richard to say he's homesick, but Richard defends him to his boss as a "bright upwardly-mobile young man who did one shady thing," spying on a candidate in a local election.  Still no warning bells.

Detective Fisher finds the missing woman buried in the snow once it starts to melt.  "Coyotes and magpies got to [the body]," he reports to her boyfriend, who had wanted to see the body.  Detectives Davies and Keppel are still obsessed, still in need of a computer, but "the brass" won't spring for it.  The latter two are joined by their wives for a game night, but a body discovery brings Keppel to another of Ted's graveyards.  "This wasn't the way I hoped to find her," he says, holding a skull in his hand.  That would be our cue for the first portion of the miniseries to end.

The second part opens with a search of the area, the knee-to-knee kind that turns up many a grisly discovery.  When done, he says, "I don't think anything could still be up there, not even the skeleton of a mouse."  It's finally time for Keppel to confirm that they are looking for one killer.  This means the department gets its computer and the police form a "Ted Squad."  The computer, the size of a parking garage, but it will help them keep information together.  "When you are feeling tired and overworked, and you will, remember..." and he lists the names of the missing girls. 

Detective Fisher decides to get together all the various Utah and Colorado police departments, still not connecting with Seattle, but drawing close.  Again, we have to watch the detectives play catch-up, but now the plot is moving a lot faster, so it's less of a trial to get through.  Keppel is the one who comes up with the term "deliberate stranger," saying that is the key to all of this.  The only thing every girl has in common is that she most likely did not know the killer; he chose them at random. 

Sitting outside a house in his car one night, a cop sees Ted, who floors it to avoid him, but he can't outrun him.  Ted is arrest for evading arrest (and when the cop looks in his car, he sees rope, blankets and even handcuffs).  The Salt Lake City police call Seattle...at the very moment that Ted's name and picture have come up on their computer screen.  Now, if you think this is all a bit too convenient, the dialogue takes care of that when Keppel tells Salt Lake City, "you're not going to believe this..." but my detective skills went a bit deeper to wonder why all of the Seattle police force happened to be working very late that night (okay, Seattle is an hour behind Salt Lake City, but STILL!).

Salt Lake City's Detective Thompson (Frederick Coffin) has spoken to Detective Fisher in Aspen and now Detective Keppel in Seattle and finally they realize this is the moment to work together, that they have to have the right guy.  The problem is that Ted Bundy is about to post bail because they can't hold him on anything serious.  Thompson says they found a ski lodge receipt and Fisher says he can get a court order for Ted's credit card bills, snapping to Thompson, "can I get a court order, does Goldilocks eat porridge?"  These two pieces of evidence put Ted at the ski lodge when the woman was killed.

Thompson himself does the stakeout of Ted's house, watching him "cleaning up the evidence" as he washes the VW inside out.  They can't get a court order due to lack of evidence and he knows they are watching, taunting them with a smile as he scrubs the car of all evidence.  Even more brazenly, Ted stops Thompson and tells him, he's "grasping at straws, but if you find enough straws, maybe you can put the broom together."  That's a damn good line, and yet more proof of Ted's overwhelming arrogance.

Thompson and Fisher show up at Ted's house to give him a warrant demanding he be in a line-up.  They have brought in Susan, the woman who escaped from the shopping mall disaster, but since Ted does not have his mustache and has combed his hair differently, she has trouble.  That's just building of tension, because she ultimately does identify him.

Ken and Richard run into each other on the street where Ken tells Richard Ted has been arrested in Salt Lake City.  "The Ted I knew couldn't do something like that.  He stayed at our house, he babysat our little girls," Ken says in deep confusion.  Cas' parents call her to reassure her "it's just a mistake...these things happen a lot...we know Ted, he's a fine man."  At the paper, Richard, not convinced his friend could be the killer, is ordered to go to Salt Lake City and talk to Ted. 

In prison, Ted says, "the bloody press is making me into some kind of serial killer!"  "It infuriates me, sensational journalism," Richard replies, promising to help Ted in any way, turning to mush at Ted's smile, rattling off his wonderful qualities ("looks, brains, wit, charm") and again with the "you could be my son" routine.  But there is something very cold about Ted's conversation with Richard, especially when he says he trusts the legal system because he's worked in it as a law student and they have no proof.

Ted's friends line up behind him.  His old coworkers raise money for his defense, Ken Wolverton publicly states it couldn't be Ted and even his mother chimes in, "he was always such a good boy," just like the mother of every serial killer.  Richard is determined to prove Ted innocent.  He and Keppel are pals and working the case from different angles; Richard wants to free him, Keppel to nail him. 

Inevitably, the past has to be dredged up.  Apparently, Ted was an illegitimate baby and passed off as his mother's brother rather than her son.  "How do you think this kid feels?" soft Richard asks.  "My heart bleeds," Keppel replies acidly, knowing that sort of defense is hogwash.

Eventually, Keppel gets around to interviewing Cas.  He still writes and calls from prison.  She finally admits the scary sexual act referral to earlier.  Apparently, he tied her up and was "in a trance" that her screaming finally penetrated.  "I think I've just been another victim, only I'm not dead.  Not quite," she tells a female detective.  Oh, please, Cas!  Anyway, the main point of her scene is that she cannot provide an alibi for any of the times girls went missing.

Richard interviews Ted's mother hoping to get an alibi out of her, but she's no help.  Ted is out on bail and dining with Richard, telling him how wonderful freedom feels and, oddly, that being in prison has taught him how tough he is.  While they are eating, a cute blonde girl comes over to wish him luck.  "I seemed to achieve some sort of folklore status among the kids...you man victimized," he says with excitement.  Ted feels that Susan was pushed to identify him and not a worry.

The trial for the attempted kidnapping of Susan begins in 1976.  When asked why he tried to escape arrest.  His reply is that he smoked two joints and was "paranoid...I can't describe to you the feeling."  He goes through this speech with such easygoing conviction.  Where was he when Susan was abducted?  At the movies.  Does he have handcuffs?  Sure, "I was a nightwatchman," he admits, coming up with a phony story about having to hold a suspect. 

By this point, even Richard can't deny the truth.  Talking with Thompson and Fisher, he says, "I used to like him.  I don't hate him."  "I hate him," Thompson cracks.  Fisher tells Richard, off the record, that they have hairs from two of the girls from his car. 

Ted is found guilty of the attempted kidnapping.  Ted still manages to remain cocky!  He summons Fisher and Thompson.  "You want to talk about me?  Great, my favorite subject," Ted starts off, but Fisher knows that he has been called by Ted to give him information somehow, but Fisher is too smart.  Even from prison, he's working his psychological tricks on Cas.  Under psych evaluation for 90 days, he writes to her to blame her for making him seem crazy for lack of communication.  "I forgive you, can't you forgive me?  I'm not Bluebeard.  I'm not Leopold and Loeb rolled into one...don't sever my lifeline, please!" he writes.  Cas crumples up the letter. 

He also thinks he can "control" the evaluating doctor, though he supposedly knows the tricks, having been a psych major.  They go back to childhood, but Ted knows how to sugar coat everything.  In fact, he enlightens Richard on sociopaths and psychopaths, able to rattle off the definitions, much to Richard's horror.  Richard writes a bizarre article about how the legal system is being ruined by the press because an unbiased jury can't be found.  "Even an Eskimo has a television set in his igloo," he types.  It's a standard argument used by the defense, but Richard has trouble writing it, because he's not really believing it so much anymore. 

It's only at sentencing ("1 to 15 years") that Ted's facade shows signs of cracking.  His statement to the judge is awfully defensive, bashing the psych evaluation because, let's face it, he can't stand to hear anything bad about him.  Richard thinks Ted truly has no guilt.  "It's the most twisted mind I've ever seen.  He can rationalize everything.  You know, I think he believes himself to be some kind of a martyr," Thompson adds.  Fisher realizes that they need to attack the cracking Ted they saw in the courtroom, not the cocky calm one they always interview. 

In 1977, Fisher has enough evidence about the killing of the woman at the lodge for a Colorado murder trial, where Ted intends to be his own lawyer, calling the evidence "circumstantial," and that "it's so good to have things back in my hands again...just think, I get to be a real lawyer after all" in a letter.  Fisher and Keppel want to pull out all the stops to make sure Ted is convicted.  If that can happen, "it will be the single most important thing I've done in my life," Keppel says, though he and Fisher can't get Richard to fully admit he's changed his mind about Ted.  Richard is able to play both sides, visiting Ted in prison and listening to his glowing tirades, actually noting, "you seem happy" because he's in charge of his defense. 

Ted calls Cas, who won't answer the phone, but Martha does!  In fact, she's moving to Aspen to be nearer to him.  He's only using her for money. 

Visiting the court, Ted is able to escape so easily it's almost comical.  He steals a car, so proud of his good fortune.  This is the kind of true crime detail that makes for an exciting scene in a movie.  The second half of "The Deliberate Stranger" is so tight and perfectly written that everything has a heightened sense of alarm.  By the end of the evening, he's been caught.  Richard tries to convince him to give up his own defense because "you have a whole new set of problems now," but Ted only replies by asking where a "person is most likely to get the death penalty?"  "Georgia, maybe Florida," Richard replies innocently.

But, Ted is desperate.  He plans a big prison escape. 

Katie's friend identifies Ted as the man who followed Katie and reminds them that she gave a statement.  Fisher and Thompson go to the local police office, to be told all of the evidence, including hair samples and such, are "lost."  "I think one of our boys must have thrown it out by accident when we were moving," the petulant sheriff tells them. 

On December 30, 1977, Ted escapes from prison, with sublime ease.  Everyone involved in the case is given protection, and Ted heads to the train station, boldly walking through it with a smile and no cares in the world.  He gets to Florida without anyone noticing, amazed at his good fortune.  Fisher and Keppel are horrified and Fisher is worried that Ted is ready to explode.  "One murder is not going to do it for him," he tells Keppel.  Indeed, Ted cruises around campuses and clubs looking for potential victims. 

Fisher is right, as Ted goes into a sorority house and kills a bunch of women by beating them to death, and apparently sexually assaulting them.  When news leaks out, Thompson, Keppel, Fisher and Richard all warn Florida that Ted is there.  Driving a VW, Ted is stopped by the police and tries to escape by beating the officer, but the latter wins out.  "I wish you'd kill me," Ted tells him.

In custody in Florida, Ted talks a lot, which worries the guys who have been working him for so long.  Our gang from the west arrives and are stonewalled by the locals.  At dinner, Richard opines that Ted actually wanted to be caught and executed, which is why he chose Florida.  That makes sense with his strange line to the policeman who arrested him. 

At his trial, he tells the judge, "I find it absurd to ask for mercy for something I did not do."  He's as delusional as every other serial killer, but he maintained a different demeanor better and longer than all of the rest.  That's what made him so fascinating.

Sentenced to die in the electric chair, he calls Cas and apologizes for his tantrum all of those years ago when she and her daughter wanted to go out for dinner.  He still just doesn't get it.

The movie ends with Ted having appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, but as we know, all appeals led nowhere and Bundy was executed in 1989.

Unlike another mass murdered discussed here, Charles Manson in "Helter Skelter," Bundy was not a comically larger-than-life character.  In fact, it was his calm self-assurance that made him so frightening.  So, Mark Harmon doesn't get to play crazy too much, having to rely on more difficult character traits to give the performance of his career.  Like "Helter Skelter," the focus is really on the effort it took to stop Ted Bundy, which can get tiresome, but the magnitude of his crimes and his personality are the stuff of great television.

The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992)

Let's face it: it's nearly impossible to rerun most miniseries.  Can you imagine a network giving up valuable hours to rerun "Backstairs at the White House" because it's a great historical record?  Who has the attention span anymore?  The cable miniseries are chopped up into small edible pieces.  HBO's recent "Mildred Pierce" remake was done in mostly hour-long episodes.  Do that with "War and Remembrance" day by day and it would take weeks and weeks. 

That I can think of, writing this in 2011, there are only two Golden Age American miniseries that are still shown on television.  Lifetime's gaggle of networks air the movies about Betty Broderick at least once a week.  And MTV's various channels delight in showing "The Jacksons: An American Dream" every time a Jackson burps. 

Is it because we are endlessly fascinated by America's first family of foolishness?  Let's be realistic, as much as we're obsessed as a culture by the Kennedys, we still have a glowing respect for them.  Respect for the Jacksons?  Not really.  Full of talent, they are also full of bad parenting and bad hairdos, a train wreck on an endless loop and we keep driving past it, over and over again, craning our necks to watch.

Let's keep Michael's death aside (merely out of respect, because it was certainly a wowser in itself), this never-shuts circus celebrates a family that is plain old nuts (looking more and more like freaks with every passing surgical year).  Watch LaToya talk to Bubbles the Chimp on Animal Planet.  Watch Jermaine cry endlessly on Larry King.  After all that the kids went through with Joe Jackson, does he remain quiet?  Hell no, he's constantly suing this one or yapping about that one.  His family may wish he would shut up, but the public doesn't.  We love every juicy completely wrong word that comes out of his mouth.  It's gotten to the point where when someone famous is interviewed about the Jacksons, there are only two allowable mantras: they were musically astounding and if it hadn't been for some early pushing by Papa Joe, we may have been bereft of the whole damn clan.  Talk about anything else, and you are in danger of being associated with them!

So, it's no wonder that "The Jacksons: An American Dream" is rerun plenty.  We just love the Jacksons.  What is odd is that "The Jacksons: An American Dream" is pretty devoid of any scandal.  This is a Motown-produced love-fest about one of its biggest cash cows.  This celebrates the early years, the music, the success, before crazy marriages and baby dangling and infomercials.  Is it the Jacksons we are celebrating or their up-from-poverty pull?  Take a look at the title and I think the answer is clear. 

No, not clear?  Well, how about this?  It's based on Katherine Jackson's autobiography.  Now you get it.

The opening montage is the kids at their best, drawing huge crowds and unleashing incomprehensible energy on staid popular music. At a wartime dance, Joe Jackson (Lawrence Hilton Jacobs) asks poor polio-stricken Katherine (Angela Bassett) to dance with him, despite her physical issues, and she tells him that she would never get divorced, and definitely not if there were kids.  Keep that one in the back of your mind, my friends.  Furthermore, Katherine has secret dreams of a country music career and Joe can't be trusted to hang around long enough for anything to happen.  However, when he is around, he's a charmer, giving Katherine  an expensive necklace.  At a drive-in restaurant, he says, "you'd be a lot more comfortable over here" next to him. 

So, "The Dream" is really his.  She's content to go through life as it is, but Joe needs more.  After a date, when Katherine's mother warns her that a kids will lead to babies (yes, the script is that trite here), it's revealed that she too has dreams, but they are insignificant.  She only wants to be a Nurse.  I say insignificant because the title of the movie leads us to believe that The Dream has to be big.  Being a Nurse is a perfectly respectable dream and an easily achieved one compared to pie-in-the-sky dreams. 

The next time Joe shows up, the movie gives Katherine a really awkward moment when it has her limp quickly over to him, as he stands by his car waiting for her to make it.  Geez, not very chivalrous , is he?  He takes her out and clearly wants more than just a peck in the car, but Katherine remains chaste.

Katherine does actually have a Dream.  "I've always dreamed of a big house," she says, but Joe all but puts a pin in that one saying merely that it's possible.  Why do we get the feeling that this boy just wants to get laid?  Because he does, with Motown accompaniment.  Not just laid, but he gets a whole walking through the park montage. 

A montage like that always gets a girl pregnant.  She doesn't want to tell Joe and destroy his Dream.  "I don't wanna mess things up for you," she blathers.  "I was going to marry you anyway," he says, with the excitement of a sponge.  "We'll get to California, I know we will," he tells her, not comforting her when she says she doesn't "want to ruin your dreams." 

The Dream can take a while.  Joe works in a Gary, Indiana factory, but not for long.  It's 1958 and all of the kids are born except for little Michael.  Joe and his friends form a band, but perfectionist Joe isn't liking their lack of musical ability.  "At this rate, I'm gonna have to put my kids to work.  Wait, you wanna see some real talent? he asks and then wakes up Jackie and Rebbie specifically.  Jermaine commands the floor and show precocious talent.

With band gigs drying up, Katherine is pregnant again.  "We should be using birth control," she says, but Joe doesn't allow it.  He's even willing to put The Dream on hold until the world is ready.  But, things are pretty bad.  Joe and his friend have to go picking potatoes from an abandoned field just to eat.  The last baby boy born is the only birth we see and the only time we get to name one, courtesy of Katherine's mother: Michael.

The kids grow up fast.  When Katherine is out, everyone has a tendency to break into perfectly harmonized song, much to the dismay of Rebbie, who runs the household while Katherine works.  Tito seems the most musical, using Joe's guitar until Katherine reminds him, "it's not a toy."  "Ma, how I sounded?" Tito asks.  "You sounded goooooood," loving Katherine coos. 

Okay, so things aren't perfect.  There is an incident at the dinner table where Michael throws a show at Joe, who chases him under a bed to beat him, but Katherine soothes Joe, leaving Michael and his fears alone under the bed.  Yet, even that bit of badness is turned into television cheese when hungry Michael invades the refrigerator and shares his food with...you guessed it...a mouse.  "I won't hurt you, I never would," foreshadowing so much in his life.  As the mouse gnaws at beans, Michael every-so-sweetly tells it, "you're my friend Mr Rat.  I could use one.  Truth be, it's so hard.  When somebody hits you, it takes something out of you.  It hurts way inside.  See?  You can trust me, Mr. Rat."  Only on TV could a line like that actually exist.

Joe is furious when a guitar string is broken and Tito gets whipped with a belt as all of the other kids and Katherine cry in the shadows.  It's treacly, for sure, but no one ever accused Joe Jackson of being a nice man.  However, since this is very much a pro-Jackson piece, Joe beats Tito off-screen so we only hear the lashes.  Somehow, that makes it better? 

This Bad Joe moment is, of course, balanced by something so good, it's forgotten.  In the middle of the night, Joe amasses the entire family and forces Tito to play, saying, "I wanna know what's been going on around here."  The boys launch into song, complete with a dance routine.  Joe is transfixed, but not enough to tell Michael he's "too young" to be a part of it.  A plan begins to formulate in Joe's  mind that involves the kids hauling cinder blocks to toughen them up.  Now that's the Joe Jackson we know!

When Good Joe comes home with a brand new guitar for Tito, he says, "who knows?  We may get a band together.  Maybe the Jackson Boys...the Jackson Brothers...the Jackson Four."  "What about me?" Michael asks.  Oh, just tussle the kid's head and everyone will laugh.  Yup, it's starting to get sugary sweet in here. 

This movie tends to use the sledgehammer approach.  "Dreams," the friendliest teacher in the whole world says to her class before asking everyone's dreams.  Marlon wants a motorcycle.  Michael wants to be "a great singer" and he can do that in the school pageant.  The only one who takes that request seriously is Mr. Rat, with whom Michael has apparently bonded.  "I may be short, but I am THE MAN," he says, pouring out his trouble to a rodent eating beans. 

Just try to avoid getting queasy when Michael takes the stage and sells "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" Motown-style as every face in the crowd beams with a smile and nods in time.  Wait, not every voice.  Joe is sour, at least until Michael hits key change after key change and still manages to belt the hell out of the song.  "I guess the Jackson Four just became the Jackson Five," Katherine says over the applause to a mute and utterly stupefied Joe. 

Joe buys a van full of instruments on time, much to the glee of the boys (but not the girls, who don't get to participate).  Now it's Katherine's turn to bring in a dose of reality.  "Jackie's shoes are worn clear down to the feet...the roof needs fixing...I stretch the pennies as far as I can and you throw it all away," she builds and builds, but Joe isn't listening.  He has figured out his Dream.  "I just plain give up," Katherine finally says.

But, Joe is off in his head and he drills the boys in a routine, song and dance, yowling at every mistake, especially poor Marlon, who can't remember a move or sing on key.  He is sent outside to get his own switch so Joe can hit him.  Now that's discipline!  But, in this gooey world, a beating makes even Marlon work harder and he perfects the steps on his own time.  But, Joe wants to "cut him from the group."  Katherine, who says she doesn't usually speak up (her tirade at the van doesn't count), insists that Marlon stay.  Joe won't listen, using the argument that they will "sell dope" on the street corner if he doesn't push them.  Katherine doesn't like the whippings.  "That's the only way I know how!" Joe rages.  "I want to get them out of Gary, out of those steel mills.  I'm gonna make that happen!" he continues, back on the Dream. 

All of the work has been leading up to a talent show, there the boys to The Temptations' "My Girl," with Michael mugging and the crowd going wild for all the moves, especially the girls.  Katherine enjoys herself, but Joe is too busy watching a) for mistakes and b) the crowd reaction, which overwhelms him.  Despite a good show from a girl group, the Jackson boys win the talent show.  Michael can't wait to tell Mr. Rat, which has already gone beyond strange, but in the context of Michael Jackson's life, still pretty normal.  But, there's a hitch.  The rat is dead in a trap.  Michael, of course, freaks out.  Katherine uses this to teach Michael a lesson that "everyone has something that they have to overcome."  It's a long speech with musical underscoring that earns her Mother of the Year points.  It also reminds us whose book was the basis for this movie.

Not up for any parenting awards is Joe.  After the boys come in second at another talent show, not only does he refuse the gift of a color television, he tells the boys, "second place IS losing...The Jacksons doesn't lose contests!"  He has particular problems with Michael, who chafes under Joe's control (and is no financial genius, buying and selling candy at the same price).  Need another example?  How about when Jackie is teased by neighborhood bullies, so Joe has Jackie and their leader put on boxing gloves to fight it out.  When Jackie knocks out the other kid, it's clear he's drinking the Kool-Aid.  "He told me not to be afraid, and it worked!" he crows to Katherine, extremely unhappy that anyone is fighting. 

Katherine isn't thrilled that Joe gets all sorts of gigs, especially one in a strip club (which the boys enjoy), but he comes home randy and she can't say no!  She has a right to worry because after a set one night, Joe is beaten as the thugs steal their equipment.  Not to worry, Michael can call the police and since the guitar is okay, it's not so bad.  Bloody and hurt, Joe has a "win one for the Gipper" speech that is totally out of character, and with the underscoring, sounds like he's sending them off to battle in the Pacific.

In 1966, the boys are in the recording studio doing "Kansas City."  The producers keep telling Michael to give it "more attitude," but he doesn't know what that means.  Joe is no help, telling him to listen to what they say and just do it. 

Bad Joe kicks it up a few notches when he's angered that Jackie is getting calls from girls, that Katherine has changed around the furniture and that Rebbie speaks up for her brother and mother.  The family will "stay together!" no matter what comes in life.  Well, that's bound to just make them all want to leave that much faster, eh?  Jackie makes the mistake of saying he wants freedom, so Joe tells him to leave.  "You go away, you stay away," he coldly tells his son.  A night away teaches Jackie the lesson and punishment comes in the form of hauling those cinder blocks again. 

This all happens right before a "big gig in Chicago" where they will be sharing the bill with stars.  Hell, Jackie Wilson (Grady Harrell) is there and the boys watch him off-stage aping his moves and style.  The crowd is so entranced by Jackie that even Joe smiles. 

Rebbie is getting married and Joe doesn't approve, so not only does he refuse to attend the wedding, he has a gig booked that day and won't let anyone go.  Katherine tries talking to him, but he won't listen, standing against a window in the dark with a rainstorm being outside.  Again, there is nothing subtle here. 

Let's take a time out for a history lesson.  Joe has the boys booked at the Apollo Theater and when they arrive, they look at the wall of past performers and rattle off the names.  Michael sees James Brown's shoes and says he'll have patent leather shoes someday (we know, we know).  But, suddenly Professor Joe Jackson gets serious.  "We're talking about more than shoes here guys.  Talking about a whole history of black performers," he says, in an uncharacteristic moment of pride.  When Michael sees the inside of the theater, Joe wraps his arms around his son and says, "this contest makes stars," now apparently going for Father of the Year.  Yeah, now that the boys are on the verge of success and his meal ticket, it's time to change his tune a bit. 

After piling their hands together and touching the lucky log, they launch into "Twist and Shout" and the famously fickle Apollo crowd is on its feet roaring in approval.  It's pandemonium and they win amateur night!  Things brings them an audition for...cue the music...Motown Records!

But, it's not a done deal because Berry Gordy (Billy Dee Williams) "hates kid acts," though Suzanne de Passe (Vanessa Williams) does her best to convince him of how good they are.  "What about Stevie Wonder, isn't he a kid?" she asks, knowing he's a Motown star.  She begs for just five minutes.  He agrees, if she also finds him "some talented adults."  Berry is impressed, but of course doesn't let on too much while they are in his presence, but tells Suzanne "to pull out all of the stops...I love it!"

Joe is there when Rebbie gets married, but he doesn't walk her down the aisle.  "Joseph's here!" she says to her husband excitedly, using the preferred first name that he has requested from his kids.  "Your brothers had a gig.  Ain't nothing more important than that," he nastily tells Rebbie as she thanks him for attending. 

The Jacksons are summoned to Berry Gordy's mansion to perform at a pool party with all the Motown execs, and perhaps even some of the talent.  Jermaine has the hots for Berry's daughter.  Berry tells his whole staff to put "your brilliant minds to work because we're taking the Jackson Five all the way to the top and beyond." 

When Katherine scoffs at the boys being pulled in so many directions, Joe tells her, "this is our dream and we're going to stay a family" in hushed tones so sweet she actually believes it.  The boys are booked for an episode of "Hollywood Palace" where the hosts are Diane Ross (Holly Robinson Peete) and The Supremes (two women who don't matter in context, of course).  Back in Gary, the whole family is so excited to see the kids on TV, but Joe is upset because Diana Ross introduces them as "Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five."  Suzanne has them trained to answer every possible question, which shows Joe losing serious control.

Jackie (now Terrence Howard) and Tito (Angel Vargus) enjoy the attention from the girls, but Joe rules his roost with an iron fist and doesn't want them mixed up with girls.  Joe, now sporting an Afro, keeps his promise to bring everyone to California, where Katherine quips, "me havin' all those babies is what got us to California."  And she isn't wrong at that!  Katherine arrives just in time for a Diana Ross pool party, only she and the younger kids aren't invited. 

Berry Gordy is a lot better with the boys than Joe.  When Michael sings a word incorrectly, Berry shouts, "I love mistakes!" from the sound booth.  One day, the boys don't want to go to rehearsal, and Joe snaps, "The Osmonds don't always feel good, but it don't let them stop them.  That's why they are always on the radio, day and night!"  Okay, to be fair, no one ever knew how many Osmonds there were, so perhaps when one was ailing, another simply filled in. 

Problems are bound to arise when Suzanne and Berry start rechoreographing the routines, moving Michael in front of the others to best execute the steps.  And what did Joe say to Michael?  Give the microphone to Jackie.  No, no, according to Berry.  "Never let go of your microphone!"  Berry and the rest have already realized that Michael is the real talent.  Friction will ensue.  Oh, it will! 

And it gets more tense.  During a Diana Ross concert, she introduces the boys, but pulls only Michael up to sing with her.  Over forty years later, it's still tough to imagine Diana Ross relinquishing the stage to anyone for even a moment, but I suppose the lure of being the one to have discovered Michael was just too strong for her. 

And more tense.  Joe won't let Michael so much as ask a question in the recording studio, but Berry is downright fatherly, indulging Michael.  That anger gets pushed to poor Tito, who is in the alley talking with his girlfriend.  He argues that Jermaine is allowed to have Hazel around all the time.  "I don't have a say over Berry Gordy's daughter, but I still have a say over my sons!" says the nasty Mr. Jackson.  When he gets home, it's time for a familiar conference with Katherine.  We knew it would be coming, but of course the miniseries format makes it even more urgent.  "Yeah, I got everything I want, except you," Katherine says when Joe comes home late one night.  "I cook dinner and don't nobody show up" and she can't leave because she can't drive and "the streets are so confusing."  Oh, and "all the neighbors are white people."  "You better get used to this...this is our life, the good life," is all Joe can say, which causes Katherine's eyes to pop out in horror. 

After the first half of the movie, let's tally it up: Bad Joe Jackson pushes his boys into a career that makes no one happy.  Saintly Katherine Jackson is the backbone of the family, trying to keep a sense of normalcy.  Michael's only friends are rodents.

There is soooooooo much opportunity for it all to go wrong. 

By 1970, The Jackson Five is huge.  Diana who?  When the boys perform, people go wild, especially the girls.  In fact, in the very first scene, the fans storm the stage and the group has to escape from rabid fans pulling at their clothing.  "I don't know how many times I can go through this," poor scared Michael says.  "It could be worse...like not getting recognized at all!" Joe says.  Okay, the character of Joe has become so villainous, it's annoying to watch.  I would understand hard to watch, with such gritty realism, but the script is so weighed against him, every scene has to contain a quota of Joe Jackson hatred.  By all accounts, Joe Jackson was a bastard of his man to his children, but it's 1970 now, can we switch our focus to something else?

I should be careful what I ask for.  The older boys missing their girlfriends and the younger ones throwing water balloons from hotel windows at passers-by isn't particularly thrilling, though it does hint at why the Jacksons, as men, all seemed so infantile, having had to wait to get out from under Papa Joe's thumb to grow up.  There are pillow fights, screaming crowds and groupies.  Jermaine has one who even gets into his hotel room, a fast moving girl with lines like, "oh, Jermaine, you are so cute, it's hard for me to stop touching you."  What she doesn't know is that Michael and Marlon are under the bed ruining the moment. 

Poor put-upon Katherine has to learn where her boys are from a fan club newsletter.  And how does she get that newsletter?  Because she invites fans to dinner.  Really?  Are we supposed to believe that?  There's only LaToya to help her get through it, and she's getting pissier with age. 

Also inevitable is the Mama Rose speech where Joe howls at his kids about the group being more important than anything.  It comes with Tito gets married.  Joe refuses to accept it because he thinks it will break up the group.  Joe's anger explodes when he finds towels left in the pool.  This gives Katherine the perfect opening for another round of "I can't take this anymore" ranting. 

There is an amusing scene on a flight taking the boys to perform at a stadium where Suzanne finds no one knows the words to our national anthem.  Not just the boys, not the flight attendant and not anyone on the plane!  In these pre-Internet days, that's a problem.  But, not only do they get the words, they learn them and deliver it in perfect harmony. 

Talk about freaky scenes, how about the one where Michael throws an all-out spastic fit because he doesn't want to get on a plane.  The obvious end to the scene would be to find out the plane he did not want to board ultimately had a problem, but that doesn't happen.  Instead, Michael is carried onto the plane by an incensed Joe and performs as expected, which Joe tossing him onto the stage telling him to "be a man."  So why the dramatics?  Is it because they are trying to show a bit of rebellion?  That would be interesting, but there is no follow-through.

Then we remember that there are other Jacksons and Jermaine wants to marry Hazel Gordy.  "He won't be satisfied until he has one of my sons," Joe angrily notes, but Jermaine has to ask Berry's permission first.  Berry reminds Jermaine of what he's giving up, the groupies, all of "the temptations," but that's only a stall tactic.  Of course he gives his consent.  Berry Gordy is set up to be the hero father that Joe clearly is not.  Because that isn't perfectly obvious on his own.  So, wedding #3 happens with a scowling Joe forced to go and moping miserably. 

Wylie Draper is the last actor to play Michael Jackson and now the dancing kicks in, but everyone is on edge.  The hits have dried up and Jermaine will not use his influence with Berry to help them out.  Worst of all, Michael has acne!  This causes a full-on identity crisis, with Katherine's only pearl of wisdom, "you just gotta be who you are," which is not helpful.  It also naturally leads to a line of dialogue where Michael of course claims he doesn't know who he is.  You set him up Mom, he knocks 'em down, although this one has a twist because he feels he's not a person, that he's only the music he sings.  Ah, a cliche with a difference.  Three hours too late.  "You can't live your life trying to fit into other people's fantasies.  Just be who you are.  You are beautiful," Katherine tells him, repeating her unhelpful streak by just moving the words around.  Right at the end of this abysmal scene, Michael connects the feelings to songs he has in his head and wants to write, but naturally, it's cut off before it can go anywhere meaningful.

Puzzling then, is the following scene, where Joe tries to get the boys to break from Motown and move to CBS.  Michael is initially the only holdout, refusing to turn his back and the company that nurtured them from the beginning, except Jermaine was not at the family meeting. Joe calls him over in the middle of the night to sign and Jermaine has the cheek to tell his father "I'm gonna get my own attorney.  I'm gonna have him check things out" he nervously tells his father.  "It's my blood flowing through your veins, not Berry Gordy's," Joe reminds him.  Jermaine doesn't know what to do.  He's part of both families.  "Berry is my idol...but how am I gonna stay if my brothers leave?" he asks his wife.  Her response?  "You gotta do what you gotta do."  Ah, so she went to the Katherine school of advice.  On the other hand, lip-glossed Michael says he can't feel the full love without Jermaine. 

The night of the big concert comes and Joe has slipped Randy (Nicholas Philips) in as Jermaine hasn't shown, though Michael is pouting and doesn't believe he can do it without Jermaine "at my left."  They start with "I Never Can Say Goodbye," which is no doubt perplexing to the fans, and as the brothers perform it, Jermaine walks tearfully on the beach.  Someone call the Cheese Police! 

Now it's 1983 and we know what that means!  Gloves, pants that are too short, Moonwalking, the whole deal.  Michael is recording solo and he's bought a giraffe, a lion and other animals to live at the family home (which must violate some sort of code).  The boys are going out on tour, but Michael is refusing to go, saying the stuff he wants to do now can only be done solo.  Joe isn't going either, and flashy Randy is the only one happy to be touring. 

The phone keeps ringing and no one is there when Katherine picks up, but when Joe sends her out to get him ice cream, she's suspicious and listens in to find out Joe is indeed having an affair.  Angela Bassett goes for Emmy gold when she wrecks the place and confronts him.  The packs a few articles of clothing and a Bible and dashes out.  Michael, in a wacky Chinese vest, tries to chase after her.  If you've been wondering where Katherine gets her dippy doses of fortune cookie wisdom, look no further than her mother.  Katherine goes to stay with her when she leaves Joe.  Granny says it's too quiet where she lives, and Katherine says to her, Alabama will always be her home.  "No, home is where your heart is," her mother tells her.  Cliches don't get older than that!  She makes sure we get the cliche be repeating it in various forms a few times.

Katherine does return, just in time to find out the boys are firing their father as manager.  It took long enough!  Suddenly, we're supposed to feel sorry for Joe as he cries to his spouse and fingers his wedding ring?  "They are stealing my boys away!" he blubbers, then going in for some good old-fashioned guilt about how he worked in a steel mill to support them.  Katherine?  "They have to go their own way...part of growing up."  Someone spent too much time at Mama's learning to read the cliche dictionary. 

Suzanne has planned a lavish TV tribute to Berry and Motown, but Michael will not perform.  He won't push Michael, but Suzanne pleads with him to "beg."  So, he goes to the studio where Michael is mixing "Beat It."  Berry is level-headed when he approaches Michael: some history, some guilt, so "magic," a whole cornucopia of corniness.  "You may think you're big now, but doing a show like this, the right way, could really put you in orbit.  Don't do it for me, do it for yourself," he says on the way out.  I can't say I fully understand what that means, but Berry is talking to a man wearing more make-up than his loyal Suzanne, so obviously Berry knows how to handle the oddball.  Michael agrees to do it, because he's always wanted Berry to be his father anyway.  There is one condition, that he gets a solo too. 

That solo spot is the infamous "Billy Jean" Moonwalk routine that truly did launch Michael into the stratosphere of the one-and-onlys.  Though he looks like he invaded Liza Minnelli's closet for sequins and watched one of her husbands having sex with his boyfriend for moves, the effect created an indelible imagine that has never been equalled.  "Seeing you boys together, it's like my old dream," Joe says backstage to nothing but a wall of doubtful faces.  He suggests they do commercials, which of course leads to the Pepsi commercial that literally lit Michael on fire. 

The child in Michael can't stay hidden any longer.  At the hospital, he tells his mother it was "wild" to ride in the ambulance and he enjoyed it.  Uh huh.  And so you are fine with a crispy scalp?  Poor Michael has no choice but to listen to his father's big apology monologue.  "Believe it or not, I did it for you too," he says after admitting he did a lot of it for himself.  Michael simply turns his head and ignores Joe. 

Michael recovers at home with Bubbles, some other animals, women's costumes and Diana Ross singing "The Wiz."  This gives the viewers a chance to suffer through a montage of the past, Michael-style, so it includes Mr. Rat.  I know, you've been missing him.  Bubbles is no substitute. 

When Jermaine leaves Motown, Katherine comes to ask Michael to do a tour with his brothers, dropping the word "dream" AGAIN, but this time emphasizing that it's not just Joe's, but hers too.  Michael ruminates on a lost childhood and wonders why his mother doesn't leave Joe (she never officially did, but remember, this is her book).  She rips into a courage monologue (with music building by the bar) that is a continuation of what her mother started.  This one ends with "The Jacksons are a family."  Biologically, undeniable. 

But, the Victory Tour did go out (six Jackson boys in total), with Joe and Katherine watching from the wings crying proudly.  The dancing is first rate (somehow history is retouched just a bit in showing that all the brothers could dance like Michael).  Michael stops the show to acknowledge his parents and their "dream."  It's an "American Dream" and he goes all the way back to the slave ships with the audience listening patiently.  "Our family wasn't beaten down by poverty and we're not going to be beaten down by fame either.  This tour is a celebration.  It's a victory," he says before they tear into a "thank you" song looking like the wax figures they would all become over the next decade. 

Buffalo Girls (1995)

Back to the Wild West via Larry McMurtry and "Buffalo Girls."  If you are expecting another "Lonesome Dove," that's a once-in-a-lifetime achievement.  "Buffalo Girls," is just about the last gasp of the miniseries, trying to rope in history and everything else with a large budget before it all dried up like the prairie. 

Actually, "Buffalo Girls" is very nearly an attempt at a comedy miniseries.  The Cowboys and Indians and losing of the West are all there, but the script is full of one-liners and almost farcical situations.  Add to that some astoundingly idiotic casting to bring unintentional hilarity into the proceedings.  It's not "Fresno," but it's not "Centennial" either.

Technically, this is a fictional story, but since it involves so many colorful real-life characters (most of them far more exciting than the actors playing them), I'm opting for character names here.

The story belongs to Calamity Jane (Angelica Houston), or at least a romanticized version of her.  Her narration takes us back that "that time," when people still spit and said "dern critter." You know the time, it's when all Westerns are set.  Jane, dressed as a man (and if rumors are true, was a hermaphrodite), joins a ragtag motley group of army men, trappers, traders and worse to head out west.  "There were only two ways a woman could survive in those days: wifiin' and whorin'," she narrates, but she's neither, so she "lives like a man."  Wild Bill Hickok (Sam Elliott) is part of the expedition.  She's obviously in love with him, as her bashful flirting shows, but he's unaware.  Jim Ragg (Tracey Walter) and Bartle Bone (Jack Palance) have come aboard with Jane, "for the last of the Wild West Times...our glory days." 

Leading the mission, whatever it may be, is General Custer (John Diehl), who gets an earful from Bartle, who doesn't think him capable of fighting the Indians and takes Jim to go out on their own to avoid being slaughtered.  But, Custer is not blind, and neither are the other men.  When Jane goes swimming in her long johns, the water clings to her body and shows off her breasts.  "When Custer found out I was a woman, he forced me into doin' damn humiliatin' woman's work," she says, doing the wash.  She gets her revenge running the laundry through the mud. 

"The Indians were dwindlin'...and with them went" apparently every "g" in the dictionary, sorry, "the life we knew," Jane says, now reminding us that the Wild West is disappearing for the 14th time in less than 10 minutes. 

Jane sashays into Deadwood, having been kicked out of Custer's army, having followed Bill to that legendary spot.  She manages to glow with love for him even as he's mounting the stairs with a hooker.  Also there are her friends Teddy Blue (Gabriel Byrne) and Dora DuFran (Melanie Griffith).  A wealthy madame, Dora lives in opulence, at least for Deadwood, with China servings, a bird and even a maid, Doosie (Charlayne Woodward), who cracks wise with "you lose a huggin' contest with a skunk?" while Jane is bathing.  Dora, her friend of decades, can sense Jane is in love and guesses it's Wild Bill and promises to help her snag him.  So, they do Jane up in a dress, with make-up, jewels and a corset so tight, her bodice might do its own ripping. 

So attired, Jane and Dora go to the saloon, where Jane is made to dance and appear feminine.  Every man in the place grabs her for a round of "Oh, Susannah," and she hates every minute of it, eventually clocking the guy who tries to nuzzle her cleavage.  Wild Bill, not a man of huge emotion, has her sit on his lap during a card game, but there is no kissing, because that would rip the fake mustache right off Sam Elliott.  Bill is nasty, telling everyone it's the famous Calamity Jane and she bolts, Dora assuming she'll never be back.

But Jane hasn't seen the last of Bill in Deadwood.  He goes out to use the facilities (a wall behind the saloon) and hears her crying in a barn.  Wait, they do kiss, and the mustache stays on!  They even do a bit of rolling in the hay, literally. 

In Wyoming, Jane curls up around a small fire, awakening to find No Ears (Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman), one of the last survivors of his tribe.  He's there to warn Jane to take another trail to Yellowstone because of "the smell of death, maybe 50 miles," but she's unafraid of death.  His hears cut off by the French, "he could still hear, in a whistlin' kind of way, and sense things no one else could," Jane says, proving that she can pronounce a "g" if it doesn't end a word."  She should have heeded his advice, because she gets caught in the middle of a "massacre," with the Indians victorious, which is mentioned in passing to be "Custer's Last Stand."  Only because of No Ears does she escape.  Turned off by the violence, Jane vomits, and before even No Ears can tell her (which he promptly does) smart viewers will guess she's pregnant.  "That's impossible," Jane says in disbelief, "I can't be no one's mother!" 

Remember when those Indians killed the white men two scenes ago?  You must, only a baby announcement and some unbearable comic schtick from Jim and Bartle has gotten in the way.  Anyway, it turns out that killing Custer means "signin' their own death warrant," Jane notes about the Indians, who gather up, across tribes, to head further west. 

No Ears puts Jane up during her pregnancy, which she doesn't believe will yield much since the only experience she has with children are Dora's, all of whom died in infancy.  However, a mother she becomes, birthing a daughter she names Jane as well.  "I want you to know you were born out of as good a love as anyone was born out of, honey, and don't you forget that," she narrates to her daughter apparently taking to motherhood instantly.  She goes back to Deadwood to bring Wild Bill his daughter, only to find out he's been killed.  She collapses in the mud and mutters, all in slow motion.  Unfortunately, Dora isn't there to comfort her friend, having left Deadwood six months earlier.

Captain James O'Neill (Andrew Bicknell) comes across Jane in the saloon, crying about Wild Bill with her daughter on the table.  The Captain explains how he and his wife recently lost their daughter and his wife can have no more children.  Somehow, it's arrange that the O'Neills will take Jane, promising to "take good care of her," while Jane walks through the mud of Deadwood getting drunker and drunker.  She does to Bill's tombstone and cries a lot, which is bizarre, to say the least.  Here is over-the-hill Angelica Houston dressed as a tomboy girl confessing her love to a tombstone.  There's absolutely nothing right in that sentence and what should be a dramatic moment is rather silly.

Five years later, Dora is in Montana, screeching through a piano song as only Melanie Griffith can do, with poor Teddy still pining for her.  He has spent the last many years building the perfect house for them, but Dora still refuses to marry him or live with him.  He's been asking since their first appearance why she won't marry him and he has yet to get a satisfactory answer.  "I'm askin' you for the last time, Dora, will you marry me?" he says, laying it on the line, but she once again declines.  Let's hope he means what he says and stops asking.  There has to be better out there for a kind sweet handsome man like Teddy. 

Indeed, by the next time Jane sees Teddy, he's just been married, and, knowing now the news is bound to reach Dora, asks Jane to lower the boom.  "Tell her yourself on your way straight to hell!" she bellows and then smacks the hell out of him.  Further, she shoots her gun to scare the horses so the men at the celebration are forced to run after them.  Their argument about Dora is more rehashing.  "She gave up paying customers for you years ago," Jane reminds him.  Okay, so she's a hooker who fell in love, but she still refused to marry him! 

When Dora is told, she throws a bottle against the wall and blames Dora for being at the wedding, which she wasn't.   A nonsensical fight actually ends with Jane storming out and Dora crying on the bed.  This is a better scene for Angelica to play, but up against Melanie Griffith, she might as well be acting with a curtain rod as a partner.

Buffalo Bill (Peter Coyote) arrives in town with his whole Wild West Show in tow.  He tells Jane he's there to see her, "to make you a star in my Wild West Show."  "I can see my name, Calamity Jane, half man, half woman, right between the dog boy and the two-headed rattlesnake.  No goddamn thank you," she spits his way.  He gets a better welcome from Dora.  He begs her to go to Europe with him to perform for Queen Victoria.  He confesses his true love for her, though it seems like hokum. 

In the winter, Jane joins No Ears, Jim and Bartle, who haven't made much progress from the Catskill Resort humor...I mean, Rocky Mountain bickering.  Bartle has even suggested they make their own town.  "And what's gonna draw the people?  Your good looks or my sunny disposition?" Jim clucks, using the most impressive word so far in the script.  Jane has a fit that none of them belong in the bitter cold, sleeping in the snow, aimlessly wandering around the country.  She trots off in a huge blizzard and is knocked off her horse, unconscious. 

Once again, No Ears saves her, dragging her to Dora's house, where Dora instantly makes it about herself and apologizes to Jane.  Oh, and Jane's horse knocks at the door.  He wants out of the snow too.  Bartle and Jim follow, but Dora warns them, "don't get any ideas about the girls...this is a business."  Following on their heels is Buffalo Bill, with the offer of a job for the two ex-beaver trappers.  "I see you boys are Lewis and Clark...you'd be my stars," he tells them, after assuring them (and conservationist revisionists that he's trying to save the remaining buffalo, which Jim thinks he can do with the beaver).  It takes some hemming and hawing, but the men agree to join.  Jane still refuses.  "My reputation's all I got and it ain't for sale," Jane tells Buffalo Bill when he asks her again. 

Finally, the moment has come for us to learn why Dora keeps refusing Teddy.  Jane thinks he has a right to know.  When the Civil War came, it decimated her family, killed everyone and she was left to starve.  She's afraid of farm living.  So, she can't go off to a farm and more than she can ask Teddy to move into town with her, as "seeing that would have killed her spirit."  Well, that was anti-climactic.  I was expecting something far bigger and more impressive. 

He gets drunk and tries to climb up the wall to Dora's window, saying, "I'm scaling your castle wall," but the fool only pulls the pole from her hotel and has to be put in a bed and fixed up with his leg in a splint.  He tells Dora he knows her secret now and that he would have moved to the city for her.  For ill-fated lovers, these two are awfully dull.  "What are we gonna do, Dora?" he asks.  "The best that we can," she replies.  Oh, well, I guess that settles it! 

As Buffalo Bill pulls out of town with Jim and Bartle, and even No Ears (who has a monologue about the ocean that sounds like it's from the 20th rather than 19th Century), Bill offers one more time to make Calamity Jane famous.  "I am famous!" she bellows and tells them all to scoot.

A week later, Jane gets a letter that Mrs. O'Neill has died and the Captain has taken her daughter to England, exactly where Buffalo Bill is headed.  Dora tells her to catch up to the Wild West Show and join up to get to England.  "I don't even know where she is.  I guess I gotta find her.  If I could see her just one more time, I would die happy," she cries before leaving Dora. 

Calamity Jane arrives in New York City just as Buffalo Bill's boat for England is leaving.  "I already told you, I am famous.  I'm gonna let you make me immortal," she tells Bill, leaving us wondering where the hell she learned that word!  On board is also Sitting Bull (Russell Means), who is not at all friendly toward our beloved No Ears.  "He has become too popular," is the latter's take on the situation.

And also along for the ride is Buffalo Bill's star attraction, Annie Oakley (Reba McEntire, who would play Annie Oakley on Broadway a few years later).  Annie is not particularly friendly to Jane, and Jane finds she is no match for Annie when it comes to shooting. 

Back in the plot we don't REALLY care about, Dora has sold the brothel and is moving away from Teddy, so they have yet another discussion of why they can't be together.  "Every time it's getting harder for me to let you go," she cries to him.  I feel about the same.  Never have two people found so little reason to hang a broken love affair upon. 

Jane wanders around London looking for her kid, perplexed by the city.  Bartle and Jim are astounded to find beaver hats, having no idea that's what happened to the beaver they trapped.  "Could be one of our own," Jim says. 

Jane finally finds the O'Neill house, but is dismayed to learn that her daughter has been told that the O'Neills are her real parents and Captain O'Neill is not about to let her go back to Jane's wilderness lifestyle.  He won't even let Jane see her daughter, but Jane threatens to see her one way or the other.  In a London pub, a bloke mistakes her for Annie Oakley, so she rattles off her nicknames and accomplishment while shooting up the place.  This drunken stunt lands her in jail. 

Having raced around collecting money for her friends, Jane storms a stuffy men's club to propose a shooting contest between Annie Oakley and Lord Windhouvern (Peter Birch).  She needs the money to fight Captain O'Neill.  With Lord Windhouvern set, she just needs to convince frosty Annie to help.  "I ain't never been lucky, but you are," Jane confides in Annie, who is skeptical that she can win by the margin Jane has set for her. 

Now in South Dakota again, Dora meets Ogden (Liev Schrieber), who helps her out of the mud.  She's instantly smitten, though Doosie is annoyed that he has mud on his boots so early in the morning.  Dora puts the moves on Ogden by sitting on his lap and the shy lad is, of course, captivated.  Dora has him carry her to her bed and the next thing we see is the sunrise.  After just that one night, Dora proposes marriage.  "You mean like Ma and Pa?" Ogden asks and he readily agrees, taking the plunge that day.  This does not please Doosie.  "What you had was freedom," she tells Dora with an ornery air.  "All I did with my freedom was cry," Dora replies.  Well, that much is true. 

Teddy finds out when he wanders into town and the local blacksmith tells him the news.  Dora and Doosie see Teddy in the street, giving Melanie Griffith a howlingly stupid scene to play, which of course she does better than anyone (sorry to say).  She and Doosie collaborate to get Ogden out of town and then Dora invites Teddy inside with a giant kiss.  They end up in bed together and have the "nothing has changed" conversation AGAIN.  Ultimately, he has to make another teary exit and ride off into the sunset. 

Meanwhile, in England, the shooting contest is taking place, though apparently in a time warp, because an entire day's events in South Dakota take place during the shooting match.  Naturally, Annie Oakley is fantastic, though when she misses one, Bartle says, "she's only human."  "This ain't no time to be human," Jane says nervously.  With each having shot 1000 times, Annie wins by a margin that nets Jane the money she needs.  Jane toasts Annie, who toasts back, "to all us Buffalo Girls.  We gotta stick together!" 

Dressed fully as a woman, hair done, make-up on, Jane returns to Captain O'Neill's home to claim her daughter, but he's not going to let it happen.  Instead, he shows her what her daughter's life is like.  She has a pony and rides in the park like a proper British girl.  She knows her daughter is better off where she is.

In front of Queen Victoria, Buffalo Bill presents his show.  Our whole gang takes part.  Calamity Jane gives No Ears a pair of fake ears, which Sitting Bull steals, though Jane rips them from his neck. Tension abounds as the next act is Jane and Sitting Bull doing a proper gun battle.  No one is allowed to have real bullets except for Annie Oakley, but one of Sitting Bull's men gives him some.  Sitting Bull almost scalps her, only to be reminded, "it's just a show now!"  Captain O'Neill brings little Janie to the final performance.  Calamity Jane prances her daughter around the ring, "just like I always imagined" and it's only then that she decides, "I can finally let you go."  Before leaving England, Jane leaves her horse with her daughter and Jim gets two beaver to take back to America with him.

The show people split up.  Jane goes with No Ears, Jim and Bartle, and Dora finds out she's pregnant, though she's not sure who the baby daddy is.  Doosie tells her it doesn't matter.  Jim dies before he can see his dream of a new beaver population occur.  Wait, Jim dies but 106-year-old Bartle is still alive?  Someone has to cry over his corpse.  No Ears is the next to leave, hoping to find what is left of his people and tell them about the whales in the ocean, which have changed his life. 

Dora buys a new hotel in Deadwood.  When she tells Ogden they are going, he says, "you mean after the baby comes?"  "No, after lunch," she replies, leaving him looking stupefied (understandably).  As they are packing up, Jane and Bartle ride into town.  Jane is plum "tongue tied" to find Dora married and with child. 

"We've seen some glory days," Jane tells a departing Bartle, "the likes of which will never come again."  He frees the beaver Jim brought back from England and howls for his dead friend in the pouring rain.  And still he lives.

Dora has her baby, but as Ogden carries it, Dora can only ask for Terry.  A sickly Dora asks Jane to take the baby and raise her, and to also tell Terry that there is a child.  With that, Dora expires.  That leaves Jane to tell Terry and then ride off into the dwindling West, about the same as when she first drew us into her story.

If you can get beyond the casting of Angelica Houston as Calamity Jane or suffer through Melanie Griffith's umpteen crying scenes, then "Buffalo Girls" should be heaven for you.  At a running time of only three hours, it's hardly the most painful miniseries, but it is proof of just how far down the genre had gone.