For the original "Rage of Angels," click here: http://mmarathon.blogspot.com/2011/05/rage-of-angels-1983.html
Who asked for the story to continue?
How fondly we remember Jaclyn Smith as Jennifer Parker, the plucky lawyer in the Sidney Sheldon trash-fest "Rage of Angels." Definitely not the best of the Sidney Sheldon miniseries, it's the strangest one from which to draw a sequel (that, like "Lace II," only takes the characters from the original). It wasn't that good a book and wasn't that good a miniseries, but, since Jaclyn Smith and Ken Howard apparently had nothing better to do, here they are, back for more. Thus, there is "Rage of Angels: The Story Continues," though the story was pretty much self-contained in the original and did not beg for a continuation.
When we last left them, just as a reminder, Jaclyn's character was leaving town forever, having been through the kidnapping of her son and a few dead bodies. Ken was in a marriage from hell, but rising up the political scene, so careful to appear happy, though his wife did try to have Jaclyn killed. There was a mob lawyer in love with her, but he's actually not back for this one (Armand Assante had "Evergreen" on his plate around the same time--he chose wisely). Really, that's all you need to know diving into the sequel. If you don't remember it, flashbacks are provided in the second scene to catch you up, but trust me, I'm faster.
Admittedly, things start off well enough. A carriage driver in Central Park is dead when his horse returns the carriage to the line, and the customer in the carriage is also dead. The murderer approaches Michael Nouri, asking who his "customer" was. "A friend," is the only reply he gets.
Jacklyn leaves court and gets into a cab, asking the driver to turn up the news. Her former lover, Ken Howard, is the Vice President-Elect. He's still married, though now his wife is played by the always-lovable Susan Sullivan, who managed to live through the "Rich Man, Poor Man" sequel alive, and that's as dire as miniseries sequels get. For some reason, coverage of the inauguration focuses on the Vice President. For the life of me, I can't remember seeing either the outgoing or incoming Veep at an inauguration, though I'm sure they are there.
Just who is Michael Nouri? It turns out he's the brother of Armand Assante's character. His first real scene, with fellow bad guys Paul Shenar and Philip Bosco, doesn't make much sense, but it seems the dirt he has on Ken (presumably that he's the father of Jaclyn's son, whom she's pretending to raise as an orphan, much to the dismay of her nanny) is hoped to be enough to convince Ken to stop the Attorney General from getting in the way of their business dealings.
This movie has one thing the original didn't, and a big difference: Angela Lansbury! In the middle of her third career as a TV celeb, Angela had proven there was nothing she couldn't liven up. Aunt Hortense in "Lace" almost stole the movie! This time around, she's a sloshed Italian Marquesa. "Inaugurations, what a circus!" she bellows as her television only gives partial reception to the inauguration of the Vice Presi...I mean, President. La Lansbury will have no competition with her snoozy cast members. This time, there is no "almost." She will steal the movie, not that it's worth much.
Jaclyn's friend Father Mason Adams is on his way to Rome (already the miniseries is inept--wouldn't it have been better to do the scene with the jolly priest and THEN show Italy?). The way he eats, chirps the nanny, he's bound to pack on the pounds. "Do you think priests go to Rome for spiritual growth?" he asks, just a few years show of that line being shamefully embarrassing. Jaclyn sasses the priest back, saying "it's nice to have a priest around...absolves us of our sins before we commit them." Father Mason has a purpose (don't stop there, this is leading somewhere) in being at Jaclyn's. He wants her to hire Paul Roebling, a notable lawyer "who was very nearly disbarred," in Jaclyn's words. She doesn't remember when that happened to her?
The Washington balls are on television for all to see as well, and of course the cameras are centered, where else, but on the Vice President. Michael scowls watching, promising his henchman Brad Dourif some work (there's a long conversation about blackmail versus murder, cleaning up and absolutely nothing important) before going to the head shot of his dead brother on the wall, lit like a religious icon, promising revenge. Yup, that appears to be the plot.
Jaclyn is also watching the balls, but she lucks into the one millisecond of commentary NOT about the Vice President. Nope, it's about his wife, the "second lady of the land." She's said to be extremely ambitious, which Jaclyn knows all too well but can't think about in flashback because Susan Sullivan hadn't yet played the part. "The eyes of the nation" are on this couple, we are told. Boy, the President and First Lady must be exceedingly boring people if they don't even rate a camera shot or two on Inauguration Day.
Finally, we meet this couple in person, in their new digs, a mansion so big it dwarfs the White House. "If Marie Antoinette had your brains, this would be a palace, there would be no need for revolution, hypocrisy. Poverty and injustice would be irrelevant," Ken tells Susan. Do you understand what he said? I sure as hell don't. Maybe we'll come back to it later. He's actually quite bitter, going on to say how "without you" he would be this or that. "Without me, you might be a hell of a lot happier," Susan finally snaps to end that ramble. She still clings to him like they are actually in love and then launches into her version of the way things will be. "Heaven does charge. There will be no scandal, no affairs for me, no you. Therefore, old husband, you have the deal of the century...so, Mr. Vice President, here I am, the only game in town," she says, alternating between steeliness and a strange sexiness. That doesn't stop him of dreaming of Jaclyn in his sleep, with pissed-off Susan watching from the back-lit windows. "You brought her here tonight. You chose this occasion to bring her into our house...you didn't sleep with me, you slept with her, you brought a whore into the sheets!" she rails, wildly overestimating talking in one's sleep.
Unable to bear his wife's jealousy, Ken does what all politicians in trashy stories (and Nixon) do: he gets in his limo, with his security detail in tow, and goes to the Lincoln Memorial. Why? Is Ken wrestling with questions of national unity or ethical responses to slavery? Hell, Abe Lincoln was never even Vice President! Oh, wait, I sorry, it's just to call Jaclyn in private. Sorry, sorry, I jumped to a conclusion. It's been years since they last spoke, but just hearing his voice makes her cry. It just makes me snore.
Paul shows up at Jaclyn's office (so does Brad, if you care) to encounter snooty secretary Tonya Pinkins for his interview. He was a high-powered attorney who didn't show up for a summation and cost his client a case, apparently searching for his wife, "whose whereabouts are irrelevant." In miniseries terminology, that means she's going to show up at the worst possible time. When trying to sell himself to Jaclyn, he refers to himself a few times as "damaged goods," saying she can get them at a bargain or for a long time. Which how-to-interview manual did he read so we can all avoid it. "I don't think you're damaged goods, but you are a bargain," Jaclyn says with a smile and hires him. She gives him as a welcome-to-the-firm a "child molestation case," on the side of the "alleged molester." "Ugh, I want a raise," he jokes.
Ken slips up to New York City to see Jaclyn, the Secret Service hustling all of the other park patrons away so Ken can talk to Jaclyn, who still pines at the same place along the river. "I still love you," he admits. "Go home, be a loving husband and a loving father," she says, bolting off when the topic turns to their son.
At home, Nanny Pauline Flanagan introduces Jaclyn to Michael O'Hare, from the old country, looking for work. Nanny is not at all happy that Jaclyn is defending a child molester. "People like that..." she starts to say before Jaclyn cuts her off with "are people!"
Jaclyn is being wooed by Southern-accented Michael Woods to join his powerful firm. Apparently, they want "more women, more ethnic types, more non-establishment types." It's always nice to be offered a job when you are told ahead of time you are filling a quota. She declines immediately, saying "I'm doing fine." Michael suggests he could be fired for not signing up Jaclyn, but Jaclyn agrees to cover for him should his boss conta..."You laugh like a chicken."
Huh? What? Oh, the chicken line came from Michael Nouri, who sits down at their table without an invitation. Michael Woods wants to verbally tussle with him, but a cliche story about broken kneecaps scares him off. "You're Michael's brother," Jaclyn figures out somehow from just these few clues. Usually, it takes an elevator falling on her to understand her surroundings, but this time, she's smart as a tack. He wants her to "help me avenge my brother's death."
"Are you going to punish me for your brother's death?" she finally asks Michael Nouri tells her the life story of Hans Christian Andersen. Frankly, at the end of it, I was hoping he might just kill me. If this is the way he's going to talk through the whole move, then shoot me now. Michael feels that Jaclyn owes him for saving her son. She reminds him she took a bullet from his brother intended for Ken and can't have any more children. "That was your brother's legacy to me," she adds. He still claims, "you owe us."
Get this bizarre scene. Jaclyn and Paul Roebling are listening to their client tell his version of what happened when into the office, without so much as a knock, comes secretary Tony Pinkins to deliver the tickets to Washington the fancy law firm has sent her. Jaclyn and Paul start discussing the offer. Wait a minute! Your client is sitting right there! Since when would a secretary just waltz in and interrupt, and how rude of the other two to discuss their lives in front of him! "I would appreciate it if I could go home now," the client says. "Of course," Jaclyn replies, barely having remembered he was there at all. On his way out, he tells Tonya, "Isaac Stern...is on the radio tonight. I once met Mr. Stern. He was quite cordial." I know this was meant as the sad rambling of a misbegotten man, but the line could also be seen as a swipe for Tonya having barged in on his hourly-billed time with his lawyers.
The tacky 80s are in full swing at a party hosted by Michael Woods' big law firm. One of the partners is soap queen Linda Dano, wearing a sequined gown and freshly frosted hair. Oh, the party is in DC, by the way, which no doubt will be very handy for our central plot, if we ever find out exactly what it is. Linda walks by and promises to be back. "Is she always..." "No, when she's angry, government buildings close, monuments cringe," he says, but notes that one doesn't "adore" her, one "worships" her.
I called it. Plot advancement time. Into the party swoops Susan Sullivan. "See a ghost?" pal Debra Mooney asks. "Just a whore." "Ooooh, where...this place is full of whores, which one is yours?" Um, okay.
Linda is giving Jaclyn the hard sell when they inevitably have to bump into Susan. Linda gives Susan and over-the-top welcome, to which Susan replies, "I've not just come out of intensive care. I've merely come to your sweet little party." Before her bitchiness can go any further, Ken arrives, right on schedule. Jaclyn dashes out as quickly as she can.
Uh oh. Another original cast member pops up. It's Jaclyn's nemesis DA Ronald Hunter. The two have a very checkered history going back to her days as a young up-and-coming thing, looking dumb and dowdy in her untailored suits and frumpy sweaters. He's decided to try the case himself. "Damn he's good, still good," Jaclyn sniffs while Ron is giving his opening argument.
Father Mason has a small heart attack in church, begging the Lord to "hold off" so he can see Rome because "I won't get a dime back" if he dies and the tickets can't be used.
Vice President Ken decides to visit Jaclyn and her son, as if the Vice President can just do that, make house calls. Awkward! "He looks like a TV star," the kid rattles on. He wants Ken to stay for dinner, but Ken picks him up and tells him he loves him. "Hey, ma, the nice man says he loves me," he says and runs out of the room. Awkward! It gets even stupider. I know, not possible, right?
Jaclyn tells Ken she has a feeling she's being "watched." That's our observant Jaclyn! There has only been a man standing outside of her building for weeks. She has a feeling? Hasn't she seen him, day and night? Anyway, Ken explains that the Secret Service has to protect all family members, oh, but not to worry, because "the President made the assignment himself," letting the Secret Service believe it was his son they were protecting. HOLD THE PHONE! In what world would the President of the United States do such a thing? To protect the Vice President? If there is an unknown child out there and anyone gets wind of it, that could kill a career (it was the 80s, before that stuff was fashionable), but the President is simply willing to take that chance? If that isn't the worst writing, I'm not sure what is. My only guess is that the President is so scared of Susan Sullivan as well that he would rather be found out by the American people.
Two quick scenes later (one where we find out Linda doesn't actually like Jaclyn, but needs her and one involving the court case), Jaclyn is watching her son play in the park when Michael Nouri shows up. He chatters endlessly before coming to the point, which is that he wants "an ongoing relationship" with her. You see, "it's already paid for, in blood." He then cozies up to the kid, whom Jaclyn sends home with the nanny, and of course the Secret Service agent a few yards behind. That way, no one can see Michael grab Jaclyn and kiss her, so he can feel what his brother felt. Ewwww!
Back in court, Jaclyn gets to cross-examine the boy accusing her client of molestation. The kid testifies all on his own that the guy never touched him. All he did was tell him he had no talent. I don't know who this kid is, but he knows how to play a courtroom scene with the best of them! He actually leaves the witness stand and goes over to apologize to his one-time accused. "I think what we have here is a tragedy, not a crime," the judge tells both lawyers. Rather than having a celebratory meal, Jaclyn and Paul settle for a drink. She describes going home as pretty boring, something about sloppy kisses from her son, his cars, his "delicious behind" and whatnot. Paul can top that with what seems like a 30-minute speech about his horrible life, his constantly-missing wife. Jaclyn cries yet again as she listens to his "go for the Emmy" type performing. She tries to top his downer of a life with her own, which she says consists of "hanging around."
Jaclyn gets home to find out Father Mason has been in an accident in Rome. She wants to be on the first plane. The Secret Service agent goes to tell Michael Nouri (oh, don't tell me you didn't see what coming). "You have business in Rome?" the agent asks, as a hint. "Everyone has business in Rome," Michael replies. "Business?" "No crackling wit, capice?" I haven't seen even non-crackling wit anywhere on display here. The conversation only gets worse from there.
At the hospital in Rome, the kid asks Jaclyn if he can give his heart to Father Mason so he can live "forever and ever." I don't advocate violence against children, but since this one is fictional, and everyone in this movie is a villain, can't someone rip his tongue out? Jaclyn has a heart-to-heart with Father Mason, who tells her, "you get with it...don't wait for the past to catch up. If you do, you won't recognize it." It has something to do with telling her son the truth about his father.
Michael Nouri is also in Rome, of course, and with a flashy red sportscar that he knows the kid will adore. Indeed, he is begged for a ride and gets taken on one. The Secret Service agent tries to object, but is told, "get fitted for a suit. Believe me, you can afford it" as Michael Nouri and the kid take a drive. Another man in a fancy sportscar goads Michael into racing them around Rome, always a good idea with a small child (who squeals with annoying delight and does not wear a seatbelt). Is there no better way to see the sights of Rome than this race? Of course, tragedy ensues. Michael and the kid go off the road to avoid a truck. Michael climbs out, bloody and bruised, but the kid doesn't look so good as the car catches fire and blows up.
Ken is pulled out of a very important meeting in Brussels (luckily enough) and rushes to Rome upon receiving Jaclyn's call.
The nun nurse tells Jaclyn to nap or walk, and she actually listens. "There will be no change in his condition for quite some time," she says about the kid. How does the nun nurse know that? As for Vice President Ken, who hasn't been able to go anywhere without cameras, no one seems to notice or question what he's doing in Rome. Jaclyn finds him praying in a small church. Ken blames himself because he should have "stood at the top of the Capitol stairs and said, 'that's my kid, that's my kid.'" "Something else would have happened," Jaclyn says, not disagreeing, but also not comforting.
Unfortunately, we've been without Marquesa Angela Lansbury since her one scene in the first portion. When a visitor comes, she offers "a belt," a bourbon drink because "personally, I can't stand any of that grape crap." "How's the kid?" she asks after a very funny diatribe about what her dead husband left her. Back to the dead husband, she says, "he took me off the streets of New Orleans. I turned him on like he'd never been turned on before." She wants to know if the kid belongs to Ken, but decides herself it's not possible. "He's too earnest to make babies." "He has a daughter." "His wife has a daughter." "What a pair," she exclaims, "a thoroughly married politician and a vulnerable wounded romantic, mamma mia!" So far, it's the best scene in the movie, not surprisingly.
But, the next has potential, if only its players weren't so lazy. Michael Nouri, in a sling, shows up to talk to Jaclyn. Jaclyn really has the upper hand in this argument, but Michael stands his ground, saying "if the boy lives, we all start again. If he doesn't, that's sad but nothing changes, you still owe us." Wow, that's cold! And poorly written. Jaclyn flies into a rage and Michael backs out of the room, saying, "business is business. Personal business is personal business," gesturing with a finger as if that makes it any less ridiculous of a statement.
Unfortunately for Michael, his scene is sandwiched between two with Marquesa Angela. She finds Jaclyn outside the hospital and starts yammering away, tossing off lines like they were spun of gold before offering to buy her a drink at a cafe. "There's always a cafe near a hospital. Doctors, nurses, all of them, they couldn't do without booze and bad food," she huffs before telling Jaclyn how beautiful she is. Jaclyn, scared by the crazy lady, excuses herself, but Angela calls out, "I'm your mother for God's sake!...It's all right kid, I don't need money, but you can buy me a drink and hate me later."
"You left me in the crib with enough Graham Crackers for 25 years and enough love for 20 seconds," Jaclyn says at a meal to her mother. The writing really does get better when Angela Lansbury is around. Even Jaclyn suddenly seems more alert. "Your dad was a real class act...and he bored the hell out of me," her mother tells Jaclyn, who has nothing but anger for her. "Go to hell," Jaclyn yells. "Been there, didn't like it, left." "Just what are you?" "A working girl who got lucky." It gets even more delicious! "You are beautiful," Angie tells Jaclyn. "I mean, you dress like you're sorry for everything, but you are beautiful." At least SOMEONE finally noticed how badly this character dresses. We're only about 90 minutes shy of the end, so it's taken a movie and a half for someone to agree with me! "You look like me, you know," Angela says on her way out. "Your father was a nice man, but not very good looking." That's an interesting compliment. It's the last thing she says here, other than, "someone could get killed with information like that," referring to the paternity of her son.
The kid wakes up to see his mother, like a vision, and smiles. She calls Ken and he darts over.
Don't forget about Susan. Naturally, she gets updates on what her husband is doing and asks her pal Debra what she would do to a person who has preoccupied her all these years. "Is it a man or a woman?" Debra asks. "Suppose it were a man." "I might kill him," Debra replies. "And if it were a woman?" "I'd definitely kill her." The idea is now officially in Susan's head. When Ken gets home, Susan is in a mood! She demands that he never contact Jaclyn again. She has a lousy rant to deliver, but she's talented enough to make it seem halfway decent. "You wouldn't put your ass on a stain cushion if you thought it could make the slightest crease," Ken tells her in a line his character would never say replying to her and her own ambitious plans.
The hilarity continues on Jaclyn's first day at the white shoe law firm. Linda Dano, now decked out as Cruella deVille, shares champagne and flirty remarks with Paul and Michael Woods before racing out of the room to get back to DC. Downstairs, Linda complains about Paul, saying he needs to be watched because he may kill himself or something, I don't know. I think she rewrote all of her own dialogue and based it on things she had said during her time on "Another World," but it sounds like random fragments. Citing the fact that Jaclyn has "ruined my day," she can't go with Michael to the theater that night and tells him to get the girl from the tax department to go. "I hear she yells real loud," she notes. He doesn't agree, saying, "she doesn't even know who I am." "She knows who I am, she'll yell!" Linda barks.
If you don't remember Michael O'Hare, don't worry. He was one of the endless parade of characters introduced in the first part of the movie who didn't do anything because it's all about Jaclyn. The poor guy returns now, helping his kinswoman Nanny Pauline with the groceries and then gets hit over the head by Brad and Michael Nouri. Brad thinks Michael O'Hare is tailing Jaclyn on behalf of Michael Nouri's partner, Philip Bosco. He claims not to know Philip. Michael Nouri threatens him with a breezy speech and then decides the guy is telling the truth. "See what a highly-charged world we live in?" he asks the beaten man? "We look everywhere for the truth but in a man's eyes. If we could see in your eyes, I bet we could see the truth." That is highfalutin' garbage that I think someone thought would sound pretty. "It's okay, no harm done," Michael O'Hare says, barely able to limp out of the room. It's okay? You just beat me to within an inch of my life, but hey, no worries. But, since he's seen their faces, Brad has to kill him. I truly hope that Michael O'Hare had more to do with the plot than die after two scenes. If he doesn't, that means all of the supporting characters, the priest, the long-lost mother, the bitchy female lawyer, the sad-sack legal friend, might also have no purpose but to waste time. If the story were left to Jaclyn, Ken, Michael and Susan, I guess it would be about 30 minutes.
Working late with Paul, Jaclyn gets a call from Ken. Seeing how upset she is, Paul says, "let's get out of here, listen to some gentle music." What? The trick to getting rid of the blues is soft jazz (pun intended)? "What's left after tears," she asks, wanting to cry, but unable. "I don't know, dignity, I guess." That line has Sidney Sheldon written all over it! It sounds profound, but is actually nonsensical.
Phew, Linda does have a tangential reason to be in the plot. She's an accomplice of Philip and Michael Nouri's. They all want the case against their legit business partner quashed by Ken and the Attorney General. Like Philip, she is tired of watching Michael drag his feet. They want action now! After some banter, Linda realizes Michael is "in love," and laughs about it. "You've fallen in love with the downstairs maid, how droll," she quips. "I'd kill you if you hadn't already died of face lift poisoning," he replies. Philip tells them to knock it off, and Michael apologizes. "I'm a businessman. I even have business cards. Engraved." The scene gets loonier with every passing sentence!
Paul flips out, for reasons Jaclyn doesn't understand, and goes racing off into traffic. A dead body is discovered undera bridge, but it's not Paul. It's the Secret Service man, whom Michael had paid to retire. DA Ron believes he was murdered.
When Jaclyn arrives at work the next day, two women greet her and she barks, "can't you two share one good morning?" It's not really a good one, because Paul is leaving. She gives him the hard push out the door, hoping that will work. "I might be unraveling, but I'm still trying. You, counselor, aren't even in the fight anymore. You don't bleed, you reminisce," he tells her. Yup, indeed the scene has turned itself around to be about her again. The dialogue that follows get so insanely clunky, it's hard to have any sympathy for either character. He says that he intends to give disappearing wife another try, maybe ending up "a suicide or a drunk," which will be fine with him because he tried, unlike her. What the hell? But wait, it all works! Jaclyn decides to "catch up with my past." Next time I have a friend in trouble, I can only hope he finds a way to talk me off the ledge with such intelligent words (sarcasm intended).
Without shoulder pads bursting from every piece of clothing but her shoes, that means Jaclyn is going to see Ken, who is "grateful and so very much in love." Their romance is rekindled so easily. When she wakes up from what was obviously a lovely evening, Ken is on the phone with political business that she is allowed to hear. Phone call done, he drags her back into bed. They recite what is essentially the same line of dialogue over and over again in various ways: they both can't believe the other is there. It's all wonderfully idyllic, even for a Vice President with people watching him (when Susan finds out, she is going to be mighty angry!). Ken gets what may be the most laughable line of dialogue in the enitre movie. He says, "Vice Presidents are not celebrities, you know, unless something brings attention to us during, say, a campaign or a funeral. Nobodies knows who the hell we are and couldn't care less." Hmmmm, that's interesting, considering the movie has spent nothing but time gushing about the Vice President, making him into the world's biggest celebrity!
Oh, both of them brought their kids. Was it smart to bring the daughter, Susan's daughter? Won't Susan be pumping her for details? Anyway, after much gooey talk, slow dancing, mist on the beach, they have to separate because Ken has to go...to a funeral! Did he know that was going to happen when he said it before? Go on! Amazing, eh? "We still have the night," Ken says, so they roast marshmallows, indoors. Folks, it doesn't get any goofier than this. Wait, it does:
Him: "No more separations. I can't say goodbye anymore."
Her: "What can you say?"
Him: "Don't know."
Her: "You really don't know, do you?"
Me: "I think even the writers have given up at this point.
With the love plot not having moved an inch since the movie started some 47 hours ago, why not go back to the courtroom? Trying her "third case in a week" against DA Ron, Jaclyn goes all mind-bending on the jury, telling them to pretend they are in her living room and Ron is horrified at how the jury falls for it. So, he uses it on their next case up against Jaclyn. She turns it around and reminds them they ARE in a courtroom, blasting DA Ron once again. As if this hasn't wasted enough time, Jaclyn baits him in the hallway, where she chides him about hating women. His assistant say he's been happily married a long time. "Has anyone asked his wife?" Jaclyn asks, using a pun from vaudeville.
Just in time, Marquesa Mama Angela Lanbsury returns. Jaclyn arrives home from work to see her teaching the kid how to play poker. Nanny and Father Mason are in deep trouble over that one, but Angela quips, "your kid has possibilities." She's been in touch with Father Mason, who tells Jaclyn, "she had business in Cleveland, so she thought she'd stop off in New York." Wait, the rich successful Marquesa has business in CLEVELAND? Anyway, just as Jaclyn is making a crack about her drinking, Angela stumbles up the stairs. She makes a few jokes and Jaclyn tells Father Mason "she just likes to be outrageous." You've met her once, twice at most, and you her behavior patterns? "You can do better than the politician, be patient," Mama says. As she scoots her way through another speech, making Jaclyn cry yet again, one wishes the beloved character actress would stick around. She says, "I'll be at the Plaza if you need me" and then corrects herself, saying it's a "sentimental habit," but I need her. Which room? Come baaaaaaaack!
Father Mason tells Jaclyn three times, making up for St. Peter, I suppose, that Angela is her mother. She is her mother. Her mother! The doorbell rings. In those pre-email days, it's a hand-delivered note that says, in total, "Not a request, but an order! The Hans Christian Andersen statue Monday, 11am. The Brother." He has awfully nice penmanship for a murderous thug. Take that, psychiatry!
Anyway, Michael Nouri gives Jaclyn a letter to deliver to give to Ken, and if not, "exposure." He forces a kiss on her. "You're in bed with the devil, enjoy," he says and blithely trots off. He hides in a tunnel in Central Park and tries to rape her, but when she tries some psychology on him, saying he's not his brother, he can't do it and leaves her sobbing, blouse torn. She calls Ken and begs to see him (it's tough to get away, since he may have to break a tie in the Senate), so they arrange to meet at a fancy event. That seems to make sense to him and he actually get her to believe the same. Susan is listening in on the extension.
Jaclyn takes to the party the most exciting man she knows, Father Mason, who comments that the hotel is hosting five other parties because "nothing stops weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and college graduations." You know, if the cut crap like that, this could have been so much less painful. He dishes on the food too, the cranky old goat. Brad is there watching her and then Vice President shows up with his wife, Linda Dano and Michael Woods. Even DA Ron is there with his wife, the punch line of that earlier joke. She's not allowed to speak.
Our darling angel is summoned to a room upstairs and if you expected Susan to be there, you would be...wrong. This miniseries ain't that smart. No, it's Ken, making excuses. "I understand, one funeral after another," Jaclyn sasses, getting quickly to the point. She hands him the blackmail letter from Michael Nouri. Ken think "it's incredible." In fact, he says, "no and no and no," just like Jaclyn knew he would and THEN cue Susan, calling her a whore, as she always does. Run her down again, Susie. Okay, it wasn't you, it was your predecessor, but that put the dame in the hospital for a good long time. Murder is even still on the table. Do it now, before they think of a "plot" for "Rage of Angels 3."
Susan urges giving into the blackmail because "the system works." Understandably, Jaclyn asks "what system?" "You have no standing in this court," Susan huffs. Objection! The dialogue is getting worse, your honor. The weakling Ken starts to cave. "There are complex issues here," he says, just like a politician. "Trust me, I'll do the right thing, I always have," he tells Jaclyn. Wait, when has he EVER done the right thing? He picks up the phone to call Michael Nouri and after everyone's eyes look at everyone else, Jaclyn storms out. He then goes downstairs to make his lofty speech about the need for art. In a miniseries sequel based on Sidney Sheldon characters. Art?
Michael Nouri coos to Philip Bosco that "it's the first time I ever talked to a Vice President. He sounded like a pompous squid." I assume he has had many experiences with squid, both pompous and otherwise in order to make such a declaration. Philip suggests Michael go on a vacation, all flush with success, but Michael still has the business of his brother's death to avenge. He then invites Brad up to his apartment because he's "too excited to sleep." Once inside, Brad shoots him in the chest, saying, "you don't kill the Vice President, it's not right." How true. It's only really been tried once, unsuccessfully. The picture of Armand Assante is now on a table right next to Brad so it can watch each successive shot, apparently ordered by Philip, though still because "it's not right to kill the Vice President." Nimrod that he is, Brad doesn't bother to make sure Michael is dead, so Michael shoots him dead and then finally collapses, bringin the picture of his brother down with him. "I'm sorry," he whispers and dies.
Paul Shenar is furious that Michael Nouri is dead, but Philip insists that it had to be done because "he sent all psycho on us." Linda offers an opinion, but Paul tells her to zip it, "playing the diplomat brings out the slut in you." Wait, what? The woman has more clothes on than a Aleut in the winter, and she's sipping tea, no less. Slut? That's a harsh (and inappropriate for the situation) word. The discussion is heated and stays heated, but cheesy, as villainspeak always is in these pieces. As soon as that scene ends, Ken and Susan see on TV that Paul has been killed in a car accident. Susan is thrilled that "it's all over...they have a happy ending and so do we." She add that he can call Jaclyn and "tell her she can live quietly. Tell her TO live quietly" in such a delightfully malevolent way.
Somehow, Jaclyn knows that Linda was "up to her ears in the whole thing" and quits the law practice, telling Father Mason that Paul Roebling is back with his wife, so he's taken care of too. The doorbell rings again. Angela is back, having dropped the kid off at school. Just as she's being all grandmotherly, she has a pain and almost passes out. The phone rings and Jaclyn has to "take it upstairs," ordering Father Mason to get Mama a "glass of water, nothing in it." "Uh, Padre," Angie stops him, sticking out two fingers. Nope. One finger. Okay, maybe. I need not say that Angela Lansbury is slumming big time here, but she's having such a blast doing it, it hardly matters. She goes over to the phone, wanting to pick it up, but apparently motherly instincts, and a picture of Jaclyn's father, change her mind. "How ill are you?" Father Mason asks, not waiting for an answer. "That's why you came home," he adds. She refuses to tell Jaclyn. "A little bourbon and my big mouth and they'll never even notice I have a cold," she grumbles.
When Jaclyn comes downstairs, Angela announces "I'm off" and tries not to ask about the phone call. "I'm not going to see him," Jaclyn says. "Good. You can vote for him! Nothing else," she notes. They hug and then Mama Angie asks where Jaclyn's father is buried. "He was a nice man, and he brought you up well. I'd like to thank him for that," she says, before launching into the overly stale bit about not remembering his name for the umpteenth time.
The kid is once again playing in the park with Nanny and Jaclyn when Ken appears, Secret Service following. He wants to resign, but Jaclyn calls her "a martyr to love" and gets downright nasty with him. She loves him, but "it has to become irrelevant...to growing up and moving on." Cliches spring up fast as she essentially blows him off, snuffing out the love affair that has been gasping for air across two miniseries. Way to kick your watchers in the groin, lady. "Don't let anyone frighten you again, you're too tall," she tells him, both crying, though Ken does it with far more conviction, probably since Jaclyn has cried herself empty.
How does it end? With Jaclyn and the kid dancing in a circle with other kids in Central Park. It's a stupid ending, but at least it ends.
Like "Lace II," "Rage of Angels: The Story Continues" is utterly pointless. However, "Lace II" had colorful characters worth seeing again, even if it was handled without any skill. "Rage of Angels: The Story Continues" has tons of polish, but nothing worth polishing. The plot is recycled (the tortured love that cannot be, the whining best friend), though what's new is inane. What the hell is Angela Lansbury doing playing an Italian Marquesa who is Jaclyn Smith's mother? Other than superb comic timing, elegance and acting ability, even Angela Lansbury has nothing to add to this story. Her character is not involved in the plot, helps solve nothing. She shows up, announces who she is, has a few light scenes and then disappears again. Poor Mason Adams is only on hand to have a heart attack and bring Jaclyn to Rome in the middle of her story so she can meet her mother, as if her mother couldn't have found an excuse to go to the US. Ken being the Vice President is a bad idea because it cheapens Jaclyn's character and gives Susan Sullivan little to play (a bit of Angela's "Manchurian Candidate" would have done her well). There are fights with DA Ron that are just scene filler. Linda Dano? What's she doing, fluffing up the resume? If there is anything here that sums up the sheer idiocy of the piece, it's Michael O'Hare's "plot." The man is brought in only to be killed...as an oops, got the wrong guy. Huh? There is truly nothing here that cries for a two-night sequel. Nothing!
And damn it, Jaclyn, lose the friggin' shoulder pads!
Showing posts with label Sidney Sheldon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sidney Sheldon. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Rage of Angels (1983)
One of the very first miniseries written about here was "Windmills of the Gods" (go back to December 2010 to read that one). That one had Jaclyn Smith as the United States Ambassador to Romania, from the pages of Sidney Sheldon. Typing that, and having seen it multiple times, it still doesn't make sense.
Far more realistic is "Rage of Angels," which has Jaclyn Smith as an Assistant District Attorney, from the pages of Sidney Sheldon. Sounds a whole lot more realistic, no? Yup, sounds like it.
But, it isn't. It's another made-in-heaven made-for-television hootfest, as delectably trashy as they come. There is no way to take any Sidney Sheldon miniseries serious, and to do so would be foolish, but, as always, Jaclyn Smith is as earnest as all get-out in her sensible shoes. She believes in what she's doing (and considering she's playing a character with the IQ of a carrot, that's asking a lot of our Jaclyn), so let her undertake that burden and the rest of us can sit back and giggle together.
The drama starts immediately! Our Jaclyn, in a cutesy casual ensemble of cutesy tennis shoes, jeans and a cutesy sweater tied over her shoulders, turns (dramatically) to the camera because of a disturbance she hears. She runs toward the courthouse, past the ambulance and the gawkers to a man (Wesley Addy) being tended to by EMTs. "Oh, Pop!" she coos when they tell her he's in the middle of a heart attack. "Do not call me Pop. Pop is for champagne is soda water...everything is going to be all right, Jenny," he says, still cracking wise through the pain. "Don't call me Jenny," she replies, inexplicably, through her tears. Apparently no one is concerned about the severity of the situation, because Jaclyn, still crying, is able to show her father a letter, and read from it. She's been made an ADA in New York City. "I'm one of 278, but I'm one," she says, proudly, but then changing her tune to say she'll be back to practice law with him, "Parker and Parker," to which the old geezer still manages to elicit a laugh, noting, "I say that you got your name first."
As he's being put into the ambulance, I think Pop sees his time being up. So, he lays on the canned advice, with lines like, "keep the rules" and "respect the law--it's the only thing between us and the Furies." What does he mean? Only Sidney Sheldon knows, and he can't tell us, I'm afraid.
Let's get to New York (we were in Washington State before), where Jaclyn can still run, but now her clothes have gone from cutesy to smart, but, as usual for Jaclyn Smith, she's clad nearly from head to toe and in layers, no less. For one of "Charlie's Angels," she never was much of a sexy symbol. Anyway, watch Jaclyn race for the bus. Watch her trip on a sidewalk. Watch her adjust price tag on her brief case. Indeed, folks, it's this hick's first day on the job as one of the 278 chosen few.
Naturally, DA Ron Hunter has already started with the other 277 when Jaclyn breathlessly bursts in the room. She hasn't missed much. In fact, he picks up where her father left off, speaking in legal fortune cookie dialogue. "The courtroom is where the action is. Don't hang from the stars yet because you people will be living in a world made up of subpoenas, research, mainly trivial, law libraries and still more law libraries. Life in the courtroom is an ultimate, not a beginning," he preaches. You know the moment: tough boss tells half they are going to fail and the other half they are going to quit, or at least she tries to, but Jaclyn has a question. "Oh, dear God, she's not only late, she's earnest," he whines.
Jaclyn and the other 277 will be working on "the trial of decade," the trial of Joseph Wiseman, "the grand master of organized crime." The state's turncoat witness is Art Vasil, who, upon being besieged by the media leaving The Tombs for court, already looks like a romantic novel dead man walking. Art rattles off all of Joseph's various business interests for the court, including "linen supplies." We can't forget that one! The mob king's tough-talking lawyer, with insanely huge glasses, is none other than Armand Assante, who has spent a television career playing mob kings. As Ron releases his fireworks questioning, Armand objects and they are called to the bench. "You want to run for Senator? Do it on your own time," the judge admonishes him.
Our heroine's first assignment is to deliver an envelope to Art during a recess. "Don't stare at me like that, I'm no corpse," he bellows, further hastening what we already know to be the inevitable. Proud of herself for having achieved so much on her first day, Jaclyn breathes in the air with a smile...before being grabbed by two cops. Ron wants to know who paid her to deliver an envelope containing a dead canary (which we get to see) to Art. Ron thunders at her, "by the time you get out of prison...you'll be too old to eat, to breath, to live!" as if he's still performing in court. The dead bird has caused Art to back out of testifying, meaning he can't be cross-examined by Armand, who moves for a mistrial. Jaclyn insists on waiting for the word of Ron secretary, who gave her the package, but Armand warns that if she "climbed to the top of the building now and sings 'Melancholy Baby,'" the witness still won't testify. Wouldn't you like to see THAT miniseries, huh? Apparently the judge wants to rush home for that one too, because he declares a mistrial as Jaclyn launches into howling defensive shrieks.
The judge also tells Jaclyn that he will investigate her conduct and proceed "with disbarment proceedings." At home, trying to look like a slob, but with full make-up and terrific lighting, Jaclyn finds out from the news that the secretary who gave her the envelope was killed in a car accident. "This is a creepy town," she says to her father's picture. Wet and fraying, Jaclyn can't get a job in any law office, no matter how hard she tries. Her name is mud.
Time to meet the hero of the piece: Ken Howard, looking squeaky clean and handsome. His brother-in-law and law partner wants him to run for the Senate too. After all, not only is he [insert every positive quality here], he's even a veteran. What's his connection to Jaclyn? He's prosecuting her at her hearing before the Bar, of course! He sees it as "an investigation, not a lynch mob," the sentiments of a White Knight and the only honest lawyer in New York City. He's told to "nail her...it's worth at least a quarter of million votes," though Ken has a (not-at-all-original) reply for that. "And thirty pieces of silver?"
Let's wrap up Art. He's killed, naturally, in prison, while watching a Three Stooges movie that has he and his fellow prisoners laughing so hard many of the others might stroke out.
Ken and Jaclyn meet adorably. She's in a towel just out of the shower when he rings her buzzer. She thinks he's there about a job application. "Your people go back as far as..." she starts. "Wigs and snuff," he finishes. Awwww, they have banter already! It goes on for a bit as Jaclyn reaches fever pitch. "There's the door. Or better yet, there's the window!" she huffs and ducks into the bathroom. He pretends to leave, and when she sees he hasn't, she's furious, throwing out more banter. "I've been investigating your life for four days," Ken pleads. "That's five too many," she snaps. Once again, math is not her strong suit, but that's not even a good line! He invites her to dinner and she agrees, because "I'm hungry. For good...and vindication."
With even the sleazy law firms having turned her away, Jaclyn goes to meet shlumpy private investigator Kevin Conway, but only to rent office space. "I want to go into business myself. I have to go into business myself," she tells him, though she can't afford even the discount rent he offers. However, he has an idea. "You ever serve a summons before? Pretty ladies have an advantage. They are less apt to break your legs," Kevin says, offering her that job. But, right at the end, she realizes he knows who she is. And he still wants her? "I'm desperate too" is his reply.
As our plucky heroine is walking home from grocery shopping, Armand drives up in a big fancy car with roses to present to her. "Strangle any canaries, lately?" she quips, after quipping about what he should do with the roses. I like quipping Jaclyn. She gets to stretch as an actress.
Okay, that last line was a joke.
"I think you got one of the bummest raps in history," Armand informs Jaclyn. What she doesn't know, but he does, is that his boss did not order the hit on Art, but all he does here is deny he had any part in it.
He: "I hate lynch mobs."
She: "I hate criminals."
He: "Then be a jailer, not a lawyer."
I guess living in the Pacific Northwest teaches a woman some interesting skills. When Jaclyn shows up at her new office the next day, Kevin is drunk. Rather than huffing in disappointment, Jaclyn smacks him around, pins his arm behind his back, shouts, "where is my office? Where is my LIFE?" and then dunks his head under a faucet to sober him up. Not only is she skilled physically, she's also something of a shrink. "No one asks you to be happy! Sober, clean and healthy you can be!" she rails. Where the HELL did all of this come from? "I think I want to die," he claims, defenses down. "You can die later," she says sweetly.
Armand sends over flowers and a case to Jaclyn via messenger. Luckily, Kevin is there to tell Jaclyn it's a bad idea, so she turns it down in favor of handing out more summonses. Kevin also has some insight into Jaclyn, sensing that she has feelings for Ken, though they have only had that one awkward scene together! That is soon corrected when Ken shows up at lunch to tell Jaclyn she has been cleared of all wrongdoing by the Bar committee. Now she and Ken can really get to know each other.
"I feel dumb and wonderful," Jaclyn says at lunch. Never has a line had a truer ring in the land of the land of the miniseries! She's referring to her giddy feelings. I took it to be about her character as a whole. The two spend the whole day together, going for a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride at night where Ken complains about his bad marriage and tells Jaclyn he has no hobbies at all except hosting "rap sessions" for some fellow Vietnam vets.
Armand isn't going away. When Jaclyn gets home from work one day, Armand is there already, with oodles of roses. To get him to stop showing up, she agrees to go out with him "in a public place" and he takes her to a hockey game. He loves the brawling, but she doesn't understand either the game, the fighting or the fans. "I see nothing beautiful," she says, as if she's not understanding a night at the opera. It gets more ridiculous when Armand hits a man in the food line who insults him. "You just hit that man!" Jaclyn says a few times, not that she leaves her place in line or doesn't eat her food.
Ken wakes Jaclyn up in the middle of the night (although in one of those gaffes that affected the trashier types of miniseries, it's clearly full daytime outside with loads of people milling about) to tell her she has a client. "A client? C-L-I-E-N-T? I'm there already," she yells, jumping out of bed. But this client cannot pay. It's a priest, Father James Greene. He explains the case, about a prisoner who may have beaten a man to death in prison (Bill Cobbs).
So, wearing her preferred outfit of suit with a flowing skirt and something around her neck (this time a sweater AGAIN), she goes to the prison to meet Bill, who is suffering badly from being in solitary confinement. Here comes Dr. Jaclyn again. When Bill avoids her questions and propositions her sexually, she asks, "do you hate all people?" So, what is Bill's story? "I killed a honkey slime," he starts, but business-like Jaclyn has trouble connecting to him, so he leaves, saying, "this is real! This is black!" in trying to avoid telling her the truth.
Who is her opposing counsel? DA Ron, of course, who threatens to "have your eyes, ears, nose and throat" before the judge arrives. What, you don't want her mouth or her shoulder pads, Ron? Nope. "I'm going to ram your face into the law, THE LAW!" he says furthermore. His threats are one thing, but she opens an anonymous letter in the courtroom telling her to drop the case, that it will end her career (naturally, it's one of those notes with letters cut out of magazines and newspapers, pasted together).
What actor doesn't love a trial scene? We know hammy Ron does, and his opening statement is flashy. Jaclyn can hold her own. Boring as hell, at least she sticks to the law. Though Bill had admitted to killing the man and there were witnesses, the plan is self-defense. Ron makes much out of Bill's being a much bigger man than the victim, but Jaclyn has ample power suits with ties that match on her side!n She also gets a huge break when Ron makes a small legal error that allows her to introduce a "goody box" into evidence. That would be a box of weapons confiscated, proving that the victim might have had a weapon. It's a giant stretch of an argument, especially since all it does is prove that the victim could have had a weapon. Pouring the contents onto the floor, Jaclyn gets to showboat in a way only Ron usually gets to do.
At this point, one wonders when and how Jaclyn (who remember, is supposed to be a novice) became so good in a trial setting. This is her first case! Should we assume Pop taught her the tricks or is she just super brilliant? Let's bet on the former, shall we?
On the stand, Bill says that indeed the victim did have a weapon and he was "forced to kill him" because of it. Ron picks up the salad tongs Bill claims his victim had and, smarmy as all get out, asks how something like that could do any damage. "Testicle crushers," Bill says, as no doubt every man in the courtroom winces. Even Ron has no reply to that one.
Jaclyn wins the case and calls Ken to share the exciting news. As a present, he takes her out on a yacht, complete with wine and cheese. "Ohhhh, cheese! Boy, they are going to lose money on me," she says, once again proving how incredibly socially awkward she can be. I will give Jaclyn credit for the first sensible thing she's had to say so far in the entire movie. She asks Ken if he "minds being seen in public" with her, considering he's a married man running for Senator. Nope, apparently "being seen with an astonishingly beautiful woman" is a plus, though Ken doesn't understand why. Don't affairs usually kill campaigns? Ken also fills Jaclyn in on Kevin, whom he used to use as a private investigator. He's smart and good at what he does, but never passed the bar because of his drinking. There was also a wife. "She came home one day..." Ken starts, with Jaclyn AGAIN finishing his sentence, "and of course there was a woman in the bed." "There was a man in the bed and Nancy killed herself five days later." That's an interesting twist! "I guess he's still waiting for the hyenas to come down from the hills," Jaclyn opines, although I can't say I understand the reference.
Having won such an important case, Jaclyn is suddenly the hottest lawyer in town, inundated with offers. It also seems Kevin has some sort of feelings for her. Ken invites her to one of his Sunday Vietnam vet "rap sessions." She finds them an ornery disappointed bunch, disaffected and angry. Jennifer is deeply moved by what she sees and hears, unable to hold back tears. This scene rings with truth and honest pathos, but what it's doing in a Sidney Sheldon piece, I'm not entirely sure. Sheldon was not known for taking on social causes in his writing and he was a generation older than the Vietnam veterans.
Boyfriend and girlfriend have the obligatory run along the beach at sunset and then a rather awkward morning at a hotel where Ken is clearly upset and out of sorts, but Jaclyn soothes him by saying, "I expect nothing but you." Suddenly wealthy (her big case was that of a convict, so how could that make her rich?), Jaclyn gets a new apartment where she and Ken can do more of that quip crap. She talks about the fireplace giving off heat, he makes it sexual. She talks about preparing dishes in the kitchen, he says she's the only dish for him. A relationship built on puns is a house of cards, if you ask me. When Jaclyn mentions the dreaded word "relationship," she instantly apologizes, remembering his situation. "I would rather have no illusions than broken promises," she tells him when he fumbles for a way to make her feel better, knowing he can never leave his wife. She just keeps smiling and smiling. This incredibly nutso scene ends with Jaclyn a bit disappointed that Ken has mentioned his work with fellow vets in a campaign speech, but after two or three lines, invites him to "see the bedroom." Either Jaclyn's character is extremely stupid (that's been pretty well established) or extremely horny.
You know it's going to be odd when the heroine is invited to the grand palatial estate of his current wife, Deborah May. "I think you must be the most civilized person I've ever met," Jaclyn comments, for lack of any other clear sentiment. Calm WASP Deborah notes, "people change...I feel brand new. In fact, I'm very much in love myself." She's putting off a divorce until after the Senate campaign. "Is that agreeable to you?" Deborah asks? This is too good to be true. She has to be hiding a knife somewhere under the tea table. Her only request? "Let me release [Ken]. Let me let him go."
When Jaclyn arrives home, she finds an envelope with a dead canary in it pinned to her door.
After a fundraiser, Deborah decides to talk to Ken about their relationship. "Emotionally, we're both run out," she says. She tells him she will give him up if Jaclyn can stimulate him and keep him going with his political career. As for her plans, she remains vague. "No villains, no losers, everyone wins," she says, way too smoothly. She has one request of him too, that they have sex one more time. And they do!
Let's pause to learn a fact, via Sidney Sheldon. "The East River isn't a river at all, it's a channel," Ken tells Jaclyn when they have a rendezvous there. Let's unpause...
...to reveal the secret that has been making Deborah so confident. She's pregnant! This gets Jaclyn all upset again, and we know when she gets upset here, she blubbers and can't speak in complete sentences. "I'm hurting terribly," Jaclyn cries, suddenly without any hope. She has already figured out (and I'm not sure how with her lack of ability to put puzzle pieces together) that Deborah will always have an excuse to keep Ken. "There will always be another election...she intends for you to be President." Before leaving him, Jaclyn even compliments Deborah. "She rolled over me...that's good for a Senator's wife," she remarks, almost impressed.
It turns out Deborah is far more devious. As Jaclyn crosses the street one night, Deborah runs her down with her Mercedes. She wakes up in the hospital with bruises and make-up, with Kevin there at her side. The nurse, breaking all rules, tells Kevin that Jaclyn "almost lost the baby."
A year later, Jaclyn and Kevin are celebrating her child's first birthday, which happens to be Election Day. Wait, so Ron and Ken have been campaigning for over a year for a Senate seat? Something is off here timing-wise, but we don't have a choice except to believe it. Tucked into the conversation is a line that should be the focus of it: "I adopted him legally." Even in the early 80s, this character felt it necessary to hide her single motherhood and use that adoption bit? I thought that kind of thing disappeared with Eisenhower.
Jaclyn's big new case is to go after a company that makes trucks. Not only does it happen to be the one that "accidentally" killed the secretary who could have exonerated Jaclyn, but she also has other clients, proving that the trucks are faulty. When George Coe agrees to meet her demands for $2 million settlement for another injured woman, he asks her out to lunch. "Why don't we wait? You can hand me the check over a nice chef's salad," she says, swooping out of the room.
We haven't seen much of creepy Armand lately, and he ups that character description by sitting in the dark in Jaclyn's office, to be there when she arrives for work one morning. She tells him never go come to her office again. "You want me to go to your house?" he asks with swagger? "No." "That's why I came here."
I know you won't believe this, but Jennifer has been outwitted. I know, I know! When you pick yourself up off the floor, I'll tell you how. Remember when George Coe agreed to give her client $2 million? He first had to go to London for a trip, but they do have that lunch. Jaclyn asks for the money and he informs her she can't have it. "The statute of limitations ran out today," he says with a smile. Okay, so George Coe and his lawyers bothered to do their research in order to figure it out, but Jaclyn, whom we're told repeatedly might just be the smartest lawyer EVER in history, didn't bother to check on that detail, not a tiny one either.
But, she manages to cover that mistake in the most Sidney Sheldon-esque way possible, with a juicy deus ex machina that is too goofy for words. She calls George Coe, drunk with his coworkers over their good fortune, to inform him that she has found a lawyer in Hawaii, which is hours behind New York and therefore still within statute of limitations. Genius, pure genius.
After hearing that Ken is now running the Senate subcommittee on organized crime, Jaclyn gets ready for her next case, defending kidnapper John Glover. He admits to kidnapping the child, but explains why. It all started when his wife died in childbirth, as did the child. "It's like they couldn't afford God's rent to stay here," he says, a line meant to be brilliant, but instead laughably ridiculous. Anyway, he saw a little girl who looked like what would have been his child. "I didn't send a ransom note. I didn't want any money. I only wanted little Tammy," he says. Jaclyn has it all figured out in a flash. Someone knew about the kidnapping and send the ransom note to frame John (who, admittedly, did kidnap a kid, so he's not exactly an angel).
Jaclyn has to beg her old nemesis Ron to move John to a hospital because he's obviously crazy, and also to protect him from the other prisoners, who don't look kindly on kidnappers. She throws a tantrum, but that's not going to move Ron. While Jaclyn is speaking in court on another case, Kevin interrupts the the proceedings to tell her John has been playing them. He's really a homicidal maniac. However, Ron actually did have him transferred to a hospital, where he killed guards and escaped.
Pause again. So, Jaclyn didn't learn from the statute of limitations case that she should actually put some research hours into her cases? Wouldn't it have been easy enough to find out their client was a con artist? Unpause.
Needless to say, Ron is incredibly angry, having followed her advice only for it to end so badly. That night, Jaclyn arrives home to find her dog dead in the driveway. And her child is missing. The nanny is gagged and in the closet. John calls Jaclyn just as she's undoing the nanny. Why did John do it? "You knew they'd steal my brain...you took my case so you could have me destroyed," he tells her in stuttering gasps. Oh, John, you give her too much credit. She could have never put that many pieces together. Jaclyn has to go back to Ron to enlist his help in finding her son. She puts a lot of emphasis on forcing Ron to get John. "Strictly speaking, we're not an apprehending organization," he says, quite correctly. The DA's office? Why the hell is she putting any eggs in that basket? Ah, she actually tells us, and it's because she knows the DA has informants and she's hoping to tap into it. "You're not going to help me, are you? You still hate my guts. You're going to let my little boy diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!!!!!!" she yells as she runs out of the office.
Hmmm, where else can she go? Wait a minute, how about mob lawyer Armand Assante? He must have a few tricks up his sleeve. He goes to the mob boss to help figure it out and now we are subject to wizened old mafia boss wisdom, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense and might be fun it it rhymed. They get the police file on John, which Armand is convinced has information the police do not understand. John has Jaclyn's son tucked away and when the kid asks for his mother, he's told, "she in hell, she's deep in hell." Armand and company find a friend of John's and beat the stuffing out of him, getting as far as his sister (Lois Smith). Skittish Lois isn't afraid. "If this is a rape job, go ahead. My doctor's treating me for gonorrhea," she tells Armand and his equally grossed-out pal. Can she lead them to John before he sacrifices Jaclyn's son?
Of course! Armand kills him and the baby is saved. I suppose Jaclyn owes Armand big time now. "There's no thank you big enough," she tells him and even agrees to call him. That calls leads to a trip to Paris where their big pouffy hairstyles flow in tandem in the wind. He takes Jaclyn to the most opulent hotel in Paris, which he calls "quaint," and packs her off to the room while he has a meeting with some sketchy guys. She's left to ponder Paris on the balcony in yet another oversized sweater. The problem they have is that he loves her and she doesn't love him. "Tell me you love me," he says over and over, and all she says is "want" over and over.
By chance, back in New York City, Ken sees Jaclyn with their son, a nanny and a priest (go into a bar...). It's an awkward meeting for the two, getting a bit heated when he chides her for associating with Armand and his kind. Deborah is across the street waving. "She's a great waver," he says, trying to ignore her, but Jaclyn moves on. However, the meeting has upset her enough to snap at poor Kevin. Wearing her worst power suit yet, with a wide tie that was never stylish, Jaclyn is on the attack when Kevin tries to warn her about Armand as well. "I feel so funny. Nobody looks familiar. Everybody seems to have gone away," Kevin ruminates, staring outside the window, an omen of gloom.
Mafia head Joseph dies and Armand and his other lawyer Joe Warren argue about the will. Joe is pissed that Armand has turned into a "sloppy lovesick" fool who can't handle the business. Armand grabs Joe and insists that Jaclyn "and the organization" are both mine.
Kevin's world crumbles faster. He starts drinking again. "Please, tell me why. I'll understand," she chirps. Really? She hasn't understood much so far, so how will she understand that? When he rips into her about "yesterday's heartbreak staring at you through cankered tears," loneliness and even gay bars, she merely looks perplexed, though with sympathetic tears. "I've got nothing!" he yells and thrashes the office. He pulls down bookcases and blames Jaclyn for everything, but all she can do is whimper for him to stop. Yeah, it's clear she doesn't understand, just like he predicted. She takes him home to her family.
But, it's not enough. He goes into the office and hangs himself. When Jaclyn discovers him, she has one of by-now-expected fits of hysteria and then we dash off three months ahead to a legal conference in Mexico. It's not all work, as Jaclyn calls her secretary from a pool filled with hibiscus flowers.
The Senior Senator from New York is supposed to speak, but he can't make it and instead the Junior Senator from New York speaks (that would be our pal Ken, the only person in Mexico wearing a tie as everyone else is in leisure suits and halter tops). Ken gets to Jaclyn's hotel suite and asks point blank if the kid is his. Why didn't she tell him? "I didn't want to tear you in two. I would have ended up with the lesser half. And so would" his wife, she tells him, again proving that math is not a strong suit of hers. For that matter, neither is good dialogue. There was a time when she could quip beautifully, but now she can only quote her infant son. "All gone," she tells Ken.
He asks her out on a date in Mexico and she refuses, but does tell him he could have been a great senator and is not. Why? "Because [Deborah's] eyes don't dance like yours," he replies. That apparently seals the deal. She meets him as requested and they make all sorts of promises to each other in red lighting that is meant to simulate moonlight, but looks like a cut scene from the movie version of "South Pacific."
When Jaclyn gets home from her trip, Armand's chauffeur is waiting to take her to him. In church. He's in a pensive mood, talking in riddles and opposites. "I love you suntanned. I love you pale...I've seen you naked, but never nude," that sort of tripe. He tells in his best mafia voice that, "you must never leave me again," though she replies, "I hope to be rid of you." He insists on protecting her son always, but she doesn't understand what he really wants. "What can I give you to keep you gentle?" she asks. "The title, free and clear," is his answer. Last I checked, she's not the Queen, so what title?
In the next scene, he's boxing with his lackey, who is giving him his spy report on Jaclyn and Ken's moves in Mexico. "You saw him in bed with my property?" he asks, slugging the lackey to the ground. The conversation continues in the sauna where a very hairy-chested Armand orders a hit on Ken. The lackey is biding his time because he wants to hire someone from out of the country who cannot be traced. Ah, but Armand wants to do it himself. The lackey begs him not to. "I want him dead more than I want myself alive," he mumbles. That will certainly win you Jaclyn, won't it? What is she supposed to do, drag your carcass to dinners and the movies?
Joe Warren calls Jaclyn for a mysterious meeting in Lower Manhattan. "I'm not in the boom boom business," referring to the mafia. She doesn't really care, but when he says "lovesick madman" Armand has a hit out on Ken, she is interested. Jaclyn doesn't see what she can do (other than the obvious--telling Ken), but Joe says they are both "your men" and thus her problem. For the first time in the story, Jaclyn actually asks a smart question: why can't Joe take care of Armand? He has some excuse about not starting a mob war. The answer is wan, but I'm so proud of our Jaclyn for starting to understand!
She can't get through to Ken, so she goes to her old friend, DA Rob. She informs him that Armand is going to kill Ken, because "of his obsession for me." Rob asks when? where? how? She has no idea. "Why me? Why me again?" Rob begs of her. "You're going to do nothing? You're going to sit there and stare at me with your dead eyes and do nothing?" she begs. Oh, Jaclyn, the flattery, it's too much! Wait a second, it actually works! He says "I'll handle it." Of course, when she leaves, Rob tells his assistant he has no intention of listening to her.
Armand calls Jaclyn and asks for "a civilized ending," a meeting for that night at 7pm. He then goes out with a gun to shoot Ken on his usual riverside jogging path. Ken runs merrily with his constituents (including one sassy girl who says she'll vote for him because he has "great legs and a cute behind"), while Armand slowly steers a boat to his ideal spot and Jaclyn arrives at Armand's place, perplexed because "he's never kept me waiting before." Back to being completely dimwitted, Jaclyn doesn't put the pieces together immediately, grilling the lackey until darkness falls and threatening to "put you away for life plus forever!" Jeepers, that's a long time.
When she gets the information from the lackey, Jaclyn is caught in traffic trying to get there. Ken stops to take a rest and Armand loads his gun. Amazingly, Jaclyn runs to Ken (how the hell did she know exactly where he would be?), yells his name and then gets shot by Armand, who does a King Lear-like howl when he sees what he's done. Unfortunately, he doesn't see the tugboat behind him, which knocks him into the river. He's caught in the current and goes under.
Ken keeps a vigil at the hospital and Deborah is there too. "She has no right to make it!" Deborah says. She confesses to the notes and hints at the car accident, demanding that "you can be President of the United States someday and I can watch." Again in a hospital bed, this time Jaclyn has no bruises, but still her perfect make-up. Finally catching up with the plot, Jaclyn tells Ken, "I think he wanted me there that night so he could tell me he killed you." You don't say! "Don't look so miserable, you don't have to love my anymore...you loved me once and that's enough. I'm the past," she tells him, setting him up for the inevitable blow-off. He tells her, "you're the most distinguished person I've ever met," leaves the hospital room, takes his wife's hand and walks down the long hallway.
As for our Jaclyn, she's "giving up everything" in the words of her secretary, to go back to Washington. The woman even packs up a house in a jacket with shoulder pads. Dressing down, up, or sideways is not something she has been able to manage. Her friend the priest has one last case for her and as she pleads and refuses, the camera pulls away and the movie ends.
The Jennifer Parker lead character in "Rage of Angels" is the most unappealing of all Sidney Sheldon heroines, mainly because she's so utterly idiotic. Granted, "Rage of Angels" is not one of his better books, because most of the characters are unappealing and it misses the touch of the exotic that Sheldon did so well. The movie version goes one worse by letting go of the erotic, something no Sheldon book ever lacked. Dozens of men want the same woman here and we don't have so much as a sex scene. The biggest kiss is from a man to his wife!
However, things here proved so popular that "Rage of Angels" begot a miniseries sequel...
Questions? Comments? Laughs? Email me at hpmaraka@gmail.com and let's chat!
Far more realistic is "Rage of Angels," which has Jaclyn Smith as an Assistant District Attorney, from the pages of Sidney Sheldon. Sounds a whole lot more realistic, no? Yup, sounds like it.
But, it isn't. It's another made-in-heaven made-for-television hootfest, as delectably trashy as they come. There is no way to take any Sidney Sheldon miniseries serious, and to do so would be foolish, but, as always, Jaclyn Smith is as earnest as all get-out in her sensible shoes. She believes in what she's doing (and considering she's playing a character with the IQ of a carrot, that's asking a lot of our Jaclyn), so let her undertake that burden and the rest of us can sit back and giggle together.
The drama starts immediately! Our Jaclyn, in a cutesy casual ensemble of cutesy tennis shoes, jeans and a cutesy sweater tied over her shoulders, turns (dramatically) to the camera because of a disturbance she hears. She runs toward the courthouse, past the ambulance and the gawkers to a man (Wesley Addy) being tended to by EMTs. "Oh, Pop!" she coos when they tell her he's in the middle of a heart attack. "Do not call me Pop. Pop is for champagne is soda water...everything is going to be all right, Jenny," he says, still cracking wise through the pain. "Don't call me Jenny," she replies, inexplicably, through her tears. Apparently no one is concerned about the severity of the situation, because Jaclyn, still crying, is able to show her father a letter, and read from it. She's been made an ADA in New York City. "I'm one of 278, but I'm one," she says, proudly, but then changing her tune to say she'll be back to practice law with him, "Parker and Parker," to which the old geezer still manages to elicit a laugh, noting, "I say that you got your name first."
As he's being put into the ambulance, I think Pop sees his time being up. So, he lays on the canned advice, with lines like, "keep the rules" and "respect the law--it's the only thing between us and the Furies." What does he mean? Only Sidney Sheldon knows, and he can't tell us, I'm afraid.
Let's get to New York (we were in Washington State before), where Jaclyn can still run, but now her clothes have gone from cutesy to smart, but, as usual for Jaclyn Smith, she's clad nearly from head to toe and in layers, no less. For one of "Charlie's Angels," she never was much of a sexy symbol. Anyway, watch Jaclyn race for the bus. Watch her trip on a sidewalk. Watch her adjust price tag on her brief case. Indeed, folks, it's this hick's first day on the job as one of the 278 chosen few.
Naturally, DA Ron Hunter has already started with the other 277 when Jaclyn breathlessly bursts in the room. She hasn't missed much. In fact, he picks up where her father left off, speaking in legal fortune cookie dialogue. "The courtroom is where the action is. Don't hang from the stars yet because you people will be living in a world made up of subpoenas, research, mainly trivial, law libraries and still more law libraries. Life in the courtroom is an ultimate, not a beginning," he preaches. You know the moment: tough boss tells half they are going to fail and the other half they are going to quit, or at least she tries to, but Jaclyn has a question. "Oh, dear God, she's not only late, she's earnest," he whines.
Jaclyn and the other 277 will be working on "the trial of decade," the trial of Joseph Wiseman, "the grand master of organized crime." The state's turncoat witness is Art Vasil, who, upon being besieged by the media leaving The Tombs for court, already looks like a romantic novel dead man walking. Art rattles off all of Joseph's various business interests for the court, including "linen supplies." We can't forget that one! The mob king's tough-talking lawyer, with insanely huge glasses, is none other than Armand Assante, who has spent a television career playing mob kings. As Ron releases his fireworks questioning, Armand objects and they are called to the bench. "You want to run for Senator? Do it on your own time," the judge admonishes him.
Our heroine's first assignment is to deliver an envelope to Art during a recess. "Don't stare at me like that, I'm no corpse," he bellows, further hastening what we already know to be the inevitable. Proud of herself for having achieved so much on her first day, Jaclyn breathes in the air with a smile...before being grabbed by two cops. Ron wants to know who paid her to deliver an envelope containing a dead canary (which we get to see) to Art. Ron thunders at her, "by the time you get out of prison...you'll be too old to eat, to breath, to live!" as if he's still performing in court. The dead bird has caused Art to back out of testifying, meaning he can't be cross-examined by Armand, who moves for a mistrial. Jaclyn insists on waiting for the word of Ron secretary, who gave her the package, but Armand warns that if she "climbed to the top of the building now and sings 'Melancholy Baby,'" the witness still won't testify. Wouldn't you like to see THAT miniseries, huh? Apparently the judge wants to rush home for that one too, because he declares a mistrial as Jaclyn launches into howling defensive shrieks.
The judge also tells Jaclyn that he will investigate her conduct and proceed "with disbarment proceedings." At home, trying to look like a slob, but with full make-up and terrific lighting, Jaclyn finds out from the news that the secretary who gave her the envelope was killed in a car accident. "This is a creepy town," she says to her father's picture. Wet and fraying, Jaclyn can't get a job in any law office, no matter how hard she tries. Her name is mud.
Time to meet the hero of the piece: Ken Howard, looking squeaky clean and handsome. His brother-in-law and law partner wants him to run for the Senate too. After all, not only is he [insert every positive quality here], he's even a veteran. What's his connection to Jaclyn? He's prosecuting her at her hearing before the Bar, of course! He sees it as "an investigation, not a lynch mob," the sentiments of a White Knight and the only honest lawyer in New York City. He's told to "nail her...it's worth at least a quarter of million votes," though Ken has a (not-at-all-original) reply for that. "And thirty pieces of silver?"
Let's wrap up Art. He's killed, naturally, in prison, while watching a Three Stooges movie that has he and his fellow prisoners laughing so hard many of the others might stroke out.
Ken and Jaclyn meet adorably. She's in a towel just out of the shower when he rings her buzzer. She thinks he's there about a job application. "Your people go back as far as..." she starts. "Wigs and snuff," he finishes. Awwww, they have banter already! It goes on for a bit as Jaclyn reaches fever pitch. "There's the door. Or better yet, there's the window!" she huffs and ducks into the bathroom. He pretends to leave, and when she sees he hasn't, she's furious, throwing out more banter. "I've been investigating your life for four days," Ken pleads. "That's five too many," she snaps. Once again, math is not her strong suit, but that's not even a good line! He invites her to dinner and she agrees, because "I'm hungry. For good...and vindication."
With even the sleazy law firms having turned her away, Jaclyn goes to meet shlumpy private investigator Kevin Conway, but only to rent office space. "I want to go into business myself. I have to go into business myself," she tells him, though she can't afford even the discount rent he offers. However, he has an idea. "You ever serve a summons before? Pretty ladies have an advantage. They are less apt to break your legs," Kevin says, offering her that job. But, right at the end, she realizes he knows who she is. And he still wants her? "I'm desperate too" is his reply.
As our plucky heroine is walking home from grocery shopping, Armand drives up in a big fancy car with roses to present to her. "Strangle any canaries, lately?" she quips, after quipping about what he should do with the roses. I like quipping Jaclyn. She gets to stretch as an actress.
Okay, that last line was a joke.
"I think you got one of the bummest raps in history," Armand informs Jaclyn. What she doesn't know, but he does, is that his boss did not order the hit on Art, but all he does here is deny he had any part in it.
He: "I hate lynch mobs."
She: "I hate criminals."
He: "Then be a jailer, not a lawyer."
I guess living in the Pacific Northwest teaches a woman some interesting skills. When Jaclyn shows up at her new office the next day, Kevin is drunk. Rather than huffing in disappointment, Jaclyn smacks him around, pins his arm behind his back, shouts, "where is my office? Where is my LIFE?" and then dunks his head under a faucet to sober him up. Not only is she skilled physically, she's also something of a shrink. "No one asks you to be happy! Sober, clean and healthy you can be!" she rails. Where the HELL did all of this come from? "I think I want to die," he claims, defenses down. "You can die later," she says sweetly.
Armand sends over flowers and a case to Jaclyn via messenger. Luckily, Kevin is there to tell Jaclyn it's a bad idea, so she turns it down in favor of handing out more summonses. Kevin also has some insight into Jaclyn, sensing that she has feelings for Ken, though they have only had that one awkward scene together! That is soon corrected when Ken shows up at lunch to tell Jaclyn she has been cleared of all wrongdoing by the Bar committee. Now she and Ken can really get to know each other.
"I feel dumb and wonderful," Jaclyn says at lunch. Never has a line had a truer ring in the land of the land of the miniseries! She's referring to her giddy feelings. I took it to be about her character as a whole. The two spend the whole day together, going for a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride at night where Ken complains about his bad marriage and tells Jaclyn he has no hobbies at all except hosting "rap sessions" for some fellow Vietnam vets.
Armand isn't going away. When Jaclyn gets home from work one day, Armand is there already, with oodles of roses. To get him to stop showing up, she agrees to go out with him "in a public place" and he takes her to a hockey game. He loves the brawling, but she doesn't understand either the game, the fighting or the fans. "I see nothing beautiful," she says, as if she's not understanding a night at the opera. It gets more ridiculous when Armand hits a man in the food line who insults him. "You just hit that man!" Jaclyn says a few times, not that she leaves her place in line or doesn't eat her food.
Ken wakes Jaclyn up in the middle of the night (although in one of those gaffes that affected the trashier types of miniseries, it's clearly full daytime outside with loads of people milling about) to tell her she has a client. "A client? C-L-I-E-N-T? I'm there already," she yells, jumping out of bed. But this client cannot pay. It's a priest, Father James Greene. He explains the case, about a prisoner who may have beaten a man to death in prison (Bill Cobbs).
So, wearing her preferred outfit of suit with a flowing skirt and something around her neck (this time a sweater AGAIN), she goes to the prison to meet Bill, who is suffering badly from being in solitary confinement. Here comes Dr. Jaclyn again. When Bill avoids her questions and propositions her sexually, she asks, "do you hate all people?" So, what is Bill's story? "I killed a honkey slime," he starts, but business-like Jaclyn has trouble connecting to him, so he leaves, saying, "this is real! This is black!" in trying to avoid telling her the truth.
Who is her opposing counsel? DA Ron, of course, who threatens to "have your eyes, ears, nose and throat" before the judge arrives. What, you don't want her mouth or her shoulder pads, Ron? Nope. "I'm going to ram your face into the law, THE LAW!" he says furthermore. His threats are one thing, but she opens an anonymous letter in the courtroom telling her to drop the case, that it will end her career (naturally, it's one of those notes with letters cut out of magazines and newspapers, pasted together).
What actor doesn't love a trial scene? We know hammy Ron does, and his opening statement is flashy. Jaclyn can hold her own. Boring as hell, at least she sticks to the law. Though Bill had admitted to killing the man and there were witnesses, the plan is self-defense. Ron makes much out of Bill's being a much bigger man than the victim, but Jaclyn has ample power suits with ties that match on her side!n She also gets a huge break when Ron makes a small legal error that allows her to introduce a "goody box" into evidence. That would be a box of weapons confiscated, proving that the victim might have had a weapon. It's a giant stretch of an argument, especially since all it does is prove that the victim could have had a weapon. Pouring the contents onto the floor, Jaclyn gets to showboat in a way only Ron usually gets to do.
At this point, one wonders when and how Jaclyn (who remember, is supposed to be a novice) became so good in a trial setting. This is her first case! Should we assume Pop taught her the tricks or is she just super brilliant? Let's bet on the former, shall we?
On the stand, Bill says that indeed the victim did have a weapon and he was "forced to kill him" because of it. Ron picks up the salad tongs Bill claims his victim had and, smarmy as all get out, asks how something like that could do any damage. "Testicle crushers," Bill says, as no doubt every man in the courtroom winces. Even Ron has no reply to that one.
Jaclyn wins the case and calls Ken to share the exciting news. As a present, he takes her out on a yacht, complete with wine and cheese. "Ohhhh, cheese! Boy, they are going to lose money on me," she says, once again proving how incredibly socially awkward she can be. I will give Jaclyn credit for the first sensible thing she's had to say so far in the entire movie. She asks Ken if he "minds being seen in public" with her, considering he's a married man running for Senator. Nope, apparently "being seen with an astonishingly beautiful woman" is a plus, though Ken doesn't understand why. Don't affairs usually kill campaigns? Ken also fills Jaclyn in on Kevin, whom he used to use as a private investigator. He's smart and good at what he does, but never passed the bar because of his drinking. There was also a wife. "She came home one day..." Ken starts, with Jaclyn AGAIN finishing his sentence, "and of course there was a woman in the bed." "There was a man in the bed and Nancy killed herself five days later." That's an interesting twist! "I guess he's still waiting for the hyenas to come down from the hills," Jaclyn opines, although I can't say I understand the reference.
Having won such an important case, Jaclyn is suddenly the hottest lawyer in town, inundated with offers. It also seems Kevin has some sort of feelings for her. Ken invites her to one of his Sunday Vietnam vet "rap sessions." She finds them an ornery disappointed bunch, disaffected and angry. Jennifer is deeply moved by what she sees and hears, unable to hold back tears. This scene rings with truth and honest pathos, but what it's doing in a Sidney Sheldon piece, I'm not entirely sure. Sheldon was not known for taking on social causes in his writing and he was a generation older than the Vietnam veterans.
Boyfriend and girlfriend have the obligatory run along the beach at sunset and then a rather awkward morning at a hotel where Ken is clearly upset and out of sorts, but Jaclyn soothes him by saying, "I expect nothing but you." Suddenly wealthy (her big case was that of a convict, so how could that make her rich?), Jaclyn gets a new apartment where she and Ken can do more of that quip crap. She talks about the fireplace giving off heat, he makes it sexual. She talks about preparing dishes in the kitchen, he says she's the only dish for him. A relationship built on puns is a house of cards, if you ask me. When Jaclyn mentions the dreaded word "relationship," she instantly apologizes, remembering his situation. "I would rather have no illusions than broken promises," she tells him when he fumbles for a way to make her feel better, knowing he can never leave his wife. She just keeps smiling and smiling. This incredibly nutso scene ends with Jaclyn a bit disappointed that Ken has mentioned his work with fellow vets in a campaign speech, but after two or three lines, invites him to "see the bedroom." Either Jaclyn's character is extremely stupid (that's been pretty well established) or extremely horny.
You know it's going to be odd when the heroine is invited to the grand palatial estate of his current wife, Deborah May. "I think you must be the most civilized person I've ever met," Jaclyn comments, for lack of any other clear sentiment. Calm WASP Deborah notes, "people change...I feel brand new. In fact, I'm very much in love myself." She's putting off a divorce until after the Senate campaign. "Is that agreeable to you?" Deborah asks? This is too good to be true. She has to be hiding a knife somewhere under the tea table. Her only request? "Let me release [Ken]. Let me let him go."
When Jaclyn arrives home, she finds an envelope with a dead canary in it pinned to her door.
After a fundraiser, Deborah decides to talk to Ken about their relationship. "Emotionally, we're both run out," she says. She tells him she will give him up if Jaclyn can stimulate him and keep him going with his political career. As for her plans, she remains vague. "No villains, no losers, everyone wins," she says, way too smoothly. She has one request of him too, that they have sex one more time. And they do!
Let's pause to learn a fact, via Sidney Sheldon. "The East River isn't a river at all, it's a channel," Ken tells Jaclyn when they have a rendezvous there. Let's unpause...
...to reveal the secret that has been making Deborah so confident. She's pregnant! This gets Jaclyn all upset again, and we know when she gets upset here, she blubbers and can't speak in complete sentences. "I'm hurting terribly," Jaclyn cries, suddenly without any hope. She has already figured out (and I'm not sure how with her lack of ability to put puzzle pieces together) that Deborah will always have an excuse to keep Ken. "There will always be another election...she intends for you to be President." Before leaving him, Jaclyn even compliments Deborah. "She rolled over me...that's good for a Senator's wife," she remarks, almost impressed.
It turns out Deborah is far more devious. As Jaclyn crosses the street one night, Deborah runs her down with her Mercedes. She wakes up in the hospital with bruises and make-up, with Kevin there at her side. The nurse, breaking all rules, tells Kevin that Jaclyn "almost lost the baby."
A year later, Jaclyn and Kevin are celebrating her child's first birthday, which happens to be Election Day. Wait, so Ron and Ken have been campaigning for over a year for a Senate seat? Something is off here timing-wise, but we don't have a choice except to believe it. Tucked into the conversation is a line that should be the focus of it: "I adopted him legally." Even in the early 80s, this character felt it necessary to hide her single motherhood and use that adoption bit? I thought that kind of thing disappeared with Eisenhower.
Jaclyn's big new case is to go after a company that makes trucks. Not only does it happen to be the one that "accidentally" killed the secretary who could have exonerated Jaclyn, but she also has other clients, proving that the trucks are faulty. When George Coe agrees to meet her demands for $2 million settlement for another injured woman, he asks her out to lunch. "Why don't we wait? You can hand me the check over a nice chef's salad," she says, swooping out of the room.
We haven't seen much of creepy Armand lately, and he ups that character description by sitting in the dark in Jaclyn's office, to be there when she arrives for work one morning. She tells him never go come to her office again. "You want me to go to your house?" he asks with swagger? "No." "That's why I came here."
I know you won't believe this, but Jennifer has been outwitted. I know, I know! When you pick yourself up off the floor, I'll tell you how. Remember when George Coe agreed to give her client $2 million? He first had to go to London for a trip, but they do have that lunch. Jaclyn asks for the money and he informs her she can't have it. "The statute of limitations ran out today," he says with a smile. Okay, so George Coe and his lawyers bothered to do their research in order to figure it out, but Jaclyn, whom we're told repeatedly might just be the smartest lawyer EVER in history, didn't bother to check on that detail, not a tiny one either.
But, she manages to cover that mistake in the most Sidney Sheldon-esque way possible, with a juicy deus ex machina that is too goofy for words. She calls George Coe, drunk with his coworkers over their good fortune, to inform him that she has found a lawyer in Hawaii, which is hours behind New York and therefore still within statute of limitations. Genius, pure genius.
After hearing that Ken is now running the Senate subcommittee on organized crime, Jaclyn gets ready for her next case, defending kidnapper John Glover. He admits to kidnapping the child, but explains why. It all started when his wife died in childbirth, as did the child. "It's like they couldn't afford God's rent to stay here," he says, a line meant to be brilliant, but instead laughably ridiculous. Anyway, he saw a little girl who looked like what would have been his child. "I didn't send a ransom note. I didn't want any money. I only wanted little Tammy," he says. Jaclyn has it all figured out in a flash. Someone knew about the kidnapping and send the ransom note to frame John (who, admittedly, did kidnap a kid, so he's not exactly an angel).
Jaclyn has to beg her old nemesis Ron to move John to a hospital because he's obviously crazy, and also to protect him from the other prisoners, who don't look kindly on kidnappers. She throws a tantrum, but that's not going to move Ron. While Jaclyn is speaking in court on another case, Kevin interrupts the the proceedings to tell her John has been playing them. He's really a homicidal maniac. However, Ron actually did have him transferred to a hospital, where he killed guards and escaped.
Pause again. So, Jaclyn didn't learn from the statute of limitations case that she should actually put some research hours into her cases? Wouldn't it have been easy enough to find out their client was a con artist? Unpause.
Needless to say, Ron is incredibly angry, having followed her advice only for it to end so badly. That night, Jaclyn arrives home to find her dog dead in the driveway. And her child is missing. The nanny is gagged and in the closet. John calls Jaclyn just as she's undoing the nanny. Why did John do it? "You knew they'd steal my brain...you took my case so you could have me destroyed," he tells her in stuttering gasps. Oh, John, you give her too much credit. She could have never put that many pieces together. Jaclyn has to go back to Ron to enlist his help in finding her son. She puts a lot of emphasis on forcing Ron to get John. "Strictly speaking, we're not an apprehending organization," he says, quite correctly. The DA's office? Why the hell is she putting any eggs in that basket? Ah, she actually tells us, and it's because she knows the DA has informants and she's hoping to tap into it. "You're not going to help me, are you? You still hate my guts. You're going to let my little boy diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!!!!!!" she yells as she runs out of the office.
Hmmm, where else can she go? Wait a minute, how about mob lawyer Armand Assante? He must have a few tricks up his sleeve. He goes to the mob boss to help figure it out and now we are subject to wizened old mafia boss wisdom, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense and might be fun it it rhymed. They get the police file on John, which Armand is convinced has information the police do not understand. John has Jaclyn's son tucked away and when the kid asks for his mother, he's told, "she in hell, she's deep in hell." Armand and company find a friend of John's and beat the stuffing out of him, getting as far as his sister (Lois Smith). Skittish Lois isn't afraid. "If this is a rape job, go ahead. My doctor's treating me for gonorrhea," she tells Armand and his equally grossed-out pal. Can she lead them to John before he sacrifices Jaclyn's son?
Of course! Armand kills him and the baby is saved. I suppose Jaclyn owes Armand big time now. "There's no thank you big enough," she tells him and even agrees to call him. That calls leads to a trip to Paris where their big pouffy hairstyles flow in tandem in the wind. He takes Jaclyn to the most opulent hotel in Paris, which he calls "quaint," and packs her off to the room while he has a meeting with some sketchy guys. She's left to ponder Paris on the balcony in yet another oversized sweater. The problem they have is that he loves her and she doesn't love him. "Tell me you love me," he says over and over, and all she says is "want" over and over.
By chance, back in New York City, Ken sees Jaclyn with their son, a nanny and a priest (go into a bar...). It's an awkward meeting for the two, getting a bit heated when he chides her for associating with Armand and his kind. Deborah is across the street waving. "She's a great waver," he says, trying to ignore her, but Jaclyn moves on. However, the meeting has upset her enough to snap at poor Kevin. Wearing her worst power suit yet, with a wide tie that was never stylish, Jaclyn is on the attack when Kevin tries to warn her about Armand as well. "I feel so funny. Nobody looks familiar. Everybody seems to have gone away," Kevin ruminates, staring outside the window, an omen of gloom.
Mafia head Joseph dies and Armand and his other lawyer Joe Warren argue about the will. Joe is pissed that Armand has turned into a "sloppy lovesick" fool who can't handle the business. Armand grabs Joe and insists that Jaclyn "and the organization" are both mine.
Kevin's world crumbles faster. He starts drinking again. "Please, tell me why. I'll understand," she chirps. Really? She hasn't understood much so far, so how will she understand that? When he rips into her about "yesterday's heartbreak staring at you through cankered tears," loneliness and even gay bars, she merely looks perplexed, though with sympathetic tears. "I've got nothing!" he yells and thrashes the office. He pulls down bookcases and blames Jaclyn for everything, but all she can do is whimper for him to stop. Yeah, it's clear she doesn't understand, just like he predicted. She takes him home to her family.
But, it's not enough. He goes into the office and hangs himself. When Jaclyn discovers him, she has one of by-now-expected fits of hysteria and then we dash off three months ahead to a legal conference in Mexico. It's not all work, as Jaclyn calls her secretary from a pool filled with hibiscus flowers.
The Senior Senator from New York is supposed to speak, but he can't make it and instead the Junior Senator from New York speaks (that would be our pal Ken, the only person in Mexico wearing a tie as everyone else is in leisure suits and halter tops). Ken gets to Jaclyn's hotel suite and asks point blank if the kid is his. Why didn't she tell him? "I didn't want to tear you in two. I would have ended up with the lesser half. And so would" his wife, she tells him, again proving that math is not a strong suit of hers. For that matter, neither is good dialogue. There was a time when she could quip beautifully, but now she can only quote her infant son. "All gone," she tells Ken.
He asks her out on a date in Mexico and she refuses, but does tell him he could have been a great senator and is not. Why? "Because [Deborah's] eyes don't dance like yours," he replies. That apparently seals the deal. She meets him as requested and they make all sorts of promises to each other in red lighting that is meant to simulate moonlight, but looks like a cut scene from the movie version of "South Pacific."
When Jaclyn gets home from her trip, Armand's chauffeur is waiting to take her to him. In church. He's in a pensive mood, talking in riddles and opposites. "I love you suntanned. I love you pale...I've seen you naked, but never nude," that sort of tripe. He tells in his best mafia voice that, "you must never leave me again," though she replies, "I hope to be rid of you." He insists on protecting her son always, but she doesn't understand what he really wants. "What can I give you to keep you gentle?" she asks. "The title, free and clear," is his answer. Last I checked, she's not the Queen, so what title?
In the next scene, he's boxing with his lackey, who is giving him his spy report on Jaclyn and Ken's moves in Mexico. "You saw him in bed with my property?" he asks, slugging the lackey to the ground. The conversation continues in the sauna where a very hairy-chested Armand orders a hit on Ken. The lackey is biding his time because he wants to hire someone from out of the country who cannot be traced. Ah, but Armand wants to do it himself. The lackey begs him not to. "I want him dead more than I want myself alive," he mumbles. That will certainly win you Jaclyn, won't it? What is she supposed to do, drag your carcass to dinners and the movies?
Joe Warren calls Jaclyn for a mysterious meeting in Lower Manhattan. "I'm not in the boom boom business," referring to the mafia. She doesn't really care, but when he says "lovesick madman" Armand has a hit out on Ken, she is interested. Jaclyn doesn't see what she can do (other than the obvious--telling Ken), but Joe says they are both "your men" and thus her problem. For the first time in the story, Jaclyn actually asks a smart question: why can't Joe take care of Armand? He has some excuse about not starting a mob war. The answer is wan, but I'm so proud of our Jaclyn for starting to understand!
She can't get through to Ken, so she goes to her old friend, DA Rob. She informs him that Armand is going to kill Ken, because "of his obsession for me." Rob asks when? where? how? She has no idea. "Why me? Why me again?" Rob begs of her. "You're going to do nothing? You're going to sit there and stare at me with your dead eyes and do nothing?" she begs. Oh, Jaclyn, the flattery, it's too much! Wait a second, it actually works! He says "I'll handle it." Of course, when she leaves, Rob tells his assistant he has no intention of listening to her.
Armand calls Jaclyn and asks for "a civilized ending," a meeting for that night at 7pm. He then goes out with a gun to shoot Ken on his usual riverside jogging path. Ken runs merrily with his constituents (including one sassy girl who says she'll vote for him because he has "great legs and a cute behind"), while Armand slowly steers a boat to his ideal spot and Jaclyn arrives at Armand's place, perplexed because "he's never kept me waiting before." Back to being completely dimwitted, Jaclyn doesn't put the pieces together immediately, grilling the lackey until darkness falls and threatening to "put you away for life plus forever!" Jeepers, that's a long time.
When she gets the information from the lackey, Jaclyn is caught in traffic trying to get there. Ken stops to take a rest and Armand loads his gun. Amazingly, Jaclyn runs to Ken (how the hell did she know exactly where he would be?), yells his name and then gets shot by Armand, who does a King Lear-like howl when he sees what he's done. Unfortunately, he doesn't see the tugboat behind him, which knocks him into the river. He's caught in the current and goes under.
Ken keeps a vigil at the hospital and Deborah is there too. "She has no right to make it!" Deborah says. She confesses to the notes and hints at the car accident, demanding that "you can be President of the United States someday and I can watch." Again in a hospital bed, this time Jaclyn has no bruises, but still her perfect make-up. Finally catching up with the plot, Jaclyn tells Ken, "I think he wanted me there that night so he could tell me he killed you." You don't say! "Don't look so miserable, you don't have to love my anymore...you loved me once and that's enough. I'm the past," she tells him, setting him up for the inevitable blow-off. He tells her, "you're the most distinguished person I've ever met," leaves the hospital room, takes his wife's hand and walks down the long hallway.
As for our Jaclyn, she's "giving up everything" in the words of her secretary, to go back to Washington. The woman even packs up a house in a jacket with shoulder pads. Dressing down, up, or sideways is not something she has been able to manage. Her friend the priest has one last case for her and as she pleads and refuses, the camera pulls away and the movie ends.
The Jennifer Parker lead character in "Rage of Angels" is the most unappealing of all Sidney Sheldon heroines, mainly because she's so utterly idiotic. Granted, "Rage of Angels" is not one of his better books, because most of the characters are unappealing and it misses the touch of the exotic that Sheldon did so well. The movie version goes one worse by letting go of the erotic, something no Sheldon book ever lacked. Dozens of men want the same woman here and we don't have so much as a sex scene. The biggest kiss is from a man to his wife!
However, things here proved so popular that "Rage of Angels" begot a miniseries sequel...
Questions? Comments? Laughs? Email me at hpmaraka@gmail.com and let's chat!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Memories of Midnight (1991)
It's been a long time since I've spent time with our Muse of the Miniseries, Jane Seymour! So, let's return to her, but in one of her, um, less serious roles. "Memories of Midnight" pairs her with the writings of Sidney Sheldon. Really, Jane? Sidney Sheldon? That's Jaclyn Smith territory. Isn't Jane too good for that? Ah, hell, a girl has to have some fun along the way.
"Memories of Midnight" is actually a sequel to another Sidney Sheldon novel, but if you didn't read the novel (or see the movie), don't worry. Not only have they reset the story in the 90s (where the first story was decades earlier), this kind of trash doesn't really make any logical sense anyway, on its own or paired with something else. Don't think too hard. Sidney Sheldon would be scratching to get out of his grave if he knew anyone wasted brain cells actually thinking about his work. If that sounded harsh, watch an episode of "I Dream of Jeanie" again.
It's a dark and stormy night. It always is. The beating of the tress against the window causes Jane to wake up, calling for "Larry." From the doorway, she sees this Larry, and a woman with an accent in a raincoat. "I told you I would get rid of her," he says. "I'm tired of waiting," she says. Jane makes a noise and they see her. The door is locked and Jane cannot get out, not even in slow motion.
"Wake up. Wake up. You had a nightmare!" Well, of course she did. I mean, have you READ Sidney Sheldon? The lead isn't getting bumped off in the first scene.
Just who is waking up our Jane? A nun. Damn right, a nun. Sister Constance Towers no less. As the nun walks out, leaving Jane to go back to sleep, Jane suddenly realizes she remembers her name. You got it, she's been suffering amnesia, that beloved malady of pulp fiction and soap operas. But, back to that later.
We're in Athens and it's time meet the villain, that great Greek actor Omar Sharif. Okay, he's not Greek. Okay, he's not great either. Okay, there are some who would say "actor" is even stretching it, but Omar is the villain here, that much is fact. When we first encounter him, he's welcoming back his mistress, an actress whom he promptly tosses out because he found out she was sleeping with the director. "Oh, before you go, come here," he says sweetly, and she thinks he's reconsidered. No, he just wants to literally rip the jewelry from her body. He then barks to his secretary, "take everything that's on the floor. Give it to the children's fund." I'm sure starving orphans will love expensive jewelry. It will go so well with their hand-me-down torn t-shirts. Sister Constance calls with very important news and he hightails it over to the convent.
Sister Constance introduces Jane to Omar, who is a "good friend of the convent." Jane, interrupted from picking flowers on the convent lawn, doesn't quite understand, but Omar turns on his oily charm and decides it's time for Jane to rejoin the world. Sister Constance isn't going to argue. Not with her benefactor. Plus, it means more gruel for her at dinner.
Jane, in the plainest of dresses, but with shoulder pads and a Bible, manages to ask Sister Constance who Omar really is before she leaves, only to be told he's very rich, very hated by many, but also a good friend to the convent. As Jane gets in the car, Sister Constance puts her hands up to her mouth in prayer and waves goodbye. If you're going to leave a convent with amnesia, this is really the way to do it, with a super dramatic nun to bid you adieu and a car ride along the Greek coast. Jane insists on a pit stop along the way because she recognizes a statue, but the driver gives away the entire secret to Greek tourism: "There are hundreds of them all over the place." She insists she's seen this particular one in this particular place.
At Omar's villa, Jane tells him she remembers the road she took, but Omar brushes it off because, get this, he's been studying amnesia. He tells her this sudden "remembering" is called "deja vu," a term apparently invented by Sidney Sheldon. Who knew? "You've been so kind, I don't know what to say," Jane tells Omar, who insists she stay with him. You don't know what to say because you are an amnesiac, but one with a fantastic ability to pronounce Greek words.
In a sort of soft-core porn "My Fair Lady," a woman comes in to outfit Jane, at Omar's request. "Good bone structure, excellent figure. Get undressed, please," the woman says. A rack of designer duds follows and Jane likes the sight of them as much as the butch dresser likes the sight of her.
We learn a little more of the story from lawyer Theodore Bikel. He and his associate argue over the death sentence imposed on Larry and Noelle (Jane's husband and his mistress from the flashback). "What we did was the only way to make sure they would pay for their crime," he says, though apparently everyone knows there is no crime, especially since Jane is alive and sort-of well.
Jane picks out a fetching white business suit (shoulder padded to the hilt), with matching white shoes and purse, telling the driver she wants to go into town. She looks ready to for a corporate battle, but she just wants to tour the sights. The climbs to all those ruins in her heels, spunky amnesiac that she is!
Of all places, Jane wanders into a palm reader who recognizes her. "It's impossible, Mrs. Douglas, you are...DEAD!" the melodramatic seer yells/whispers to her. Conveniently, the palm reader is spooked, so Jane can't ask her any questions before the driver comes to collect her.
Theodore's law partner goes to Father Joseph Campanella to confess to murder. He tells of how he sold out his client for a partnership. "I couldn't turn down a chance like that," he says, but it was all for naught since they were not guilty. "I betrayed a client for a job," he cries. "I can't live with the guilt anymore."
Omar is busy at an auction when his divine Eurotrash wife (the usual soap opera mixture of Callas and Medea, in sparkly jewels) Taro Meyer shows up with her brother Thaao Penghils, a dashing rival of Omar's. The two stand next to each other and bid on a painting that Thaao wins for $1M. "It's worth the extra just to take something that beautiful out of your hands," Thaao says when Omar chimes in that it's not worth more than $700K. Taro is hopping mad about Jane's presence in her house. "Why does your sister think I sleep with every woman I meet?" Omar asks Thaao. "Because you do," he says, along with anyone watching because that is the expected smart-ass response. An argument ensues with threats, all about the happiness of the sister/wife. Now, wait a minute. The woman is well into middle age, it's not like her brother is saving her virginity from the ogre in the cave across the way. We're just padding the scene, aren't we?
Because you couldn't in a zillion years have guessed it was coming, I have the terrible task of informing you that Theodore's law partner gets run over by a car and dies. Well, a puppet gets run over by a very slow car, but the end result is the same. The man and his guilty whining are silenced.
When Jane gets home, she tells Omar about the fortune teller and he informs her it's time to get out of the city. He's shipping her off to work in his Amsterdam office. "I don't know if I can handle the responsibility," she tells him, though he has yet to say what the job is, or even what the hell business he's in! He assures her his people there will not overburden her. "Think about the alternative, to stay here and be tortured by memories," he says, assuring she'll go. He hugs his ward, much to his wife's dismay.
Theodore decides to tape his thoughts to Omar, assuming he's next to be killed. On the tape, he says he's written down the truth and given the documents to the prosecutor's office "with the instructions that they be opened in the event of my accidental death."
Father Joseph tells his nephew Boris Bakal that he's upset over the death of "one of his favorite parishioners." He's so upset he gets roaring drunk. Father Joseph can't break the confessional, but he's just soused enough to spill the beans.
Taro attacks Omar on his way out to a business meeting, assuming he's going to see his "convent whore" or another woman and her Greek tragedy rantings find her tumbling down a flight of stairs...but not to her death. Just to the hospital. You can be sure Thaao is not going to take this well. In fact, he swears vengeance right there in the hospital. He lays a huge and heavy good old-fashioned Greek curse on Omar. "I'll make him regret every day he's spent in your life," he assures his sister.
Off Jane goes to Amsterdam and her job at "The Hellenic Trade Corporation." I guess if you can't think of a half-decent name for your company, you just go for the generic. What about using your initials? First cat's name? Town you were born in? An anagram? Apparently not, not Omar Sharif. He just wants to be simple and vague.
It's here Jane meets Ken Howard and Paul Sands, the latter playing a computer nerd to the hilt: sloppy clothes and a "Rain Man" command of facts. Jane is to be the assistant to Semka Sokolovic-Bertok, who says, "we REALLY need you here!" Ken tries a little flirting with Jane, but it doesn't really go anywhere. She's a working girl now, though for an assistant, she lives awfully well.
When the lamp on her desk burns out, Paul takes her down to the basement to fix the fuse. There she sees some pretty ancient machinery and questions the safety of it. Tuck that detail in your mind for later use. There's also an air raid shelter from World War II in the basement. This odd duo goes out for a drink where Paul dumps a bunch of facts on Jane, but all she wants to do is go dancing. Unfortunately, we don't get to see that. Don't we wish! Jane and Paul dancing to house music in Amsterdam.
Omar gets his hands on the document Theodore left with the prosecutor, who owes his job to Omar and Omar burns the evidence. Sadly for Theodore, that means he has to die. Yes, poor Theodore is dispatched to hills that are not alive with the sound of music by a goon who soaks his house in gasoline and then lights a match.
Ken continues to his charm assault on Jane, holding her hand at lunch, buying her flowers and guiding her throw insufferably rainy Amsterdam, but she pushes away a potential kiss. Omar pays a visit to Amsterdam, where she says she's "learning quite a lot," but she's "quite content" to leave her past in the past. "You have no idea how please I am to hear that," Omar tells her, relieved she's not going to be a thorn in his side. Omar flashes back to the time he caught Jane's husband and his mistress in each other's arms.
Conveniently, Boris works in Thaao's mailroom. He bravely goes to Thaao's office to tell him what he's learned from his soused priest uncle: that there was no deal with the prosecution and two innocent people went to their deaths in a plan instigated by Omar. Boris has only to convince his uncle to tell the story. That could be a problem.
Thaao starts his revenge plan with a needlessly complicated ado. He tells a drug-runner friend all he knows about Omar. The drug-runner goes to Omar, demands use of his yacht to move the merchandise and insists that Omar sail with them, assuring that the police would never bother with such an important man. Thaao has the police on alert, but Oman slips out of the trap by having his helicopter swoop down on the yacht and pick him up moments before the yacht bursts into flames, killing everyone on board (and wasting a whole lot of drugs). Omar shows up in a very surprised Thaao's office to thank him for the business contact, inform him the guy is dead and oh, "I will do the same for you some day." Nothing like a good Greek vendetta!
Ken invites Jane to go skiing with him in St. Moritz. Chaste Jane makes him promise "just friends." Poor thing spent waaaaaaay too long in the convent. If Jane ever skied before her memory loss, she's forgotten how, because she has to learn all over again, leading to innumerable sexual puns despite the chastity promise from both sides. It's on this trip that Jane tells Ken about her amnesia and all the details she knows. It takes him a while, but he remembers where he has heard her name before.
Apparently not a bright lawyer, or not knowing when a secret should be kept secret, Ken calls the Greek prosecutor of all people, to relay the story of what he's heard from Jane. The prosecutor calls Omar, thankfully halting a dreary conversation he's having with his wife about her leaving him (FYI, not a scratch on the dame). "I will handle the St. Moritz situation in my own way," Omar says. He gets confirmation that the hit man he's sent there has arrived while playing roulette and gives his winnings to the very lucky babe who brought him the note. Now, an efficient hit man, as we all know from the movies, simply carries a gun with a silencer, holds it in a newspaper and shoots his victim without anyone knowing, leaving some unsuspecting waitress or housekeeper to find the body and shriek. Not so here. As per the whole plot so far, the hit man goes for the least easy method: he removes a detour sign from the skiing path Ken takes, sending Ken off a mountain to his death. But no one else, apparently. What, did he put the sign back, a killer with a conscience? Don't try to make sense of it.
As for Jane, she sits around all day waiting for Ken to return, finding out only late at night about the "accident." The poor things has to be the one to identify his body! So, with sad music accompanying her, she goes to Ken's room to gaze sadly at his shaving kit and clothes, remembering the wasted moments when she agreed to be "just friends." Oh, they could have been so more, a tear tells us. Whatever Jane forgot in life, she remembers politeness, always! She pays Ken's hotel bill. No one asked her to do that, but she does. I think she'll be welcome back there any time, just for that gesture.
For crying out loud, who the hell worked her paying his hotel bill into the script? There can't possibly be any point to that!
Thaao gets a most interesting call. We kind of see the man on the other end, sitting in a wheelchair covered head to toe in a blanket. What is he, a leper with an international calling card? Anyway, the caller gives Thaao some dirt on Omar to investigate. Thaao has no idea what to make of the call, but luckily his sister Taro is there to help fill in some blanks. Taro asks what he's going to do with this information (which he still hasn't fully added up) and he tells her in his best Greek revenge mode that he's going to keep a promise he made to Omar, "a promise that I was going to have the last laugh." Kids, we're not even halfway through the movie, so no one is having a last laugh yet.
Dreaming, Jane finally remembers more of that fateful evening. She managed to get the slow motion door unlocked and ran into the storm barefoot, never once slipping on wet stone or wood. Her husband goes after her, in shoes, but he slips. She tries to get away in a little row boat and knocks her husband out with an oar, but he soon surfaces on the side of the boat. The rocking of the boat causes her to fall off and that is the last anyone sees of her. She immediately calls Omar and tells him the pieces she has remembered. "It's all coming back. I just couldn't wait to tell you," she says so innocently. "I'm so happy for you," Omar says in pretend sympathy (which sounds like pretend sympathy, but maybe the Amsterdam-Athens connection isn't very good, because Jane doesn't hear that in his voice). He further tells her that her husband and her husband's mistress were executed for her murder! She is confused and he tells her, "no one knew you were in the convent, it was horrible." Wait a minute. He knew she was in the convent! Shouldn't she connect those two dots? Unfortunately, this is not the smart Jane Seymour we love, but a nitwit amnesiac that by rights should have been playing by Deborah Raffin or Susan Blakely, you know, a Grade B actress.
"I tried so hard to avoid this moment," Omar says after hanging up the phone. I get the sense some more bodies are about to pile up. There may be a chase or two, some frightened running by Jane in heels and, most likely, a handsome suitor who may or may not be what he seems. Just a guess.
Omar takes a trip to Vienna for the express purpose of putting out another hit. We only hear the hit man, again, as it's all done in a building lobby over a loudspeaker. For a businessman so smart, Omar really is an idiot. He takes a briefcase full of money, deposits it in a little hole in a door and tells the voice, "this time the body must be unrecognizable." When the voice opens the case, it's Jane's picture we see. Oh no!!!!!!!!
Part Two starts with yet another confrontation among Omar, Taro and Thaao. It basically serves as a reminder to anyone who has forgotten Part One as to what happened, quickly reviewing most of the events, although it is notable for a backhanded slap Omar gives Thaao. Otherwise, I think they simply re-used dialogue from previous scenes of this ilk.
"Why do good people have to die?" Jane asks Paul Sands, not exactly the best person to have around in an emotional breakdown. "I think I'm going mad," Jane says and Paul hands her the card of a Psychiatrist. So, she puts on a new power suit, this one in yellow so bright Amsterdam looks colorful, and trots on over to Dr. Stephen Macht. "By now you've noticed he has a minor brain disorder," the doc starts off with, breaking the ice using Paul Sands' medical condition. Not only does that violate doctor-patient confidentiality, but it's not about Jane, who is the patient! Apparently Paul has discussed Jane, so they don't need to go into her history, allowing Jane to get right to the theatrics. "Why can't everyone just leave me alone?" she roars in one breath and then cries, "I feel so lost" in the next. "Why don't we see if we can find you," Dr. Stephen suggests. It's a shame the miniseries died. Nobody thinks of dialogue that hokey anymore outside of daytime soaps.
Apparently Jane is super busy at work because the Greek office sends Ari Meyers to be her assistant. Since we don't know what The Hellenic Trade Organization does, we don't know why Jane is so busy. After a very awkward interview, Jane goes to lunch with Paul, who tells her to "be careful" in a way that suggests there is something brewing, but he can't say.
Newly chastened Omar asks his wife to play hostess to three men he's sending to Amsterdam. She's so excited to be back in his good graces, of course she says yes! Then she puts on an outfit that is too much even for the Oscars and entertains the gents. All goes well until she hears mention of Jane's name, and then she sours. Upon leaving, the three men are told by Omar, "I'm sure you will take care of everything that needs to be done," an ominous line that scares even Taro.
The men arrive, but it's an odd meeting. Ari breaks one's suitcase, then they can't stand the coffee and then they get a moment with Paul, whom they think is "weird." Jane squires them around to see the sights. What this has to do with business, I have no idea, but no one seems bothered. It's almost played like a comedy with three bozos after Jane's affections.
Her only respite is her time with Dr. Stephen, where she wines, "it's like I'm some kind of bad luck charm" because everyone around her conveniently ends up dead. Maybe she needs a private investigator and not a therapist. Since we of course know where these two are headed, it's helpful if Dr. Stephen enlightens us on his theories of death. "People die for all sorts of reasons," he says, not exactly a brilliant medical-school-taught deduction. He says that nothing is her fault, but actually, that's not true. People are being killed one-by-one because they know her.
Taro confronts Omar with Thaao's stories about what happened to Jane's husband, the trial, all of it. "He says you could not bear that a mistress of yours would take another lover," she tells her husband. "What else does he [her brother] accuse me of? Maybe he thinks I killed Kennedy too," Omar jokes, an odd joke considering he is playing an Onassis-like character. She pushes further, actually sympathetic towards Jane because she's "completely innocent," which is true. But Omar shoots back with the underlying reason for all of his dastardly behavior: he grew up poor. Yup, that's the reason for it all. Getting out of poverty was "sheer hard, and yes, sometimes ruthless work!" Furthermore, he gives to charity, just FYI. "If they wreck anything, they will be removed," he says, referring to anyone who gets in the way of his blotting out his past poverty.
During a night on the town with the American hired assassin, Jane decides to take him to the red light district. I hope she's not using the company credit card. They have the wackiest conversation about him having always wanted to act and he quotes "Hamlet." No, no, Jane shoots back, ,"that's Macbeth." Again, she remembers her Shakespeare, but not last week? "Eh, you've done one Shakespeare, you've done 'em all," he says. Let's say it all together now, "you've watched one Sidney Sheldon, you've watched 'em all." Just as the American is about to ring Jane's neck, a police officer happens by and that moment is lost.
While Madame Medea (Taro) is on the phone with her brother Thaao, heaving that she can't live with the guilt of what her husband has done, a box of chocolates is delivered to him. "Oh, by the way, thank you for the chocolates." She didn't send any. He hurls the box at the window right before it blows up. Wow, how many calories did they pack into that box of chocolates to make it so deadly? He's fine, as we see in a delicious shirtless scene at the hospital. Thaao tells his sister he will kill Omar now, but Taro tells him no, "because I am going to kill him in my own way and in my own time!"
Taro calls Jane to warn her, but she is not available, so Paul takes the call, spewing numbers and facts as Taro tries to tell him the men with Jane are assassins. "Do you understand?" she begs, but he just hangs up by the phone. Jane isn't in the office because she has a therapy session where she describes the dream as Dr. Stephen watches her in a way less clinical than sexual. Even under hypnosis she maintains a high level of over-acting, calming down only when she gets to the part about being rescued by nuns. As if we haven't relived the Larry-Noelle stuff enough, now we go over the Ken stuff again. Line for line, intonation for intonation. We even get the bill paying stuff again. Dr. Stephen snaps his fingers and Jane wakes up.
Dr. Stephen doubles as a PI, apparently, because he called Switzerland and found out that someone removed the danger sign that sent Ken to his death. The hotel bill actually turns out to be important (as we knew it would) because it would have the phone number on it that Ken called before his tragic death. What phone number? Yeah, they didn't show that when Jane was on her crying and smelling tour of Ken's room, but apparently there was a phone number written down and if he called it, it will be on that bill she paid. Aha!
When they get the phone number, Jane notes to Dr. Stephen that "you are enjoying this, aren't you?" Well, he is, he says, because Psychiatry is all about helping people with problems and this is no different. Really? Then why don't they call themselves Detectives instead of Doctors? This is one of those times we're not supposed to think about the dialogue too much.
The Frenchman has his day alone with Jane. He's a "museum enthusiast," but he wants to go to the countryside. "Do they have windmills in France?" she asks, hoping he'll enjoy that, and his response is "we don't need them." The Frenchman is simply not a pleasant man, and Jane tries to toss him out of the car, but since he has to win her trust, he agrees to be contrite and look at the damn windmills. He insists on going up into one, and though Jane says she doesn't like heights, he says, "it's all in the imagination" and insists. This is supposed to end with him pushing her out the window, obviously, but she manages to elude that as well. She is so un-killable, thankfully.
Taro has been making plans, grand plans. Great big Greek tragedy grand plans. She convinces both her brother and her husband that the other wants to make peace and to meet at a designated location, ending each conversation with a dramatic goodbye that neither of them pick up on. About 35 seconds into their meeting, they realized they have been duped by Taro into getting together. She's at home, pretending to be on the phone agreeing to meet him "at the beach house in an hour" so a servant hears. "If I'm not back by 6:00, I want you to call the police," she tells the servant. Boy, she thinks of everything!
Off she drives to the beach house, where she trashes the place on purpose, making sure the card from the private investigator can be found. She then stabs herself with a knife she made sure had Omar's prints on it earlier in the day. Her death is wildly dramatic, and wildly hysterical. This whole plot line is ludicrous, but the kind of gonzo badness one expects from a piece like this. Bleeding, she can still arrange the house to make it look like her husband did it all and then she goes down to the water to finally die. Thaao is sent a letter from her telling him to deny being with Omar that day.
When Omar arrives at the beach house, Thaao is already there and hopping mad, believing that Omar has killed Taro, just as she planned. The police are convinced there was a thief, at first, but then they find bloody clothes and buttons from Omar's jacket, all arranged for finding by Taro. However, anyone who watches any crime show would know that the entry wound was self-inflicted and not delivered by a murderer. Thaao says he wasn't with Omar that day and it looks like Taro's plan went off without a hitch. Ah, things are ending just as we...
...oh, wait, what about the ACTUAL plot, with the ACTUAL star? Jane is still entertaining the three hit men, and Paul is busy digging in the computer for dirt on them, but he doesn't know what to do with it. The Italian hit man tries to kill Jane while she's at the copy machine, but luckily Ari is there to knock him out. She hurries Jane down to the basement where she pulls a gun on her. Ahhhhhhhhhh, so Ari is the assassin. Ari ties Jane to the overheating boiler (I told you it would be back) and tells her that the three men were not hit men, just "red herrings." She leaves saying, "pity, I really did like you."
Luckily, Paul has left his computer long enough to fetch help from Dr. Stephen, who races through the streets of Amsterdam trying to reach the office before the boiler hits the dangerous "red zone." At the office, somehow Paul figures out Ari is the assassin (something about having no records, not important, just go along with it). They all race around the building searching for Jane who has managed to free herself and hide in the bomb shelter in the basement (no detail is left unused).
At the airport, where Ari is trying to make a quick getaway, she is taken into a side room where she finds Jane. "You are dead," the 12-year old assassin screams. "That's the second time someone's made that mistake," Jane says calmly. She, Dr. Stephen and Paul fall into a relieved hug.
Omar has a visitor in jail. Do you need the three guesses I'm prepared to give you to figure out who it is?
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Oh, you take too long. It's Theodore Bikel! We didn't see him die, remember. We just saw his villa engulfed by fire. Not only has he survived, but with barely a scratch to his face or his beard. His body is all contorted, but his mind is sharp. Omar swears he didn't kill his wife, and Theodore wheezes out a laugh. "Poetic justice, I suppose. But, I didn't come here to gloat," Theodore tells him. "I came to save you." He can do it, but at a price. "I want your money." "How much of my money?" "All of it."
Every good story (okay, this isn't a good story, but bear with me) of this ilk has to have a trial, in this case Omar's for murdering his wife. The trial itself really doesn't matter. The whole thing exists so Theodore Bikel can hobble around and whisper, overdoing it to the nth degree. Theodore dismantles the entire plan, making a laughingstock out of every witness (the servant, the private investigator, the police) all to Omar's delight.
Excuse me while I interrupt the trial for a side trip to Venice where Jane and Dr. Stephen have become lovers and are enjoying the sights. She doesn't even know about Omar's trial, so blinded by love, but when she sees it in an Italian newspaper, she says, "I'm frightened" because even in jail, he can get to her. No, Dr. Stephen says, he can protect her, if she marries him.
Back in jail, Omar is worried because the only witness left is Thaao, who will stick to his lie. Theodore assures him that Thaao will tell the truth, for a price: "your entire fortune." Omar wonders, "what do you get out of this?" That turns out to be the beauty of Theodore's idea. Before signing over his assets to Thaao, Omar will transfer them to Theodore so that whatever Thaao gets is absolutely worthless. Did you get that? It is needlessly complicated? Of course it is. Everything has been needlessly complicated since the beginning. I mean, why didn't Omar just have Jane killed in the convent and thus never have to worry about her regaining her memory? Sure, there is still the bit about the lying at the trial, but that could have also been done easily enough, without priests and elaborate deaths and men not dying in fires.
Omar isn't completely stupid. He asks Theodore how he can trust him not to double cross him. "Well, you will just have to trust me," Theodore says.
It's time for Thaao to take the stand. Before he can even be questioned, Thaao makes a statement to the court telling them the truth, that he's Omar's alibi and Omar is set free. He and Theodore get in a car to leave the throngs of photographers, but Theodore leaves his crutch behind. Uh oh.
Yeah, uh oh is right. Theodore starts driving the car recklessly and when Omar tells him to slow down, Theodore tells him, "I've decided that we are going to end life together!" In case anyone wonders where the money went, Theodore has given it to the convent. Omar demands to know why Theodore is doing this. "Justice. For both of us." The two old-time hams fight for the wheel, but the car goes over the cliff.
"You don't ever have to be afraid again," Dr. Stephen tells his new bride Jane when they hear the news. "Promise?" "Promise."
So ends another Sidney Sheldon movie. This one is far less exciting than it could have been, mainly because the heroine is so damn boring. Even Jane Seymour can't bring her to life. The writers of the story obviously realized that somewhere along the way and shifted the focus of the story to the more senior members of the cast, but their crazy plot and bad acting should bring on the guffaws, not just the he-hes.
"Memories of Midnight" is actually a sequel to another Sidney Sheldon novel, but if you didn't read the novel (or see the movie), don't worry. Not only have they reset the story in the 90s (where the first story was decades earlier), this kind of trash doesn't really make any logical sense anyway, on its own or paired with something else. Don't think too hard. Sidney Sheldon would be scratching to get out of his grave if he knew anyone wasted brain cells actually thinking about his work. If that sounded harsh, watch an episode of "I Dream of Jeanie" again.
It's a dark and stormy night. It always is. The beating of the tress against the window causes Jane to wake up, calling for "Larry." From the doorway, she sees this Larry, and a woman with an accent in a raincoat. "I told you I would get rid of her," he says. "I'm tired of waiting," she says. Jane makes a noise and they see her. The door is locked and Jane cannot get out, not even in slow motion.
"Wake up. Wake up. You had a nightmare!" Well, of course she did. I mean, have you READ Sidney Sheldon? The lead isn't getting bumped off in the first scene.
Just who is waking up our Jane? A nun. Damn right, a nun. Sister Constance Towers no less. As the nun walks out, leaving Jane to go back to sleep, Jane suddenly realizes she remembers her name. You got it, she's been suffering amnesia, that beloved malady of pulp fiction and soap operas. But, back to that later.
We're in Athens and it's time meet the villain, that great Greek actor Omar Sharif. Okay, he's not Greek. Okay, he's not great either. Okay, there are some who would say "actor" is even stretching it, but Omar is the villain here, that much is fact. When we first encounter him, he's welcoming back his mistress, an actress whom he promptly tosses out because he found out she was sleeping with the director. "Oh, before you go, come here," he says sweetly, and she thinks he's reconsidered. No, he just wants to literally rip the jewelry from her body. He then barks to his secretary, "take everything that's on the floor. Give it to the children's fund." I'm sure starving orphans will love expensive jewelry. It will go so well with their hand-me-down torn t-shirts. Sister Constance calls with very important news and he hightails it over to the convent.
Sister Constance introduces Jane to Omar, who is a "good friend of the convent." Jane, interrupted from picking flowers on the convent lawn, doesn't quite understand, but Omar turns on his oily charm and decides it's time for Jane to rejoin the world. Sister Constance isn't going to argue. Not with her benefactor. Plus, it means more gruel for her at dinner.
Jane, in the plainest of dresses, but with shoulder pads and a Bible, manages to ask Sister Constance who Omar really is before she leaves, only to be told he's very rich, very hated by many, but also a good friend to the convent. As Jane gets in the car, Sister Constance puts her hands up to her mouth in prayer and waves goodbye. If you're going to leave a convent with amnesia, this is really the way to do it, with a super dramatic nun to bid you adieu and a car ride along the Greek coast. Jane insists on a pit stop along the way because she recognizes a statue, but the driver gives away the entire secret to Greek tourism: "There are hundreds of them all over the place." She insists she's seen this particular one in this particular place.
At Omar's villa, Jane tells him she remembers the road she took, but Omar brushes it off because, get this, he's been studying amnesia. He tells her this sudden "remembering" is called "deja vu," a term apparently invented by Sidney Sheldon. Who knew? "You've been so kind, I don't know what to say," Jane tells Omar, who insists she stay with him. You don't know what to say because you are an amnesiac, but one with a fantastic ability to pronounce Greek words.
In a sort of soft-core porn "My Fair Lady," a woman comes in to outfit Jane, at Omar's request. "Good bone structure, excellent figure. Get undressed, please," the woman says. A rack of designer duds follows and Jane likes the sight of them as much as the butch dresser likes the sight of her.
We learn a little more of the story from lawyer Theodore Bikel. He and his associate argue over the death sentence imposed on Larry and Noelle (Jane's husband and his mistress from the flashback). "What we did was the only way to make sure they would pay for their crime," he says, though apparently everyone knows there is no crime, especially since Jane is alive and sort-of well.
Jane picks out a fetching white business suit (shoulder padded to the hilt), with matching white shoes and purse, telling the driver she wants to go into town. She looks ready to for a corporate battle, but she just wants to tour the sights. The climbs to all those ruins in her heels, spunky amnesiac that she is!
Of all places, Jane wanders into a palm reader who recognizes her. "It's impossible, Mrs. Douglas, you are...DEAD!" the melodramatic seer yells/whispers to her. Conveniently, the palm reader is spooked, so Jane can't ask her any questions before the driver comes to collect her.
Theodore's law partner goes to Father Joseph Campanella to confess to murder. He tells of how he sold out his client for a partnership. "I couldn't turn down a chance like that," he says, but it was all for naught since they were not guilty. "I betrayed a client for a job," he cries. "I can't live with the guilt anymore."
Omar is busy at an auction when his divine Eurotrash wife (the usual soap opera mixture of Callas and Medea, in sparkly jewels) Taro Meyer shows up with her brother Thaao Penghils, a dashing rival of Omar's. The two stand next to each other and bid on a painting that Thaao wins for $1M. "It's worth the extra just to take something that beautiful out of your hands," Thaao says when Omar chimes in that it's not worth more than $700K. Taro is hopping mad about Jane's presence in her house. "Why does your sister think I sleep with every woman I meet?" Omar asks Thaao. "Because you do," he says, along with anyone watching because that is the expected smart-ass response. An argument ensues with threats, all about the happiness of the sister/wife. Now, wait a minute. The woman is well into middle age, it's not like her brother is saving her virginity from the ogre in the cave across the way. We're just padding the scene, aren't we?
Because you couldn't in a zillion years have guessed it was coming, I have the terrible task of informing you that Theodore's law partner gets run over by a car and dies. Well, a puppet gets run over by a very slow car, but the end result is the same. The man and his guilty whining are silenced.
When Jane gets home, she tells Omar about the fortune teller and he informs her it's time to get out of the city. He's shipping her off to work in his Amsterdam office. "I don't know if I can handle the responsibility," she tells him, though he has yet to say what the job is, or even what the hell business he's in! He assures her his people there will not overburden her. "Think about the alternative, to stay here and be tortured by memories," he says, assuring she'll go. He hugs his ward, much to his wife's dismay.
Theodore decides to tape his thoughts to Omar, assuming he's next to be killed. On the tape, he says he's written down the truth and given the documents to the prosecutor's office "with the instructions that they be opened in the event of my accidental death."
Father Joseph tells his nephew Boris Bakal that he's upset over the death of "one of his favorite parishioners." He's so upset he gets roaring drunk. Father Joseph can't break the confessional, but he's just soused enough to spill the beans.
Taro attacks Omar on his way out to a business meeting, assuming he's going to see his "convent whore" or another woman and her Greek tragedy rantings find her tumbling down a flight of stairs...but not to her death. Just to the hospital. You can be sure Thaao is not going to take this well. In fact, he swears vengeance right there in the hospital. He lays a huge and heavy good old-fashioned Greek curse on Omar. "I'll make him regret every day he's spent in your life," he assures his sister.
Off Jane goes to Amsterdam and her job at "The Hellenic Trade Corporation." I guess if you can't think of a half-decent name for your company, you just go for the generic. What about using your initials? First cat's name? Town you were born in? An anagram? Apparently not, not Omar Sharif. He just wants to be simple and vague.
It's here Jane meets Ken Howard and Paul Sands, the latter playing a computer nerd to the hilt: sloppy clothes and a "Rain Man" command of facts. Jane is to be the assistant to Semka Sokolovic-Bertok, who says, "we REALLY need you here!" Ken tries a little flirting with Jane, but it doesn't really go anywhere. She's a working girl now, though for an assistant, she lives awfully well.
When the lamp on her desk burns out, Paul takes her down to the basement to fix the fuse. There she sees some pretty ancient machinery and questions the safety of it. Tuck that detail in your mind for later use. There's also an air raid shelter from World War II in the basement. This odd duo goes out for a drink where Paul dumps a bunch of facts on Jane, but all she wants to do is go dancing. Unfortunately, we don't get to see that. Don't we wish! Jane and Paul dancing to house music in Amsterdam.
Omar gets his hands on the document Theodore left with the prosecutor, who owes his job to Omar and Omar burns the evidence. Sadly for Theodore, that means he has to die. Yes, poor Theodore is dispatched to hills that are not alive with the sound of music by a goon who soaks his house in gasoline and then lights a match.
Ken continues to his charm assault on Jane, holding her hand at lunch, buying her flowers and guiding her throw insufferably rainy Amsterdam, but she pushes away a potential kiss. Omar pays a visit to Amsterdam, where she says she's "learning quite a lot," but she's "quite content" to leave her past in the past. "You have no idea how please I am to hear that," Omar tells her, relieved she's not going to be a thorn in his side. Omar flashes back to the time he caught Jane's husband and his mistress in each other's arms.
Conveniently, Boris works in Thaao's mailroom. He bravely goes to Thaao's office to tell him what he's learned from his soused priest uncle: that there was no deal with the prosecution and two innocent people went to their deaths in a plan instigated by Omar. Boris has only to convince his uncle to tell the story. That could be a problem.
Thaao starts his revenge plan with a needlessly complicated ado. He tells a drug-runner friend all he knows about Omar. The drug-runner goes to Omar, demands use of his yacht to move the merchandise and insists that Omar sail with them, assuring that the police would never bother with such an important man. Thaao has the police on alert, but Oman slips out of the trap by having his helicopter swoop down on the yacht and pick him up moments before the yacht bursts into flames, killing everyone on board (and wasting a whole lot of drugs). Omar shows up in a very surprised Thaao's office to thank him for the business contact, inform him the guy is dead and oh, "I will do the same for you some day." Nothing like a good Greek vendetta!
Ken invites Jane to go skiing with him in St. Moritz. Chaste Jane makes him promise "just friends." Poor thing spent waaaaaaay too long in the convent. If Jane ever skied before her memory loss, she's forgotten how, because she has to learn all over again, leading to innumerable sexual puns despite the chastity promise from both sides. It's on this trip that Jane tells Ken about her amnesia and all the details she knows. It takes him a while, but he remembers where he has heard her name before.
Apparently not a bright lawyer, or not knowing when a secret should be kept secret, Ken calls the Greek prosecutor of all people, to relay the story of what he's heard from Jane. The prosecutor calls Omar, thankfully halting a dreary conversation he's having with his wife about her leaving him (FYI, not a scratch on the dame). "I will handle the St. Moritz situation in my own way," Omar says. He gets confirmation that the hit man he's sent there has arrived while playing roulette and gives his winnings to the very lucky babe who brought him the note. Now, an efficient hit man, as we all know from the movies, simply carries a gun with a silencer, holds it in a newspaper and shoots his victim without anyone knowing, leaving some unsuspecting waitress or housekeeper to find the body and shriek. Not so here. As per the whole plot so far, the hit man goes for the least easy method: he removes a detour sign from the skiing path Ken takes, sending Ken off a mountain to his death. But no one else, apparently. What, did he put the sign back, a killer with a conscience? Don't try to make sense of it.
As for Jane, she sits around all day waiting for Ken to return, finding out only late at night about the "accident." The poor things has to be the one to identify his body! So, with sad music accompanying her, she goes to Ken's room to gaze sadly at his shaving kit and clothes, remembering the wasted moments when she agreed to be "just friends." Oh, they could have been so more, a tear tells us. Whatever Jane forgot in life, she remembers politeness, always! She pays Ken's hotel bill. No one asked her to do that, but she does. I think she'll be welcome back there any time, just for that gesture.
For crying out loud, who the hell worked her paying his hotel bill into the script? There can't possibly be any point to that!
Thaao gets a most interesting call. We kind of see the man on the other end, sitting in a wheelchair covered head to toe in a blanket. What is he, a leper with an international calling card? Anyway, the caller gives Thaao some dirt on Omar to investigate. Thaao has no idea what to make of the call, but luckily his sister Taro is there to help fill in some blanks. Taro asks what he's going to do with this information (which he still hasn't fully added up) and he tells her in his best Greek revenge mode that he's going to keep a promise he made to Omar, "a promise that I was going to have the last laugh." Kids, we're not even halfway through the movie, so no one is having a last laugh yet.
Dreaming, Jane finally remembers more of that fateful evening. She managed to get the slow motion door unlocked and ran into the storm barefoot, never once slipping on wet stone or wood. Her husband goes after her, in shoes, but he slips. She tries to get away in a little row boat and knocks her husband out with an oar, but he soon surfaces on the side of the boat. The rocking of the boat causes her to fall off and that is the last anyone sees of her. She immediately calls Omar and tells him the pieces she has remembered. "It's all coming back. I just couldn't wait to tell you," she says so innocently. "I'm so happy for you," Omar says in pretend sympathy (which sounds like pretend sympathy, but maybe the Amsterdam-Athens connection isn't very good, because Jane doesn't hear that in his voice). He further tells her that her husband and her husband's mistress were executed for her murder! She is confused and he tells her, "no one knew you were in the convent, it was horrible." Wait a minute. He knew she was in the convent! Shouldn't she connect those two dots? Unfortunately, this is not the smart Jane Seymour we love, but a nitwit amnesiac that by rights should have been playing by Deborah Raffin or Susan Blakely, you know, a Grade B actress.
"I tried so hard to avoid this moment," Omar says after hanging up the phone. I get the sense some more bodies are about to pile up. There may be a chase or two, some frightened running by Jane in heels and, most likely, a handsome suitor who may or may not be what he seems. Just a guess.
Omar takes a trip to Vienna for the express purpose of putting out another hit. We only hear the hit man, again, as it's all done in a building lobby over a loudspeaker. For a businessman so smart, Omar really is an idiot. He takes a briefcase full of money, deposits it in a little hole in a door and tells the voice, "this time the body must be unrecognizable." When the voice opens the case, it's Jane's picture we see. Oh no!!!!!!!!
Part Two starts with yet another confrontation among Omar, Taro and Thaao. It basically serves as a reminder to anyone who has forgotten Part One as to what happened, quickly reviewing most of the events, although it is notable for a backhanded slap Omar gives Thaao. Otherwise, I think they simply re-used dialogue from previous scenes of this ilk.
"Why do good people have to die?" Jane asks Paul Sands, not exactly the best person to have around in an emotional breakdown. "I think I'm going mad," Jane says and Paul hands her the card of a Psychiatrist. So, she puts on a new power suit, this one in yellow so bright Amsterdam looks colorful, and trots on over to Dr. Stephen Macht. "By now you've noticed he has a minor brain disorder," the doc starts off with, breaking the ice using Paul Sands' medical condition. Not only does that violate doctor-patient confidentiality, but it's not about Jane, who is the patient! Apparently Paul has discussed Jane, so they don't need to go into her history, allowing Jane to get right to the theatrics. "Why can't everyone just leave me alone?" she roars in one breath and then cries, "I feel so lost" in the next. "Why don't we see if we can find you," Dr. Stephen suggests. It's a shame the miniseries died. Nobody thinks of dialogue that hokey anymore outside of daytime soaps.
Apparently Jane is super busy at work because the Greek office sends Ari Meyers to be her assistant. Since we don't know what The Hellenic Trade Organization does, we don't know why Jane is so busy. After a very awkward interview, Jane goes to lunch with Paul, who tells her to "be careful" in a way that suggests there is something brewing, but he can't say.
Newly chastened Omar asks his wife to play hostess to three men he's sending to Amsterdam. She's so excited to be back in his good graces, of course she says yes! Then she puts on an outfit that is too much even for the Oscars and entertains the gents. All goes well until she hears mention of Jane's name, and then she sours. Upon leaving, the three men are told by Omar, "I'm sure you will take care of everything that needs to be done," an ominous line that scares even Taro.
The men arrive, but it's an odd meeting. Ari breaks one's suitcase, then they can't stand the coffee and then they get a moment with Paul, whom they think is "weird." Jane squires them around to see the sights. What this has to do with business, I have no idea, but no one seems bothered. It's almost played like a comedy with three bozos after Jane's affections.
Her only respite is her time with Dr. Stephen, where she wines, "it's like I'm some kind of bad luck charm" because everyone around her conveniently ends up dead. Maybe she needs a private investigator and not a therapist. Since we of course know where these two are headed, it's helpful if Dr. Stephen enlightens us on his theories of death. "People die for all sorts of reasons," he says, not exactly a brilliant medical-school-taught deduction. He says that nothing is her fault, but actually, that's not true. People are being killed one-by-one because they know her.
Taro confronts Omar with Thaao's stories about what happened to Jane's husband, the trial, all of it. "He says you could not bear that a mistress of yours would take another lover," she tells her husband. "What else does he [her brother] accuse me of? Maybe he thinks I killed Kennedy too," Omar jokes, an odd joke considering he is playing an Onassis-like character. She pushes further, actually sympathetic towards Jane because she's "completely innocent," which is true. But Omar shoots back with the underlying reason for all of his dastardly behavior: he grew up poor. Yup, that's the reason for it all. Getting out of poverty was "sheer hard, and yes, sometimes ruthless work!" Furthermore, he gives to charity, just FYI. "If they wreck anything, they will be removed," he says, referring to anyone who gets in the way of his blotting out his past poverty.
During a night on the town with the American hired assassin, Jane decides to take him to the red light district. I hope she's not using the company credit card. They have the wackiest conversation about him having always wanted to act and he quotes "Hamlet." No, no, Jane shoots back, ,"that's Macbeth." Again, she remembers her Shakespeare, but not last week? "Eh, you've done one Shakespeare, you've done 'em all," he says. Let's say it all together now, "you've watched one Sidney Sheldon, you've watched 'em all." Just as the American is about to ring Jane's neck, a police officer happens by and that moment is lost.
While Madame Medea (Taro) is on the phone with her brother Thaao, heaving that she can't live with the guilt of what her husband has done, a box of chocolates is delivered to him. "Oh, by the way, thank you for the chocolates." She didn't send any. He hurls the box at the window right before it blows up. Wow, how many calories did they pack into that box of chocolates to make it so deadly? He's fine, as we see in a delicious shirtless scene at the hospital. Thaao tells his sister he will kill Omar now, but Taro tells him no, "because I am going to kill him in my own way and in my own time!"
Taro calls Jane to warn her, but she is not available, so Paul takes the call, spewing numbers and facts as Taro tries to tell him the men with Jane are assassins. "Do you understand?" she begs, but he just hangs up by the phone. Jane isn't in the office because she has a therapy session where she describes the dream as Dr. Stephen watches her in a way less clinical than sexual. Even under hypnosis she maintains a high level of over-acting, calming down only when she gets to the part about being rescued by nuns. As if we haven't relived the Larry-Noelle stuff enough, now we go over the Ken stuff again. Line for line, intonation for intonation. We even get the bill paying stuff again. Dr. Stephen snaps his fingers and Jane wakes up.
Dr. Stephen doubles as a PI, apparently, because he called Switzerland and found out that someone removed the danger sign that sent Ken to his death. The hotel bill actually turns out to be important (as we knew it would) because it would have the phone number on it that Ken called before his tragic death. What phone number? Yeah, they didn't show that when Jane was on her crying and smelling tour of Ken's room, but apparently there was a phone number written down and if he called it, it will be on that bill she paid. Aha!
When they get the phone number, Jane notes to Dr. Stephen that "you are enjoying this, aren't you?" Well, he is, he says, because Psychiatry is all about helping people with problems and this is no different. Really? Then why don't they call themselves Detectives instead of Doctors? This is one of those times we're not supposed to think about the dialogue too much.
The Frenchman has his day alone with Jane. He's a "museum enthusiast," but he wants to go to the countryside. "Do they have windmills in France?" she asks, hoping he'll enjoy that, and his response is "we don't need them." The Frenchman is simply not a pleasant man, and Jane tries to toss him out of the car, but since he has to win her trust, he agrees to be contrite and look at the damn windmills. He insists on going up into one, and though Jane says she doesn't like heights, he says, "it's all in the imagination" and insists. This is supposed to end with him pushing her out the window, obviously, but she manages to elude that as well. She is so un-killable, thankfully.
Taro has been making plans, grand plans. Great big Greek tragedy grand plans. She convinces both her brother and her husband that the other wants to make peace and to meet at a designated location, ending each conversation with a dramatic goodbye that neither of them pick up on. About 35 seconds into their meeting, they realized they have been duped by Taro into getting together. She's at home, pretending to be on the phone agreeing to meet him "at the beach house in an hour" so a servant hears. "If I'm not back by 6:00, I want you to call the police," she tells the servant. Boy, she thinks of everything!
Off she drives to the beach house, where she trashes the place on purpose, making sure the card from the private investigator can be found. She then stabs herself with a knife she made sure had Omar's prints on it earlier in the day. Her death is wildly dramatic, and wildly hysterical. This whole plot line is ludicrous, but the kind of gonzo badness one expects from a piece like this. Bleeding, she can still arrange the house to make it look like her husband did it all and then she goes down to the water to finally die. Thaao is sent a letter from her telling him to deny being with Omar that day.
When Omar arrives at the beach house, Thaao is already there and hopping mad, believing that Omar has killed Taro, just as she planned. The police are convinced there was a thief, at first, but then they find bloody clothes and buttons from Omar's jacket, all arranged for finding by Taro. However, anyone who watches any crime show would know that the entry wound was self-inflicted and not delivered by a murderer. Thaao says he wasn't with Omar that day and it looks like Taro's plan went off without a hitch. Ah, things are ending just as we...
...oh, wait, what about the ACTUAL plot, with the ACTUAL star? Jane is still entertaining the three hit men, and Paul is busy digging in the computer for dirt on them, but he doesn't know what to do with it. The Italian hit man tries to kill Jane while she's at the copy machine, but luckily Ari is there to knock him out. She hurries Jane down to the basement where she pulls a gun on her. Ahhhhhhhhhh, so Ari is the assassin. Ari ties Jane to the overheating boiler (I told you it would be back) and tells her that the three men were not hit men, just "red herrings." She leaves saying, "pity, I really did like you."
Luckily, Paul has left his computer long enough to fetch help from Dr. Stephen, who races through the streets of Amsterdam trying to reach the office before the boiler hits the dangerous "red zone." At the office, somehow Paul figures out Ari is the assassin (something about having no records, not important, just go along with it). They all race around the building searching for Jane who has managed to free herself and hide in the bomb shelter in the basement (no detail is left unused).
At the airport, where Ari is trying to make a quick getaway, she is taken into a side room where she finds Jane. "You are dead," the 12-year old assassin screams. "That's the second time someone's made that mistake," Jane says calmly. She, Dr. Stephen and Paul fall into a relieved hug.
Omar has a visitor in jail. Do you need the three guesses I'm prepared to give you to figure out who it is?
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Oh, you take too long. It's Theodore Bikel! We didn't see him die, remember. We just saw his villa engulfed by fire. Not only has he survived, but with barely a scratch to his face or his beard. His body is all contorted, but his mind is sharp. Omar swears he didn't kill his wife, and Theodore wheezes out a laugh. "Poetic justice, I suppose. But, I didn't come here to gloat," Theodore tells him. "I came to save you." He can do it, but at a price. "I want your money." "How much of my money?" "All of it."
Every good story (okay, this isn't a good story, but bear with me) of this ilk has to have a trial, in this case Omar's for murdering his wife. The trial itself really doesn't matter. The whole thing exists so Theodore Bikel can hobble around and whisper, overdoing it to the nth degree. Theodore dismantles the entire plan, making a laughingstock out of every witness (the servant, the private investigator, the police) all to Omar's delight.
Excuse me while I interrupt the trial for a side trip to Venice where Jane and Dr. Stephen have become lovers and are enjoying the sights. She doesn't even know about Omar's trial, so blinded by love, but when she sees it in an Italian newspaper, she says, "I'm frightened" because even in jail, he can get to her. No, Dr. Stephen says, he can protect her, if she marries him.
Back in jail, Omar is worried because the only witness left is Thaao, who will stick to his lie. Theodore assures him that Thaao will tell the truth, for a price: "your entire fortune." Omar wonders, "what do you get out of this?" That turns out to be the beauty of Theodore's idea. Before signing over his assets to Thaao, Omar will transfer them to Theodore so that whatever Thaao gets is absolutely worthless. Did you get that? It is needlessly complicated? Of course it is. Everything has been needlessly complicated since the beginning. I mean, why didn't Omar just have Jane killed in the convent and thus never have to worry about her regaining her memory? Sure, there is still the bit about the lying at the trial, but that could have also been done easily enough, without priests and elaborate deaths and men not dying in fires.
Omar isn't completely stupid. He asks Theodore how he can trust him not to double cross him. "Well, you will just have to trust me," Theodore says.
It's time for Thaao to take the stand. Before he can even be questioned, Thaao makes a statement to the court telling them the truth, that he's Omar's alibi and Omar is set free. He and Theodore get in a car to leave the throngs of photographers, but Theodore leaves his crutch behind. Uh oh.
Yeah, uh oh is right. Theodore starts driving the car recklessly and when Omar tells him to slow down, Theodore tells him, "I've decided that we are going to end life together!" In case anyone wonders where the money went, Theodore has given it to the convent. Omar demands to know why Theodore is doing this. "Justice. For both of us." The two old-time hams fight for the wheel, but the car goes over the cliff.
"You don't ever have to be afraid again," Dr. Stephen tells his new bride Jane when they hear the news. "Promise?" "Promise."
So ends another Sidney Sheldon movie. This one is far less exciting than it could have been, mainly because the heroine is so damn boring. Even Jane Seymour can't bring her to life. The writers of the story obviously realized that somewhere along the way and shifted the focus of the story to the more senior members of the cast, but their crazy plot and bad acting should bring on the guffaws, not just the he-hes.
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