Jackie Collins aside, it's been a while since we looked at a chopped-up-and-re-designed classic book turned into a miniseries. Hmmm, which one shall we pick? Dickens? No, too frantic. Austen? No, outside of our domain, as the Brits always get there first and best. The Bible? No, mercy me, I don't have the strength right now.
In 1990, "The Phantom of the Opera" mania was high. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical had been running in both London and New York for a few years and was touring all over the place. However, at the same time, there was another musical version of the Gaston Leroux's novel by noted playwright Arthur Kopit and infinitely-more-talented-than-Sir-Andrew composer/lyricist Maury Yeston. It's the Kopit-Yeston version of the novel that became a miniseries in 1990, but without any of Yeston's music (having the music certainly didn't help the film version of the mega-musical over a decade later, so it might as well be chopped here too, though admittedly, Yeston's "Phantom" score is fairly wan).
Frankly, I'm not quite sure what is being filmed here since it bears only the slightest resemblance to the book and its themes, and the casting is a hoot, which is a word I never thought I would in describing this dark story. It's directed by no less than Tony Richardson, though it certainly bears no trace of his genius. But, it seems that if we can't have a fresh version of "Phantom" in one form or another every few years (lest we forget the 1989 big screen dud with Freddy Kruger), the man lurking beneath the Le Theatre de l'Opera will, I suppose, wreak havoc on us all. You know, worse havoc than everyone putting together these sham versions of "The Phantom of the Opera."
Ooooh, one detail I did find out is that this is the only English-language version of "The Phantom of the Opera" to be at all filmed in Paris. There are about 147 others using fake Paris, and most of them better than this one, so verisimilitude ain't the key.
(I'm using character names here due to the familiarity of the story, or at least some of them are as the rest are brand new.)
Guttersnipe Christine Daae (Teri Polo, so young looking before her turns as Mrs. Focker) wanders around the magnificent opera house and then takes off her shoes and smiles. Inside the venerable building, Gerard Carriere (Burt Lancaster, SERIOUSLY slumming) has been dismissed from his position as manager. Don't remember him? Don't worry, he's new to the story, an amalgamation of characters (including some new ones). The company is most upset at his dismissal. Sent by the Comte de Chagny to meet the just-fired Carriere is Christine, who not only had an appointment to meet him, but is in serious need of even a slight European accent, ANY European accent. The ladies of the opera, who are tarted up to look like hookers on a day off, laugh at her because they have all been recruited by the Comte and all have the lockets to prove it.
Diva Carlotta (Andrea Ferreol), tarted up to look like...geez, I'm not really sure, wants to know "exactly what it is we are inheriting," as she is the wife of the new manager Choleti (Ian Richardson). So, she scares someone into going down into the bowels of the theater to find sets, costumes and anything else usable. There's a whole lot of crap down there and a man wearing a skeleton mask who scares the poor fool so badly, the latter dies. Choleti, looking like nasty version of Hercule Poirot, and his wife are introduced to the underwhelmed company, but as Choleti starts to speak, a note from the Phantom wafts down into Carriere's hand. He tells Choleti of the ghost, who is fine as long as "the rule is obeyed...all you need to know is don't go down below." Neglect the rule and you meet the fate of the sniveling dresser. Reacting to this news and a few little special effects put on by the Phantom, Choleti roars into overdrive overacting and asserts that "these are tricks" designed to frighten him and his wife. "I don't believe in ghosts," he says as a statue falls near him. Stay in your seats. The camp festival has only just begun.
Erik (Charles Dance), aka The Phantom, lures Carriere down to his lair where he reveals that he also needs some sort of European dialect. "Why did you let him go down there?" he whines to Carriere, not knowing that Carriere has been fired. "What am I going to do?" the spoiled lurker wonders. They have a special relationship, old ham and new ham (no cured hams here, trust me), but Erik reacts to Carlotta's voice like a dog to a whistle. "She can't sing," he says with a Paul Lynde lilt to his voice. "I know what to do about it, I'll kill them both," Erik jokes, revising it to kill only Carlotta. He decides to leave with Carriere, but oops, he can't. "Sometimes I forget that I'm only fit for these gloomy vaults...like blackness itself, for I am blackness itself," he carps, sounding more like Paul Lynde with every line.
Choleti agrees to see Christine, who has been waiting this whole time (not that as a guttersnipe she has anything better to do) because he is told the Comte de Chagny who sent her is "one of our biggest contributors." However, when he shows her to Carlotta, she goes wild, knowing instantly the girl cannot sing. "Where did you grow up? On a farm? The world of opera has nothing to do with farm life," she says dramatically, but when whispered to about the patron, she suddenly gets friendly. "My dear, I'm going to do a great favor for you. I'm going to let you work for me, in the costume department," replacing the poor dead guy. Since Christine is homeless, the doorman lets her stay in...you got it...the basement, though warning her "not to wander around." The fussy Phantom, who happens to be wearing a shiny gold mask over his usual white one and who likes to powder his chin, is enchanted by the voice doing Christine's singing (it sure as hell ain't Teri Polo's voice) as she does just what she was told not to do and wanders around. He follows it all the way up to the stage, where she's naturally found her way and is just warbling for the emptiness.
This is the hokiest company this side of the Bath Touring Light Opera. Choleti spends his time telling Carlotta how young she looks, and if you can make it through his "you look like spring" declaration without laughing, you aren't drunk enough. The director tells the male star at a "Faust" rehearsal, "this is poison, not soup...not happy! Take it from la, la, la." The girls are actually bitchier than the boys, but no one is bitchier than the roaming Phantom, who has a whole gaggle of expensive custom-made masks, usually wearing two, the spiffy one over the normal one, for reasons not explained. One is enough when no one is seeing you anyway. Two is just, well, overkill since no one gets to see your fashion show.
Finally, Erik the Phantom speaks to Christine, from the orchestra pit once everyone else has magically cleared the stage. He loves her voice, "though it is obviously untrained," and he offers to help her "attain the heights for which it was destined." She can't tell anyone about their lessons, because others will want the lessons too and he obviously has standards.
Choleti receives letters from the Phantom trashing Carlotta for the next month. "From a ghost? Since when do ghosts know how to write?" he demands to know. I guess he doesn't know many ghosts, but to be fair, the Phantom can be awfully stinging (like Paul Lynde after a few too many), like when he says he loves everything about the new production of "Norma" except Carlotta's presence in it. He's also demanding, insisting on having Box Five at every performance, which Choleti refuses. The ladies of the chorus aren't any nicer, talking of Christine, saying "she's been here over a month and all she does it hum." "She's getting better at it too." "I can't stand it." Wait, one can improve in humming? Are there great hum teachers out there like great voice teachers?
Opening night finally arrives, with tout la creme de Paris in attendance, and a very unlucky quartet placed in Box Five. The foursome is told by a voice, "this box is mine...I would appreciate if you left!" and they hustle out. At the same time, Erik temporarily steals Carlotta's wig to make her more nervous. Carlotta makes her entrance as Norma, apparently unaware it's not a comedy, and then her wig starts to itch. Watching her find ways to scratch it has the audience roaring. "Can't say I didn't warn you," the voice of the Phantom tells Carlotta and her husband. Inspector Ledoux (Jean-Pierre Cassel, about the only one here who plays this for understandable laughs) is still chuckling over the debut and the reviews to be of much help to the Choletis.
Meanwhile, Erik is coaching Christine, telling her she'll be singing for the audience in no time and "you are music itself," though with the emotion of a dead sea monkey and that annoying monotonous voice (which loses his bitchiness only when talking to Christine). He tells Christine not to put any faith in the Comte because "he comes to the opera for the wrong reasons. He comes for the beauty of faces rather than the beauty of music." Two snaps!
At another opening of another opera, the Phantom has made sure that Carlotta's props misbehave and the audience can't contain their laughter. Once again, Inspector Ledoux is a master of the obvious, telling her that he knows why the glasses did not come off the tray: glue. It takes a real Parisian detective to be that smart, in what I assume is an homage to Inspector Clouseau. Choleti sees a dead body (and hits something like an A flat yelling for Ledoux), but when Ledoux comes, the body is gone.
With Carlotta's nerves fraying and Choleti seeing dead people, Erik tells Christine she is finished with her lessons (after about four of them) because she is perfect. She asks him where he lives. "When you sing, in heaven. When you do not, down below," he says, as if he's using his best line on the last girl around before closing time.
There is something of a romantic hero in all of this, the Comte de Chagny (Adam Storke), though for some reason he's given the name Philippe rather than Raoul (both are in the book, but Philippe is not the one involved in the plot). He makes his first appearance sporting the best hairdo in the whole movie and the most make-up. He declares to the doorman that he actually does love Christine, that she's not just another token. He's not happy to hear she's languishing in the costume department. When the girls find out he's arrived, they descend up on him, all touching his luxurious locks, but he sees Christine with a cart of costumes. "You have a wonderful voice. I know about these things. I come to the opera all the time," he tells her in earnest, to the laughter of the gang. So, he puts them off his trail by announcing, "I'm throwing a party tonight for the whole company. At the bistro!" He doesn't say which bistro, but there are only 38 million in Paris, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
"The bistro is what we've been waiting for. Everyone sings at the bistro," the Phantom tells Christine, all excited. It's sounding more like a gay piano bar each time it's mentioned. I fully expect someone to launch into a Garland medley (or at least Piaf), but alas, everyone sticks to bawdy French ditties. The Phantom gives Christine a ravishing dress and does her hair so she's ultra-glam, though late. That means she misses another of Carlotta's tantrums. Carlotta has refused to perform for the past month, but grosses are up, so Choleti has to break the news to her that he's gone and added more pieces to the repertoire without her. Philippe is better in the charm department, asking her to teach Christine (though he neglects to mention her name) and he'll "cover the operating deficits for the next three years." Without bothering to think about the fact that he assumed there will be nothing but deficits, she agrees.
And then Christine walks in, looking like youth personified and Carlotta is not pleased, but jokes because she expects the girl to be so bad she won't have to go make good on her promise. Christine finally launches into her song and Carlotta chirps that her voice "is a little thin," so Choleti begs her to duet with Christine. When she starts, the Phantom, outside in a very smart fedora, chuckles. He knows that when it's time for Christine to hit the big notes, she'll wipe out Carlotta. And so it happens. Carlotta, all bug eyes and gestures, seethes while innocent Christine outsings her. Any note Carlotta sings, Christine can sing better, so Carlotta bounces back to her seat in a huff. The crowd at the bistro goes wild for her. Carriere, specially invited by Philippe, weeps and Choleti announces, "that girl doesn't need singing lessons, I'm signing her up!" "Only for the chorus," Carlotta sniffs. Carriere tells her she sings like a particular legend and Christine stares at him blankly. "I don't suppose you've ever heard of her," he says before sending her off with Philippe. It's a very weird moment to leave in the movie. Just to make sure the scene glows with extra stupidity, they send on Offenbach and the can-can girls for a rump-heavy production number.
Philippe takes Christine for a midnight boat ride while Erik and Carlotta each wait in their separate rooms for her return, neither at all pleased. Carlotta only wants to know who is teaching her. "No one can sing bel canto without lessons, God doesn't allow it!" she fumes, to no reaction from her husband. I had to rewind and listen to that corker about 10 times to make sure I heard it right and he doesn't blink? There is no dialogue worth quoting no the boat ride because Christine and Philippe are boring as hell, but there is a flashback where Christine reminds Philippe that she was his servant when he was a kid. That's why he recognized her voice, because she had the same one, fully mature by the way, as a pre-pubescent girl. In the flashback, the two become the best of friends, which makes it a wee bit strange that he has completely blanked on who she is until being reminded. He's obviously spent all of his time since looking only in the mirror that he forgot what other girls...I mean, what other people looked like.
Just as Philippe and Christine start very kissing, chaste pecs, she announces she has to go, a la Cinderella. "Is it someone else?" he asks. "It's not what you think," she replies, leaving him with that half answer instead of something that won't make him suspicious. Erik has not waited up for her, so Christine sobs over the piano and strokes the keys. Carlotta, though, has waited, finding Christine's lodgings and oozing false adoration in her quest to find out the identity of Christine's teacher. Carlotta, as expected, has another diva fit, which such gems as "this is how you repay my generosity!" (for her job washing costumes), "letting you stay in these magnificent quarters" (the gloomy basement) "against all regulations, rent free" (oh, now she's a landlord?). Nimrod Christine decides she can trust Carlotta, but she doesn't know the man's name. "I've never seen his face...he wears a mask," she tells Carlotta, whose bug eyes hit their biggest size yet.
"She is my costume girl," Margo cries, referring to Eve. Oh, wait, this isn't that story.
"She is my costume girl," Carlotta cries, referring to Christine, whom her husband has given the lead role in "Faust." "Exactly! Think of the publicity," he says, not at all comforting his stormy spouse. Christine lies to Erik and tells him Choleti offered her the role at the bistro and that she was out celebrating with Carlotta, which he knows to be a lie. That's okay, because she's a terrible liar, instantly changing her story to the truth. "I thought you would be upset and I didn't want to hurt you. And because none of this would have happened without you," she sighs. He buys it.
Choleti them goes to Inspector Ledoux and they have a mime scene of plotting, like eager villains. Thank you, Director Richardson, for acting like a four-year-old who knows something we don't know.
Christine makes her big debut with giant signs announcing it (although they spell Daae incorrectly, which is just the cherry on the top of this movie's sundae of mistakes). Philippe presents her with one rose for the big event. Yes, just one. Ledoux watches Philippe and Carriere in their box while they watch the performance. Carlotta spits on Christine's door before barging in to offer her insincere good wishes. "Opera is my life, and you, my dear, have the greatest voice I've ever heard," she says. Shouldn't Christine know better than to believe that? Not this dimwit. Carlotta offers Christine a glass of "herbs" to cure nervousness like the Evil Queen in Snow White and Christine eagerly downs it.
It's time for "Faust." Christine enters, dressed as a cross between Joan of Arc and Heidi, via a Hugh Hefner fantasy. And suddenly she can't sing. Of course not, not drugged as she was. This audience should be used to opening night mishaps, but only Carlotta cackles with glee at the unfortunate turn of events. The Phantom is furious and Ledoux spots him as the crowd heckles Christine. So, he rushes back stage and pulls out a dagger hidden in his sleeve to cut the ropes to the chandelier. This is the climactic end to the first half.
For those familiar with the story, you are not losing your minds. In this scene in every other version, it's Carlotta who loses her voice due to the Phantom's trickery. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, you are probably lost anyway.
There is pandemonium in the theater. Well-dressed people are running hither and yon, the ones who don't play injured like they were limping around the Burning of Atlanta, and the police grab one of the actors who was clearly onstage thinking he is the culprit (Inspector Ledoux) fixes that quickly. The Phantom spirits Christine to safety and takes her to his subterranean lair. The doorman tries to tell Carriere this, but he says, "nonsense, he never lets anyone below!"
The Phantom's digs don't have the best lighting, but they are impressive. There is a lake and all sorts of candles, although stick to the Lloyd Webber stage version for the best interpretation of his home. Erik puts Christine in his big canopy bed and hum syncs her to sleep.
Inspector Ledoux leads a parade of policeman down the stairs to the bowels, the only one to hear "some sort of music." But, there are "too many places to look" and Inspector Ledoux orders everyone back upstairs until they can return with more men. Unfortunately, two of the men don't hear the command and one dies rather comically.
Just as Carriere goes down a secret staircase to meet Erik, the latter is in Christine's dressing room finding the poisoned glass from Carlotta. So, he goes to her dressing room (what's she dressing for, everyone is gone for the night?) and pours a suitcase of rats on her. "Rats for a rat," he sniffs, as if that's a good comeback line? Paul Lynde wouldn't stand for such blather!
The rats cause Carlotta to go crazy. She sees rats where they do not exist and puts flowers in her hair, the international symbol of craziness ever since Ophelia made it all the rage.
Meanwhile, Christine puts on a beautiful gown she finds in Erik's bedroom and then snoops around further to find a very old doll in a bassinet, whose head falls off. And all of these paintings that look like her. Carriere sees Christine jumping around below and warns Erik that there may be trouble from above. He replies that he's been waiting for such an opportunity. "I'll just show off my defenses and prepare a counterattack," now apparently Frederick the Great. There is no arguing with a pissed-off Phantom. Ordering Carriere to go away, he shows off his stockpile is gunpowder. "A few of these and the opera season is gone forever," he barks. "I was born so she could save me. That's what she's done. She's the reason I was born. I love her, Gerard. I believe in time she will come to love me," Erik says, insisting that Carriere never return as "she is all I need."
Carriere doesn't heed Erik's dire predictions and warns Christine to get to safety. "Monsieur Carriere, I remember. You said my voice reminded you of a certain singer," coos a suddenly puffed-up Christine, who milks a compliment for all its worth. She's therefore joined the ranks of true artists. Carriere informs her that she's in danger because Erik intends to keep her there, madly in love with her because...for those of you who have not guessed...the singer whose voice Christine reminds him and Erik of belonged to Erik's mother. The woman in the paintings. While Carriere slowly tells the story, Erik is busy preparing the catacombs for the big kaboom. However, Christine gets another shock when she asks who took care of Erik after his mother did. "I did, I'm his father," Carriere tells her (and now we've gone so far away from the book's plot, I think Dominique Devereaux is going to pop in and reveal she's Blake Carrington's half sister). Christine responds with one of those uncomprehending stares she's so good at delivering and Carriere launches us into a flashback that includes a nude scene in the grass. After the romp in the field, Erik's mother reveals a hidden talent for singing that young Carriere finds bewitching, but she tells him it has to be their secret because "singing is something very private for me."
"Does that make any sense to you?" Carriere asks. No, absolutely not. I'm completely lost. But, Christine answers yes, allowing him to continue. Young Carriere pushes Christine to reveal her talent at an audition and "she became the toast of Paris, but the acclaim did not interest her She thought only of me." Most men would like that. Unfortunately, he's already married, but he doesn't tell her that to avoid hurting her, because leaving her with no excuse is so thrilling. Indeed, she walks right into the Seine and tries to kill herself (and her unborn child) she's so thrilled. He saves her, but "she disappeared for months" and he finally found her months later buying an abortion tonic from a gypsy. As she drinks it, he smashes it out of her hand and she goes into labor. "We had nowhere to go. I brought her back to the opera house where we could hide in the stalls we used for the animals," he continues. Wait, in all of Paris that's the only place he could take her? And right there, in the hay like the Virgin Mary, she gives birth to little Erik and doesn't seem to notice that her baby is hideously deformed. "To her, he was beauty itself. To him, so was she."
Three years later, Mom dies of fever and Carriere expected Erik to die as well, "which would be a mercy to all of us." All of who? Carriere is the only person alive who knows his son even exists. It was the boy's cries echoing through the opera house that bore the legend of the ghost and Carriere "allowed the legend to grow." Erik does not know Carriere is his father, for no particularly good reason, but admits that "for the past 30 years, he's been the real director of this opera house, not I. If we were a great company, and we were, it was because of him. Every decision, from the repertoire to the small prop, was his," Papa admits, which is more than a little strange because if he's been letting the boy make decisions since the age of three, that must have been one wacked out opera company!
At the end of the tale, he urges Christine to leave with him, not to fill Erik with "false hope," but our angelic dopey leading lady says "he deserves better than that" and wants to say her goodbyes in person. "I will go when I'm ready to, after I've talked with him," she says, but Carriere insists that she's making a terrible mistake. "Now I know his heart," she says. "So do I. Unfortunately, there's more to him than that," Carriere grumbles before heading off. "Get out while you can." Burt Lancaster made tons of terrible movies in his long career, and many a camp delight, but that doesn't mean the fossil deserves this claptrap right at the end. But, he read the script (presumably), so he's as much to blame as writer Arthur Kopit for delivering it.
Back upstairs, Inspector Ledoux corners Carriere, saying "you help me, I'll help you." More cloak-and-dagger nonsense.
When Christine finds the Phantom, he's awfully chipper. "Good morning, did you sleep well? I've always like that bed," he says, hurriedly putting on his mask. "Well? What should we do to. I have an idea, what about a picnic?" He puts on a straw hat, takes a cane and a basket and offers his arm. He takes her to a part of the catacombs where he's created an outdoor world, complete with trees and "squirrels, foxes and rabbits all playing harmoniously. Like magic. You are magic too. Oh, yes, I know. Magic is my friend," he rattles on, which should be scaring the hell out of her, but she's merely perplexed. This is the strangest picnic outside of Wonderland, but Alice was only a little girl, so it's understandable she believed what she saw. Christine sees all the dead stuffed animals and doesn't even seem a bit weirded out by his attempts at taxidermy.
He asks her to sing as he lays out the food, and she says she will, but only if he grants a favor. Nope. She has to sing because she loves it, but he'll grant her the favor anyway. She wants to see his face. "You have asked, I'm afraid, the only thing in my power that I cannot grant," he replies. "Please don't ask it again." She pushes and pushes. "Only if you say you do not love me will I stop," is her non-sequiter answer to that. "I know your face can be looked at by someone who loves you." Where did she learn schmaltz like that?
He finally agrees, removes his mask and she faints dead away (we don't see his face, as I can only guess there was no money left in the budget after the stuffed deer and Carlotta's wigs). "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" he shouts through the catacombs.
Ledoux pushes Carriere to give him information, but Carriere remains tight-lipped. He warns the old man that if he doesn't help, he'll be forced to send his men back into the basement and Carriere finally agrees, though it's obvious he doesn't really mean it.
Christine wakes up to find Erik throwing a Hades-size fit, bigger than anything Carlotta could ever dream of. He's trashing the whole underground. He throws her in a cell, yelling that "no one who has ever seen my face is allowed to leave. I thought everyone knew that." I didn't see that written in the opera house rule book, what's he talking about?
Carriere runs into Philippe puttering around the theater and says he has to go get her. Philippe wants to go too, but Carriere says, "no, I need you up here," but telling him that the Phantom lives below, expecting him NOT to follow him. Christine escapes from her cell and runs off, hiding behind a post where Erik can't find her (hey, it's dark, so Hide and Go Seek is a bit easier in the underworld). Philippe, who doesn't want to muss his hair or get involved in physical activity, agrees to do what Carriere says, but only because he loves her so much. That means taking Christine away from Paris and the clutches of the Phantom. Just then, Christine escapes and trembles in fear all the way into Philippe's coach. "I saw his face," she tells Carriere, who, uninvited, travels with them!
At the Comte's estate, Christine has an even bigger bed, but she's miserable nonetheless, her bubble of self-esteem popped by Erik's hideous face. Teri Polo is given a bed-bound monologue of confusion that, sorry to say, is beyond her skills. She's full of guilt for upsetting Philippe (who goes after the Phantom with his hair following at top speed), for not responding better to Erik's face and, if given the time, she could throw in global warming and teenage prostitution. As for Erik, he puts on a Pierrot mask and pets his wig (I'm not kidding).
Christine sees a vision and decides she has to go save Erik, and persuades the equally idiotic Philippe to take her. They stop at the Choletis, to cue them into Christine's big plan, where Carlotta is still mad, darting around tossing off bits of arias. They literally have a conversation as Carlotta dancing among them. Carriere beats them to the underground lair, while upstairs, Christine reveals her plan, to sing on the stage in that night's opera so the Phantom can hear her sing once more. She has to remind Philippe that she loves them both, but "it's not the same kind of love at all."
Erik is dying. Of what? I'm not sure. He's coughing, so let's go with consumption. Or a broken heart. That was still possible before transplants and such. Erik gets a little sentimental with Carriere, but admits he has one regret, not killing Philippe, who doesn't love music and thus can't possibly love Christine. "He loves her," says Carriere with the exasperation only a father could have for a petulant child. He offers to show Carriere his face, but he, of course has seen it, so decides to make the moment worse and remind Erik of the first time he saw his own reflection. That's bound to cheer him up. "Father, I'm sorry for what I put you through," Erik starts, and then it becomes a game of "I'm sorry," "no, I'm sorry, "no, let me be sorry," "okay, we're both sorry." It would be touching if it weren't so badly written. Carriere leaves, promising to bury his son. "Make it deep," said son commands. "Tell her that I'm sorry I frightened her."
The crowd gathers, the maestro takes the baton and "Faust" starts again. Amazingly, there is an audience willing to see it after the last disastrous attempt. Naturally, Christine is flawless this time. Her voice awakens the dying Phantom. Choleti is nervous because no one has appeared in Box Five as per the plan, but Ledoux takes a typical French attitude, "if he doesn't come, he doesn't come." What, does another chandelier have to crash before he does anything?
The Phantom wheezes his way up from below, roused by her voice (though, there is far more singing by the men during his looooooong climb), and she finally sees him make it to Box Five. Erik starts singing the male part, which upsets the tenor, but finally proves that the Phantom exists (and can lip sync as well as everyone else). Amazingly, not only do the other performers continue as if nothing weird is happening, so does the full orchestra...and the audience! They finish the duet to thunderous applause, which must be especially gratifying for the Phantom, who could barely talk, let alone sing, only moments ago. Ledoux's men screw it up when they fire at Erik, so he jumps to the stage and snatches Christine. Carriere stops them from firing more and then goes into the office to get a hidden pistol. Erik and Christine go for the roof, knocking over Choleti in the process, but the police move at a snail's pace. Even Philippe is faster, begging for her safety. "She sang for me tonight!" he crows, and Christine insists that Philippe "means you no harm." That's not entirely true and they tussle, with Philippe almost going over the edge. Christine has to beg for her pretty boy's life and Erik actually helps him back up. Ledoux wants him alive, but Erik appeals to his father to end it, so Carriere shoots him and then cradles his dying son with Christine. She removes his mask and kisses him (we still don't see his face) before he dies.
You know what would be REALLY cool? If the Phantom didn't die and was taken in secret to Coney Island, where he opened an amusement park devoted to Christine, lured her there to sing under false pretenses and revealed to him that they actually have a son, because she's miserable in her marriage to her alcoholic pretty boy?
Far-fetched? Check out "Love Never Dies," Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera," currently running in cities around the world. That's exactly what happens.
But, it's no stupider than this miniseries version of "The Phantom of the Opera," which is a barrel of laughs, most of them unintentional. It's hard to believe that the slapstick antics of Choleti and Carlotta were not mean for the gigglers and I would like to believe they were in on the joke (heaven knows, Ian Richardson is a superb enough actor to know the difference). Burt Lancaster certainly never understood comedy, so he plays it like he played everything else, which unfortunately leaves poor Charles Dance and the thoroughly miscast Teri Polo to handle the weight of the nonsense. They are not up to the task, but who would be? Kopit's script alternates between quicksand and pie-in-the-face, and Tony Richardson is no help, apparently at the point in his career where he just cared that it looked pretty.
Mind you, it's not the worst film "Phantom," but it's the funniest and it's not supposed to be a comedy!
Question? Comments? Extra laughs? I would love to hear from you. Email me at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
WHAT IS THE REST OF THE WORLD UP TO?: A Town Like Alice (1981)
Technically, "A Town Like Alice" disqualifies from our discussion because it was not produced in the United States and was actually shown on PBS rather than network television when aired in the US. But, at a time when the American miniseries was dominant world-wide, even an British/Australian miniseries was starting to act almost American in its output. "A Town Like Alice" is far from the stagey one-set British miniseries that dominated the 1970s until American miniseries broke those confines (the British helped, of course, as no one can deny how "Brideshead Revisited" altered the landscape of the miniseries worldwide) and it does take place during World War II, though from a very different perspective than most American miniseries.
Since this very international miniseries took such pains to behave like the sweeping historical narratives on US network television, though managing to strip the war down to just a handful of characters in a remote output let's include it. Plus, it's so damn good, it's well worth the sidebar.
"A Town Like Alice" certainly has pedigree, based on Nevil Shute's classic novel, and starring a man who would become famous the world over once "The Thorn Birds" aired, Bryan Brown. Enough exposition, we are jumping in.
The story starts in 1937. Gordon Jackson is summoned to alter a will. The old man has designated his sister as his heir, as she has a son. She also has a daughter, but the old man can't fathom leaving her the money, constrained "by her sex," he says with horror. If she's to inherit the money, he wants it in trust until she's 40 with Gordon as a trustee. "Perhaps you want my senior partner," Gordon says snidely, since the man is so old-fashioned.
It takes until 1948 for Gordon to find the family, down now to just the niece, Helen Morse. The war has made it difficult to get in touch with anyone. Helen's mother has been dead years and her brother died in the war, on "the railway," a Japanese construction project on which "one man died for every rail laid," she says. She herself has been in Malaya most of the time, but now works in London.
In explaining what has happened to her, she goes back to 1941 when she was living in Malaya with her brother, seemingly untouched as part of the British enclave there. The United States has just entered the war and Christmas is upon them. Worries do not extend further than the tennis court, though talk of war is part of ordinary conversation. "It would be quite impossible for the Japs to reach Kuala or Singapore," her brother John Howard says, like everyone else, believing the war to be far away. "If they do come, I want us to be together," she insists, telling him she will be quitting her job.
Unfortunately, Helen is instantly proven correct. "The Japanese have landed and they will be here in two hours," the collected British are told. Not everyone is able to escape initially, but there is promise of a boat coming to pick them up, but when the boat arrives, the Japanese are helming it. The remaining folks are told they will be taken to a prison camp, and "if you do bad things, you will be shot, so do good things." There is something very eerie in the Japanese tone when they are told, "the Japanese Imperial Army does not make war on womens and children" as the men are forced to part from the others.
The snobbiest of the English ladies insists on seeing the man in charge and demands beds and mosquito nets. She is refused because "all Japanese sleep on floor." Citing her "very bad thoughts," Captain Hatsuo Uda slaps her in front of all the others. It won't get any better. When food is delivered, there are no utensils and the toilet never gets cleaned. They are to be moved to Singapore once news comes that the Japanese have taken it. The women are to be marched to Kuala Lampur, some 50 or so miles from where they are. No trucks, no buses, just their feet. "Womans staying here will be beaten," they are told, and once again, "no bad thoughts."
The first part of the walk is not pleasant. The women and children are slow, not fed and start arguing almost immediately, with one spinster suggesting the ones without kids separate from the others. Bedraggled, they must continue on, though the Japanese soldiers show flashes of sympathy, like when they carry the children. Helen's friend Cecily Polson isn't sure she can make it, so she asks Helen to take the children if she doesn't. Matronly Pat Evison, the largest of the ladies, is also the first to die.
Okay, the writing isn't always sterling. Helen is one of the women elected to tell Sergeant Yuki Shimoda that they need another day off. He does not speak English, so Helen repeats what her friend says, but haltingly and loudly. "Tomorrow. No. Walk. Rest." But, he understands what she is saying and agrees to let them walk one day and rest the next, which will hopefully stop them from being so tired. When the Captain hears about the death and exhaustion, he relents and agrees to get them a truck.
At one stop, they have water enough for a bath. Helen's best chum Anna Volska notes, "who'd have ever have thought that having a bath would be enough to make us feel wonderful!" "Maybe we took those things for granted. I never will again," Helen replies. One of the soldiers plays with the kids and another even flirts with one of the women. Just as they are beginning to feel human again, the plans change. They have to get to Singapore another way because bridges have been bombed, and there is no truck to take them. "I don't think they know what to do with us," Helen wisely discerns, when all the others are calling the Captain a liar.
Helen speaks Malayan, so she's an asset to the Japanese and is able to make herself understood by the soldiers. They stop in a village where Helen makes friends with the locals and gets herself some more comfortable clothing, but one of the children is dying of malaria and the Japanese soldier in charge of the village wants them out, not caring if they have to walk "hundreds of miles" to a "good women's prisoner of war camp," the latter said almost cheerfully. They can stay until the child recovers, but Cecily's daughter dies. Cecily gives her baby to Helen and then dies herself (suicide, of course, but they don't say how). The next day, the battle ax of the group dies, also leaving behind a child.
An oasis shows up in the most unlikely of places. Leaving the jungle, the Sergeant and his followers see a truck. It's being fixed by...two Australians! Bryan Brown pops out from underneath the truck, unshaven and sweaty, but so handsome, and Helen tells Gordon in her remembrance that she was so happy to see a white man, the "first white man in six months, since the husbands."
Bryan informs Helen that there is no prison camp where they are going, "just a little barracks." A bit crass and rough, he then notes that "I never thought the first time I spoke to an English lady, she'd be looking like you." He volunteers to get them supplies and to break the truck even more so they have to spend the night with the women. He's taken a shine to Helen, though he thinks she's married and the baby is hers.
That night, Bryan brings the promised contraband and stays to chat a bit with Helen, telling her about his hometown near Alice Springs, dead center of Australia, where she thought there was only desert. He's a "stockman" and his father was from England. It's only after a description of the cattle station where he works that he even gets around to telling her his name. "I'm sorry I talked so much about the Outback," but he's lonely. He's also sensitive and has a great smile to flash. Unfortunately, when morning comes, he's unable to persuade the Japanese to let the women and children ride in the truck.
Contrary to what older crab Dorothy Alison thought, Bryan does actually get them the soap he promised to Helen. The women adore just the smell of it, four whole bars! In fact, Dorothy promises, "he'll turn up again, just like a bad penny" and laughs. Not only does he return, he returns with a whole pig that he caught.
The two have a private talk in the jungle and each learns about the other's hometowns and ways of life. He's clearly smitten, and she begs him not to risk constantly coming back to bring supplies to them, but there's no way he'll stop. Nothing is too good for Mrs. Boong, as he calls her (a Aussie term for native). He sends back a bunch of chickens, but Helen is vexed. They have to "work out a reasonable story and stick to it no matter what happens" before even starting to pluck them. She's more worried about the Japanese reaction than her cohorts. The kindly sergeant in charge doesn't ask questions since she gives him one (though he tries to bargain for two).
The local command realizes five chickens are missing and want the truth about the chickens, smacking the women around to get it out of them. Bryan arrives, hoping to save Helen, but the soldiers overcome him. They are taken to Captain Richard Narita, who says that she is unworthy because she lies. "Japanese women don't lie," he explains. She begs leniency for Bryan, but he is not to have it.
Instead, he is literally crucified as the women watch. Nails are driven through his hands, each thump of the hammer affecting everyone nearby. Then he's beaten severely. This is one of the most ghastly scenes ever in a miniseries, but it's handled so beautifully here that one can't turn away. Dorothy prays loudly, louder than the sounds of Bryan's beating. "They beat him to death," she tells Gordon.
Gordon finds himself very attracted to Helen and takes her to the opera and the National Gallery, though he has himself convinced it's really to make up for the time she spent as a prisoner missing such things as art. Of course, he also wants to hear her stories. His clumsy attempts at wooing her are quite charming. He tries to reconnect her to her past by taking her ice skating (when she returned from Malaya, she went to her local rink and it had been bombed), but he's terrible on skates. His law partner is a bit wary. "It's it strange no one has snatched her up?" he asks, citing her beauty and wealth as two reasons why someone should have (though, to be fair, she's only been wealthy a little while). Dancing one night, she says she wants to go back to Malaya and "build a well."
Back in the main plot, Captain Richard Narita tells them they are "bad people" and he doesn't want them. Typical of their entire journey, the Japanese do not want to be responsible for them at all. Having prisoners of war means having to treat them a certain way. So, the little gaggle sets out again with Dorothy now the one pushing them all. They make their way to the ocean, which gives them some very happy moments of refreshing fun. Dorothy catches dinner, more fish than anyone can eat. She also shares her theory that Bryan was very much like Jesus, bringing gifts without asking anything in return and then being crucified. She's very religious, but the other women don't all believe it. Helen tells Anna, "the man I knew was very human" and feels terrible guilt over the risks he took for her and the others.
The Sergeant suffers from heatstroke and though the women try to help him, he's stubborn and drags behind them as long as he can before collapsing. He's become a part of them, so they help him walk to the nearest village. The local village chief tells Helen, "we have no place where English ma'ams want to sleep." Helen replies, "we are no longer English ma'ams, we are prisoners" and that they have adapted to rudimentary living in the countryside. "All we ask is a floor to sleep on and a little fish and rice," she tells him. The Sergeant refuses to take medication, and Dorothy thinks he wants to die, that "he's packed it in." Something has changed since Bryan's death for him as well as the rest. He dies as well.
Rather poignantly, Helen suggests he be buried with Christian prayers. Dorothy is not happy initially, but she delivers a hell of a funeral. What do they do now? Most are happy to stay in the village, but Helen is practical. She worries that the Japanese will get in trouble for losing them, but they also can't stay and expect the village to feed them forever. Helen's idea is to go to the village leader and ask if they can work a rice field and earn their keep. If he is pleased with their work, she will go to the Japanese and report of their success, with the village leader reaping the potential benefits of being able to feed the Japanese soldiers. "I will think about it and I will talk to my brothers," he tells her. The council agrees.
The women work the fields for three years until the end of the war. The male prisoners are released and the baby's father comes to claim her. He offers to "make this arrangement permanent," but Helen refuses, despite her closeness to the child, who refers to her as her mother.
After spending three years in the Malayan village, Helen now wants to build them a well as thanks and to help them with their crops. Gordon warns it's a long expensive trip, but Helen is determined. She even jokes that if she can't get transportation, "I can always walk!" Gordon has filled her state room on the boat to Singapore with "English flowers" to remind her "not to stay away too long." She promises to return, as "there is nothing to keep me in Malaya once I've built the well."
"I had a premonition even then that she was never coming back," Gordon says as he waves goodbye to her.
Helen first pays a visit to Sally, who has stayed in Malaya with her husband and children. She then makes the long journey to the village and offers to build the well. The village leader is leery, once again, though he knows how badly the women want it, so he calls on his brothers again. A well Helen will get. While the well is being built, Helen tells that Captain Richard is dead, a suicide once the English returned. But, the news she gets is even more shocking: Bryan lived! Here's what happened. The Captain asked Bryan for his last wish, and the cheeky Aussie asked for a black chicken and a beer. Since there was none, the Captain couldn't let him die or he would "lose face" for not being able to grant the last wish. Could he still be alive? We shall have to watch the second part to find out.
The well works! With her work done, she leaves the village, though the leader tells her that she is always welcome there, even if he is dead when she returns. Helen writes to Gordon that she's made a decision to go to Australia and find out what happened to Bryan. The moment Gordon hangs up with Helen, Bryan walks into his office. He's very much alive. With wounds on his hands and everything. He's there to find Helen, having gone to great trouble to do so. Gordon isn't forthcoming with details, as he knows it will mean the end of any possibility he has for a life with Helen. "She's traveling in the East," is all he's willing to say.
Helen arrives in Alice Springs, but no one seems to know Bryan there. Back in England, Bryan explains how he made it to England. He won the lottery! He's come to England to see where his father was born and to see Helen. Bryan is unimpressed when Gordon mentions how wealthy Helen now is. He suggests that Bryan write Helen a letter, bring it to him and he will send it to her to see what she wants to do.
Meanwhile, Helen is able to get some information on Bryan. She remembers he returned, but then left three years ago to become a station manager, but she doesn't know where. Gordon's secretary tells his business partner that Bryan was there, but that Gordon "did everything necessary to protect his client's interest." She secretary is a big gossip and hopes "roughneck" Bryan "doesn't cause any violence." Sadly, Bryan does not show. No doubt he sensed Gordon's tentative feelings on the subject of Helen's whereabouts and knew he wouldn't get far meeting him again.
Instead, Bryan is in a bar doing what the British think Australians do best, starting a bar fight. As for Helen, she travels around town going from bar to bar hoping to find out something about Bryan. In town, Helen meats Lorna Lesley, who already knows why Helen is in town, so she's friendly. Her handyman was also a friend of Bryan's and tells her he's managing a station in Willstown. She manages to sneak in a question about whether or not he's married, just to find out. "We better go look Willstown up on the map," Lorna jokes, but actually has to.
Feeling guilty, Gordon tracks Bryan down and bails him out of jail. Now it's time to get his side of the war story. Like Helen, he happens to hear by chance of Helen in a bar, finding out she was never married. When he heard this news, he withdrew all of his lottery money and went to find her. Why didn't he write first? "I never thought about it," he says, rash as always, but so sweet! The reason he didn't return to Gordon's office is that once he heard about the money, he knew Helen would never go to the Outback. As Gordon is convincing Bryan to take a cheap slow boat back to Australia, Helen flies from Alice Springs to Willstown, though it takes a lot of connecting mini planes to get her there. I know, I know, it's all way too contrived, with Gordon keeping secrets while Bryan pours out his heart and Helen hops from one small Australian town to another. However, where other movies might lag here, "A Town Like Alice" is so well-written that this patch of time actually ends up with a huge amount of tension rather than slack.
Arriving in Willstown, Helen hears that Bryan is in England and won't be back for a while. "Not much point in my staying if he's not here. I guess I'll go home...to England," she says. After that, Gordon puts Bryan on the boat and notes that he's "sure" Helen will be upset at having missed him. "Yeah, well, it's all for the best," Bryan says, with the same flat attitude he's had the whole time. Gordon then feels the sting of guilt again, rambling to his partner about how the whole thought of the two getting together is ridiculous. Bryan is to coarse for England and a lady like Helen could never live in the Australian Outback (meaning, away from him).
There is only one room to be had in Willstown, and the woman who manages the hotel (which just caters to cowboys) is not happy to have her. She tells her to prop her luggage up against the door so no one can get in and, oh, make sure to tell her if she hears any noises coming from the waitress' room. She's even less thrilled to hear Helen will stay a week, which is when the next plan out arrives. It's a rustic living, where breakfast is only steak and eggs (sans steak is not allowed), the waitress can't read and the only women who ever come to town are nurses. That would be helpful to the waitress (Arkie Whiteley), who is pregnant and wants to get rid of the baby. She can't marry the father because she doesn't know who it is, and the poor thing is only 16 years old, but, as she explains, there isn't much else to do in town. The local men approach her with a bit of fear and tell her there used to be 30,000 people in town when it was a "gold town," but now there are only 150 people. There are also only two "bachelor girls" in Willstown.
Finally, Gordon relents and cables Helen that Bryan was in London and is now on his way back to Australia. While waiting, one of the local men brings her crocodile skin, and coincidentally, she used to work in a factory that made accessories from crocodile skins, so she tries to make shoes out of this skin because no one has ever seen what happens to the skins once they are sent from town.
Helen writes Bryan a letter hoping they can meet in one of the towns on the way to Willstown, but "don't lets talk about Malaya...let's try to forget about it." How veddy English of her. I'm sure he never thinks about it as he looks at his hands! She spots him coming off the plane and runs to him, but this is not a couple who knows of romance, so there is no climactic hug or kiss, just an awkward reunion. Both remain quite reserved, especially Bryan, who seems almost angry. They confess that they went across the world for each other, but as Helen had earlier said to someone, they were really just two people who bonded in extreme circumstances and never got to know each other. There is a little crack in the armor when Bryan invites her to see the Great Barrier Reef, though she insists "we go Dutch." There's proof of that when Helen asks, "have I really changed that much?" "It's hard to say," he replies, as he never completely knew her during the war.
On their secluded holiday, Helen sees the lash marks on Bryan's back, which throws her off kilter, and the tension continues. Bryan asks if Helen will go back to live in her English suburb and she doesn't know. There is "no funny business," as Bryan had made that a condition of the trip, but Helen suggests a nighttime walk and puts on a sarong. "Is this better?" she asks and they finally fall into each other's arms kissing. There is indeed "funny business." "I've been thinking about this for six years," he confesses with a smile afterward. "Was it worth the wait?" she asks. "What do you think?" he says, though she's turned a bit shy. They do agree that they want to get married and now that all of the awkwardness is gone, they are free to really get to know each other.
He volunteers to give up ranching because it's not for married men, though he really feels "a bloke doesn't have a right to make an English girl" live in Willstown. "Then we shall have to change Willstown," she chirps, actually excited at the fact of living in the Outback. The only person upset is Gordon, naturally, who informs his partner that she wants money to start a business. Gordon hems and haws, but he sends her the money. Helen is brimming over with plans to reconstruct the whole town, but she has yet to see Bryan's ranch.
They rectify that on a Sunday, all smiles as he tells her that when the rainy season comes, he won't be able to drive to town, but that he will find a way to be with her. She finds the ranch "awful," mainly because it looks like it's never had a woman's touch, or been cleaned for that matter. Helen gets very frustrated with the slow pace of Willstown and lets the bank manager have it when he isn't as helpful as he could be. She throws a royal temper tantrum that seems to have come from nowhere.
The waitress is canned by nasty hotel owner Maggie Dence, flippantly doing it because Helen told her she was expecting another woman from England, not to mention that the girl is pregnant. Helen confronts her in the pub, where women are not allowed, and Maggie nastily snarls, "you ain't running this town yet!" as they go toe to toe.
Instead of defending her, Bryan lectures her and tells her to be polite. "This must be the most close-minded narrow fly-ridden place on Earth!" she rails, upset at him for not taking her side. "We don't need someone fresh out of England to tell us how to feel," he yells and she says, "I wouldn't dream of marrying you." "Suits me," he tells her and drives off. Naturally, the town knows instantly what happened, but sweet Maurie Fields comforts her, telling her that Maggie is just afraid of the effect of Helen's plans on her establishment. Helen pours out her heart in a letter to Gordon, which he reads as taxi knocks him down.
Anne Haddy, an old friend of Helen's, arrives to help, but she's doubtful when she sees the dusty town. She will help Helen get the crocodile shoe factory going, with a few local girls to man the machines.
As a piece offering, Bryan cleans the ranch and invites Helen to see the improvement. They both apologize, but there is news of trouble, as a rancher's horse has come back without the man. She's left alone, so she does some washing and putters around as a thunderstorm brews. One of the workers returns to fetch the rancher who was supposed to be back already and since no one else can drive the truck, Helen has to go with the medical supplies. She's no pro with a truck and stalls out after crossing a river. Bryan is his usual frosty self when Helen shows up in the truck. The trip back across the river kills the car, but does give us a shirtless scene for Bryan, who was in his absolute prime back in 1981. He started his career at roughly the same time as Mel Gibson and frankly, I would have had trouble choosing a winner in that sweepstakes.
Helen has to ride to the ranch to get word to the plane so it will wait and take the injured man to the hospital. Bryan is nervous packing her off ("keep your legs closed, didn't your mother ever tell you that?" he asks the novice horsewoman), but Helen is as cocky as ever.
However, she does complete a successful mission, able to get word to the proper people before collapsing and ending up in the hospital as a heroine. Bryan eventually makes his way to the hospital, where Helen tells him of course she'll stay and asks for a kiss, whether the nun on duty likes it or not. When she is healed, Helen is fussed over by all the women and children in town. Maurie and the men stay away and Maurie has to leave to meet the plane, which bears Gordon, now well enough to make the long journey to Australia to visit his pet client. Bryan is shocked to see Gordon. Maggie gets all flirty, introducing herself as "a widow" while fixing her hair. Helen is thrilled at Gordon's sudden appearance and he's lost no adoration for her. She assures him that she is happy, despite her letters sounding otherwise, and she asks him to give her away at her wedding. She asks for his approval of her plans and her decision to stay in Australia and puts aside his personal feelings to give her that approval.
All that's left is to get married. The whole town turns out and hears a truly heartfelt speech by Gordon wishing them a happy life. Telegrams are sent from England and Australia, even Malaya, from the village chief. Gordon watches the first dance with some sadness, but the newlyweds are smiling and that's what matters. One would never know their journey had taken them from the jungles of Malaya to the Australian Outback, from war to peace, from unknown love to the blossoming of it.
It's hard to think of a sweeter miniseries than "A Town Like Alice," like so many things Australian gritty and tough on the outside but tender on the inside. The relationship between Helen Morse, who is not exactly an ugly duckling, but is certainly no swan, and handsome could-get-anyone-he-wants Bryan Brown is very interesting. Shute's characters fall in love without realizing it, in only a few days of knowing each other, and only because of extreme circumstances. This is not a novel concept. In fact, many war stories have unlikely relationships born out of stressful times. But these two do not even know they are in love for a long time. They meet after six years of thinking about each other, but neither understands why. And then when they finally do get together, it's not a smooth time. They do not rush into each other's arms and live happily ever after.
Even more odd, and less likely to make a successful miniseries, is how small the story is. There are only a handful of characters and for a war story, there is no talk of politics or Allies, just a few Japanese soldiers trying to plunder their way through Asia. Its heartiness comes from the will of the leads, their internal passions. That shouldn't be enough to fill five hours, but it is. Fine performances and a lovingly soft touch by the director and writers does not blow it up to proportions beyond its confines. Had "A Town Like Alice" been made in 1981 in the United States, there would have been at least one battle scene inserted, a big cattle ranching scene, stars who were glamorous rather than realistic and heaven only knows what else. But the creators here were true to the story, true to the local color (in Malaya and Australia) and true to the characters, and produced a beautiful intimate miniseries. Intimate miniseries sounds oxymoronic, but "A Town Like Alice" proves it was possible.
For crying out loud, except for one huge exception, the miniseries is even nice to the Japanese soldiers! Try finding any sympathy for the Japanese in Herman Wouk.
Questions? Comments? Warm-up-by-the-fire sweet stories? I would love to hear at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
Since this very international miniseries took such pains to behave like the sweeping historical narratives on US network television, though managing to strip the war down to just a handful of characters in a remote output let's include it. Plus, it's so damn good, it's well worth the sidebar.
"A Town Like Alice" certainly has pedigree, based on Nevil Shute's classic novel, and starring a man who would become famous the world over once "The Thorn Birds" aired, Bryan Brown. Enough exposition, we are jumping in.
The story starts in 1937. Gordon Jackson is summoned to alter a will. The old man has designated his sister as his heir, as she has a son. She also has a daughter, but the old man can't fathom leaving her the money, constrained "by her sex," he says with horror. If she's to inherit the money, he wants it in trust until she's 40 with Gordon as a trustee. "Perhaps you want my senior partner," Gordon says snidely, since the man is so old-fashioned.
It takes until 1948 for Gordon to find the family, down now to just the niece, Helen Morse. The war has made it difficult to get in touch with anyone. Helen's mother has been dead years and her brother died in the war, on "the railway," a Japanese construction project on which "one man died for every rail laid," she says. She herself has been in Malaya most of the time, but now works in London.
In explaining what has happened to her, she goes back to 1941 when she was living in Malaya with her brother, seemingly untouched as part of the British enclave there. The United States has just entered the war and Christmas is upon them. Worries do not extend further than the tennis court, though talk of war is part of ordinary conversation. "It would be quite impossible for the Japs to reach Kuala or Singapore," her brother John Howard says, like everyone else, believing the war to be far away. "If they do come, I want us to be together," she insists, telling him she will be quitting her job.
Unfortunately, Helen is instantly proven correct. "The Japanese have landed and they will be here in two hours," the collected British are told. Not everyone is able to escape initially, but there is promise of a boat coming to pick them up, but when the boat arrives, the Japanese are helming it. The remaining folks are told they will be taken to a prison camp, and "if you do bad things, you will be shot, so do good things." There is something very eerie in the Japanese tone when they are told, "the Japanese Imperial Army does not make war on womens and children" as the men are forced to part from the others.
The snobbiest of the English ladies insists on seeing the man in charge and demands beds and mosquito nets. She is refused because "all Japanese sleep on floor." Citing her "very bad thoughts," Captain Hatsuo Uda slaps her in front of all the others. It won't get any better. When food is delivered, there are no utensils and the toilet never gets cleaned. They are to be moved to Singapore once news comes that the Japanese have taken it. The women are to be marched to Kuala Lampur, some 50 or so miles from where they are. No trucks, no buses, just their feet. "Womans staying here will be beaten," they are told, and once again, "no bad thoughts."
The first part of the walk is not pleasant. The women and children are slow, not fed and start arguing almost immediately, with one spinster suggesting the ones without kids separate from the others. Bedraggled, they must continue on, though the Japanese soldiers show flashes of sympathy, like when they carry the children. Helen's friend Cecily Polson isn't sure she can make it, so she asks Helen to take the children if she doesn't. Matronly Pat Evison, the largest of the ladies, is also the first to die.
Okay, the writing isn't always sterling. Helen is one of the women elected to tell Sergeant Yuki Shimoda that they need another day off. He does not speak English, so Helen repeats what her friend says, but haltingly and loudly. "Tomorrow. No. Walk. Rest." But, he understands what she is saying and agrees to let them walk one day and rest the next, which will hopefully stop them from being so tired. When the Captain hears about the death and exhaustion, he relents and agrees to get them a truck.
At one stop, they have water enough for a bath. Helen's best chum Anna Volska notes, "who'd have ever have thought that having a bath would be enough to make us feel wonderful!" "Maybe we took those things for granted. I never will again," Helen replies. One of the soldiers plays with the kids and another even flirts with one of the women. Just as they are beginning to feel human again, the plans change. They have to get to Singapore another way because bridges have been bombed, and there is no truck to take them. "I don't think they know what to do with us," Helen wisely discerns, when all the others are calling the Captain a liar.
Helen speaks Malayan, so she's an asset to the Japanese and is able to make herself understood by the soldiers. They stop in a village where Helen makes friends with the locals and gets herself some more comfortable clothing, but one of the children is dying of malaria and the Japanese soldier in charge of the village wants them out, not caring if they have to walk "hundreds of miles" to a "good women's prisoner of war camp," the latter said almost cheerfully. They can stay until the child recovers, but Cecily's daughter dies. Cecily gives her baby to Helen and then dies herself (suicide, of course, but they don't say how). The next day, the battle ax of the group dies, also leaving behind a child.
An oasis shows up in the most unlikely of places. Leaving the jungle, the Sergeant and his followers see a truck. It's being fixed by...two Australians! Bryan Brown pops out from underneath the truck, unshaven and sweaty, but so handsome, and Helen tells Gordon in her remembrance that she was so happy to see a white man, the "first white man in six months, since the husbands."
Bryan informs Helen that there is no prison camp where they are going, "just a little barracks." A bit crass and rough, he then notes that "I never thought the first time I spoke to an English lady, she'd be looking like you." He volunteers to get them supplies and to break the truck even more so they have to spend the night with the women. He's taken a shine to Helen, though he thinks she's married and the baby is hers.
That night, Bryan brings the promised contraband and stays to chat a bit with Helen, telling her about his hometown near Alice Springs, dead center of Australia, where she thought there was only desert. He's a "stockman" and his father was from England. It's only after a description of the cattle station where he works that he even gets around to telling her his name. "I'm sorry I talked so much about the Outback," but he's lonely. He's also sensitive and has a great smile to flash. Unfortunately, when morning comes, he's unable to persuade the Japanese to let the women and children ride in the truck.
Contrary to what older crab Dorothy Alison thought, Bryan does actually get them the soap he promised to Helen. The women adore just the smell of it, four whole bars! In fact, Dorothy promises, "he'll turn up again, just like a bad penny" and laughs. Not only does he return, he returns with a whole pig that he caught.
The two have a private talk in the jungle and each learns about the other's hometowns and ways of life. He's clearly smitten, and she begs him not to risk constantly coming back to bring supplies to them, but there's no way he'll stop. Nothing is too good for Mrs. Boong, as he calls her (a Aussie term for native). He sends back a bunch of chickens, but Helen is vexed. They have to "work out a reasonable story and stick to it no matter what happens" before even starting to pluck them. She's more worried about the Japanese reaction than her cohorts. The kindly sergeant in charge doesn't ask questions since she gives him one (though he tries to bargain for two).
The local command realizes five chickens are missing and want the truth about the chickens, smacking the women around to get it out of them. Bryan arrives, hoping to save Helen, but the soldiers overcome him. They are taken to Captain Richard Narita, who says that she is unworthy because she lies. "Japanese women don't lie," he explains. She begs leniency for Bryan, but he is not to have it.
Instead, he is literally crucified as the women watch. Nails are driven through his hands, each thump of the hammer affecting everyone nearby. Then he's beaten severely. This is one of the most ghastly scenes ever in a miniseries, but it's handled so beautifully here that one can't turn away. Dorothy prays loudly, louder than the sounds of Bryan's beating. "They beat him to death," she tells Gordon.
Gordon finds himself very attracted to Helen and takes her to the opera and the National Gallery, though he has himself convinced it's really to make up for the time she spent as a prisoner missing such things as art. Of course, he also wants to hear her stories. His clumsy attempts at wooing her are quite charming. He tries to reconnect her to her past by taking her ice skating (when she returned from Malaya, she went to her local rink and it had been bombed), but he's terrible on skates. His law partner is a bit wary. "It's it strange no one has snatched her up?" he asks, citing her beauty and wealth as two reasons why someone should have (though, to be fair, she's only been wealthy a little while). Dancing one night, she says she wants to go back to Malaya and "build a well."
Back in the main plot, Captain Richard Narita tells them they are "bad people" and he doesn't want them. Typical of their entire journey, the Japanese do not want to be responsible for them at all. Having prisoners of war means having to treat them a certain way. So, the little gaggle sets out again with Dorothy now the one pushing them all. They make their way to the ocean, which gives them some very happy moments of refreshing fun. Dorothy catches dinner, more fish than anyone can eat. She also shares her theory that Bryan was very much like Jesus, bringing gifts without asking anything in return and then being crucified. She's very religious, but the other women don't all believe it. Helen tells Anna, "the man I knew was very human" and feels terrible guilt over the risks he took for her and the others.
The Sergeant suffers from heatstroke and though the women try to help him, he's stubborn and drags behind them as long as he can before collapsing. He's become a part of them, so they help him walk to the nearest village. The local village chief tells Helen, "we have no place where English ma'ams want to sleep." Helen replies, "we are no longer English ma'ams, we are prisoners" and that they have adapted to rudimentary living in the countryside. "All we ask is a floor to sleep on and a little fish and rice," she tells him. The Sergeant refuses to take medication, and Dorothy thinks he wants to die, that "he's packed it in." Something has changed since Bryan's death for him as well as the rest. He dies as well.
Rather poignantly, Helen suggests he be buried with Christian prayers. Dorothy is not happy initially, but she delivers a hell of a funeral. What do they do now? Most are happy to stay in the village, but Helen is practical. She worries that the Japanese will get in trouble for losing them, but they also can't stay and expect the village to feed them forever. Helen's idea is to go to the village leader and ask if they can work a rice field and earn their keep. If he is pleased with their work, she will go to the Japanese and report of their success, with the village leader reaping the potential benefits of being able to feed the Japanese soldiers. "I will think about it and I will talk to my brothers," he tells her. The council agrees.
The women work the fields for three years until the end of the war. The male prisoners are released and the baby's father comes to claim her. He offers to "make this arrangement permanent," but Helen refuses, despite her closeness to the child, who refers to her as her mother.
After spending three years in the Malayan village, Helen now wants to build them a well as thanks and to help them with their crops. Gordon warns it's a long expensive trip, but Helen is determined. She even jokes that if she can't get transportation, "I can always walk!" Gordon has filled her state room on the boat to Singapore with "English flowers" to remind her "not to stay away too long." She promises to return, as "there is nothing to keep me in Malaya once I've built the well."
"I had a premonition even then that she was never coming back," Gordon says as he waves goodbye to her.
Helen first pays a visit to Sally, who has stayed in Malaya with her husband and children. She then makes the long journey to the village and offers to build the well. The village leader is leery, once again, though he knows how badly the women want it, so he calls on his brothers again. A well Helen will get. While the well is being built, Helen tells that Captain Richard is dead, a suicide once the English returned. But, the news she gets is even more shocking: Bryan lived! Here's what happened. The Captain asked Bryan for his last wish, and the cheeky Aussie asked for a black chicken and a beer. Since there was none, the Captain couldn't let him die or he would "lose face" for not being able to grant the last wish. Could he still be alive? We shall have to watch the second part to find out.
The well works! With her work done, she leaves the village, though the leader tells her that she is always welcome there, even if he is dead when she returns. Helen writes to Gordon that she's made a decision to go to Australia and find out what happened to Bryan. The moment Gordon hangs up with Helen, Bryan walks into his office. He's very much alive. With wounds on his hands and everything. He's there to find Helen, having gone to great trouble to do so. Gordon isn't forthcoming with details, as he knows it will mean the end of any possibility he has for a life with Helen. "She's traveling in the East," is all he's willing to say.
Helen arrives in Alice Springs, but no one seems to know Bryan there. Back in England, Bryan explains how he made it to England. He won the lottery! He's come to England to see where his father was born and to see Helen. Bryan is unimpressed when Gordon mentions how wealthy Helen now is. He suggests that Bryan write Helen a letter, bring it to him and he will send it to her to see what she wants to do.
Meanwhile, Helen is able to get some information on Bryan. She remembers he returned, but then left three years ago to become a station manager, but she doesn't know where. Gordon's secretary tells his business partner that Bryan was there, but that Gordon "did everything necessary to protect his client's interest." She secretary is a big gossip and hopes "roughneck" Bryan "doesn't cause any violence." Sadly, Bryan does not show. No doubt he sensed Gordon's tentative feelings on the subject of Helen's whereabouts and knew he wouldn't get far meeting him again.
Instead, Bryan is in a bar doing what the British think Australians do best, starting a bar fight. As for Helen, she travels around town going from bar to bar hoping to find out something about Bryan. In town, Helen meats Lorna Lesley, who already knows why Helen is in town, so she's friendly. Her handyman was also a friend of Bryan's and tells her he's managing a station in Willstown. She manages to sneak in a question about whether or not he's married, just to find out. "We better go look Willstown up on the map," Lorna jokes, but actually has to.
Feeling guilty, Gordon tracks Bryan down and bails him out of jail. Now it's time to get his side of the war story. Like Helen, he happens to hear by chance of Helen in a bar, finding out she was never married. When he heard this news, he withdrew all of his lottery money and went to find her. Why didn't he write first? "I never thought about it," he says, rash as always, but so sweet! The reason he didn't return to Gordon's office is that once he heard about the money, he knew Helen would never go to the Outback. As Gordon is convincing Bryan to take a cheap slow boat back to Australia, Helen flies from Alice Springs to Willstown, though it takes a lot of connecting mini planes to get her there. I know, I know, it's all way too contrived, with Gordon keeping secrets while Bryan pours out his heart and Helen hops from one small Australian town to another. However, where other movies might lag here, "A Town Like Alice" is so well-written that this patch of time actually ends up with a huge amount of tension rather than slack.
Arriving in Willstown, Helen hears that Bryan is in England and won't be back for a while. "Not much point in my staying if he's not here. I guess I'll go home...to England," she says. After that, Gordon puts Bryan on the boat and notes that he's "sure" Helen will be upset at having missed him. "Yeah, well, it's all for the best," Bryan says, with the same flat attitude he's had the whole time. Gordon then feels the sting of guilt again, rambling to his partner about how the whole thought of the two getting together is ridiculous. Bryan is to coarse for England and a lady like Helen could never live in the Australian Outback (meaning, away from him).
There is only one room to be had in Willstown, and the woman who manages the hotel (which just caters to cowboys) is not happy to have her. She tells her to prop her luggage up against the door so no one can get in and, oh, make sure to tell her if she hears any noises coming from the waitress' room. She's even less thrilled to hear Helen will stay a week, which is when the next plan out arrives. It's a rustic living, where breakfast is only steak and eggs (sans steak is not allowed), the waitress can't read and the only women who ever come to town are nurses. That would be helpful to the waitress (Arkie Whiteley), who is pregnant and wants to get rid of the baby. She can't marry the father because she doesn't know who it is, and the poor thing is only 16 years old, but, as she explains, there isn't much else to do in town. The local men approach her with a bit of fear and tell her there used to be 30,000 people in town when it was a "gold town," but now there are only 150 people. There are also only two "bachelor girls" in Willstown.
Finally, Gordon relents and cables Helen that Bryan was in London and is now on his way back to Australia. While waiting, one of the local men brings her crocodile skin, and coincidentally, she used to work in a factory that made accessories from crocodile skins, so she tries to make shoes out of this skin because no one has ever seen what happens to the skins once they are sent from town.
Helen writes Bryan a letter hoping they can meet in one of the towns on the way to Willstown, but "don't lets talk about Malaya...let's try to forget about it." How veddy English of her. I'm sure he never thinks about it as he looks at his hands! She spots him coming off the plane and runs to him, but this is not a couple who knows of romance, so there is no climactic hug or kiss, just an awkward reunion. Both remain quite reserved, especially Bryan, who seems almost angry. They confess that they went across the world for each other, but as Helen had earlier said to someone, they were really just two people who bonded in extreme circumstances and never got to know each other. There is a little crack in the armor when Bryan invites her to see the Great Barrier Reef, though she insists "we go Dutch." There's proof of that when Helen asks, "have I really changed that much?" "It's hard to say," he replies, as he never completely knew her during the war.
On their secluded holiday, Helen sees the lash marks on Bryan's back, which throws her off kilter, and the tension continues. Bryan asks if Helen will go back to live in her English suburb and she doesn't know. There is "no funny business," as Bryan had made that a condition of the trip, but Helen suggests a nighttime walk and puts on a sarong. "Is this better?" she asks and they finally fall into each other's arms kissing. There is indeed "funny business." "I've been thinking about this for six years," he confesses with a smile afterward. "Was it worth the wait?" she asks. "What do you think?" he says, though she's turned a bit shy. They do agree that they want to get married and now that all of the awkwardness is gone, they are free to really get to know each other.
He volunteers to give up ranching because it's not for married men, though he really feels "a bloke doesn't have a right to make an English girl" live in Willstown. "Then we shall have to change Willstown," she chirps, actually excited at the fact of living in the Outback. The only person upset is Gordon, naturally, who informs his partner that she wants money to start a business. Gordon hems and haws, but he sends her the money. Helen is brimming over with plans to reconstruct the whole town, but she has yet to see Bryan's ranch.
They rectify that on a Sunday, all smiles as he tells her that when the rainy season comes, he won't be able to drive to town, but that he will find a way to be with her. She finds the ranch "awful," mainly because it looks like it's never had a woman's touch, or been cleaned for that matter. Helen gets very frustrated with the slow pace of Willstown and lets the bank manager have it when he isn't as helpful as he could be. She throws a royal temper tantrum that seems to have come from nowhere.
The waitress is canned by nasty hotel owner Maggie Dence, flippantly doing it because Helen told her she was expecting another woman from England, not to mention that the girl is pregnant. Helen confronts her in the pub, where women are not allowed, and Maggie nastily snarls, "you ain't running this town yet!" as they go toe to toe.
Instead of defending her, Bryan lectures her and tells her to be polite. "This must be the most close-minded narrow fly-ridden place on Earth!" she rails, upset at him for not taking her side. "We don't need someone fresh out of England to tell us how to feel," he yells and she says, "I wouldn't dream of marrying you." "Suits me," he tells her and drives off. Naturally, the town knows instantly what happened, but sweet Maurie Fields comforts her, telling her that Maggie is just afraid of the effect of Helen's plans on her establishment. Helen pours out her heart in a letter to Gordon, which he reads as taxi knocks him down.
Anne Haddy, an old friend of Helen's, arrives to help, but she's doubtful when she sees the dusty town. She will help Helen get the crocodile shoe factory going, with a few local girls to man the machines.
As a piece offering, Bryan cleans the ranch and invites Helen to see the improvement. They both apologize, but there is news of trouble, as a rancher's horse has come back without the man. She's left alone, so she does some washing and putters around as a thunderstorm brews. One of the workers returns to fetch the rancher who was supposed to be back already and since no one else can drive the truck, Helen has to go with the medical supplies. She's no pro with a truck and stalls out after crossing a river. Bryan is his usual frosty self when Helen shows up in the truck. The trip back across the river kills the car, but does give us a shirtless scene for Bryan, who was in his absolute prime back in 1981. He started his career at roughly the same time as Mel Gibson and frankly, I would have had trouble choosing a winner in that sweepstakes.
Helen has to ride to the ranch to get word to the plane so it will wait and take the injured man to the hospital. Bryan is nervous packing her off ("keep your legs closed, didn't your mother ever tell you that?" he asks the novice horsewoman), but Helen is as cocky as ever.
However, she does complete a successful mission, able to get word to the proper people before collapsing and ending up in the hospital as a heroine. Bryan eventually makes his way to the hospital, where Helen tells him of course she'll stay and asks for a kiss, whether the nun on duty likes it or not. When she is healed, Helen is fussed over by all the women and children in town. Maurie and the men stay away and Maurie has to leave to meet the plane, which bears Gordon, now well enough to make the long journey to Australia to visit his pet client. Bryan is shocked to see Gordon. Maggie gets all flirty, introducing herself as "a widow" while fixing her hair. Helen is thrilled at Gordon's sudden appearance and he's lost no adoration for her. She assures him that she is happy, despite her letters sounding otherwise, and she asks him to give her away at her wedding. She asks for his approval of her plans and her decision to stay in Australia and puts aside his personal feelings to give her that approval.
All that's left is to get married. The whole town turns out and hears a truly heartfelt speech by Gordon wishing them a happy life. Telegrams are sent from England and Australia, even Malaya, from the village chief. Gordon watches the first dance with some sadness, but the newlyweds are smiling and that's what matters. One would never know their journey had taken them from the jungles of Malaya to the Australian Outback, from war to peace, from unknown love to the blossoming of it.
It's hard to think of a sweeter miniseries than "A Town Like Alice," like so many things Australian gritty and tough on the outside but tender on the inside. The relationship between Helen Morse, who is not exactly an ugly duckling, but is certainly no swan, and handsome could-get-anyone-he-wants Bryan Brown is very interesting. Shute's characters fall in love without realizing it, in only a few days of knowing each other, and only because of extreme circumstances. This is not a novel concept. In fact, many war stories have unlikely relationships born out of stressful times. But these two do not even know they are in love for a long time. They meet after six years of thinking about each other, but neither understands why. And then when they finally do get together, it's not a smooth time. They do not rush into each other's arms and live happily ever after.
Even more odd, and less likely to make a successful miniseries, is how small the story is. There are only a handful of characters and for a war story, there is no talk of politics or Allies, just a few Japanese soldiers trying to plunder their way through Asia. Its heartiness comes from the will of the leads, their internal passions. That shouldn't be enough to fill five hours, but it is. Fine performances and a lovingly soft touch by the director and writers does not blow it up to proportions beyond its confines. Had "A Town Like Alice" been made in 1981 in the United States, there would have been at least one battle scene inserted, a big cattle ranching scene, stars who were glamorous rather than realistic and heaven only knows what else. But the creators here were true to the story, true to the local color (in Malaya and Australia) and true to the characters, and produced a beautiful intimate miniseries. Intimate miniseries sounds oxymoronic, but "A Town Like Alice" proves it was possible.
For crying out loud, except for one huge exception, the miniseries is even nice to the Japanese soldiers! Try finding any sympathy for the Japanese in Herman Wouk.
Questions? Comments? Warm-up-by-the-fire sweet stories? I would love to hear at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Scarlett (1994)
You dare to ask "Scarlett who?"
There is only one, Scarlett O'Hara, and you know it!
But, unfortunately, she's not confined to "Gone With the Wind," where she belongs (let's not start on the 1970s musical adaptation that played Tokyo and London before attempting Broadway, but closed during its try-out). In the 1980s, a massive publicity stunt had Alexandra Ripley chosen to write the sequel to "Gone With the Wind," but when the book came out in 1991, it was met with critical dismissal (read the reviews, they are pretty damn funny). However, the book was a giant hit and therefore Hollywood came a-callin'.
To be honest, even though "Scarlett" is trash, and even though it's an offense to "Gone With the Wind," it should be perfect for a miniseries. Okay, it takes place after the Civil War, but we know how much the miniseries loved that period in general. It's a big opulent costume drama that needs lavish attention and lots of hours and it is chock-full of scenery-chewing parts for slumming actors (and this one has a limitless well of them). Plotwise, the whole thing lumbers between having none and lurching into serious overdrive, but it's not at all surprising that it was destined for a miniseries. In fact, "Scarlett" is really one of the absolute last gasps of the network format. There would be a few other entries in the 90s and beyond, but if one sees "Scarlett" as the end of it all, I can't blame you. By this point, there were apparently no good books left to film (except the classics, which were still being regularly filmed in the UK), few chilling crime tales left to tell. Everything has seemingly been done and had imitators. "Scarlett" was too popular a property not to film, but after that, it would be rare that the networks would indulge in the miniseries format, usually just for Stephen King or the occasional larger-than-life true story. Attention spans grew shorter and competition from cable too difficult for the networks to devote hours and hours to one expensive movie. Thus, cable took over and network television was left with shorter "movies of the week" until they too disappeared and cheap quick reality shows would dominate the network offerings.
It's not the fault of "Scarlett" that the network miniseries died out. It was on its last legs anyway, but something this rococo tripe surely couldn't have helped!
(I will use the fictional names of the characters here since many of them are more familiar than the actors playing them.)
The movie begins in Atlanta, 1873, the funeral of Melanie Wilkes. Scarlett (Joanne Whalley), showing up late and saying to herself, "soon this awful day will be over and I can go home to Tara," is not met with welcoming eyes by the mourners. Ashley (Stephen Collins) is overcome as they lower the coffin and Scarlett rushes to him, only to be chased off by his hissing family, so she goes to the grave over her daughter, buried nearby.
Uncle Henry Hamilton (George Grizzard) comes to visit a lonely drinking Scarlett, giving her a chance to complain about the behavior of those at the funeral. He's also there to offer advice, since "feelings are running high against you here in Atlanta" since it was town opinion that she was chasing after Ashley. He thinks perhaps she should go away for a while. "You got the tar and the feathers?" she yells, offended at the very thought of it. He's also kindly enough to wish her the best after the "sorrowful end" of her relationship with Rhett. "It was sorrowful, but whether it's the end or not remains to be seen," she scowls.
However, Scarlett follows Uncle Henry's advice and goes to visit her sister Suellen (Melissa Leo) and brother-in-law Will (Ray McKinnon). He warns her to be nice to her sister and she carps "fiddle-dee-dee...I'm not one to hold a grudge." When she gets to Tara, she's aghast at the ramshackle sight. Suellen, pregnant for the third time, is in no mood for Scarlett's fake friendliness and asks why she's even bothered coming. "To see Mammy, of course."
About 150 years old by this point, Mammy (Esther Rolle) is "ready to lay down her earthly burdens," dying in bed. Naturally, Scarlett can turn any moment around to herself. Mammy says Scarlett doesn't need to say she loves her because "I already know." Not good enough. Scarlett didn't tell Melanie or Rhett and they are now gone. Scarlett dashes off a telegram to Rhett begging him to come to Tara to say goodbye to Mammy.
Dinner is a high-octane row. Scarlett complains about the dreariness of the place, and though Suellen chides her for dressing so opulently, Scarlett has tried to send money, but Will refuses. There's even more good news. Their other sister sold her third of Tara to the Catholic Church when she became a nun. Suellen is still bitter that Scarlett married Frank Kennedy, but Scarlett sees it differently. "If you knew what man Frank Kennedy turned out to be, you'd be thanking me!" she yells. After Suellen gets a few good digs in (and reminds us of Scarlett's marital history), Scarlett yaps, "I guess [our sister] is the only saint in this family. I obviously do not qualify!" and storms out of the dining room.
As for Rhett Butler (Timothy Dalton, who was part of the onset of the miniseries in "Centennial"), he's doing card tricks over at Belle Watling's place as Belle (Ann-Margaret) looks on with a smile for her favorite. One of the girls asks Rhett to repeat a card trick and he purrs, "if I was right, I win." "What do you win?" she asks. "How many guesses do you need?" Belle replies. At least smooth-talking Rhett never changes. As soon as he gets the telegram, he rushes off to Tara.
After Suellen looks him up and down and gets in some smart-ass remarks about how well Rhett has done while the South languishes, Rhett says he had to come as soon as he saw Will's telegram about Mammy. Yup, Scarlett used Will's name to lure him there. Even Ripley's awful writing can't diminish two fictional legends (though she tried hard and the miniseries tries just as hard). Mammy asks Rhett to make sure she's buried in the red petticoat he bought her. She has a second favor to ask. "I want you to take care of Miss Scarlett. She needs carin' so bad," Mammy asks and Rhett promises. And with that, Mammy dies a perfect miniseries death, surrounded by lighting and music as her hand falls limp to the sheets.
Awkward! That's the only way to describe the reunion of Rhett and Scarlett, who poo-poos the lie and tells Rhett she's hoping for "civilized and courteous conversation," no matter how "estranged" they are. With euphemisms, Scarlett is a champ! That approach gets her nowhere, so she tries another: "do you think it would have been different if my child have survived?" Nope, he's still not biting. How about full-on guilt for lying to Mammy? "You are such a child, Scarlett," he finally snaps. DUH! Since she won't divorce him, he agrees to be around just enough for appearances. "The Yankees should have hung you when they had the chance," she howls throwing a glass at him.
If Scarlett is feeling sorry for herself, Ashley is doing even worse, but that's no shock. He's never been the strongest type and this time has crawled into a bottle. Scarlett gives him tough love. "It this want you Melanie to see when she looks down from heaven?" and then grabs his hand so they can have tea. A while later Uncle Henry comes to tell Scarlett that "you have one of the greatest business minds I've ever seen, despite the fact that you're a woman" because she sold off her lumber company to Ashley and it's tanking; Ashley is broke. The Panic of 1973 (not that Uncle Henry uses those terms) has hit and no one is building, so no one needs lumber. Scarlett does manage to ask if her money is safe and it is. She has a plan. "Who is the best builder in Atlanta?" "I guess you could do worse than Big Sam," he says. "Our Big Sam? Our foreman from Tara?" "Former foreman...have you ever heard of Lincoln?" Uncle Henry asks, exasperated.
Big Sam (Paul Winfield) "did prosper" and Scarlett offers him the chance to build 25 homes on vacant land, insisting Ashley supply the lumber and also remaining a silent partner. Scarlett O'Hara, a silent anything? Only because she ends a scene saying, "tomorrow is another day" is she at all recognizable in this sequence of events.
Despite Reconstruction laying heavy punishment on the South, Atlanta's giant masked ball is happening. "I gather you've come alone, but it's just not done in polite society," Aunt Pittypat says, nearly choking on her words. She has a good retort in that she "hasn't seen much polite society here this evening" and she's not alone because "God is always with me." That's even more vulgar than showing up alone to someone like Aunt Pittypat, but before we can get her reaction, Ashley comes to sweep her into a dance. A perfectly good line wasted by bad direction.
When Rhett shows up, things crackle a bit. He introduces himself to her as Blackbeard. "Bluebeard might be more like it," she drawls and asks if he recognized her. "I didn't need to find the most ostentatious gown in the room to find out who was under it," he says. I know, I know. They did this all back in "Gone With the Wind." But, the only reason this sequel exists is to remind us what once was (and apparently showing a rerun was, what, bad business?). Rhett agrees to go back to the house for the sake of propriety, but once inside, jumps up the red staircase to his room. Scarlett grabs a bottle of liquor to her bed.
The next morning, loyal Pansy (Rakie Ayola) brings her coffee and advice that she's "doing herself real harm" by drinking like she does. Pansy is suddenly the smartest person in Atlanta and could be its first member of AA. Scarlett decides to go visit Charleston.
To meet her at the train station are Aunt Eulalie (Elizabeth Wilson) and Aunt Pauline (Barbara Barrie). Unfortunately, they tell her that Rhett's mother Eleanor (Julie Harris) has insisted she stay there, rather than with her clucking aunts. I'm not sure which is worse. Scarlett is horrified. Mrs. Butler invites Scarlett to attend a meeting where they make crafts to raise money for the Widows and Orphans Fund. Tearing through the roads of Charleston and knocking out a few carriages doing it is Sally Brewton (Jean Smart), smoking a cigarette and barking at Scarlett, "who is that? A new recruit for our disgustingly worthy cause?"
Just as Sally is talking about growing up with Rhett, he arrives from Philadelphia with his mother's plundered tea set. Sally jumps into his arms and then he finds Scarlett. After pretending he's unhappy, he drags Scarlett to her room and into another argument. He says Charleston will see right through her attempts to pretend shes a lady and then rips apart her clothing trying to make it presentable. Scarlett reminds him she's descended from kings on the O'Hara side. "Is it just the one king or many?" he quips and bounds out of the house as she's yelling at him.
"I want to look like a lady," Scarlett tells her mother-in-law. Miss Eleanor has to attack that one very wisely, so she fumbles a few sentences and then agrees that perhaps Scarlett's "vitality" is too much for the bluestocking Charleston crowd. First lessons, "you have no need of rouge on your face...and some of your clothes are ill-considered." From there, it's off to the market where she encounters Sally and advises her on picking vegetables due to her experience in the fields (which, let's be honest, wasn't quite comprehensive). "We need women like that in Charleston," Sally tells Miss Eleanor.
As a first step, Sally goes to see Rhett at his plantation and talks up Scarlett as an "amazing woman." However, though still in love with her, he thinks of her as childish and ridiculous. Then Scarlett pays a visit where Rhett offers her $50,000 to agree to a divorce. Then, speaking like two auctioneers, they agree to terms: basically that they will stay together for the season, he will pretend to be a husband, she will keep his "wicked ways" from everyone, she will never return to Charleston after the year. She tries to seduce him, but it doesn't work. "A girl can't have everything," she says, happy enough for now that she's made a sound business deal. However, that night, Rhett goes to her room and spends a lot of time gazing at her lovingly.
If the action is going to switch to Charleston, and frankly, I don't understand why it has to as Atlanta is still replete with good fun and characters, so is Belle. In the indelicate words of one of her girls, "Belle's opening up a whorehouse." This is going to make even pretending faithfulness to Scarlett a bit trickier for Rhett.
Indeed they are. One of Charleston's grandest affairs is a race. Everyone is there. Oh, just in case you don't realize it's a race being done in the South, the helpful score does an oom-pah-pah version of "Camptown Races" as underscoring. Subtle, "Scarlett" is not. Rhett is quite comfortable introducing Belle to his mother and Scarlett and Scarlett, knowing exactly who she is, asks what brings to her Charleston. When Miss Eleanor hears it's business, she says she's "fascinated by ladies with business interests, so very unusual, isn't it." What kind of business? "I arrange social get togethers," she says, taking her leave with a zing meant for Scarlett's understanding. He wins. "He sure can ride," Lulie (Sara Crowe) chirps, which gets a knowing glance from Belle.
There is another big ball, although it takes place for only about four minutes, which is as long as any large set piece here is (those big events are where much usually takes place, but there isn't any plot so far in "Scarlett," so there is nothing to move forward). However, at the end, Rhett reminds Scarlett it's the "last" ball of the season and Scarlett, as always, says she doesn't want to discuss the deal between them that is now finished. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."
If you thought "Camptown Races" was lacking in finesse, how about when Rhett agrees to take Scarlett sailing...both still in their ball gown attire! Just as Scarlett says, "I've never had so much fun in my life...more of less," with a lecherous twang, we see storm clouds overhead. It's a gigantic storm that capsizes the boat. He somehow gets Scarlett to a seaside, begging his unconscious wife, "don't die on me." Naturally, he has to remove all of her clothing, and his, lighting a warm fire as well. That's a very nice set-up for when she opens her eyes, now isn't it?
"What happened, it was, uh, a celebration," Rhett tells Scarlett, but Scarlett isn't buying it. "It was your true heart. You love me, you love me, you love me!"
She then sleeps for 24 hours and wakes up to Miss Eleanor fumbling for any excuse not to tell her Rhett is gone, finally leaving Scarlett with a Dear Jane note. He admits he loves her, but that it was "ill-advised" and he can "never see her again." Ever. As in permanently.
Evenings of whiskey at the fireplace are finally relieved when Ashley comes to Charleston on a visit. He has some photographs to show her and she volunteers to go to his room to see them. He doesn't think that's wise, but a fiddle-dee-dee later, she's on her way up, with everyone, of course, wondering at her brazen behavior. The photos are of the houses he's been building with Big Sam. "I do wish you would come back to Atlanta, very much," he says before planting a kiss on her. She hurries out of the room.
Miss Eleanor is horrified to find out Scarlett was in a hotel room with a man! Scarlett says she was only up there 10 minutes and "I'd need more time than that to get my shoes unlaced, let alone my corsets!" Miss Eleanor is steadfast and tells Scarlett she's no longer welcome. "That suits me just fine because this is no longer a house in which I care to be welcome," she replies with a slam of the door. Slamming a second in her room, she dashes for a hidden bottle of booze stashes in a hat box. "What have I done to myself?" she asks looking in the mirror? "Is that cowardly disgusting creature Scarlett O'Hara? No, it is certainly not. Scarlett O'Hara does not drown in sorrows. Scarlett O'Hara does not hide and wait for what she wants. Scarlett O'Hara goes out and gets what she wants! Coward, coward, coward!" she says, hurling the bottle at the mirror. Not quite the "I will never go hungry again speech," but I guess we'll have to live with it. Maybe now, some plot will kick in.
As soon as Scarlett informs her aunts she will go to Savannah with them to visit her hated grandfather, she wakes up and vomits. Never will you see a happier vomiter. "We were always two pieces of a darling thing, my dear Rhett, now we are three" she says to herself. So ends the first part on a Scarlett-with-a-plan.
Scarlett's World Tour continues in Savannah for Grandfather Pierre Robillard's birthday. She is told to keep her "somewhat forthright manner" in check by her aunts, who have a habit of repeating each other's sentences. Scarlett finally has her meeting with her grandfather (John Gielgud, summing BIG TIME and sporting a ridiculous French accent). She tells him she's also in Savannah to attend to matters regarding Tara and to see her O'Hara relatives. "Ah, the peasants!" he says. "When my youngest and most cherished daughter wed herself Gerald O'Hara, there was no visible bottom to the pit of disastrous folly into which he flung both herself and the honorable name of Robillard," he spits out, trying to make that bit of melodrama seem even a tad Shakespearean.
Understandably, Scarlett dashes off to meet her O'Hara relatives, first running into Jamie (John Kavanaugh), who takes her home to his brood. These humble folks are a delight, and she's charmed. They are a big family, not wealthy, but very close and accepting. Not the Robillards, to be sure. They even have a big night of Irish dancing right there in their parlor. It's all going so well until Scarlett faints. She hasn't told anyone she's pregnant and therefore refuses all help from her Robillard aunts, who live to fuss over sick relatives. She gives "my darling little indisposition" a very long monologue, so thankfully it isn't fully grown in her to even have ears yet.
While Scarlett is telling Maureen (Anita Reeves) the story of her life, her priest cousin (and arms dealer) Father Colum O'Hara (Colm Meany) all the way from Ireland and there are more smiles. Back at the Robillard house, it's clouded in darkness and a formal meal for her grandfather's birthday. He's in a military outfit and grumpy as hell. She announces that she will stay in Savannah when her aunts go, and somehow convinces her grandfather to let her stay, though he says, "it's a matter of supreme indifference to me."
Scarlett drags Pansy to Sisters of Mercy, who own the third of Tara that she wants back. There she has to square off against the Mother Superior (Betsy Blair). She is told that only the Bishop can make the decision to swap Tara for cash (in the form of a donation, of course), but apparently the Mother Superior has a dog-eared copy of "Gone With the Wind" in her wimple because she asks Scarlett how she figures she can own Tara without Suellen's agreement. "I'll just have to think about that tomorrow," comes the predictable answer, the one that has ended way too many scenes already.
Father Colum has no "influence" with the Bishop, who has turned down Scarlett's request for Tara, but he does offer her another suggest, that he tell the foreman of the crew building the new church to slow down their work until the Bishop comes around. "That's blackmail!" Scarlett jumps, but she's all for it. "Family, it's a grand thing," Jamie toasts.
In the "if it's bad, it's probably worse" sweepstakes, Scarlett comes up against a cropper. Grandfather Robillard offers her his entire fortune if she stays in Savannah to take care of him and his "every comfort." Considering he hauled her out of bed to tell the cook his breakfast wasn't hot enough, that could be a big problem. However, he's 94, so maybe it won't be a long problem. Initially, she turns it down, though $500K is worth reconsidering, but she says no. "How dare you turn up your Papist peasant nose at the opportunity to be mistress of this great house and attendant to its master!" he says, going into spasms of alliteration. Cue the divorce papers from Rhett and another swooning faint from Scarlett.
It's here that Ripley's story becomes so unbelievable (I couldn't resist) and so off-track, that it can never actually return. Refusing to let Rhett know she's pregnant, Scarlett decides in an instant to go to...IRELAND! Margaret Mitchell infused every scene, every chapter, every line of "Gone With the Wind" with old-style Southern demeanor. The original novel is about those people at that time in history and how they reacted to their rather small world being caught up in larger developments. However, at no time did any of them even mention something as far off as Boston, let alone Ireland! So, sending the story there makes as little sense as sending it to Shanghai or Cairo, except for the fact that there will be more O'Hara relatives wandering about. Gone is Mitchell's world.
"I never thought I'd live to see another place as gorgeous as Georgia, before the war across," she tells Colum as they ride to the kin. Along the way, they come across a hut being torn down because an English landlord has not been paid his rent. Welcome to another Civil War, Scarlett, but this one won't make a lick of sense to you if the one you lived through still hasn't fully seeped in.
It will, because we have dastardly Lord Richard Fenton to make it so. He's the English brute behind the evictions, and he's so depraved, that he uses his Irish peasant girls for sexual gratification too evil to even be seen in a book he has.
After Scarlett makes him promise to go along with her story of being a widow, so it won't look bad when the baby comes (FYI, in the book "Gone With the Wind," Scarlett has a few children, not just Bonnie, so it would be interesting to know where Ripley placed them, unless, of course, she never bothered to read the book and went straight to the movie), Colum shows her "the first Tara," not just a millennium-old pile of rocks set amidst the green Irish landscape. "This was Tara!" he says, with the music kicking in, though this Tara's theme song is pretty wan. Scarlett, suddenly able to root herself in something other than, well, herself, picks up a pile of dirt and sticks it in a little satin bag.
In case you are wondering what happened to Rhett, he's been squiring Miss Anne Hampton (Annabeth Gish) around, and only long into a blossoming courtship, does she reveal she's the one who saw Scarlett go into the hotel room with Ashley. Don't be fooled by Anne's delicacy. "Weren't you perfectly furious when you heard..." Rhett admits Scarlett is not conventional and neither is he. "But she's a woman," Anne insists. "So she is," Rhett says with a broad smile. This leads to a discussion of a woman's "prerogative" and Rhett eventually coming to her room at night. The Rhett Butler we know would not be at all attracted to this simple virgin.
Scarlett goes to visit an abandoned castle that is seen as cursed by the locals when Lord Richard arrives. Guessing she's from the southern part of America, he offers his condolences on the war. "We lost the war, sir, but we were not vanquished," Scarlett insists, throwing his words back at him. He does not tell her he owns the land. He tells her the story of the house, built by an Englishman who helped peasants to get to America, though they all drowned on the way, the Englishman was killed and Irishmen followed in retribution. Only then does he reveal himself to be the castle's owner.
The O'Haras are aghast at Scarlett "consorting" with Lord Fenton, but in typical Scarlett fashion, she says, she wants nothing to do with "politics." She launches into a tirade that covers both Ft. Sumter and General Lee "and I'll have no more!" Her uncle has a different take on it, calling it "human suffering." Suffocated, she decides to move to another simple shack, and now the atypical Scarlett returns, seemingly thrilled with the modest, okay, spare, okay, non-existent, furnishings.
Scarlett buys Ballyhara and its land. A town drunk lets everyone know, saying there is work for all getting it back in shape. "Here's to Scarlett O'Hara" they cheer as hoisting their pints in a pub. Father Colum and his followers have decided she can help their cause. The O'Haras are forced from their home until Scarlett pays the back rent and pulls down the apparatus they were about to use to knock it down. Before departing for America, Colum tells Scarlett the Bishop in Savannah is ready to rethink his position on Tara. He also hires Mrs. Fitzpatrick (Rosaleen Linehan) as housekeeper, who refers to her as "The O'Hara," the new head of the O'Hara family "and all its branches." Oh, for crying out loud! Scarlett has trouble making it to the head of the staircase, let alone the family. Puffed up by this news, she decides to take Mrs. Fitzpatrick to the pub for lunch, where women are a rare thing indeed. They hoot for her as if Liza walked into a gay bar.
Colum warns Scarlett about Halloween and sadistic Lord Fenton (who loves beating up his servant girls) seems to be enchanted by Scarlett, whom he offers to take to Dublin. On rainy All Hallow's Eve, Colum arrives with a letter from Charleston that Rhett has married Anne (he decided he had to after sleeping with her, though Belle told him it would ruin his reputation) and the horror of what she sees brings on labor. Colum fetches the O'Hara women to help with the birth and they strap her to the kitchen table for a c-section, and a damn painful one. On that note, we end the second part.
A year later, Scarlett is celebrating her daughter's first birthday, though we're reminded by Mrs. Fitzpatrick and others that Scarlett almost died giving birth. Scarlett is introduced to Mary Boyle (Tina Kellegher), the very servant girl Lord Fenton has been beating and burning and whatnot. As for Rhett, she tells Colum, "I'll let him know when I'm ready," about the baby. Rhett is back home to celebrate his first anniversary to Anne. He's decided to take Anne to England and Ireland to buy horses.
Lord Fenton is, in Scarlett's words, "making advances" as he's played suitor from far off way too long. She is coy, but when he makes mention of the "State Ball," you know she'll go. Scarlett never misses a ball, especially when the "Viceroy and his missus" will be there. The Irish relatives and gun club pals are not happy at this budding relationship. Colum finally tells Scarlett about the rebels and ties it to the South after the Civil War to get her to understand. He shows her the gun collection and then the softer side of the rebellion, the education and help to the poor. It's even against the law to learn Irish. "I might be better off if I didn't understand a word of what you are saying," Scarlett says cynically.
Now, back to the real Scarlett, the one who says "fiddle-dee-dee," she goes to an Irish horse show, where Colum assumes she'll be swindled by the horse traders. One is selling a three-year old, but Scarlett takes one look inside it's mouth and declares, "I've got a grandfather younger than that!"
Bing bang boom. "Scarlett, you look like you've seen a ghost," Colum says when...wait for it...Scarlett sees...wait for it (as if you didn't know it was coming)...Rhett Butler at the very same obscure Irish horse sale! "I have a seen a ghost, and one of my own making," she replies. Unafraid, Scarlett walks right over to him. She asks if his wife is there and he says "she's not generally fond of horses," to which Scarlett quips, "I hope that's her only failing." He tells Scarlett he wants a horse that will win the Kentucky Derby, "a new race" that they hope to be a big success. Rhett introduces her to Sir John Morland (Brian Bedford) who invites her to a fox hunt. Rhett is a bit annoyed when she says she's "widowed." She begs him to go through with the lie and he says, "it won't be easy pretending I'm a corpse." He even gets to Anne to agree to go along with it at the Morland fox hunt.
Lady Morland (Delena Kidd) is the very personification of the English upper crust, down to the accent and the nose way high in the air. Scarlett asks what happens if the fox gets away, a question that is anathema to her, so she turns away. Trying to outrun Rhett, Scarlett is knocked from her horse by a branch (I thought for sure she would pull an Auntie Mame and catch the fox), only to wake up with Anne sitting by her side. This is an uncomfortable reunion. Furthermore, Scarlett is humiliated, as "I haven't been thrown from a horse since I was 10 years old." Scarlett is at his sugary nastiest best, and sweet Anne is no match for her. And when Anne announces she's pregnant, Scarlett is so upset the scene has to fade out because there are no words (or, apparently, good writers to make them up).
That was a nice bit of actual Scarlett O'Hara, but back in Ripley's story, Scarlett is going to Dublin with Lord Fenton, telling Colum that it's just for fun and so what if he's English? Hmmm, the Southern Belle we all knew would have played sick rather than have to attend a beloved ball with a Yankee, so her inability to care what her Irish kinfolk think is a bit out of character. However, she corrects it by giving Colum a donation for the rebels, but for the good part, not the killing part. And it's a lot of money. "I have a tendency to overdo things," she admits.
Another ball, but this is the grandest yet, with servants in powdered wigs and ladies in tiaras. Scarlett looks ravishing in a fetching in a dress completely different from the others, to stand out, and is introduced as "Madam The O'Hara from Ballyhara." "I feel like Cinderella," Scarlett says innocently, before she and Lord Fenton turn it into a ghastly series of puns that knocks all the stuffing out of the legend.
Rhett sniffs her out in her hotel and with the baby there, the jig would be up. The last time they were together, she left without saying goodbye, and she nervously says she had to, since she "hadn't been thrown..." yeah, yeah, since she was 10. We've heard. Mrs. Fitzpatrick brings the baby down, so Scarlett has to hustle Rhett into the hotel garden. Scarlett admits she's still in love with him, and he's terrible patronizing when he puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "I'm sorry." His inability to admit he's still in love with her causes her grief and she runs off.
The mantle of cheesy flattery is taken over by Lord Fenton, who has an annoying habit of merely repeating what Scarlett says and adding a question mark. "In the spirit of candor," he says, to start off a long line about he's in love with her. He doesn't understand her "reticence." "It's not you I don't care for, it's another man that I love," Scarlett says honestly. "Will you pine the rest of your days for a dead man?" Lord Fenton asks. "I want to live!" Scarlett says with Lord Fenton pawing at her and then they go full out sexually. "You've made me an extremely happy man this evening," Lord Fenton says with typical English reserve. Mrs. Fitzpatrick comes to deliver a telegram to Scarlett and Lord Fenton purposely comes out of the bedroom. Since Mrs. Fitzpatrick is a part of the rebel group, that's not good. Plus, Scarlett is furious with him. "As your servant," Lord Fenton says, Mrs. Fitzpatrick has to keep it quiet, he says, though he also says, "we're all sophisticated" and that no one will think anything of their liaison. He's such a cad, she slaps him, and that he doesn't take well (though no doubt will get off on it later on).
The telegram? When Scarlett gets around to it, it's from Uncle Henry to say that Suellen is ill and wants to see her. Is Scarlett's great Irish adventure over? No, of course not. She's leaving her daughter behind. "They're lovers," Mrs. Fitzpatrick says to Colum as Scarlett leaves, fearful that Scarlett will spill the rebel secrets to her new boyfriend.
It's sassy fighting Scarlett who arrives back in Atlanta. Will tells her Suellen got sick having a baby, a boy. "So she could have died just because you wanted a boy?" Scarlett asks, not ten seconds off the train. Suellen is very sick when Scarlett gets to the hospital. "You don't think I've come halfway around the world to watch you kick the bucket do you?" Scarlett asks when Suellen says she might live. Was that phrase even around in the 1970s and would Scarlett have uttered it?
Pansy is waiting for Scarlett when she arrives home at her Atlanta house, having worked for India and Ashley and even Aunt Pittypat (as a way, no doubt, to remind us they are all still alive and well). Scarlett spends the night at the hospital with Suellen, whom sickness has turned very sweet. If the scene doesn't remind you of Scarlett tending to sick Melanie, then the writers have done an even lousier job than I first suspected. "I'd say it was time we buried the hatchet," Scarlett says. "You mean other than inside each other?" Suellen jokes, which is very un-Melanie, to be sure.
Unfortunately, literature's most boring character outside of Melville's whale, Ashley Wilkes, is indeed still alive. He first thanks Scarlett for saving his company and he wants her to wipe away all reminders of Rhett as "he was never worthy of you," but Scarlett refuses to say why until Ashley takes her in his arms. Then it's off to Uncle Henry to divest herself of all Atlanta assets (except for Tara, of course), but Uncle Henry warns her about the bad state of the market. "People are moving down not up," he tells her about her big house, though the small houses she bought with Big Sam and Ashley are worth a fortune. "I guess the past has been neatly and finally put behind us," Ashley says, unable to get Scarlett to stay in Atlanta. "Almost," Scarlett says. There are two hours left, nothing is finished.
Suellen is finally well enough to go back to Tara, which has never looked so shabby. "Now there's just the one piece of business for me to attend to, that'd be Tara," she tells Suellen and Will. "I'm giving it away," she says. Will and Suellen both panic. "To who?" "To Suellen." Awwwwwww, Scarlett is learning. She's maturing. A little. Maybe. She does say one very odd thing: "maybe one day you'll pass it along to your son and another Gerald O'Hara will be master of Tara again." Um, he is Gerald Benton, Suellen's son. Nobody corrects her. "The hatchet is buried," Scarlett says to Suellen and then takes the dirt from Ireland to her father's grave, "from the first Tara, pa, to the last."
Now it's back to Ireland, her daughter and a heavily glowering Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whose stern countenance makes her a wannabe Mrs. Danvers. As she reads a letter from Lord Fenton, he's busy sharpening a razor and waiting to beat up a girl again. "What sort of unspeakable devil could have done what you've just done?" she says afterward, still tied to the bed. Oh, and she's pregnant.
Colum is acting strangely around Scarlett, why? "I'm smitten," he says, though we've known since he started sniffing one of her handkerchiefs. She's shocked, but he tells her to leave.
Rhett? Rhett who? Oh, that boring guy who keeps popping up (no, not Ashley, the other boring guy)? Training a horse late one night, he has visions. Anne wakes up and waits for him on the steps. "You haven't been the same since we came back" from Ireland, and she thinks he is thinking only of Scarlett. "Maybe you've only needed spectacles to see me," she wines! Apparently he speaks her name when he's sleeping.
Lord Fenton is welcomed back to Ballyhara with open arms and the staff off for the night. Hell, they can't even get fully up the staircase before they are all over each other. However, she doesn't want Colum to act strangely around her and refuse him as a friend. "In this instance, your beauty is only surpassed by your wisdom," he says, which she fiddle-dee-dees and then moves on to discuss her attraction to Lord Fenton.
Colum is eating when Mary comes to him with her woes. He hurries off to Lord Fenton to make sure he provides the money to send Mary away, but Lord Fenton refuses, not afraid of Colum's religious rantings. However, Colum mentions Scarlett, but Lord Fenton remains calm and pulls a gun. Colum says he's not frightened by it, not until Lord Fenton puts a hole in his chest and kills him! The only thing this villain lacks is a mustache to twirl. He's a truly horrid figure, and with no shame. That's way out of Scarlett's league. She is fine with selfish people, but not cold-blooded killers! Lord Fenton drops Colum in a ditch to end the third chapter.
So, the final portion of the story starts with Father Colum's funeral. Perhaps guilty, maybe a lot ashamed, Mary wants to throw herself off a cliff, but stops short. It only gets more macabre as Lord Fenton waits a few yards away for Scarlett to drop flowers at Colum's grave. "He must have been rather a fine fellow to have taken your heart. I wish I would have known him," the cad has the nerve to say before Scarlett reveals that he was a rebel and "they think that's what got him killed." Lord Fenton decides she must go away with him to England. That's gonna make her REAL popular in the village. Mary wants Scarlett to take her, because "I cannot remain in Ireland" due to her pregnancy. Talk about your ironies, eh? Lord Fenton taking Scarlett taking Mary.
Yellow fever has come to Charleston. Even Anne comes down with it and though Rhett and Miss Eleanor seem worried, I don't think anyone will miss her too terribly much if they lose her, even though she never bear Rhett a child (they never quite say what happened, though Anne seems to have been pregnant while a year or so of time elapsed with the other characters). Her funeral does give Sally a chance to pop by, even if she has no lines.
Dripping with furs, Scarlett takes her daughter and Mary to England, where she gets a huge house, quipping "nothing's too good for the Irish!" Both Mary and Lord Fenton have to do some quick acting when they meet in Scarlett's parlor during tea. "Your Samaritan inclination seems to be flourishing," a nervous Lord Fenton tells her, as Scarlett promises him Mary's situation will get worse before it gets better. Lord Fenton traps Mary in the drawing room, where he slaps her silly and threatens her.
Old old money doesn't take too well to Scarlett. Lady Fenton (British acting legend Dorothy Tutin) and her daughter, look way down on Scarlett, noting that, "you could hardly be expected to know this, but only the queen is referred to as ma'am." The whole stuffy dinner crowd doesn't have to say "vulgar" for us to know what they are thinking. "It was Ireland that killed my husband," Lady Fenton snaps after Scarlett says how much she loves it. Scarlett listens to a bunch of Irish knocks for a while, but she isn't our Scarlett O'Hara for nothing (and thankfully the story remembers it). She gives it right back to everyone when they refer to the rebels, citing her cousin Colum as a shining example (not knowing the murderer is sitting next to her). "Really, Scarlett, there is no evidence to substantiate that accusation," is all Lord Fenton can say.
Escaping without too many scratches, Scarlett has Lord Fenton over for some bubbly. He comments that never before has he been served champagne in a kitchen by a lady. "Have a seat then," she retorts. Scarlett tries to send him off, citing exhaustion, but he pushes it and grabs her, rushing out in a huff as he destroys the champagne set. Then she has an erotic dream that starts with her and Ashley but turns into an erotic dream about her and Lord Fenton in which he gets violent. It's odd for Scarlett and even odder for the miniseries, which was always a very prudish and sex-free genre even when it thought it was being otherwise.
Scarlett bumps into Morland at the theater and then gets a letter from Sally, which makes three thoughts of Rhett within minutes. The letter bears the news of Anne's death. Speaking of Sally, she pops by Rhett's to "see if you've grown a beard and hair like a bona fide hermit instead of just acting like one." Ah, good old Sally, we've missed her wit, especially since she's the only one in the story with any to spare! Sally urges Rhett to get away from home, "just close your eyes, grit your teeth and jump the fence, damn it! Hell, it ain't that high," she commands.
Lord Fenton is sent packing by Scarlett, though he says, "I'm unaccustomed to being discarded like an old shoe," though no doubt he would find a use for the leather and nails in one. "I'm trying to be a lady about it. I hope you'll be a gentleman," she says, but he laughs, "a lady, you?" He's not given to fond farewells. He tries to force himself on her, so she bites his lip, he knocks her down, she screams, the butler hears, but he gags her so no other noises can be heard and tells him all about Mary. "You filthy disgusting son-of-a-bitch," she howls, as her butler stands stupefied on the stairs, "if you ever come near me again I'll kill you!" However, he follows her upstairs and confesses to killing Colum as well while undressing. She tries to hit him with a candlestick, and no one stops him as he rips off her clothes and slaps her around. The servants keep to themselves and Mary hides in her room, not venturing out until the silents have died down and Fenton is smoking a cigarette. Scarlett starts shouting and slapping again, but Lord Fenton knocks her to the ground and rolls over to sleep.
As every clock in the house chimes midnight (literally, every clock), Scarlett wakes up to discover a knife stuck in Lord Fenton. Even Scarlett assumes she did it and is led off, in her ripped gown and bruises by the police. Mary has disappeared when the maid goes to fetch her. If we hadn't hit ridiculous heights so often in this ludicrous plot, we've just hit perhaps the most ridiculous. We did this all in "Gone With the Wind," another self-defense killing, though not of a Lord, I suppose.
"A murderer? That enchanting creature? Ridiculous," says Morland, echoing my sentiments. He's only puzzled because her last name is Butler.
Sally, brandishing her trademark cigarette, finds Rhett packing after receiving a telegram from Morland. Lord Morland visits Scarlett in prison to find out her story. She confesses to lying about her marital status, but does not remember killing Lord Fenton, only being "violated." "I'm not more capable of killing someone...at least not Richard," she says, also admitting to once before killing, though that was a "Yankee soldier about to rape me." Lord Morland wants to know if anyone else knows about this killing, as it would be very bad for her case.
Rhett and Sally race to England and Rhett vows whatever money it takes for a good lawyer, the best being Lord Morland, who isn't sure he wants the case. Rhett goes to see Scarlett in the dreary prison. "I know you didn't do it, though I wouldn't put it past you," he says, and the familiar name-calling starts up again. He's not particularly helpful, though she tells him of pregnant Mary having disappeared. He assures her, "no one is going to hang you." It's then she picks to tell him she has a child...and it's his! How very daytime soap opera of her. He grabs her in anger with a familiar, "damn you, Scarlett!" He wants to get the kid and take her away, but Sally convinces him otherwise. "Her cup's runneth over with troubles, are you going to drown her in the bargain?" she asks.
Scarlett doesn't help herself any being questioned by Morland and Rhett, saying that any woman would have "shot him on the spot" upon learning of what Lord Fenton did to Mary. Bad choice of words and sentiment. Sally is far more compassionate, though she has a scary tendency to sing "Dixie" when nervous.
Naturally, there is a trial, and I have to think it's because Ripley wasn't smart enough to think outside of conventional soapy plot twists like Margaret Mitchell had (she was soapy, but never conventional). Mary shows up at the trial and bolts as soon as Morland recognizes her (she was at the theater with Scarlett). Rhett catches her and begs her help. "We know someone else did it, we just don't know who. There's a good chance Scarlett will hang," he pleads, but Mary runs out of the moving carriage and jumps into the Thames, with Rhett diving after her! They both live, but the doctor won't let her see Mary.
The trial gets worse when the maid testifies that she knew Scarlett and Lord Fenton were having an affair, because she saw him come out of the bedroom "in the middle of the day." Rhett is next to testify, having to admit that Scarlett lied about the baby. The barrister calls that an "extreme reaction," though Morland objects. Rhett laughs as he is questioned about Scarlett's lies because that's the Scarlett he's always known. Rhett is asked if he's sure he's the father of the child, and he says "none whatsoever." Has anyone else watching considered Ashley? After all, he was seen going into that hotel room alone with her and the timing would be perfect. Then again, it's hard to picture Ashley actually having sex and siring a child, so maybe that's why no one else has tossed in that little wrench of a plot turn.
Mary wakes up in the hospital, but they were unable to save the baby. Rhett brings Scarlett a picnic lunch in prison and she jokes, gallows humor at its best, about her "bad character," but Rhett says she only makes decisions without thinking about what will happen tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow, her favorite time of life. He then pays Mary a visit, trying every trick to get her to snap out of her stupor, or perhaps fake stupor.
Yes, it can get worse for Scarlett. Lord Fenton's sister happily confesses that he told her Scarlett has murdered the Yankee soldier. Mary steals a coat and escapes from the hospital into the twisted London streets. Somehow, she finds her way to church in the very outfit she had last been seen wearing. Where did she get that? She left the hospital in a nightgown.
Worse still. The butler testifies of Scarlett's threat to kill Lord Fenton and then seeing her with the knife in her hand. Then it's finally Scarlett's turn to take the stand. Mary is there, but no one seems to recognize her. She testifies that she was angry enough to hit Lord Fenton, but not to kill him. She's then asked about killing the soldier, which she barely remembers, and is cloudy on this one because she hit her head. Her whole time on the stand is absolutely insane, the worst kind of trial writing, with appropriately sniveling lawyers twisting around words and whatnot. Naturally, Scarlett gets to speech it up a bit, tears and all, with Joanne Whalley going for the gold.
As expected, Scarlett is found guilty and she is sentenced to hang. And then Mary finally pops up to tell the truth. Our Paint-by-Numbers session has finally come full circle, as we knew it would. It just took FOREVER to get there. "I done it for all the evil that was in him," she cries after describing it all. "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," Scarlett tells her on the way out of prison, leaving Mary to rot. She's going back to Ireland, "and this time my husband's coming with me."
Off to Ireland they go and Rhett gets to see his daughter, finally. Such a neat and tidy parcel "Scarlett" has become, eh? "Say hello to your daddy, darlin'," Scarlett drawls once the kid wakes up. "Well you do now," Rhett declares. Rhett and Scarlett toast by the fire, with Rhett saying, "let's hope she has her mother's brass and her father's brains." She then takes him to her bed, "the world's largest," she says, where she promises he won't even know she's there. And they remain on opposite sides of the bed.
There is a jolly festival with more Irish dancing, as you would expect to celebrate the freedom of The O'Hara. An O'Hara cousin tells Rhett how lucky he is "to have an angel for a daughter and a saint for a wife," which Rhett doubts before joining the dance. Mrs. Fitzpatrick thinks he's "criminal handsome" and they laugh merrily about lovely possibilities. Hell, Rhett even reads to the kid. Scarlett still wants to know "about you and me...and you and me and her." Can he love her again? He's still bitter about being left for dead. "It wasn't a question about loving you, but living with you," he says, causing her to rattle off and to shut up, he grabs her, bends her over and kisses her big time. "Heaven help the man who ever loves me," she murmurs. "Heaven help me," he says and he once again carries her up the stairs, which would be an apt ending, except that they have to delight in afterglow for a while.
Even then it isn't over. Scarlett and Rhett go walking in the mountains with their daughter and she comments on "how nice" they have been to each other all week. "You've changed, Scarlett," he says and she promises, "I'll do better this time." Where will they live? He's in Charleston and she's in Ireland. "We belong together Scarlett. The world is where we belong. All of it. We can go anywhere. As long as we're together, the world will belong to us."
"That's a lot of property," she notes, causing him to laugh as they walk through the remains of the first Tara.
There are many problems with "Scarlett" but most of them are with the book, simply compounded by the miniseries. As I said earlier, there was an inevitability to "Scarlett" being turned into a miniseries and certainly so many were eager for a follow-up to the beloved "Gone With the Wind." But, like most sequels, the sequel is never the equal. The main fault lies with Alexandra Ripley and her inane plot. Sending Scarlett to Ireland? Sorry, but that's so untrue to the characters. The characters Margaret Mitchell created were full-blooded Southerners, aware of only their world and what the Civil War did to it. What in tarnation is Scarlett O'Hara doing in Ireland, getting mixed up in Irish-English politics, with a murderous English lord and a dank prison cell? Scarlett's world extended no further than the Georgia border because she was so delightfully self-centered on herself and her life at Tara.
Now, the portion of the story that follows Scarlett to Charleston is fine. It stays Southern, though lacks any hint of Reconstruction Era poverty since everyone she knows (except her sister) is wealthy. If Ripley's story lacks any of the time's reality (and almost no plot), it at least has the characters. But, once Scarlett goes off to Ireland, the whole story jumps the tracks and can never return. I know, in calling it "Scarlett," Ripley wanted to make sure we understood that this is the continuation of Scarlett O'Hara, not Scarlett and Rhett and Melanie and Ashley and Aunt Pittypat. In fact, Melanie is the luckiest one, because she has a reason for disappearing from the story (death), while the others have to suffer being merely shoved aside for new and completely uninteresting characters.
Because the Civil War is not the driving force behind the miniseries, it lacks the tension that "North and South" or "Beulah Land" or "The Blue and The Gray" have. Under their stories, silly or not, is the imposing war and what it will do to the well-ordered lives of the main characters. There is no war here, and frankly, these people are not exciting enough when not faced with catastrophe. They are simply ordinary, which is why I guess Ripley found it so easy to dispense with them. Their replacements, unfortunately are no better (it's probably a good time to mention that the Mitchell estate had another sequel written, in the hopes that we would forget "Scarlett"), and Irish politics of the late 18th Century are not enough to grab an American audience for six hours.
However, that didn't stop "Scarlett" from getting made, even as late as 1994, when the medium was already all-but-obsolete. Is there anything left in the miniseries gas tank to get this by? Yes, actually. A fortune was spent on it. It looks every bit as expensive and thorough as its cousins from the previous decade. It feels big and epic, no doubt about it. We have all of those slummers who didn't say no to being cast. John Gielgud and Julie Harris and Elizabeth Wilson and Barbara Barrie and Ann-Margaret (much better used in the same period's "Queen") and Jean Smart all pop by long enough to heavily populate the guest star list and add their wattage. But, ultimately, the fate of this story rests with the people we have known and loved since "Gone With the Wind."
Now, forgive me for saying this, but I don't think "Gone With the Wind" is a masterpiece, book or movie (though the movie is an improvement on the book). It's a florid soap opera, very decorous, but a soap opera nonetheless. There are dozens of historical novels that tell virtually the same story, but Mitchell's characters were so unique, so gripping, especially Scarlett and Rhett. Faced with the Civil War, they were able to have personalities bigger than life, bigger than most of the real-life people who have become legends of the time. Hell, some even think they were real!
Joanne Whalley is divine as Scarlett. I suppose it was too much to find an American actress to play Scarlett yet again, but certainly there was no casting war over the miniseries, and the right choice was made (Leslie Ann Warren had already played Scarlett, in the Broadway-bound flop and done similar work in "Beulah Land," Leslie-Anne Down had already done "North and South" and though Ann-Margaret might have done a grand job in her youth, let's leave her with Belle). Whalley throws herself into the part every bit as vigorously as Vivien Leigh, and has more than twice the amount to do scene-for-scene, but this Scarlett is made to go through so many idiotic twists that it's hard to create a vibrant character, though Whalley comes as close as I can imagine anyone doing. The same cannot be said for Timothy Dalton's Rhett Butler, as he just pins a fake smile on himself and hopes to get away with it like Clark Gable did. Dalton is a far better actor than Gable, and usually wonderfully magnetic, but he knows his part sucks here and there's no reason to put much effort into it. Let's not even talk about Stephen Collins' Ashley. Right actor, wrong part, not his fault. Fun juicy characters like Belle and Mammy are dispensed with awfully quickly, while new ones with potential like Sally are left as window dressing. For crying out loud, they try to pass Pansy off as Prissy, but her learning to read is not something Prissy would have EVER considered!
You won't see anyone releasing "Scarlett" in a box set with "Gone With the Wind." I'm sure fans of the latter have already forgotten the former even existed, but it's there, both in black and white on the and full color on the screen. Perhaps the last truly expansive miniseries attempted by a network, "Scarlett" emerges as a showy folly, not really because of anything Hollywood did to it, but what a hack writer did before Hollywood even got there. The ghosts of Margaret Mitchell and 1939 remain undisturbed, not to worry.
Questions? Comments? Want to laugh about "Scarlett?" Drop me a line at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
There is only one, Scarlett O'Hara, and you know it!
But, unfortunately, she's not confined to "Gone With the Wind," where she belongs (let's not start on the 1970s musical adaptation that played Tokyo and London before attempting Broadway, but closed during its try-out). In the 1980s, a massive publicity stunt had Alexandra Ripley chosen to write the sequel to "Gone With the Wind," but when the book came out in 1991, it was met with critical dismissal (read the reviews, they are pretty damn funny). However, the book was a giant hit and therefore Hollywood came a-callin'.
To be honest, even though "Scarlett" is trash, and even though it's an offense to "Gone With the Wind," it should be perfect for a miniseries. Okay, it takes place after the Civil War, but we know how much the miniseries loved that period in general. It's a big opulent costume drama that needs lavish attention and lots of hours and it is chock-full of scenery-chewing parts for slumming actors (and this one has a limitless well of them). Plotwise, the whole thing lumbers between having none and lurching into serious overdrive, but it's not at all surprising that it was destined for a miniseries. In fact, "Scarlett" is really one of the absolute last gasps of the network format. There would be a few other entries in the 90s and beyond, but if one sees "Scarlett" as the end of it all, I can't blame you. By this point, there were apparently no good books left to film (except the classics, which were still being regularly filmed in the UK), few chilling crime tales left to tell. Everything has seemingly been done and had imitators. "Scarlett" was too popular a property not to film, but after that, it would be rare that the networks would indulge in the miniseries format, usually just for Stephen King or the occasional larger-than-life true story. Attention spans grew shorter and competition from cable too difficult for the networks to devote hours and hours to one expensive movie. Thus, cable took over and network television was left with shorter "movies of the week" until they too disappeared and cheap quick reality shows would dominate the network offerings.
It's not the fault of "Scarlett" that the network miniseries died out. It was on its last legs anyway, but something this rococo tripe surely couldn't have helped!
(I will use the fictional names of the characters here since many of them are more familiar than the actors playing them.)
The movie begins in Atlanta, 1873, the funeral of Melanie Wilkes. Scarlett (Joanne Whalley), showing up late and saying to herself, "soon this awful day will be over and I can go home to Tara," is not met with welcoming eyes by the mourners. Ashley (Stephen Collins) is overcome as they lower the coffin and Scarlett rushes to him, only to be chased off by his hissing family, so she goes to the grave over her daughter, buried nearby.
Uncle Henry Hamilton (George Grizzard) comes to visit a lonely drinking Scarlett, giving her a chance to complain about the behavior of those at the funeral. He's also there to offer advice, since "feelings are running high against you here in Atlanta" since it was town opinion that she was chasing after Ashley. He thinks perhaps she should go away for a while. "You got the tar and the feathers?" she yells, offended at the very thought of it. He's also kindly enough to wish her the best after the "sorrowful end" of her relationship with Rhett. "It was sorrowful, but whether it's the end or not remains to be seen," she scowls.
However, Scarlett follows Uncle Henry's advice and goes to visit her sister Suellen (Melissa Leo) and brother-in-law Will (Ray McKinnon). He warns her to be nice to her sister and she carps "fiddle-dee-dee...I'm not one to hold a grudge." When she gets to Tara, she's aghast at the ramshackle sight. Suellen, pregnant for the third time, is in no mood for Scarlett's fake friendliness and asks why she's even bothered coming. "To see Mammy, of course."
About 150 years old by this point, Mammy (Esther Rolle) is "ready to lay down her earthly burdens," dying in bed. Naturally, Scarlett can turn any moment around to herself. Mammy says Scarlett doesn't need to say she loves her because "I already know." Not good enough. Scarlett didn't tell Melanie or Rhett and they are now gone. Scarlett dashes off a telegram to Rhett begging him to come to Tara to say goodbye to Mammy.
Dinner is a high-octane row. Scarlett complains about the dreariness of the place, and though Suellen chides her for dressing so opulently, Scarlett has tried to send money, but Will refuses. There's even more good news. Their other sister sold her third of Tara to the Catholic Church when she became a nun. Suellen is still bitter that Scarlett married Frank Kennedy, but Scarlett sees it differently. "If you knew what man Frank Kennedy turned out to be, you'd be thanking me!" she yells. After Suellen gets a few good digs in (and reminds us of Scarlett's marital history), Scarlett yaps, "I guess [our sister] is the only saint in this family. I obviously do not qualify!" and storms out of the dining room.
As for Rhett Butler (Timothy Dalton, who was part of the onset of the miniseries in "Centennial"), he's doing card tricks over at Belle Watling's place as Belle (Ann-Margaret) looks on with a smile for her favorite. One of the girls asks Rhett to repeat a card trick and he purrs, "if I was right, I win." "What do you win?" she asks. "How many guesses do you need?" Belle replies. At least smooth-talking Rhett never changes. As soon as he gets the telegram, he rushes off to Tara.
After Suellen looks him up and down and gets in some smart-ass remarks about how well Rhett has done while the South languishes, Rhett says he had to come as soon as he saw Will's telegram about Mammy. Yup, Scarlett used Will's name to lure him there. Even Ripley's awful writing can't diminish two fictional legends (though she tried hard and the miniseries tries just as hard). Mammy asks Rhett to make sure she's buried in the red petticoat he bought her. She has a second favor to ask. "I want you to take care of Miss Scarlett. She needs carin' so bad," Mammy asks and Rhett promises. And with that, Mammy dies a perfect miniseries death, surrounded by lighting and music as her hand falls limp to the sheets.
Awkward! That's the only way to describe the reunion of Rhett and Scarlett, who poo-poos the lie and tells Rhett she's hoping for "civilized and courteous conversation," no matter how "estranged" they are. With euphemisms, Scarlett is a champ! That approach gets her nowhere, so she tries another: "do you think it would have been different if my child have survived?" Nope, he's still not biting. How about full-on guilt for lying to Mammy? "You are such a child, Scarlett," he finally snaps. DUH! Since she won't divorce him, he agrees to be around just enough for appearances. "The Yankees should have hung you when they had the chance," she howls throwing a glass at him.
If Scarlett is feeling sorry for herself, Ashley is doing even worse, but that's no shock. He's never been the strongest type and this time has crawled into a bottle. Scarlett gives him tough love. "It this want you Melanie to see when she looks down from heaven?" and then grabs his hand so they can have tea. A while later Uncle Henry comes to tell Scarlett that "you have one of the greatest business minds I've ever seen, despite the fact that you're a woman" because she sold off her lumber company to Ashley and it's tanking; Ashley is broke. The Panic of 1973 (not that Uncle Henry uses those terms) has hit and no one is building, so no one needs lumber. Scarlett does manage to ask if her money is safe and it is. She has a plan. "Who is the best builder in Atlanta?" "I guess you could do worse than Big Sam," he says. "Our Big Sam? Our foreman from Tara?" "Former foreman...have you ever heard of Lincoln?" Uncle Henry asks, exasperated.
Big Sam (Paul Winfield) "did prosper" and Scarlett offers him the chance to build 25 homes on vacant land, insisting Ashley supply the lumber and also remaining a silent partner. Scarlett O'Hara, a silent anything? Only because she ends a scene saying, "tomorrow is another day" is she at all recognizable in this sequence of events.
Despite Reconstruction laying heavy punishment on the South, Atlanta's giant masked ball is happening. "I gather you've come alone, but it's just not done in polite society," Aunt Pittypat says, nearly choking on her words. She has a good retort in that she "hasn't seen much polite society here this evening" and she's not alone because "God is always with me." That's even more vulgar than showing up alone to someone like Aunt Pittypat, but before we can get her reaction, Ashley comes to sweep her into a dance. A perfectly good line wasted by bad direction.
When Rhett shows up, things crackle a bit. He introduces himself to her as Blackbeard. "Bluebeard might be more like it," she drawls and asks if he recognized her. "I didn't need to find the most ostentatious gown in the room to find out who was under it," he says. I know, I know. They did this all back in "Gone With the Wind." But, the only reason this sequel exists is to remind us what once was (and apparently showing a rerun was, what, bad business?). Rhett agrees to go back to the house for the sake of propriety, but once inside, jumps up the red staircase to his room. Scarlett grabs a bottle of liquor to her bed.
The next morning, loyal Pansy (Rakie Ayola) brings her coffee and advice that she's "doing herself real harm" by drinking like she does. Pansy is suddenly the smartest person in Atlanta and could be its first member of AA. Scarlett decides to go visit Charleston.
To meet her at the train station are Aunt Eulalie (Elizabeth Wilson) and Aunt Pauline (Barbara Barrie). Unfortunately, they tell her that Rhett's mother Eleanor (Julie Harris) has insisted she stay there, rather than with her clucking aunts. I'm not sure which is worse. Scarlett is horrified. Mrs. Butler invites Scarlett to attend a meeting where they make crafts to raise money for the Widows and Orphans Fund. Tearing through the roads of Charleston and knocking out a few carriages doing it is Sally Brewton (Jean Smart), smoking a cigarette and barking at Scarlett, "who is that? A new recruit for our disgustingly worthy cause?"
Just as Sally is talking about growing up with Rhett, he arrives from Philadelphia with his mother's plundered tea set. Sally jumps into his arms and then he finds Scarlett. After pretending he's unhappy, he drags Scarlett to her room and into another argument. He says Charleston will see right through her attempts to pretend shes a lady and then rips apart her clothing trying to make it presentable. Scarlett reminds him she's descended from kings on the O'Hara side. "Is it just the one king or many?" he quips and bounds out of the house as she's yelling at him.
"I want to look like a lady," Scarlett tells her mother-in-law. Miss Eleanor has to attack that one very wisely, so she fumbles a few sentences and then agrees that perhaps Scarlett's "vitality" is too much for the bluestocking Charleston crowd. First lessons, "you have no need of rouge on your face...and some of your clothes are ill-considered." From there, it's off to the market where she encounters Sally and advises her on picking vegetables due to her experience in the fields (which, let's be honest, wasn't quite comprehensive). "We need women like that in Charleston," Sally tells Miss Eleanor.
As a first step, Sally goes to see Rhett at his plantation and talks up Scarlett as an "amazing woman." However, though still in love with her, he thinks of her as childish and ridiculous. Then Scarlett pays a visit where Rhett offers her $50,000 to agree to a divorce. Then, speaking like two auctioneers, they agree to terms: basically that they will stay together for the season, he will pretend to be a husband, she will keep his "wicked ways" from everyone, she will never return to Charleston after the year. She tries to seduce him, but it doesn't work. "A girl can't have everything," she says, happy enough for now that she's made a sound business deal. However, that night, Rhett goes to her room and spends a lot of time gazing at her lovingly.
If the action is going to switch to Charleston, and frankly, I don't understand why it has to as Atlanta is still replete with good fun and characters, so is Belle. In the indelicate words of one of her girls, "Belle's opening up a whorehouse." This is going to make even pretending faithfulness to Scarlett a bit trickier for Rhett.
Indeed they are. One of Charleston's grandest affairs is a race. Everyone is there. Oh, just in case you don't realize it's a race being done in the South, the helpful score does an oom-pah-pah version of "Camptown Races" as underscoring. Subtle, "Scarlett" is not. Rhett is quite comfortable introducing Belle to his mother and Scarlett and Scarlett, knowing exactly who she is, asks what brings to her Charleston. When Miss Eleanor hears it's business, she says she's "fascinated by ladies with business interests, so very unusual, isn't it." What kind of business? "I arrange social get togethers," she says, taking her leave with a zing meant for Scarlett's understanding. He wins. "He sure can ride," Lulie (Sara Crowe) chirps, which gets a knowing glance from Belle.
There is another big ball, although it takes place for only about four minutes, which is as long as any large set piece here is (those big events are where much usually takes place, but there isn't any plot so far in "Scarlett," so there is nothing to move forward). However, at the end, Rhett reminds Scarlett it's the "last" ball of the season and Scarlett, as always, says she doesn't want to discuss the deal between them that is now finished. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."
If you thought "Camptown Races" was lacking in finesse, how about when Rhett agrees to take Scarlett sailing...both still in their ball gown attire! Just as Scarlett says, "I've never had so much fun in my life...more of less," with a lecherous twang, we see storm clouds overhead. It's a gigantic storm that capsizes the boat. He somehow gets Scarlett to a seaside, begging his unconscious wife, "don't die on me." Naturally, he has to remove all of her clothing, and his, lighting a warm fire as well. That's a very nice set-up for when she opens her eyes, now isn't it?
"What happened, it was, uh, a celebration," Rhett tells Scarlett, but Scarlett isn't buying it. "It was your true heart. You love me, you love me, you love me!"
She then sleeps for 24 hours and wakes up to Miss Eleanor fumbling for any excuse not to tell her Rhett is gone, finally leaving Scarlett with a Dear Jane note. He admits he loves her, but that it was "ill-advised" and he can "never see her again." Ever. As in permanently.
Evenings of whiskey at the fireplace are finally relieved when Ashley comes to Charleston on a visit. He has some photographs to show her and she volunteers to go to his room to see them. He doesn't think that's wise, but a fiddle-dee-dee later, she's on her way up, with everyone, of course, wondering at her brazen behavior. The photos are of the houses he's been building with Big Sam. "I do wish you would come back to Atlanta, very much," he says before planting a kiss on her. She hurries out of the room.
Miss Eleanor is horrified to find out Scarlett was in a hotel room with a man! Scarlett says she was only up there 10 minutes and "I'd need more time than that to get my shoes unlaced, let alone my corsets!" Miss Eleanor is steadfast and tells Scarlett she's no longer welcome. "That suits me just fine because this is no longer a house in which I care to be welcome," she replies with a slam of the door. Slamming a second in her room, she dashes for a hidden bottle of booze stashes in a hat box. "What have I done to myself?" she asks looking in the mirror? "Is that cowardly disgusting creature Scarlett O'Hara? No, it is certainly not. Scarlett O'Hara does not drown in sorrows. Scarlett O'Hara does not hide and wait for what she wants. Scarlett O'Hara goes out and gets what she wants! Coward, coward, coward!" she says, hurling the bottle at the mirror. Not quite the "I will never go hungry again speech," but I guess we'll have to live with it. Maybe now, some plot will kick in.
As soon as Scarlett informs her aunts she will go to Savannah with them to visit her hated grandfather, she wakes up and vomits. Never will you see a happier vomiter. "We were always two pieces of a darling thing, my dear Rhett, now we are three" she says to herself. So ends the first part on a Scarlett-with-a-plan.
Scarlett's World Tour continues in Savannah for Grandfather Pierre Robillard's birthday. She is told to keep her "somewhat forthright manner" in check by her aunts, who have a habit of repeating each other's sentences. Scarlett finally has her meeting with her grandfather (John Gielgud, summing BIG TIME and sporting a ridiculous French accent). She tells him she's also in Savannah to attend to matters regarding Tara and to see her O'Hara relatives. "Ah, the peasants!" he says. "When my youngest and most cherished daughter wed herself Gerald O'Hara, there was no visible bottom to the pit of disastrous folly into which he flung both herself and the honorable name of Robillard," he spits out, trying to make that bit of melodrama seem even a tad Shakespearean.
Understandably, Scarlett dashes off to meet her O'Hara relatives, first running into Jamie (John Kavanaugh), who takes her home to his brood. These humble folks are a delight, and she's charmed. They are a big family, not wealthy, but very close and accepting. Not the Robillards, to be sure. They even have a big night of Irish dancing right there in their parlor. It's all going so well until Scarlett faints. She hasn't told anyone she's pregnant and therefore refuses all help from her Robillard aunts, who live to fuss over sick relatives. She gives "my darling little indisposition" a very long monologue, so thankfully it isn't fully grown in her to even have ears yet.
While Scarlett is telling Maureen (Anita Reeves) the story of her life, her priest cousin (and arms dealer) Father Colum O'Hara (Colm Meany) all the way from Ireland and there are more smiles. Back at the Robillard house, it's clouded in darkness and a formal meal for her grandfather's birthday. He's in a military outfit and grumpy as hell. She announces that she will stay in Savannah when her aunts go, and somehow convinces her grandfather to let her stay, though he says, "it's a matter of supreme indifference to me."
Scarlett drags Pansy to Sisters of Mercy, who own the third of Tara that she wants back. There she has to square off against the Mother Superior (Betsy Blair). She is told that only the Bishop can make the decision to swap Tara for cash (in the form of a donation, of course), but apparently the Mother Superior has a dog-eared copy of "Gone With the Wind" in her wimple because she asks Scarlett how she figures she can own Tara without Suellen's agreement. "I'll just have to think about that tomorrow," comes the predictable answer, the one that has ended way too many scenes already.
Father Colum has no "influence" with the Bishop, who has turned down Scarlett's request for Tara, but he does offer her another suggest, that he tell the foreman of the crew building the new church to slow down their work until the Bishop comes around. "That's blackmail!" Scarlett jumps, but she's all for it. "Family, it's a grand thing," Jamie toasts.
In the "if it's bad, it's probably worse" sweepstakes, Scarlett comes up against a cropper. Grandfather Robillard offers her his entire fortune if she stays in Savannah to take care of him and his "every comfort." Considering he hauled her out of bed to tell the cook his breakfast wasn't hot enough, that could be a big problem. However, he's 94, so maybe it won't be a long problem. Initially, she turns it down, though $500K is worth reconsidering, but she says no. "How dare you turn up your Papist peasant nose at the opportunity to be mistress of this great house and attendant to its master!" he says, going into spasms of alliteration. Cue the divorce papers from Rhett and another swooning faint from Scarlett.
It's here that Ripley's story becomes so unbelievable (I couldn't resist) and so off-track, that it can never actually return. Refusing to let Rhett know she's pregnant, Scarlett decides in an instant to go to...IRELAND! Margaret Mitchell infused every scene, every chapter, every line of "Gone With the Wind" with old-style Southern demeanor. The original novel is about those people at that time in history and how they reacted to their rather small world being caught up in larger developments. However, at no time did any of them even mention something as far off as Boston, let alone Ireland! So, sending the story there makes as little sense as sending it to Shanghai or Cairo, except for the fact that there will be more O'Hara relatives wandering about. Gone is Mitchell's world.
"I never thought I'd live to see another place as gorgeous as Georgia, before the war across," she tells Colum as they ride to the kin. Along the way, they come across a hut being torn down because an English landlord has not been paid his rent. Welcome to another Civil War, Scarlett, but this one won't make a lick of sense to you if the one you lived through still hasn't fully seeped in.
It will, because we have dastardly Lord Richard Fenton to make it so. He's the English brute behind the evictions, and he's so depraved, that he uses his Irish peasant girls for sexual gratification too evil to even be seen in a book he has.
After Scarlett makes him promise to go along with her story of being a widow, so it won't look bad when the baby comes (FYI, in the book "Gone With the Wind," Scarlett has a few children, not just Bonnie, so it would be interesting to know where Ripley placed them, unless, of course, she never bothered to read the book and went straight to the movie), Colum shows her "the first Tara," not just a millennium-old pile of rocks set amidst the green Irish landscape. "This was Tara!" he says, with the music kicking in, though this Tara's theme song is pretty wan. Scarlett, suddenly able to root herself in something other than, well, herself, picks up a pile of dirt and sticks it in a little satin bag.
In case you are wondering what happened to Rhett, he's been squiring Miss Anne Hampton (Annabeth Gish) around, and only long into a blossoming courtship, does she reveal she's the one who saw Scarlett go into the hotel room with Ashley. Don't be fooled by Anne's delicacy. "Weren't you perfectly furious when you heard..." Rhett admits Scarlett is not conventional and neither is he. "But she's a woman," Anne insists. "So she is," Rhett says with a broad smile. This leads to a discussion of a woman's "prerogative" and Rhett eventually coming to her room at night. The Rhett Butler we know would not be at all attracted to this simple virgin.
Scarlett goes to visit an abandoned castle that is seen as cursed by the locals when Lord Richard arrives. Guessing she's from the southern part of America, he offers his condolences on the war. "We lost the war, sir, but we were not vanquished," Scarlett insists, throwing his words back at him. He does not tell her he owns the land. He tells her the story of the house, built by an Englishman who helped peasants to get to America, though they all drowned on the way, the Englishman was killed and Irishmen followed in retribution. Only then does he reveal himself to be the castle's owner.
The O'Haras are aghast at Scarlett "consorting" with Lord Fenton, but in typical Scarlett fashion, she says, she wants nothing to do with "politics." She launches into a tirade that covers both Ft. Sumter and General Lee "and I'll have no more!" Her uncle has a different take on it, calling it "human suffering." Suffocated, she decides to move to another simple shack, and now the atypical Scarlett returns, seemingly thrilled with the modest, okay, spare, okay, non-existent, furnishings.
Scarlett buys Ballyhara and its land. A town drunk lets everyone know, saying there is work for all getting it back in shape. "Here's to Scarlett O'Hara" they cheer as hoisting their pints in a pub. Father Colum and his followers have decided she can help their cause. The O'Haras are forced from their home until Scarlett pays the back rent and pulls down the apparatus they were about to use to knock it down. Before departing for America, Colum tells Scarlett the Bishop in Savannah is ready to rethink his position on Tara. He also hires Mrs. Fitzpatrick (Rosaleen Linehan) as housekeeper, who refers to her as "The O'Hara," the new head of the O'Hara family "and all its branches." Oh, for crying out loud! Scarlett has trouble making it to the head of the staircase, let alone the family. Puffed up by this news, she decides to take Mrs. Fitzpatrick to the pub for lunch, where women are a rare thing indeed. They hoot for her as if Liza walked into a gay bar.
Colum warns Scarlett about Halloween and sadistic Lord Fenton (who loves beating up his servant girls) seems to be enchanted by Scarlett, whom he offers to take to Dublin. On rainy All Hallow's Eve, Colum arrives with a letter from Charleston that Rhett has married Anne (he decided he had to after sleeping with her, though Belle told him it would ruin his reputation) and the horror of what she sees brings on labor. Colum fetches the O'Hara women to help with the birth and they strap her to the kitchen table for a c-section, and a damn painful one. On that note, we end the second part.
A year later, Scarlett is celebrating her daughter's first birthday, though we're reminded by Mrs. Fitzpatrick and others that Scarlett almost died giving birth. Scarlett is introduced to Mary Boyle (Tina Kellegher), the very servant girl Lord Fenton has been beating and burning and whatnot. As for Rhett, she tells Colum, "I'll let him know when I'm ready," about the baby. Rhett is back home to celebrate his first anniversary to Anne. He's decided to take Anne to England and Ireland to buy horses.
Lord Fenton is, in Scarlett's words, "making advances" as he's played suitor from far off way too long. She is coy, but when he makes mention of the "State Ball," you know she'll go. Scarlett never misses a ball, especially when the "Viceroy and his missus" will be there. The Irish relatives and gun club pals are not happy at this budding relationship. Colum finally tells Scarlett about the rebels and ties it to the South after the Civil War to get her to understand. He shows her the gun collection and then the softer side of the rebellion, the education and help to the poor. It's even against the law to learn Irish. "I might be better off if I didn't understand a word of what you are saying," Scarlett says cynically.
Now, back to the real Scarlett, the one who says "fiddle-dee-dee," she goes to an Irish horse show, where Colum assumes she'll be swindled by the horse traders. One is selling a three-year old, but Scarlett takes one look inside it's mouth and declares, "I've got a grandfather younger than that!"
Bing bang boom. "Scarlett, you look like you've seen a ghost," Colum says when...wait for it...Scarlett sees...wait for it (as if you didn't know it was coming)...Rhett Butler at the very same obscure Irish horse sale! "I have a seen a ghost, and one of my own making," she replies. Unafraid, Scarlett walks right over to him. She asks if his wife is there and he says "she's not generally fond of horses," to which Scarlett quips, "I hope that's her only failing." He tells Scarlett he wants a horse that will win the Kentucky Derby, "a new race" that they hope to be a big success. Rhett introduces her to Sir John Morland (Brian Bedford) who invites her to a fox hunt. Rhett is a bit annoyed when she says she's "widowed." She begs him to go through with the lie and he says, "it won't be easy pretending I'm a corpse." He even gets to Anne to agree to go along with it at the Morland fox hunt.
Lady Morland (Delena Kidd) is the very personification of the English upper crust, down to the accent and the nose way high in the air. Scarlett asks what happens if the fox gets away, a question that is anathema to her, so she turns away. Trying to outrun Rhett, Scarlett is knocked from her horse by a branch (I thought for sure she would pull an Auntie Mame and catch the fox), only to wake up with Anne sitting by her side. This is an uncomfortable reunion. Furthermore, Scarlett is humiliated, as "I haven't been thrown from a horse since I was 10 years old." Scarlett is at his sugary nastiest best, and sweet Anne is no match for her. And when Anne announces she's pregnant, Scarlett is so upset the scene has to fade out because there are no words (or, apparently, good writers to make them up).
That was a nice bit of actual Scarlett O'Hara, but back in Ripley's story, Scarlett is going to Dublin with Lord Fenton, telling Colum that it's just for fun and so what if he's English? Hmmm, the Southern Belle we all knew would have played sick rather than have to attend a beloved ball with a Yankee, so her inability to care what her Irish kinfolk think is a bit out of character. However, she corrects it by giving Colum a donation for the rebels, but for the good part, not the killing part. And it's a lot of money. "I have a tendency to overdo things," she admits.
Another ball, but this is the grandest yet, with servants in powdered wigs and ladies in tiaras. Scarlett looks ravishing in a fetching in a dress completely different from the others, to stand out, and is introduced as "Madam The O'Hara from Ballyhara." "I feel like Cinderella," Scarlett says innocently, before she and Lord Fenton turn it into a ghastly series of puns that knocks all the stuffing out of the legend.
Rhett sniffs her out in her hotel and with the baby there, the jig would be up. The last time they were together, she left without saying goodbye, and she nervously says she had to, since she "hadn't been thrown..." yeah, yeah, since she was 10. We've heard. Mrs. Fitzpatrick brings the baby down, so Scarlett has to hustle Rhett into the hotel garden. Scarlett admits she's still in love with him, and he's terrible patronizing when he puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "I'm sorry." His inability to admit he's still in love with her causes her grief and she runs off.
The mantle of cheesy flattery is taken over by Lord Fenton, who has an annoying habit of merely repeating what Scarlett says and adding a question mark. "In the spirit of candor," he says, to start off a long line about he's in love with her. He doesn't understand her "reticence." "It's not you I don't care for, it's another man that I love," Scarlett says honestly. "Will you pine the rest of your days for a dead man?" Lord Fenton asks. "I want to live!" Scarlett says with Lord Fenton pawing at her and then they go full out sexually. "You've made me an extremely happy man this evening," Lord Fenton says with typical English reserve. Mrs. Fitzpatrick comes to deliver a telegram to Scarlett and Lord Fenton purposely comes out of the bedroom. Since Mrs. Fitzpatrick is a part of the rebel group, that's not good. Plus, Scarlett is furious with him. "As your servant," Lord Fenton says, Mrs. Fitzpatrick has to keep it quiet, he says, though he also says, "we're all sophisticated" and that no one will think anything of their liaison. He's such a cad, she slaps him, and that he doesn't take well (though no doubt will get off on it later on).
The telegram? When Scarlett gets around to it, it's from Uncle Henry to say that Suellen is ill and wants to see her. Is Scarlett's great Irish adventure over? No, of course not. She's leaving her daughter behind. "They're lovers," Mrs. Fitzpatrick says to Colum as Scarlett leaves, fearful that Scarlett will spill the rebel secrets to her new boyfriend.
It's sassy fighting Scarlett who arrives back in Atlanta. Will tells her Suellen got sick having a baby, a boy. "So she could have died just because you wanted a boy?" Scarlett asks, not ten seconds off the train. Suellen is very sick when Scarlett gets to the hospital. "You don't think I've come halfway around the world to watch you kick the bucket do you?" Scarlett asks when Suellen says she might live. Was that phrase even around in the 1970s and would Scarlett have uttered it?
Pansy is waiting for Scarlett when she arrives home at her Atlanta house, having worked for India and Ashley and even Aunt Pittypat (as a way, no doubt, to remind us they are all still alive and well). Scarlett spends the night at the hospital with Suellen, whom sickness has turned very sweet. If the scene doesn't remind you of Scarlett tending to sick Melanie, then the writers have done an even lousier job than I first suspected. "I'd say it was time we buried the hatchet," Scarlett says. "You mean other than inside each other?" Suellen jokes, which is very un-Melanie, to be sure.
Unfortunately, literature's most boring character outside of Melville's whale, Ashley Wilkes, is indeed still alive. He first thanks Scarlett for saving his company and he wants her to wipe away all reminders of Rhett as "he was never worthy of you," but Scarlett refuses to say why until Ashley takes her in his arms. Then it's off to Uncle Henry to divest herself of all Atlanta assets (except for Tara, of course), but Uncle Henry warns her about the bad state of the market. "People are moving down not up," he tells her about her big house, though the small houses she bought with Big Sam and Ashley are worth a fortune. "I guess the past has been neatly and finally put behind us," Ashley says, unable to get Scarlett to stay in Atlanta. "Almost," Scarlett says. There are two hours left, nothing is finished.
Suellen is finally well enough to go back to Tara, which has never looked so shabby. "Now there's just the one piece of business for me to attend to, that'd be Tara," she tells Suellen and Will. "I'm giving it away," she says. Will and Suellen both panic. "To who?" "To Suellen." Awwwwwww, Scarlett is learning. She's maturing. A little. Maybe. She does say one very odd thing: "maybe one day you'll pass it along to your son and another Gerald O'Hara will be master of Tara again." Um, he is Gerald Benton, Suellen's son. Nobody corrects her. "The hatchet is buried," Scarlett says to Suellen and then takes the dirt from Ireland to her father's grave, "from the first Tara, pa, to the last."
Now it's back to Ireland, her daughter and a heavily glowering Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whose stern countenance makes her a wannabe Mrs. Danvers. As she reads a letter from Lord Fenton, he's busy sharpening a razor and waiting to beat up a girl again. "What sort of unspeakable devil could have done what you've just done?" she says afterward, still tied to the bed. Oh, and she's pregnant.
Colum is acting strangely around Scarlett, why? "I'm smitten," he says, though we've known since he started sniffing one of her handkerchiefs. She's shocked, but he tells her to leave.
Rhett? Rhett who? Oh, that boring guy who keeps popping up (no, not Ashley, the other boring guy)? Training a horse late one night, he has visions. Anne wakes up and waits for him on the steps. "You haven't been the same since we came back" from Ireland, and she thinks he is thinking only of Scarlett. "Maybe you've only needed spectacles to see me," she wines! Apparently he speaks her name when he's sleeping.
Lord Fenton is welcomed back to Ballyhara with open arms and the staff off for the night. Hell, they can't even get fully up the staircase before they are all over each other. However, she doesn't want Colum to act strangely around her and refuse him as a friend. "In this instance, your beauty is only surpassed by your wisdom," he says, which she fiddle-dee-dees and then moves on to discuss her attraction to Lord Fenton.
Colum is eating when Mary comes to him with her woes. He hurries off to Lord Fenton to make sure he provides the money to send Mary away, but Lord Fenton refuses, not afraid of Colum's religious rantings. However, Colum mentions Scarlett, but Lord Fenton remains calm and pulls a gun. Colum says he's not frightened by it, not until Lord Fenton puts a hole in his chest and kills him! The only thing this villain lacks is a mustache to twirl. He's a truly horrid figure, and with no shame. That's way out of Scarlett's league. She is fine with selfish people, but not cold-blooded killers! Lord Fenton drops Colum in a ditch to end the third chapter.
So, the final portion of the story starts with Father Colum's funeral. Perhaps guilty, maybe a lot ashamed, Mary wants to throw herself off a cliff, but stops short. It only gets more macabre as Lord Fenton waits a few yards away for Scarlett to drop flowers at Colum's grave. "He must have been rather a fine fellow to have taken your heart. I wish I would have known him," the cad has the nerve to say before Scarlett reveals that he was a rebel and "they think that's what got him killed." Lord Fenton decides she must go away with him to England. That's gonna make her REAL popular in the village. Mary wants Scarlett to take her, because "I cannot remain in Ireland" due to her pregnancy. Talk about your ironies, eh? Lord Fenton taking Scarlett taking Mary.
Yellow fever has come to Charleston. Even Anne comes down with it and though Rhett and Miss Eleanor seem worried, I don't think anyone will miss her too terribly much if they lose her, even though she never bear Rhett a child (they never quite say what happened, though Anne seems to have been pregnant while a year or so of time elapsed with the other characters). Her funeral does give Sally a chance to pop by, even if she has no lines.
Dripping with furs, Scarlett takes her daughter and Mary to England, where she gets a huge house, quipping "nothing's too good for the Irish!" Both Mary and Lord Fenton have to do some quick acting when they meet in Scarlett's parlor during tea. "Your Samaritan inclination seems to be flourishing," a nervous Lord Fenton tells her, as Scarlett promises him Mary's situation will get worse before it gets better. Lord Fenton traps Mary in the drawing room, where he slaps her silly and threatens her.
Old old money doesn't take too well to Scarlett. Lady Fenton (British acting legend Dorothy Tutin) and her daughter, look way down on Scarlett, noting that, "you could hardly be expected to know this, but only the queen is referred to as ma'am." The whole stuffy dinner crowd doesn't have to say "vulgar" for us to know what they are thinking. "It was Ireland that killed my husband," Lady Fenton snaps after Scarlett says how much she loves it. Scarlett listens to a bunch of Irish knocks for a while, but she isn't our Scarlett O'Hara for nothing (and thankfully the story remembers it). She gives it right back to everyone when they refer to the rebels, citing her cousin Colum as a shining example (not knowing the murderer is sitting next to her). "Really, Scarlett, there is no evidence to substantiate that accusation," is all Lord Fenton can say.
Escaping without too many scratches, Scarlett has Lord Fenton over for some bubbly. He comments that never before has he been served champagne in a kitchen by a lady. "Have a seat then," she retorts. Scarlett tries to send him off, citing exhaustion, but he pushes it and grabs her, rushing out in a huff as he destroys the champagne set. Then she has an erotic dream that starts with her and Ashley but turns into an erotic dream about her and Lord Fenton in which he gets violent. It's odd for Scarlett and even odder for the miniseries, which was always a very prudish and sex-free genre even when it thought it was being otherwise.
Scarlett bumps into Morland at the theater and then gets a letter from Sally, which makes three thoughts of Rhett within minutes. The letter bears the news of Anne's death. Speaking of Sally, she pops by Rhett's to "see if you've grown a beard and hair like a bona fide hermit instead of just acting like one." Ah, good old Sally, we've missed her wit, especially since she's the only one in the story with any to spare! Sally urges Rhett to get away from home, "just close your eyes, grit your teeth and jump the fence, damn it! Hell, it ain't that high," she commands.
Lord Fenton is sent packing by Scarlett, though he says, "I'm unaccustomed to being discarded like an old shoe," though no doubt he would find a use for the leather and nails in one. "I'm trying to be a lady about it. I hope you'll be a gentleman," she says, but he laughs, "a lady, you?" He's not given to fond farewells. He tries to force himself on her, so she bites his lip, he knocks her down, she screams, the butler hears, but he gags her so no other noises can be heard and tells him all about Mary. "You filthy disgusting son-of-a-bitch," she howls, as her butler stands stupefied on the stairs, "if you ever come near me again I'll kill you!" However, he follows her upstairs and confesses to killing Colum as well while undressing. She tries to hit him with a candlestick, and no one stops him as he rips off her clothes and slaps her around. The servants keep to themselves and Mary hides in her room, not venturing out until the silents have died down and Fenton is smoking a cigarette. Scarlett starts shouting and slapping again, but Lord Fenton knocks her to the ground and rolls over to sleep.
As every clock in the house chimes midnight (literally, every clock), Scarlett wakes up to discover a knife stuck in Lord Fenton. Even Scarlett assumes she did it and is led off, in her ripped gown and bruises by the police. Mary has disappeared when the maid goes to fetch her. If we hadn't hit ridiculous heights so often in this ludicrous plot, we've just hit perhaps the most ridiculous. We did this all in "Gone With the Wind," another self-defense killing, though not of a Lord, I suppose.
"A murderer? That enchanting creature? Ridiculous," says Morland, echoing my sentiments. He's only puzzled because her last name is Butler.
Sally, brandishing her trademark cigarette, finds Rhett packing after receiving a telegram from Morland. Lord Morland visits Scarlett in prison to find out her story. She confesses to lying about her marital status, but does not remember killing Lord Fenton, only being "violated." "I'm not more capable of killing someone...at least not Richard," she says, also admitting to once before killing, though that was a "Yankee soldier about to rape me." Lord Morland wants to know if anyone else knows about this killing, as it would be very bad for her case.
Rhett and Sally race to England and Rhett vows whatever money it takes for a good lawyer, the best being Lord Morland, who isn't sure he wants the case. Rhett goes to see Scarlett in the dreary prison. "I know you didn't do it, though I wouldn't put it past you," he says, and the familiar name-calling starts up again. He's not particularly helpful, though she tells him of pregnant Mary having disappeared. He assures her, "no one is going to hang you." It's then she picks to tell him she has a child...and it's his! How very daytime soap opera of her. He grabs her in anger with a familiar, "damn you, Scarlett!" He wants to get the kid and take her away, but Sally convinces him otherwise. "Her cup's runneth over with troubles, are you going to drown her in the bargain?" she asks.
Scarlett doesn't help herself any being questioned by Morland and Rhett, saying that any woman would have "shot him on the spot" upon learning of what Lord Fenton did to Mary. Bad choice of words and sentiment. Sally is far more compassionate, though she has a scary tendency to sing "Dixie" when nervous.
Naturally, there is a trial, and I have to think it's because Ripley wasn't smart enough to think outside of conventional soapy plot twists like Margaret Mitchell had (she was soapy, but never conventional). Mary shows up at the trial and bolts as soon as Morland recognizes her (she was at the theater with Scarlett). Rhett catches her and begs her help. "We know someone else did it, we just don't know who. There's a good chance Scarlett will hang," he pleads, but Mary runs out of the moving carriage and jumps into the Thames, with Rhett diving after her! They both live, but the doctor won't let her see Mary.
The trial gets worse when the maid testifies that she knew Scarlett and Lord Fenton were having an affair, because she saw him come out of the bedroom "in the middle of the day." Rhett is next to testify, having to admit that Scarlett lied about the baby. The barrister calls that an "extreme reaction," though Morland objects. Rhett laughs as he is questioned about Scarlett's lies because that's the Scarlett he's always known. Rhett is asked if he's sure he's the father of the child, and he says "none whatsoever." Has anyone else watching considered Ashley? After all, he was seen going into that hotel room alone with her and the timing would be perfect. Then again, it's hard to picture Ashley actually having sex and siring a child, so maybe that's why no one else has tossed in that little wrench of a plot turn.
Mary wakes up in the hospital, but they were unable to save the baby. Rhett brings Scarlett a picnic lunch in prison and she jokes, gallows humor at its best, about her "bad character," but Rhett says she only makes decisions without thinking about what will happen tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow, her favorite time of life. He then pays Mary a visit, trying every trick to get her to snap out of her stupor, or perhaps fake stupor.
Yes, it can get worse for Scarlett. Lord Fenton's sister happily confesses that he told her Scarlett has murdered the Yankee soldier. Mary steals a coat and escapes from the hospital into the twisted London streets. Somehow, she finds her way to church in the very outfit she had last been seen wearing. Where did she get that? She left the hospital in a nightgown.
Worse still. The butler testifies of Scarlett's threat to kill Lord Fenton and then seeing her with the knife in her hand. Then it's finally Scarlett's turn to take the stand. Mary is there, but no one seems to recognize her. She testifies that she was angry enough to hit Lord Fenton, but not to kill him. She's then asked about killing the soldier, which she barely remembers, and is cloudy on this one because she hit her head. Her whole time on the stand is absolutely insane, the worst kind of trial writing, with appropriately sniveling lawyers twisting around words and whatnot. Naturally, Scarlett gets to speech it up a bit, tears and all, with Joanne Whalley going for the gold.
As expected, Scarlett is found guilty and she is sentenced to hang. And then Mary finally pops up to tell the truth. Our Paint-by-Numbers session has finally come full circle, as we knew it would. It just took FOREVER to get there. "I done it for all the evil that was in him," she cries after describing it all. "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," Scarlett tells her on the way out of prison, leaving Mary to rot. She's going back to Ireland, "and this time my husband's coming with me."
Off to Ireland they go and Rhett gets to see his daughter, finally. Such a neat and tidy parcel "Scarlett" has become, eh? "Say hello to your daddy, darlin'," Scarlett drawls once the kid wakes up. "Well you do now," Rhett declares. Rhett and Scarlett toast by the fire, with Rhett saying, "let's hope she has her mother's brass and her father's brains." She then takes him to her bed, "the world's largest," she says, where she promises he won't even know she's there. And they remain on opposite sides of the bed.
There is a jolly festival with more Irish dancing, as you would expect to celebrate the freedom of The O'Hara. An O'Hara cousin tells Rhett how lucky he is "to have an angel for a daughter and a saint for a wife," which Rhett doubts before joining the dance. Mrs. Fitzpatrick thinks he's "criminal handsome" and they laugh merrily about lovely possibilities. Hell, Rhett even reads to the kid. Scarlett still wants to know "about you and me...and you and me and her." Can he love her again? He's still bitter about being left for dead. "It wasn't a question about loving you, but living with you," he says, causing her to rattle off and to shut up, he grabs her, bends her over and kisses her big time. "Heaven help the man who ever loves me," she murmurs. "Heaven help me," he says and he once again carries her up the stairs, which would be an apt ending, except that they have to delight in afterglow for a while.
Even then it isn't over. Scarlett and Rhett go walking in the mountains with their daughter and she comments on "how nice" they have been to each other all week. "You've changed, Scarlett," he says and she promises, "I'll do better this time." Where will they live? He's in Charleston and she's in Ireland. "We belong together Scarlett. The world is where we belong. All of it. We can go anywhere. As long as we're together, the world will belong to us."
"That's a lot of property," she notes, causing him to laugh as they walk through the remains of the first Tara.
There are many problems with "Scarlett" but most of them are with the book, simply compounded by the miniseries. As I said earlier, there was an inevitability to "Scarlett" being turned into a miniseries and certainly so many were eager for a follow-up to the beloved "Gone With the Wind." But, like most sequels, the sequel is never the equal. The main fault lies with Alexandra Ripley and her inane plot. Sending Scarlett to Ireland? Sorry, but that's so untrue to the characters. The characters Margaret Mitchell created were full-blooded Southerners, aware of only their world and what the Civil War did to it. What in tarnation is Scarlett O'Hara doing in Ireland, getting mixed up in Irish-English politics, with a murderous English lord and a dank prison cell? Scarlett's world extended no further than the Georgia border because she was so delightfully self-centered on herself and her life at Tara.
Now, the portion of the story that follows Scarlett to Charleston is fine. It stays Southern, though lacks any hint of Reconstruction Era poverty since everyone she knows (except her sister) is wealthy. If Ripley's story lacks any of the time's reality (and almost no plot), it at least has the characters. But, once Scarlett goes off to Ireland, the whole story jumps the tracks and can never return. I know, in calling it "Scarlett," Ripley wanted to make sure we understood that this is the continuation of Scarlett O'Hara, not Scarlett and Rhett and Melanie and Ashley and Aunt Pittypat. In fact, Melanie is the luckiest one, because she has a reason for disappearing from the story (death), while the others have to suffer being merely shoved aside for new and completely uninteresting characters.
Because the Civil War is not the driving force behind the miniseries, it lacks the tension that "North and South" or "Beulah Land" or "The Blue and The Gray" have. Under their stories, silly or not, is the imposing war and what it will do to the well-ordered lives of the main characters. There is no war here, and frankly, these people are not exciting enough when not faced with catastrophe. They are simply ordinary, which is why I guess Ripley found it so easy to dispense with them. Their replacements, unfortunately are no better (it's probably a good time to mention that the Mitchell estate had another sequel written, in the hopes that we would forget "Scarlett"), and Irish politics of the late 18th Century are not enough to grab an American audience for six hours.
However, that didn't stop "Scarlett" from getting made, even as late as 1994, when the medium was already all-but-obsolete. Is there anything left in the miniseries gas tank to get this by? Yes, actually. A fortune was spent on it. It looks every bit as expensive and thorough as its cousins from the previous decade. It feels big and epic, no doubt about it. We have all of those slummers who didn't say no to being cast. John Gielgud and Julie Harris and Elizabeth Wilson and Barbara Barrie and Ann-Margaret (much better used in the same period's "Queen") and Jean Smart all pop by long enough to heavily populate the guest star list and add their wattage. But, ultimately, the fate of this story rests with the people we have known and loved since "Gone With the Wind."
Now, forgive me for saying this, but I don't think "Gone With the Wind" is a masterpiece, book or movie (though the movie is an improvement on the book). It's a florid soap opera, very decorous, but a soap opera nonetheless. There are dozens of historical novels that tell virtually the same story, but Mitchell's characters were so unique, so gripping, especially Scarlett and Rhett. Faced with the Civil War, they were able to have personalities bigger than life, bigger than most of the real-life people who have become legends of the time. Hell, some even think they were real!
Joanne Whalley is divine as Scarlett. I suppose it was too much to find an American actress to play Scarlett yet again, but certainly there was no casting war over the miniseries, and the right choice was made (Leslie Ann Warren had already played Scarlett, in the Broadway-bound flop and done similar work in "Beulah Land," Leslie-Anne Down had already done "North and South" and though Ann-Margaret might have done a grand job in her youth, let's leave her with Belle). Whalley throws herself into the part every bit as vigorously as Vivien Leigh, and has more than twice the amount to do scene-for-scene, but this Scarlett is made to go through so many idiotic twists that it's hard to create a vibrant character, though Whalley comes as close as I can imagine anyone doing. The same cannot be said for Timothy Dalton's Rhett Butler, as he just pins a fake smile on himself and hopes to get away with it like Clark Gable did. Dalton is a far better actor than Gable, and usually wonderfully magnetic, but he knows his part sucks here and there's no reason to put much effort into it. Let's not even talk about Stephen Collins' Ashley. Right actor, wrong part, not his fault. Fun juicy characters like Belle and Mammy are dispensed with awfully quickly, while new ones with potential like Sally are left as window dressing. For crying out loud, they try to pass Pansy off as Prissy, but her learning to read is not something Prissy would have EVER considered!
You won't see anyone releasing "Scarlett" in a box set with "Gone With the Wind." I'm sure fans of the latter have already forgotten the former even existed, but it's there, both in black and white on the and full color on the screen. Perhaps the last truly expansive miniseries attempted by a network, "Scarlett" emerges as a showy folly, not really because of anything Hollywood did to it, but what a hack writer did before Hollywood even got there. The ghosts of Margaret Mitchell and 1939 remain undisturbed, not to worry.
Questions? Comments? Want to laugh about "Scarlett?" Drop me a line at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
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