SEQUEL ALERT: Heaven and Hell: North and South, Book 3

Oh, I know, the fact that I'm referring to "Heaven and Hell, North and South, Book 3" as a sequel is not going to sit well with everyone.

The "North and South" novels of John Jakes came out in 1982, 1984 and 1987.  Miniseries of Books 1 and 2 had both aired by mid-1986.  Why not Book 3?  There are differing answers on that one (Kristie's character was killed near the end of Book 2 and Patrick was well into movie superstardom to return to TV), but timing and Jakes' writing no doubt were factors.

North and South, Book 1
North and South, Book 2

However, as I see it, Book 3 is a desperate grasp as a miniseries.  By 1994, when it aired, the American network miniseries was moribund.  I've already noted in these pages that I consider "Scarlett," airing in 1995, the true end of the movement, so by 1994, certainly the networks knew they had just a few gasps left.

So, what could they do to go out with a bang?  Well, they could have gone the route of "Scarlett" and used recent novels, as the Krantz and Steel factories churned out books faster than anyone could read them.  They could have gone for a real-life or true crime story (which they did).  They could also keep trying Stephen King books.

Or, they could dredge up past glories for a can't-lose movie, a last attempt to breathe life into a clearly dead genre.  There was a "missing years" "Thorn Birds" miniseries that was dismal, Clavell would have been way too expensive, to say nothing of Wouk.  Ah, but the "North and South" books of John Jakes (who already had a trilogy made into a miniseries in the golden days a decade and a half previously) had a dangling finale that was not filmed.  Both "North and South" miniseries in the 80s were critically hailed and gigantic hits with audiences.  Bingo, let's do it for the money.

Only, doing it for the money is a lousy reason to make a miniseries and it was bound to fail.  One only need to look at "Lace II" for proof.  Book 3 has a stale feel, a sad aroma of decay to it.  A lot of the same actors are back, but you would hardly notice.  Philip Casnoff is given one of the worst parts of his career, Leslie-Anne Down is turned into Scarlett-after-the-war, Terri Garber has very little to do and even the magnificent James Read looks totally bored.  Thus, assuming money-grubbing decisions, I add "Heaven and Hell: North and South, Book 3" to the sequel pile along with "Lace II" and the equally unwatchable "Rage of Angels" sequel.

To be fair, "Heaven and Hell: North and South Book 3" is not a disaster like the two mentioned above. It is harmlessly impotent and dull, that's all.

Uh oh.  The miniseries starts with a bit of narration by John Jakes.  Who does he think he is, Judith Krantz?  It's only a review, but it ends with Jakes telling us that somehow Philip Casnoff is still alive through some "quirk of fate."  Oh, come on!  He could have figured out a way to say that far better, but perhaps he was under torture to speak the line exactly as written.

Philip and his beloved Terri Garber, already overdoing it in her first lines, have come to extort money from the character once played by Patrick Swayze, but in this case an obvious double used in a nighttime scene.  Terri trots off to have it out with Lesley-Anne Down, making a crack about "uppity" former slaves and Lesley-Anne's minuscule black heritage.  Philip, drowning in dry ice haze, follows the man with the cane, stabs him and then relays a bit more plot review.  At exactly the same time, Terri informs Lesley-Anne that she's going to take "everything you have…so enjoy it while you can" and flounces out the door.

When Terri makes her way through the fog and unlit streets exactly to the empty place where Philip has just killed her brother, she's horrified.  She thought Philip was going to extort money.  "What about me?" she asks.  "I don't need you for what I'm going to do," he callously warns her.  Hey, Ter, you lie down with dogs…

Enraged, Terri screams and runs in slow motion, pushing Philip off a bridge and one supposes he drowns, but of course one supposed the last time he was killed he actually was dead, so we'll wait and see if he's that lucky again.

Naturally, James Read is upset at his friend's death.  "He survived it all only to have some coward knife him in the back?" he growls to his patient wife Wendy Kilbourne as he fishes out his half of the $10 bill that he's kept since early in Book 1.  It's Wendy who tells him to go help Lesley-Anne.  Probably not wise advice on any level.

The character of dead Patrick Swayze's brother, now being played by Kyle Chandler, meets Rya Kihlstedt, a penniless but pretty actress who declares he "will hear of" her, despite his knowledge of theater being limited to Edwin Booth (nothing can top the plight of 19th Century actors like "Centennial").  He's also in the military under an assumed name, though a squawking officer thinks he should be fired since he was part of the South.

Rya, as noted, is an actress, and wants to work with a troupe headed by a truly bizarre slumming vet.  Not Liz Taylor from Book 1, not Wayne Newton from Book 2, but one of the least likely slummers in all of show business, Peter O'Toole.  He isn't interested in her acting, he just wants someone to manage his books and "keep him sober," a delicious in-joke.  "Everyone thinks they can act," Peter tells her, not having seen the rest of this movie, and tough Rya holds out for lead parts in exchange for taking care of him.

Another relative swoops down into the story, Robert Wagner, playing the deed owner of the once great family estate.  A rather dour sort, he tells Lesley-Anne that if she fails to make any mortgage payments culled from her little vegetable garden run with the help of paid former slaves, he'll boot her out.  Hearing that Lesley-Anne is educating her former slaves, he is invited to join the KKK, but declines, only to be reminded, "the war may be lost, but the cause ain't."

Mariette Hartley is hired as the plantation's teacher.  She tells Lesley-Anne she was an abolitionist, as if that matters now (or in light of Lesley-Anne's efforts to help runaway slaves).  A desk and windows are promised her as the school is being built, and she takes the job, "with enthusiasm," though it looks more like complete boredom.  However, she shows spark soon after, when Lesley-Anne is turned away from church because of her racial history.  "There is no blessing on this house of abomination," Mariette snaps to all, including Robert, who is uncomfortably in the middle of the ado.  He again refuses to join the clan, but doesn't leave with Lesley-Anne either.

Into all of this, like a gallant knight, comes James, apparently not planning to stay more than a five minutes because he rides to the ruined plantation just on a horse, nothing else.  He inquires about her husband's killer and is told no law and order actually exists in the South now.

Cue Richmond and the insane asylum where a raving lunatic holds court.  Yup, once again, Philip Casnoff has cheated death!  Tied to the bed, he remembers his rank, "the great sovereign state of Georgia" and a whole bunch of other things, but not his name.  The doctor thinks he's perfectly sane and has him released.

Ever the pragmatic entrepreneur, James offers Lesley-Anne a business partnership in order to build a sawmill, which will only help her meager efforts.  She keeps declining until he, of course, brings up that ripped $10 bill.  "I do believe we have ourselves a deal," Lesley-Anne gushes.

Philip, walking no doubt to some magnetic dream of retaliation, stops, pulls out his knife and writes his character's name in the dirt.  Has he remembered something?  No time to dwell, we have new lovers to visit: Rya and Kyle, who has attended her performances and actually stayed awake.  He wants to go out West, and though Rya assumes it's to "fight Indians," his kiss cancels out all worries, but they can't have sex in that little outdoor patch, "not for my first time with you," she notes (thats a rarity--a woman in an historical miniseries who openly admits she's not a virgin), so we take the act inside with glowing candles, sexy bodies and acres of violins and drums.  Considering Kyle Chandler is the most handsome man in all three "North and South" miniseries, it's nice to look at, though stereotypically handled.  After being insulted by a superior officer in a restaurant while with Rya, Kyle decided to pay a visit to his fie-year old son, explaining the story of his birth and his fiancée's death and promising a return to his new love.

Out in Santa Fe of all places, Terri has become perhaps the crankiest hooker in all that dry heat, until a piano salesman comes to spend the night, a shy retiring type who offers to help her get her home back (that pile of charred rubble, as we remember).  She coos that the last man who tried to help her was killed.  This guy doesn't even flinch hearing that.  Said man is riding on the back of a wagon singing and crazy.

Kyle is set upon by his hateful superior and three others, beaten badly before Rip Torn shows up garbed as an Indian to chase them away.  Sillier is Terri's plan to start actually making pianos with her regular john, using the madam's gold, hidden in a hole under the desk.  "I don't have a gun," says Tom Noonan.  "Well get one!" Terri bleats in exasperation.  Silly and pathetic is Philip's plan, under an assumed name, taking a job in a railway station in order to bide time until James returns from his goodwill tour of Lesley-Anne's south.

With Reconstruction not even a possibility for such fluff, the movie lurches from one inane attempt of mid-1860s history to another.  Rip Torn is, as you may have guessed, not an Indian, but rather a fur trapper with a "slightly touched" nephew who needs a partner good with a gun, since the last one was carved up by Indians.  Forgetting his son and Rya, Kyle agrees to go into partnership with Rip and they continue on their westward journey.  "I'm gonna learn you good about the Cheyenne…gonna learn you good so you can keep your head of hair," Rip, pure comic relief tells his new partner.

After a howler scene where Peter O'Toole was clearly not acting drunk as much as living it, Rya makes it her life's work to find Kyle and prove he's no deserted.

The sawmill is built on Lesley-Anne's land lickety split, and it seems Lesley-Anne is falling for her dead husband's best friend, who is feeling the same, but doesn't realize it.  There are few worse acting mistakes than trying to out-ham one of the greatest hams of all, and Terri Garber, laying it on thick through three movies here, seems to think she can get away with the histrionics of Peter O'Toole.  Not in a million years, sweetie.  Even Peter O'Toole has no idea how to do it.  Terri and Tom go to steal the bordello gold, though Tom has a conscience about it.  She even has to kill making an escape.

There is a great deal of tension when Rip and company get to the Cheyenne settlement and warriors show up to do bate.  They run into a "medicine tent," comparing it to a church, a sanctuary in which no blood will be spilled.  The chief frees them, but the Indian who caused the flare-up is definitely not finished.  In one of the other main plots about racism, Robert Wagner is unsure of whether to join the Klan or not.  He doesn't feel he needs a hood, but their propaganda is strong and they give him the honor of lighting a cross.  The Klan comes to Lesley-Anne's and former slave Stan Shaw sees them first, telling his fiancee to fetch the lady of the house.  Lesley-Anne is brave in front of the hooded Klan, telling them to go ahead and burn the school in defiance, recognizing even RJ's voice, and they do torch Mariette's one-room schoolhouse.

The bad guys far outnumber the good ones, so while Wendy is waiting for her husband's train to bring him home, crippled and savagely bent on revenge, sneaks into her house.  He rambles with a knife to her neck until James' horses can be heard and then stabs her.  After finding his wife dead, he sees that Philip has written his name on the mirror in blood.  "You bastard, I'll kill you.  By God, I'll kill you," he avows with thunder crashing to heighten the effect. That's a natural way to end the first part.

"Heaven and Hell" is, so far, not any worse than any other miniseries of its time (admittedly faint praise), but it's not in a league with Books 1 and 2 because they had a centralized tension that was a part of every plot line.  Yes, it was an overly familiar one: separation of family and friends across the divide of the Civil War.  However, it had potency and believability, plus a whole lot of soapy plots as a distraction.  What this one lacks is that centralized tension.  Everybody is the same and feels the same.  There are bad people, but only in a cardboard sense.  When James Read and Patrick Swayze tangled over their opinions, it was painful to both of them because they knew they would be torn apart by them.  Here?  Well, Terri is a hooker stealing gold, Kyle gets mixed up with a shady fur trader, Lesley-Anne is so good to everyone that the Klan has to step in.  So far, it's just a series of vignette plots adding up to…well, not much.

Stan and his cohorts vow to rebuild the school on the same site and defend it as well.  Miniseries rules declare that when everyone smiles and makes promises, deus ex machine, a house falls on their metaphorical heads.  A telegram of Wendy's death sends Lesley-Anne scurrying go meet George, whom she fears will never forgive himself for spending extra time with her and the school, though she does admit that Philip is a wicked man who…pause…pause…killed her husband!  Mariette, the very prototype butch schoolmarm, convinces Lesley-Anne to stay put so the sawmill can be run and James' letter told her to stay away since Philip is on the loose.

We are re-introduced to Jonathan Frakes, James' brother with the shrewish wife, now played by Deborah Rush.  Deborah wants Jonathan to run for the Senate and uses he funeral as a social gathering to push her agenda, even with General Grant.  Deborah even has a scheme to use Jonathan's place at the Freedman's Bureau to go down south and buy cheap land, though he warns her against it.  James says he's in no state of mind to decide anything, leaving decisions in his foreman's hands so Deborah doesn't do anything stupid and then hires a Pinkerton detective to find Philip (who is standing in front of a mirror trying on Wendy's earrings).

Hold in your laughter for the worst political gathering in miniseries history.  The Republicans come to town to whip the former slaves into becoming loyal party members with the slogan "Liberty, Lincoln, Lee"  and then reminding everyone that there are still potential slaves because there are still potential masters.  Shameless huckstering is stopped by Stan, who gives a violin-laden speech about how even if they have not been paid yet, they are doing what they are going "because we want to…we is free now, and free men choose.  What's the point of being free if you can't choose?"  That stumps the politico and silences the room until the politico proposes Stan be the first delegate or the upcoming Charleston convention.

Terri and Tom are now in Chicago making pianos, and the first one is just about ready.  Her plan to put one in every "cathouse" in the country seems to be foolproof.  Except it has enough plot holes and idiocy to it to sink a fleet of ships.  The soon-to-be husband and wife do not get along because he knows she's "vicious and greedy and vain" and the threats fly back and forth.

Covering a wanted sign of his mug, Philip goes to a war office to find out about Kyle, and is given an address of a man who corresponds regularly with him, though not currently since "sixth tree from the fourth hill in Indian territory" is not easily located by the Pony Express.  Speaking of, Indians attack our threesome, killing Rip and the "touched" boy, leaving Kyle to bury them and continue on alone.

While Stan is celebrating his wedding with dancing and song, Lesley-Anne decides to go back to the house to tend to her child.  Two Klan members want to lock the door and burn the revelers alive.  Just as they are about to rape Leslie, a man arrives to chase them off, the geologist RJ hired to find out what is really on the land Lesley-Anne owns.

The snakes are assembling, which means Deborah pays a visit to RJ, flirting her way into finding out what she needs to know about the phosphates found on the land.  Deborah has everything worked out to fine detail.  She will give him the money he needs, he will have to worry about buying out Lesley-Anne and because of the "problem of labor," they will fund a general store where everyone works on credit, thus giving the owners "complete control."  RJ tells Lesley-Anne of his plans, but the land isn't his until she defaults on payments, which is a distinct possibility given that the Klan busted the sawmill

Kyle's homecoming does not go as planned.  Shabby, bearded and dirty, his son is afraid of him and Rya is angry.  But, he cleans up, finds out about Philip and tries to dump Rya.  She halts that by inviting him up to her room to "hold each other."  He has a serious miniseries illness--the one that happens when you leave polite society for a time and have trouble readjusting when you return.  Luckily, Kyle is still sexy to Rya, so some sex seems to be the cure.  Well, to some degree, because he still takes a civilian scouting position, hoping also to hunt down Philip.

"I am regaining what you and others tried to take away from me…pride!" bellows Robert when Lesley-Anne begs him to drop the issue of credit that will lead to a new form of slavery for her friends and coworkers.

At a family dinner, James' sister-in-law Genie Francis returns and she's frightened because James has become so obsessed with Philip.  Cue the Pinkerton, to say there is a woman out west whom Philip raped, but luckily she's alive, "but barely" and can hopefully provide details.  He fears Kyle is Philip's next target.  In an army camp, Kyle meets intelligent trickster Steve Harris and they become fast friends.

The Convention of Colored Men opens with Billy Dee Williams giving a rousing speech, eventually followed by everyone's favorite, Stan.  As expected, his speech is beautiful and full of basic human heart and tears.  Even the inevitable violins don't go too far into overdrive since this is one of those shoot-for-an-Emmy speeches (thought well done and not cynical).  Stan is overwhelmed by the positive  response, but when Billy Dee calls him "Mr.," he's happier than ever.  "It ain't never been done before," he says, crying.

And, my miniseries minions, you don't need even two guesses to figure out what happens next, because we all know that when people are overwhelmingly happy in a miniseries, the worst is about to happen. Indeed, the Klan comes out of hiding to ambush him, sending his horse away (it makes it to the house where the women grab guns and form their own pose).  Stan is lynched.  Lesley-Anne chases them off.

Steve, doing well rising in the ranks, informs Kyle that his men want to see a play, so he goes to the theater in Leavenworth where initially no one will sell tickets to black men, but it's Rya who insists they sell the tickets or the company will not play in that theater.  Their reunion is awkward, but even worse is Rya going all-out doing "King Lear."  It's not the greatest rendition, but the again, Shakespeare wasn't always a guaranteed hit in Kansas.  This time is different, though Peter carps during curtain calls to Rya that she changed lines and his staging.  "I had something to say," she says.  "And you said it," Peter-as-Shylock replies.

The month comes when Lesley-Anne cannot pay the mortgage and Mariette begs Lesley-Anne to go directly to James for help.  She initially refuses, but Mariette spits out a sentence full of alliterative S sounds that convince Lesley-Anne.  James wants to help, but he also wants Lesley-Anne, who feels the same way.  When did these feelings arise?  Certainly not until Book 3, because after all those cape-and-church clandestine meetings in Books 1 and 2, she and Patrick had eyes for no one but each other.

Finally, Kyle comes across the Indian who killed Rip when the Indians attack a wagon train of settlers. The wagons circle and from inside spring soldiers.  The whole thing was a trap, but when Kyle, Steve and Steve's men rushed the area to help, they infuriate a commander who remembers Kyle, calling him a traitor and hoping he'll be hung.  "You can go to hell," Kyle says and rides off.

Philip, in a new guise that has him looking like a Shakespearean Moor, kidnaps Kyle's son and writes his name in flour on the kitchen counter where bread was being made.  As for Kyle, he's gone to the Cheyenne to ask for permission to kill the man who killed Rip and to warn them that soldiers are coming.  No sooner does that sentence escape his mouth than the commander with the attitude starts howling again about how "they breed like rabbits" and "red devils" seem to be his preferred moniker for the gang.  A slow motion montage shows a complete slaughter of the Indians.  Kyle aims for the commander, but decides not to kill him.  At least not yet.  As the commander reaches for his gun, Steve steps him and stops it from happening.  Kyle leaves and only the Indian he has been chasing is still alive to exact revenge in a war that would last far longer than the Civil War.  So ends the second part of the movie.

In the miniseries least interesting plot, Kyle and his Indian nemesis (Gregory Zaragoza) meet alone in a field.  The fight lasts about 8.2 seconds and Kyle doesn't even break a sweat besting Gregory.  However, he doesn't kill him.  He harms him and then tends to his wounds.  Awwww, new friends.

On Capitol Hill, James visits his brother Jonathan Frakes, who, in one scene, attempts to dethrone fellow overactors Terri and Rip Torn, and even makes headway besting Peter O'Toole.  Jonathan pretends to be shocked when James tells him of the scams down south, but says "we have no jurisdiction there."  He has no idea of the fact that his wife Deborah is behind it all while he works at the Freeman's Bureau and forced her to sell her interest in her company to James for $1.  Jonathan throws his wife out of their house, telling her, "I never want to see your face again!"

Also unhappy is Deborah's business partner, Robert Wagner, who agrees to work with them since the other option was to bought out.  But, James is in his element with a new project to keep him busy.  He has a list of demands for the foreman, undoing all of the evil at the plantation and general store.  He also gets closer to Lesley-Anne, who packs him baskets full of food for picnics.  When Philip's name comes up, James says over and over, "I'll get him."  And he probably will, since miniseries heroes always get their man, but most of the time because of an accident so no one has to be hauled into court.

Unable to sleep, James sits outside where Lesley-Anne pop over and finally they can confess their love for each other.  Their sex scene is notably awkward, at times just plain creepy!

Pure happiness in a miniseries is an oxymoron, because James received a telegram saying Philip has kidnapped Kyle's son, so he's dashing to St. Louis to take care of the situation.  Lesley-Anne begs him not to go and he says he's only doing it for the family, promising to return.

Terri and Tom buy the most expensive house in DC and manages to get a list of all the most influential people, throwing a party and doing Scarlett O'Hara again.  Tom is not at all thrilled at her behavior, asking what he can do to make her even happier and she says the only thing is her family plantation.

Detective James visits Rya, promising to bring Kyle back.  He then enlists Kyle's army pal, the magic-loving Steve sends him Abilene, where Kyle has become the town drunk.  He is passed out and Philips finds him in the drunk tank, teasing with the viewer by giving Kyle a shave.  But, he doesn't kill him.  When James and is ever-increasing band of merry men find Kyle, they also find a map on the way that Philip left for them.  There has to be something bad afoot, because that would be too easy an stupid.

As if the kid understands, Philip tells him his entire plan for killing everyone left in the story.  Most baffling is that he decides to go into Indian Territory to create his own kingdom where he can kill whoever he wants.  As the good guys plan to capture Philip and get Kyle's son back, Robert Wagner, who is wearing a false beard so ungainly even his acting style which is to barely twitch a muscle, is in danger of knocking it off, is with his KKK buddies.  He has more important things to do than hunt ex-slaves.  He wants to destroy everything James has.

Slowly, James, Kyle and Steve track Philip across the whole Indian Territory (which seems to be about 10 square feet because they keep passing the same trees over and over again.  What Philip doesn't know is that Kyle's son is dropping rocks like breadcrumbs of children's stories.  A woman whose husband is trafficking buffalo gives Philip and the boy, "not right in the head" as per Philip, feeds them, but doesn't believe Philip's story and pulls a gun on him.  Philip then kills a man for absolutely no reason and has the man's Indian lady friend bury him.

Who brings this news of having seen the boy to our trio of heroes?  Kyle's Indian friend, who says he will help and then that's it as "I won't owe you anything."

Just as RJ is making a deal, Terri comes flouncing in, agenda as obviously as her cleavage.  Terri has the money to buy it, but RJ reminds her that Lesley-Anne is there and making the payments.  Terri has a plan for that too.

Kyle's Indian pal locates the kid and offers to take the guys there.  Both he and Steve, neither of whom have a real stake in finding the boy, want to help.  Steve pretends to be in need of a place to rest, dragging out the story to give Kyle and James an opportunity to get into position, while Philip tells Steve the Indian woman "is for sale too.  $3 a whack."  The kid sees his father, which means everyone has to jump into a kerfuffle, killing the Indian woman, but getting the kid.  James rips his dead wife's earring off Philip's ear and in the middle of Philip's defiant speech, he's lynched.

That leaves just Lesley-Anne's plot to wrap up.  RJ and his cohorts plan to kill her and take what they feel is theirs.  RJ's wife hears the conversation, begging him not to be a part of it, but he roughly makes it clear this is not a woman's business and she best not say anything.  However, the wife slips away and informs Lesley-Anne of the plans.  James and Kyle rush to protect Lesley-Anne and fight the clan.  Rya is upset that Kyle is leaving again and tells him she may not be there when he returns, so he gets about 10 steps and decides to choose his lady friend over helping Lesley-Anne, but wouldn't you know, Rya reminds him that "you always keep your word," so she is confident enough in his word, she tells him to go.

A gloating Terri shows up at her plantation to inform Lesley-Anne that she bought the deed from RJ and wants Lesley-Anne gone.  They two are in the middle of an escalating fight when Tom shows up, telling Terri he never transferred the money from one account to another, so she doesn't own the property.  Terri sees that the only part of her ancestral home is that pile of columns and her version of fiddle-dee-dee is "you know, I didn't want it anyway."

Terri's plot has come to the end, but the Klan is still planning an attack.  Everyone at the plantation works together to erect barricades (which don't look very scary), they test their guns (very old) and anticipate the coming of the Klan, now singing around a burning cross.  Can the train carrying James and Kyle make it in time?

Lesley-Anne gets to comfort everyone: former slaves who have never fought, the overseer, who wants to kill RJ and a hysterical Mariette.  When the Klan approaches, it's the ragtag bunch who fire the first shots.  They have the dynamite, which helps them, but the Klan is losing this one.  "I will never surrender," one howls…and then gets shot to death.  Robert grabs Lesley-Anne and rides off with her though followed closely by James and Kyle.  RJ has the opportunity to kill James and Lesley-Anne, but hesitates and a fellow Klan member kills him only to be shot dead himself by James.

James and Lesley-Anne end up in a clinch among the ruins of the plantation, wondering whether to rebuild or not.

And now, we are officially done with "North and South."  Two out of three ain't bad!

Pearl (1978)

My friends, it's been a long time since we sifted our way through a World War II miniseries, and there are only about 407 more to get through, so let's just jump right into "Pearl."  As in the harbor.  As in you know exactly what is going to happen before we even start because we know how war miniseries work: toss a jumble of characters together with secrets and lies and them hit 'em with the war when they least expect it, unraveling all of those secrets and lies for the lucky characters who survive.

Oh, if this strikes you as at all familiar, it's because it's the exact same ado as "From Here to Eternity."  "Pearl" predates the remake of the latter as a miniseries, but still steals generous helpings of it from at least the novel and the original film, both of which are classics.  "Pearl," well, is not.

If you need the narration to tell you what happened at Pearl Harbor, stop reading this and pick up a book, any book.  However, the narrator is there as a reminder, but awfully overzealous and flowery.  "More than human life was lost that morning.  A special world died too, the world of American innocents," he gravely intones.  It's not untrue, but it's been said better.  But, let's not think of December 7 yet.  Let's go back before that.

Our narrator almost loses his breath (seriously) while describing Oahu before the attack.  Not only does take great pains to list every nationality present on the island, but he insists all was utterly perfect as if the war in the rest of the world didn't matter.  Well, that's a bit of historical re-invention.  It was the base for a naval fleet, one that was growing and growing in anticipation of someone finally flipping the switch to enter the US into a war it would inevitably have to fight.  What was going on in "this honeyed land" was years in the making; it's no coincidence that we were able to declare war the minute the Japanese bombed.

The story begins on December 4, with the Japanese fleet navigating through stormy waters somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and assembling its air force for readiness.  War councils are conducted in Japanese, but that's way too boring, so we instead start to watch a bunch of flesh rumps doing the hula in extreme close-up.  It's a class for the most bored and boring housewives on the island.

In comes their "social director" (named Midge), Angie Dickinson, with a mane of blonde hair.  She is easily the least appealing person for that role, immediately castigating the women for not bothering to ask  why they are in a hula class at 9am the day after all of them arrived on the island.  One brave but very stupid woman says it's "keen to learn the hula" and she wants to "learn all the island customs."  With that, Angie realizes it's pointless to talk sense and gives them back over to the hula instructor.

Then aren't a whole lot smarter, it seems, but at least they know why they are there (or think they do, at any rate).  It's not to play handball, though that's how we meet Lieutenant Gregg Henry and Captain Robert Wagner, the latter head to toe in white, but somehow not sweating.  Gregg is thinking of leaving the army.  Uh oh, that makes him instantly unlikeable because the American miniseries is insanely patriotic.  Of course, in ten minutes, we have yet to meet a character who is likable, which is strange.    We should be head over heels for SOMEONE by now!

The Japanese fleet is told that though Americans are "shallow...they could prove a formidable foe."  Okay, two issues.  First, yes, Americans are shallow, but we should be taking personality lessons from the Japanese of 1941, trying to bludgeon the world because no one paid them any attention since we opened up their land against their will 100 years before?  Second, "could" be a formidable foe?  Okay, that's giving the Japanese no credit at all.  Neither the Germans nor the Japanese were at all surprised by the sudden might of the war machine once it was decided to get the US involved.  The minute it happened, the talk in Europe switched from how to survive to what to do with the continent after the war was over!  Is there ANYONE this miniseries wants us to like or believe?

It's sure as hell not ass-kissing Sgt. Brian Dennehy, the army's most out-of-shape soldier, or Colonel Dennis Weaver, who talks while brandishing a whip just to discuss how unhappy he is with the driver RJ hired for him.  Dennis is also completely humorless over a dozen jokes about the driver's name and is all pissy that his wife Angie has been making snarky remarks to the other officers' wives.  She's bitter, he assumes she's drunk and they speak like they hate each other.  How about Private Christian Vance, the incompetent driver with the funny last name who Dennis accuses of not liking women, the true crux of his issue with Pvt. Finger (yes, that's his funny name).  "Just look at him!" Dennis snaps, because the boy is too pretty to be straight, but RJ is there to defend him, 30 years pre-Stonewall and three drinks just to get through this bizarre scene, one that has the flow of an Escher painting.  By the end of the scene, well, I have not a clue what has happened.  I think the pretty private still has a job.

The Japanese are given the order to attack Pearl Harbor at 8am on Sunday and be prepared to "die for our Emperor."

Awwwww.  However, when she offers to give away her car for free, I'm wondering if she's not thinking of jumping off the nearest volcano.  Sixth grade health class, the second way of telling a person is about to off herself--giving away possessions.

There's a ridiculous subplot going on about slot machines.  Apparently, Dennis is getting back at Company A for dumping the possibly queer kid on him by impounding Company A's slot machines for his company.  I wish it took just one scene to waste this time, but no, it keeps going.  We have A LOT of time to kill before the Japanese arrive.  The capper is a conversation RJ and Brian have about grasping for drumsticks and always being second best that has no bearing on anything other than to prove that the two men are very different.  Yes, we understood that from their rank and from RJ's perfect Southern manners as compared to meathead Brian is portraying.

You didn't think we would escape more than 30 minutes without a mixed race romance, did you?  Oh, come on!  Our fated Romeo and Juliet here are Gregg, who grew up on the island in all of his blond splendor, and Tiana Alexander, the hospital worker/journalist Lesley Ann so unfairly slashed a few scenes ago.  They went to school together, though she can't imagine how he would remember one native girl from all the others.  He helps her fix a tire and she drives him to the hotel where he's both meeting his family and she's covering a Chamber of Commerce meeting.  Cute, I know.  Can you stand it?  It's a shame they have zip in the chemistry department or it could have been a fun little scene.

Gregg's family, well, they also leave something to be desired.  Papa Richard Anderson is another career soldier and Mama Marion Ross seems a bit grouchy, not to mention the requisite annoying little sister, Mary Crosby.  Richard is already speaking like a haunted ghost because he has a desk job in the war he knows is coming.

Tiana gets to take in Dennis' speech where he announces "the Japanese are using Hawaii as a stepping stone to world conquest," and does so in glasses so we take her more seriously.  He feels this way about Hawaii before Japanese invasion, fearing that "American culture" is being "melted" by Japanese intrusion already, a "conspiracy" as Tiana challenges him and to which he agrees.  This sets him off on a tirade against in-breeding that makes him sound wowingly racist, even by the standards of 1940.  Sorry, but aren't the Americans the ones who took Hawaii from Pacific Islanders?  Okay, maybe the Japanese too, but they are also Pacific Islanders.  The all-white audience doesn't totally buy Dennis' blather, but RJ has to run after Tiana to explain his commander.  "When you print the story, don't be kind," he quips.  There's that Southern charm again.

"So, how you makin' out with the new girls out here?" Mary asks Gregg.  "You know your brother is engaged!" Marion reminds her.  WOAH!  Gregg, who just arranged to meet Tiana at the fruit market at 6am is engaged?  That's news to everyone but the family, apparently.  Gregg answers that by saying he's resigning his commission, moving out on his own and, naturally, not marrying this faceless girl.  The conversation is WASP heaven, ending with "I'm the Scotch" from Marion when the waitress brings the beverages.

Dennis goes poking through Angie's things (spraying her perfume on his hand is either wistful or creepy) and finds a wrapped up photo at the bottom of a drawer of her...no, I'm not going to say lover...daughter.  A cute little blonde kid.

Now, the story needs a nympho and obviously it has to be Angie Dickinson (Pepper Anderson notwithstanding, she did kind of make a career out of this role), who shows up to seduce Robert Wagner, which apparently she's never been able to fully do.  He sidesteps her to do 50 laps in the pool (maybe Brian Dennehy isn't the most out of shape man in this movie), but she merely walks into the pool fully clothed.  That's the kind of ballsy dame she is!  After she kisses him, he tells her, "you don't need a part-time lover...you need a full-time friend."  "What Victorian novel did you get that out of?" she asks, stealing the words from right out of my mouth!  A few more cold pieces of banter and RJ resists her arms, sending her off to a hot bath with the butler.  I think we have our hero!  Doesn't even sleep with the boss' wife...well, not yet at least.  I don't see Robert Wagner taking on any sexless roles, but let's wait and see!

That night, there is, by Pearl Harbor standards, a gala movie affair.  They are showing "Gone With the Wind" and Angie is dressed for a red carpet that isn't there.  "This man is new, isn't he?" she asks Dennis as the poor maybe-gay driver looks right through her upon opening the car.  Wow, this minuscule plot line is already running out of steam, the poor kid.

After Dennis gives one of his usual foot-in-mouth speeches to introduce the film, he takes his seat next to Angie, who is sitting beside dry-as-dust Audra Lindley (yup, Mrs. Roper), who hopefully can't help but provide some extra good entertainment.  They are rivals.  The more-than-half-empty theater is treated to some war footage first, about how well England is coping with the Battle of Britain (yeah, the foreshadowing is pretty obvious).  Lesley Ann bolts the theater and not only does her date run after her, but so does Robert.

The date seems unconcerned, but Robert follows her outside, noting her license plate.  He's practicing for "Hart to Hart" already, I suppose.

It's finally Friday, December 5.  We're getting there, folks.  Slowly and totally unsurely, but getting there.    Dennis is up at the bugle, showing off some rather infantile pajamas, and Angie, in her separate bedroom, snaps "another day in the trenches."  I have no idea what this dame sounds like not sarcastic since that's the only way her lines have been delivered so far.  Dennis wonders aloud if he shouldn't "do what Clark Gable did to Vivien Leigh," in the previous night's movie, but Angie heads him off there, finishing it with, "you wouldn't leave me," rather than letting him get any sexual ideas into his head.  Instead, she goes to her mirror and utters a fantastic line!  "I need four hens.  Two to get by with and two to hold back the lines."  Someone write that down, I love it!  She is then uncharacteristically reduced to tears by the picture of the dead daughter left out by Dennis.

Poor Christian Vance is hassled with gay-themed pictures his fellow grunts have drawn and this starts a big fight.  Perhaps we're inching away from micro-plotting.

We all know the reason we bothered to wake up so early was so Gregg and Tiana could meet at the market.  They have "only six hours" until they each have to be somewhere.  "I'll shop fast," Tania says before haggling with the  merchants, smile ablaze.  She makes the mistake of asking him about his family and he launches into a boring speech about wanting to leave the army and how it didn't sit well with his folks.  Her incessant haggling gets annoying, but luckily both brought bathing suits, so we won't spend six hours in the market.

It didn't take Robert long to find Lesley Ann's place, and he shows up with flowers, which should be even more bizarre since they've never met.  Indeed, good actress that Lesley Ann is (we're lucky to have her here, that's for sure), she is awfully perplexed, but RJ barrels his way in while she's trying to puzzle it out.  Putting the flowers in water, he asks her out on a date, and somehow she agrees!  With a complete stranger who has tracked her down through her license plate.  This comatose woman agrees to a date for that night?

But wait, it gets better!  Better!

Robert leaves and Lesley Ann decides to down a bottle of pills.  She hesitates, looks at the waves, and goes to gulp when in bursts Robert.  Literally!  Kids, I can't make this up, this happens for real in "Pearl."  And freeze, commercial.

"You're thinking, how did I know, huh?" he asks her.  She doesn't answer, but I, for one, would love to know.  He then goes on to actually explain how he figured it out, with a straight face that somehow she shares.   If his Miss Marple routine doesn't have you doubling in half, you are a lost cause, stick with "War and Remembrance."  The corniness endures as he goes back to the Greeks to explain why suicide isn't such a bad thing, which probably isn't helpful, but naturally works in this Velveeta parade.

After a brief check-in with the Japanese, RJ and Lesley Ann have graduated to a beach horseback riding session as they get to know each other.  He rattles on and she's not paying any attention.  He asks if she wants to hear more and she says no, but he continues.  Now the actors are as oblivious as the script?  She tries to escape his clutches, but he insists and orders her to stay at his house.  Smart Dr. Lesley Ann somehow goes along with his program all because he promises things will be better as "you got me."  Not inspiring.

For the first time, Angie shows a little bit of sadness, moaning to pal Katherine Helmond that "when I look in the mirror, I don't see myself anymore."  That cliche line is from the same script as the Robert and Lesley Ann are in?  War does crazy things to a miniseries.  "You only come over here to complain, you don't listen," Katherine says, noting how Angie actually enjoys her battles with Dennis and will never leave him.  At least this scene explains what the hell is going on with Angie and Dennis, though through LONG exposition from bratty Katherine.

We pause for a bit of history on the radio that tells us...not what you think.  No, just that Washington has sent the Japanese ambassador a "ten point memorandum" about Japanese activities in the Far East and expects a reply.  A forgotten fact of US entry into World War II was that negotiations were going on in the nation's capital that would have gotten us into the war at some point, but on terms far more favorable than a surprise attack that nearly clobbered the navy.

This is all going to make Gregg and Tiana's romance even more awkward because she's Japanese.  The fact that she announces to the born-in-Japan family that she has a date with a white man doesn't go over any better with her family than it will with his.

That day passes very quickly because it's already December 6 (which means this day is going to take FOREVER).  It starts badly, with RJ back in the swimming trunks.  But, Lesley Ann is all smiles in her one-piece, followed down the beach by the butler with drinks.  He offers her the entire weekend (oops), she assumes that means sex, gets pouty, but he explains it's only for "affection and support."  She glumly agrees.  First, though, he has to check in and headquarters and sees suspicious fire signals.  He and a g-man discuss it and decide the Japanese won't make an attack (oops).  The g-man is more worried about "sabotage" from the local Japanese.  RJ decides to note it to Dennis anyway, but it's not taken seriously (oops).  Dennis has a ball to throw that night and nothing is more important!  He's doing Cole Porter proud, but it's bad news for the navy.

Privates "Gayface" Christian and Adam Arkin go over to a brothel run by...surprise...Katherine Helmond!  She knows Adam well, has his usual girl ready and wants to please Christian very much, but he can't find a girl he likes and wants to "look around on my own."  Luckily, he's not on driving duty because Audra and her general hubby are picking Dennis up.  Angie has just bolted the premises when they show up, so Dennis has to fumble for excuses before joining them.  Audra knows something is up, something more than just her eyebrow.  Anyway, the current plots collide when Angie passes by sad-looking Christian on the street and offers him a ride back to the base.  I guess she's gotten over her fear of him from movie night.  She hasn't forgotten him, actually, just her fear, because she cracks, "you drive my husband around, I drive him crazy" as a bonding tool.  Christian is so dim-witted that when Angie parks the car in a secluded spot, he wants to check a map to see where they are.  "I'd forgotten things could be beautiful," she says melodramatically staring at him in the moonlight before kissing him.

"Please ma'am," he says, pushing her off.
"Please do or please don't?"

He worries about breaking the rules, as diddling an officer's wife is "second only to treason."  I've not seen that in the rules anywhere, but then again, I've never attempted to write a kitsch "From Here To Eternity" knock off.  She's not giving up, so he gives in.  Hah!  Who is gay now?  You go, Christian, with a hundred violins, no less.  And, all before the Japanese can interrupt.

You know what Adam likes to do with the hookers?  Paint their portraits.  That's disappointing!  So, the only people on the island getting it on are Angie and Christian?  That's unexpected.  Making it worse, he's a painter-philosopher and we have to listen to the mumbo jumbo that comes with the latter (aka, a time killer).  Good thing the gal he has for the night also likes to chat in that manner.

Lest we forget anything serious, Tiana brings Gregg in to meet her parents.  He brings gifts, is exceedingly polite, but is, as expected, ignored.  Also, as expected, he's a good sport about it.  She delivers a resolute speech to her father that she respects her ancestry, but she is going out with this hunky white guy.  It even turns into a civics lesson, but Pops ain't budging.

What wold a whorehouse be without a brawl?  Adam's paintings come in for some jokes, so he thrashes everyone he can find.  Katherine doesn't seem to mind.

The navy ball?  It's a snooze.  Dennis, dancing with Audra, isn't thrilled to see Gregg dancing with Asian Tiana, but he doesn't recognize her from a few days ago because, "I have trouble telling one from another."  I've been waiting hours for that line.  Though RJ promised he wouldn't try to have sex with Lesley Ann, he does, she panics and bolts.  She finds comfort on a swing outside, going back and forth like a crazed woman as he professes his love for her.  Already?  When did he have time to fall in love?  Was it at the aborted pill swallowing or did the swings clinch it for him?  And the swings, now we're borrowing from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Gregg tells Tiana more about his boring life, but she's enough history and asks him point blank why he hasn't made a move on her.  Well, he's kind of used to Asian women being "confirmed virgins or karate experts."  She lets that one pass because she's damn horny and not ashamed of it.  She's further turned on by his lack of experience with girls, and that's when, uh oh, he mentions the discarded fiancee.  Nope, that doesn't scare her either.  "Can we make love?" she asks.  "When?" he replies nervously and follows with another 20 questions before finally kissing her.  When a girl is that ready, what red-white-and-blue straight guy holds out so long?

Angie has no such problems.  She drops Christian off and is found by Brian Dennehy.  He wants money to keep it quiet, which she absolutely expected.  Frankly, she's insulted at the low amount she wants so she grabs his gun and flattens his tire (the car tire, not his spare one), with a threat to kill him if he blabs.  At least this character has some surprises to her.  I was beginning to think the approaching Japanese were the only interesting people in the movie.

Speaking of, dawn has broken and it's December 7.  Tiana greets the day at a Shinto shrine, with Gregg looking on proudly.  "I'm also a Methodist," she informs him.  They hear the planes, but Gregg doesn't think it could be anything important so early.  Saucy Angie has been out all night and returns to a smack in the face from Dennis, which we know is pleasing to her.  Robert is playing polo (polo?) when Lesley Ann comes to ask him to escort her to the boat off the island.  Katherine is taking the painted girl to church, with oodles of been-there advice.  In other words, no one is paying any attention to the skies above.  Tension should be building, but none of these people are fascinating enough to make that happen and we know that history can't be put off forever.

It takes a nameless character to realize the planes dropping bombs are Japanese on the attack, but Lesley Ann is just getting to the reason she's been so darn upset (dead boyfriend).  Take your pick, you can mute the sound because of the attack or the dialogue and you won't miss much.

Finally, the alert goes out and everyone knows what those pesky planes are really doing up there.  Some are slower to react, such as Dennis, still howling at Angie as his naval base is bombed to ruins.  There is always time for a pointless argument, Angie still full of quips.  If you are still on mute, consider yourself fortunate.  A constantly ringing phone eventually ends this scene.  "We're at war," Dennis tells her.  "You and I have been at war for the last 18 years," Angie clucks, still not getting it.

Some, like Gregg's father Richard Anderson, are quick to mobilize, while others get the gabs, like Adam, who has an insanely long speech while the whole navy is running around him.  He even has time to answer some sex questions from Christian.  That's just a blatant waste of time when we know we have tearful partings from couples like Gregg and Tiana (big kisses and he has to get to work).  Oh, and Robert says out loud that he's happy for a war because it's keeping Lesley Ann on the island.  That makes as much sense as anything else he's said to her, so she doesn't find it shocking.

Alas, the plot churns and so I must report the windings.  At first, everyone we've met so far survives, though in various states of hysteria (Mary Crosby is particularly ripe, worrying about being raped, but veteran scene-stealer Marion Ross out-does her).  Richard is the calming effect, telling his family, and thus us, that the Japanese can't land on their particular island.  Maybe another, but not this one, so air raids are to be the worst of it.  It sounds convincing, I suppose.  "If I didn't know any better, I'd say my father planned this thing to make sure I didn't get out of the navy," his son Gregg says to mates.  Just for that, the boat he's on is bombed, sending him into the water, but alive.

Dennis is excited to put some plans into action, plans someone was careful enough to draw up in case something like this happened.  He mentions there will be censorship and even the bars will be closed.  "Not that bars, sir!" Robert sneers, as if he has some better plan just waiting to be unfurled.  Dennis warns him, "we must not take advantage of the awesome powers that are to be delegated to us," which also gets a sarcastic rejoinder from his know-it-all inferior knocking Dennis down a few pegs.

The FBI makes a beeline for Tiana's house, questioning her father's need for so many pigeons and tossing around threats.  But, Tiana is understanding, agreeing that "you have to worry about such things now."  Her father shows he's no traitor by killing this pigeons.  One by one.  In real time.

Need we guess who is the first true hero?  It's RJ, of course, the marquee star.  He not only saves a child from a burning house, but a Japanese child and stays around to worry about the other houses on the street while Dennis drives off to do his work.  Oh, don't worry, the first time his hair gets singed, he'll forget all about the kids, even the I'm-so-noble-I-save-the-children-of-potential-enemies part of him.

It's the enlisted men who are smartest, giving their superiors great suggestions and even letting Japanese civilians help out (seems dubious, but okay).  Naturally, there is must use for Lesley Ann's surgical skills, but there is a lack of help at the hospital, soon filled by...the hookers!  "My girls are cleaner" than anything on the island, Katherine demands and they are allowed to help.  War breaks down all barriers.

After weasel Brian Dennehy claims his jeep was hit by enemy fire (it was just Angie, remember?), Dennis is told of the mounting casualties.  "Murder!  Murder!  By God, now we're taking control," he finally decides.  A little late to the game, but still welcome.  He has so many hams around him that he's stayed fairly muted, but it's a miniseries and everyone wants an Emmy.  Not that anyone here stands a chance.

Our first big "uh oh" moment comes when Robert and Tiana see a bloodied and very wounded Gregg wheeled into the hospital.

(FYI, the battle scenes, which are impressive, are unused footage from "Tora! Tora! Tora!")

A very confused Angie pays a lucky cab driver $100 to drive her around, first stopping at Katherine's to hear that "a very special world around us is dying" (I'm assuming she means this is bad for her business) and then insisting on going to the naval base!  "I have to do something and I'm not afraid any longer," Angie announces to Katherine, revealing what is apparently a long-dormant second personality, because we've not seen this Angie previously.

Back to the hospital.  Gregg is awake and asking for Tiana, though RJ insists the soap keep bubbling, demanding to know of Lesley Ann at this particular moment, in the middle of the hospital on this day, why a girl with such smarts would try suicide.  I like her reply.  "Leave me alone!"

There isn't a scratch on Gregg, looking awfully fresh upon waking up and being cleaned off.  "My parents will love you.  I'm gonna tell them all about you," he says to Tiana, who agrees.  We all know what happens to characters who promise the future in a miniseries.  They don't usually live to see it.  Unaware of that law, Gregg proposes and Tiana accepts, then it's off to surgery for Gregg.

Grinning and laughing, Brian is excited about the war and tells Private Christian it's for two reasons.  First, the war guarantees that they need every man, so he, less than a year from retirement with his superiors trying to boot him, is safe.  If that isn't enough, "you and the Colonel's slut," is his ace in the hole.  "I know you're a lot bigger than I am, but I don't care.  I'm not going to let you call the Colonel's wife what you just did and get away with it," Christian says after abruptly stopping the car.  I'm not sure which part he objects to really, but Brian says they will discuss it later, causing Christian to go on a free-wheeling car zoom that scares the hell out of Brian.  They go off the side of the road and Brian escapes before the car blows up, four or five explosions.  At that moment, Adam Arkin drives by and is pulled away from the wreckage like a horrified boyfriend.

And thus, we our first cast casualty, one that owed nothing to the Japanese directly, making it seem more than a trifle trite.

Gal-on-a-mission Angie forces her way onto the naval base, full of bluster and threats in her first serious speech of the piece (the soldier she humiliates in this scene gets to take out his aggression on a Japanese telegram delivery boy who has a coded message for the general, though he lets him through anyway).  Dennis is busy reading Brian the riot act for not getting to the printer on time, though Brian does have a good excuse.  "Has my car been damaged?" is Dennis' first question.  Yup, and so has your driver.  "I told [Robert] that homo can't drive!" Dennis replies, only THEN finding out that Private Christian is dead.  Brian is haunted by the episode, but Dennis has war fever and finds this all just a fiasco.  "I will not permit madness to infect my section!" he demands, oblivious, as always.  "It won't happen again, sir" Brian replies, as stoically as possible with a lunatic for a superior.

Angie and her cab driver somehow get to the landing strip where the second wave of Japanese aircraft is devastating the planes by not only shooting them but crashing into them to create huge fires.  Angie is horrified at what she sees, but the cab driver seems more than happy to let her sit and watch.

Upset at losing his special friend, Adam tells his superior about the whole debacle and when asked if he's okay, Adam loads on the heavy New York accent and avows, "nothin's gonna kill me, not you, not this stinkin' army!"  Perhaps not, but the storyline and bad acting might.

Thrilled now, Dennis loves barking orders and issuing commands.  RJ is there when he says any Japanese sympathizers can get the death penalty.  So, very slowly, Robert lays into him, defending the actions of all the brave Japanese people living on the island.  Dennis decides to counter this with "an old Hawaiian proverb," and wait until you hear it: "the canoe is not swamped by the outside wave, but by the inside wave."  WHAT?  What is an inside wave in a canoe?  That does not end the scene, alas.  Robert continues to argue, even asking for "an apology on our part, a sense of regret, not a sense of joy at the prospect, not elation."  An apology to whom?  No one has been arrested yet.  Sure, the FBI looked at Tiana's dad and his birds, but no one rounded him up.  "Are you accusing me of enjoying this tragic day?"  "I'm your exec, sir, not your accuser."  "I'll expect you to remember that at all times," Dennis says, having gone far more bonkers with power than perhaps even Captain Kurtis.  The scene only concludes when Dennis orders Robert to inform all the bordellos that there is a curfew and anyone in violation could be shot.  Sure, kill off the last vestiges of pleasure left on the island, blame the hookers!  They've been busy wrapping bandages all day, if anyone cares to remember.  They will be too tired at night anyway.

So, off Robert dashes to Katherine Helmond's establishment, apparently deciding she's keenly interested in his rhetoric about "personal freedom" and some other rot that is obviously some writer's personal passion yet doesn't particularly belong here.  It works.  "Captain, after a speech like that, whatever brought you, the house is yours!" Katherine says, fluttering her eyelids at his Southern charm but no doubt hoping her next film role is better.  His new rules are that she operate in the daytime and install blackout curtains.  "The whole town will become a red light district," Katherine portends.  You see, she's not at all scared by the military, because she feels that making a ghetto of the neighborhood will cause more girls to come and soon she will have to "expand" to streets with "decent families."  Never try to best a Madam, they will ALWAYS win.  "I suspect you're right," he tells her.  "I'm always right.  I wish to hell I weren't."  Why?  You've done pretty damn well for yourself, thriving business, big house on the beach.  It doesn't seem so bad.

In case you're wondering, Driving Miss Angie is still happening.  She finds her way to a meeting of the all the war wives, where Audra is yowling in a fury of patriotism, firing off false information.  "Why don't you stop blowing it out!  For once in your life, why don't you start dealing with the truth?" Angie demands to know of a character who has never been accused of lying.  He'll she hasn't had five lines total so far!  Audra thinks she's protecting the women from the truth, but Angie, all bug eyed with reports from the naval base, tells them what she's seen, the fires, the planes and ships gone.  "The days of hula lessons and bridge socials are over!  The Japanese just blew them away!" Angie shouts.  "If I were a man, I would knock your head off!  You are nothing but a disgusting tramp," blares Mrs. Roper.  "We all know that you are a drunk and that I sleep around," Angie agrees, still insisting that the wives deserve the truth.

Once the Americans take to the air things don't instantly improve.  The Japanese are still on the offensive, trained and ready.  Planes from both sides are destroyed with guns blazing, but eventually, the Japanese disappear back to the Pacific and we're left to pick up the pieces of the plot.

First, Lesley Ann has to deliver the news to Tiana that Gregg died on the operating table.  Tiana wants to see the body and Lesley Ann hugs her, slowly walking her to the body as a nurse with a pile of dog tags leads them to the body.  He looks just as hunky as ever, his face completely unharmed.  "Talk to me!" Tiana cries to the body, while Lesley Ann is feet away breaking down (again).  Once again, only because Lesley Ann Warren is such a capable actress does she come off as believable here, rather than just a victim of horribly bad characterization.

Gregg's family doesn't know yet.  Marion and Mary have barricaded themselves in their hotel room (much to the consternation of the maids, since they have left the "please make up room" sign on the door but deadbolted it from the inside).  Mary keeps howling in hysterics as Marion spins fanciful stories of what the Japanese might be doing to everyone (with the backdrop of palm trees and the beach behind her).  Robert does his best to comfort his wife, though it's not particularly good news that he has gotten himself commissioned to Pearl Harbor.  He's sending his family back to the mainland, but Marion refuses to go.  She won't leave the island where Japanese servants are apparently poisoning hot chocolate?

And then the phone rings.  Mary and Marion guess the news before Robert even puts the headset down.

The hooker Adam has been painting (Char Fontaine) somehow is able to drive out to the beach where the grunts are waiting for Japanese ships, so she can talk to Adam.  The sarge in charge is baffled that the hookers are following them.  "We've always been camp followers, back to the Greeks and the Persians," she schools him.  "Yeah, and look what happened to the Greeks and the Persians," he replies, as if ladies of the night did in those empires.  Rome?  Maybe, but not the Greeks and the Persians.  He relents and Adam gets five minutes with Char, as the rest of the men hoot encouragingly.  She wants him to paint her again...at home, where she has to be, alone, at night.  She even gives him the key to her home.  He clearly does not get that she has a crush on the lug, but he agrees to go.  "Make it soon, okay?" she says, like a demure girlfriend (in her demure yellow dress buttoned up demurely to the neck).  I hope this is leading somewhere, because the crawling pace has returned to "Pearl" just when it's time to wrap things up.

When Tiana shows up at Robert and Marion's room, Marion is suddenly very welcoming and sweet to her.  Tiana explains the act of bravery Gregg committed that caused his death that brought down a Japanese bomber.  She explains how good the medical staff was to him and how hard they tried to save him.  Marion clings to her with a most motherly embrace.

True to the order, the Japanese are rounded up from monasteries and graveyards.  "Every dog on the island," Dennis barks over the phone to someone questioning the orders.  Robert is not pleased to see Buddhist priests and "simple fisherman" treated in this manner.  He asks to be relieved of his duty to Dennis and wants combat duty because he can't countenance what Dennis is doing.  Dennis turns it into a rambling discussion about Robert's family money, dreaming up a notion that Robert's family has a plantation with servants, like the Civil War just started, not World War II.  He clearly has an inferiority complex going.  Robert listens with all the zest of a stand-in as Dennis blows out the bile, demanding that Robert remain, refusing to ever let him go, promising, "I am going to break you."

Pause for a sec.  Okay, this sort of plot revelation is actually interesting, because it gives Dennis' character some depth, but unfortunately, it comes out of nowhere.  There has been absolutely no indication anywhere else in the saga so far that Dennis grew up poor resenting rich people, most particularly his aide.  They certainly have never liked each other, but the writers here should have made it clear, at least to us, a lot earlier what the stick up Dennis' ass was all about.  At this point, he's coming off as a raving racist nutcase when this could be a moment to show how a character's whole life of pent-up jealousy and hatred is being taken out on innocent civilians just because of their race.  How can we be expected to have anything but utter competent for this character now?  He's played the buffoon for the entire movie up to this point, and now suddenly he does everything but twirl his mustache to become the ultimate villain, the embodiment of every apologizing nobility this movie has wanted to display when it comes to race relations (remember, it's 1978 when it was made, so this is not really about Asians and Caucasians, this is much larger in the context of the racial tensions of the 60s and 70s).

Unpause.  Robert reacts to this by rescinding his offer to resign his position, "because nothing is more important than this, this war between us.  I promise you, sir, if I just once find you stepping beyond the powers you now enjoy, just once, violating any law, any regulation, I shall use that against you on behalf of a country and an army I believe in, despite men like you," Robert says slowly and methodically, mistaking pretend earnestness for good acting, but helped by the patriotic music played under the scene.

At the sink after surgery, a very impressed doctor tells Lesley Ann he wants her to stay on because she has been such a great help.  She's, as usual, in a world of her own, turning to him with a big smile and saying, "I cried today!" with triumph before rushing out.  Very good, doctor!  How about tomorrow we learn our colors?  She then puts on her civvies, trying not to let the grief of everyone else at the hospital ruin her insta-happiness and hops in her car.

The Japanese aren't exactly overwhelmed with glee themselves, feeling that though they sent out two very important runs that virtually decimated Battleship Row, it wasn't honorably done (they hit first at 7:55 AM, five minutes before the declaration of war--maybe their watches were just fast, calm down already!).  The commander feels "we have succeeded only in awaking a sleeping giant."  You didn't think of that before?  Come on, let's not be dishonest to history here, people.  As I said earlier, everyone on earth knew the US was mobilizing, it just needed an actual reason to get into the war and the Japanese were the part of the Axis who gave it to them.

"Last stop," Angie finally tells her long-suffering driver.  "You've been a brave and cheerful companion, aloha," Angie adds, as if the day has been all about getting to know a stranger.  She passes Brian on the way into see Dennis, baiting him a bit and then offering apologies to Robert.  "What's happened to you?" Robert understandably asks after she delivers her speech.  "Pearl Harbor, I don't know."  Lady, we don't know either.  Her second apology to him is in advance of what she's going to say to Dennis, telling him everything.  She orders him to follow her and to bring Brian as well.  "What is this?" Robert asks.  "Pearl Harbor, my version."  Angie's two personalities are colliding and I'm afraid.  So is Robert, clearly.

Understandably, Dennis finds her visit a bother, but when Robert and Brian enter, he has no choice but to put the war on hold and deal with her.  And then comes the BIG speech.  She starts with the dead daughter and explains how she died, a story none of the other men knows (why should they know?).  She turns from zealous prosecuting attorney into crying lump.  Regaining her composure, she forges ahead.  The ramble makes very little sense at this point.  Sure, we need to finish Angie's plot, but as with Dennis earlier, there have been very few clues, not enough to warrant this grandiose episode and the sheer amount of time it takes.  "I'm leaving you...just three little words," she announces, continuing with another of her infamous animal metaphors, "we're like two old horses, joined at the hip, side by side pulling at a junk wagon, just going along, day after day, year after year, picking up more junk and pretty soon, it's not each other we feel, it's the weight we're pulling.  I'm unhitching us..."  She confesses to trying to seduce Robert and insists Brian tell what he saw.  Brian now gets his big acting chance, but Robert whips out his gun and offers to shoot Brian.  How about the director instead?  Leaving a grade A mess in her wake, Angie grabs her purse and says, "well, I'm going.  God forgive me how good I feel!" She brings back the "Gone With the Wind" parallel, exiting with Rhett's final line and slamming the door.  This is the most insane scene yet, I suppose inevitable, but so badly handled.  I can't even find anything else to say.  "Pearl" is its own worst enemy.

Dennis is left alone in his office with a stack of paperwork as he dissolves into a quaking crying mess himself.

That would leave just Lesley Ann, who managed to onto the base as the curfew is about to take effect.  Some grunt tries to get her to go, but it seems Angie's grand exit wasn't enough to end her character's participation.  Leaving the building, she's recognized by Lesley Ann and insists the soldier take her to see Robert.  Never mind, he's coming out of the building at that moment anyway.  She gets to tell him the FULL story of her misery.  It's rather anti-climactic, and more than a touch bonkers, but at least it's acted well...or, in context, better.  "They asked me to stay at the hospital, but that depends on you.  Do you want me to stay?"  "Oh my God, yes!" Robert replies and his dirty body gets a hug and giant kiss.

Roosevelt's declaration of war to Congress is played as all of the characters listen.  The narrator returns (I was hoping he wouldn't, but whatcha gonna do?) to tell us "nothing was ever the same again."

It's just stupid!  Second-hand stupid.  "Pearl" has no reason to exist other than to copy "From Here to Eternity" and doesn't even do it well.  The characters are a jumble of non-existent plots and horrendous acting and the script might have been better suited to more than five hours because there is so much going on, yet none of it at all important.  How one can actually manage to trivialize the events of December 7, 1941 is beyond me, but that is the only thing at which "Pearl" succeeds.

Windmills of the Gods (1988)

In the first roughly ten minutes of "Windmills of the Gods," which we know will be a corker because it's based on a Sidney Sheldon novel, we learn two very important things:

First, deep in Finland, in a cabin about as rickety as that of Abraham Lincoln's, a super secret agent led by mouthpiece Ian McKellan, plans the assassinations of world leaders just for the heck of it.  Okay, they aren't that evil, though it's hard to tell since we only see the backs of their heads, the budget blown in Sir Ian's hairpiece, but they are a combination of the ultra-left and the ultra-right who view any changes in the world order as a problem for them.

Second, Jaclyn Smith is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas whose parents came from Romania.  I'll give you a moment to let that one sink in.

Unfortunately, Windmills of the Gods was politically neutered by the fall of Communism, but it does show up at the very last minute.  Of all people in the entire country for President Michael Moriarty to pick as Ambassador to Romania, where he has a grand plan to restructure the way the US does business with the Communists, he picks our Jaclyn.  Why?  I couldn't tell you.  She can't even get her bratty teenage daughter to eat boxed cereal, let alone run an embassy!

But, pick her he does.  However, Jaclyn says no because her husband has a thriving medical practice and her children are of an age that necessitates staying in Kansas.  Late one night, hubby is off to the hospital to help a sick patient and the problem of his thriving medical practice is rectified with a handy car crash.

Free to be Ambassador, Jaclyn trots off to Washington to learn to be an Ambassador, taking the standard five-minute course that seems to be the only one offered.  She's assigned Robert Wagner as her Chief of Staff, but that is a problem because the two do not hit it off.  He's abrasive and pushy and Jaclyn, who was awfully mousy back in Kansas, is suddenly the toughest of dames.

Ruling Romania is President Ionescu, Franco Nero.  Imperious in a mustache always about to fall off, Nero is enchanted by the new lady Ambassador, despite having her spied on.  A whole host of characters make appearances, but only two are important.  There is sweet Ruby Dee as Jaclyn's secretary and Christopher Cazenove as an alluring French doctor who romances Jaclyn.  Well of course he does, it's a Sidney Sheldon novel.

Meanwhile, the bad guys have decided that if they kill Jaclyn, the US President's plan to change the way the world works will be upended, world order will stay the way it is.  Who knew one lone Ambassador was that important?  To make sure we understand just how mean these guys are, they want to kill her kids too.  No one since the Nazis have ever wanted to kill kids! 

We meet our romantic lead, Mr. Cazenove as a doctor attached to the French embassy.  Jaclyn attends the opera one night, alone, and her limo blows a tire, so she decides to walk home.  Through Communist Bucharest, a city that has already proven very unfriendly to her.  She gets mugged, but Christopher shows up just in time to scare the baddies off.  The police come swooping in and when a surprisingly calm Jaclyn goes to point out her hero..he's gone...

...only to turn up at an embassy function later on.  He teaches her to toast without holding a glass of champagne (details like that puff this up to three hours) and tells his sad tale of losing his wife and daughters to a bomber in Beirut.  In fact, he tells that story so well, and so often, she's immediately smitten.  Her widows weeds didn't follow her to Romania, and the kids don't go into the countryside as she's wined by her French hero.

Robert Wagner is tries telling her the doctor is not who he seems, that he never had a family, but one of her minions at the embassy finds a dossier backing up the story.  She would chew out RJ in the secret chamber of the embassy (we're told they sweep the embassy for bugs every few hours, but there is one room that is safe from bugs and safe from tapped phones--how? If the Romanians are that clever, don't they know about this room too?), but she has another of her near fainting attacks that have lately been plaguing her.

One faint too many brings the doctor to her side (but not her maid, who leaves her in a crumpled heap on the floor to go for the doctor).  All whispery and gallant, he helps her figure out that it must be Robert Wagner who is poisoning her because the only routine she has all day is the cup of coffee he personally makes in his office and delivers to her. 

It's about time the aide and the doc speak, but the conversation in the park isn't a long one, for RJ whips out a silenced gun and kills the doc.  Amazingly, everyone is able to keep this from Jaclyn except for Ruby, usually the smartest of the dimwit gang of blowhards who report to Jaclyn (she's fired a few by this time).  Ruby expresses her sympathy and it crushes Jaclyn, because now she feels she's completely alone, at the mercy of RJ.

The assassination is planned for a July 4 celebration at the American embassy and the super secret organization hires an Argentinian assassin to handle it all.  The details are a hoot: basically he fills red, white and blue balloons with a dangerous gas so that when an electrical spark goes off, the whole embassy will go KAPOW!  With the entire US military at her service, including four very dull marines to watch her kids, Jaclyn nervously attends the party, so preoccupied the whole time that when RJ figures out the balloon thing and tells her to get the guests out, the best she can do is tell everyone there is a small fire in the kitchen and they need to move to the balcony.  Suddenly a party of hundreds clusters on a balcony meant to fit about 25, while waiters pass around trays of drinks.  There's a convenient trapdoor in the ceiling, the ballons are let out by RJ at his manliest and the exploding balloons look like fireworks.  Everyone is saved.

So is Robert Wagner the bad guy?  Oh, come on!  He's Robert Wagner!  Of course he's not the bad guy.  Sure, he is seen sitting at the table with Ian McKellan, but he's a double agent.  He's been protecting Jaclyn all along.  Yes, he poisoned her, but only to get her safely back to the US since we're conveniently told that no Ambassador is allowed to be treated at any hospital outside of the United States (someone show me that page of protocol).  He knew the doctor was in on the plot. 

The bad guys are trumped and die a series of gruesome deaths and wimpy President Michael Moriarty wants to send Jaclyn Smith back to her post.  It's full of danger, but she can handle it.  After all, during her time there, she managed to comandeer a supersonic jet filled with the only antidote on the planet that could save President Franco Nero's son from death, thus blackmailing him into letting Romanian dissidents and priests leave the country.  Our hick professor from Kansas is now a major world power player.

And she still can't dress to save her life!