Princess Daisy (1983)

Get out your schmaltz shovels, my friends, we're back in the land of Judith Krantz.

This time, we shall spare ourselves the introduction by Krantz herself and take our chances that somehow, collective brains working overtime, we will find a way to understand "Princess Daisy" without her.  I know, it will be a challenge, but let's do our best.

From the onset, it's drenched in opulence as American actress Lindsay Wagner is watching an ultra-chic European polo match, though her binoculars are fixed on Russian Prince Stacy Keach (who would find himself in Krantz's "Mistral's Daughter" the next year and having a lot more fun).  "When will I see you again?" she asks Stacy, presenting him the winner's trophy.  This is her very first line to him as well.  Boy, she moves fast!

He in a tuxedo and her in a floor-length gown, they head off to his stables where he asks, "do you believe in love at first sight?" and plants a big kiss on her.  Boy, he moves fast!

They get married in a Russian Orthodox wedding with Lindsay wearing a halter-top dress coated in faux feathers at the center and a veil that looks like cotton candy.  Boy, this movie moves fast!

Next scene, Lindsay has given birth to twins, but there is a problem.  One twin is perfectly fine, but the other has, as the doctor puts it, "permanent retardation," which makes Stacy pound his fist against a doorjamb.  Sending nurse Sada Thompson out of the room, Stacy decides to lie to Lindsay and tell her the mentally challenged twin died.  "It's God's will and we must accept it, but think of Daisy," he tells her, as if concentrating on one child is going to erase the memory of the other.

During a photo shoot of the family, mopey Sada makes an appearance and Lindsay feels she has to apologize to the photographer for the dear old thing's behavior.  Sada had been Stacy's nurse and now the baby's.  "She's very...Russian," Lindsay notes, although that's not exactly a clear description, but Stacy adds, "you must be patient, she remembers the Tsars...who are more interesting than Louis B. Mayer."  One might beg to differ on that final point, but I don't see how any of this really explains Sada's gloomier-than-Mrs. Danvers attitude.

In a borscht-thick Russian accent, Sada waits until Stacy goes away for a bit to tell Lindsay the other baby is actually alive.  "Stop it, you crazy old woman," Lindsay bellows, turning in what is easily her worst performance ever, a harsh thing to say since Lindsay has always been so dependable, but sadly true.  Lindsay decides to leave Stacy for this betrayal and surprisingly, Sada decides to go with her.  They are now friends.  We're 12 minutes into the movie.  Boy, this...yeah, yeah.

Lindsay finds the other baby and hauls both of them, Sada in tow, off to America, where she asks friends to pick her up incognito.  That may not work as Lindsay barrels through the train station in a movie star outfit, huge sunglasses, 60 pieces of matching luggage, a nanny and two infants.  Those are the kind of things that get one noticed.

They years fly by with Stacy having sent Lindsay a zillion letters that have all gone unanswered, thrown to the wind off the cliff at her palatial estate.  Sada is asked by the mentally unchallenged twin why the other is so different and her explanation is downright scary, though honest, especially for a child.  You see, the questioner came out first and the birth of the other was slower, causing her problems.  That leads the child to ask if it's her fault her sister is not as healthy.  Wow, talk about a guilt trip, unintended or not!    On top of that, money is tight and Lindsay will not return to acting, nor will she go to Stacy for money "until he can accept all three of us."

Life without his family has sent Prince Stacy into a debauchery, so bad that he wakes up one morning in a London flat, his car rammed almost through the door, in the bed of Claudia Cardinale.  "I've been lying here wondering how to start this conversation," he says before asking her where he is and, more importantly, who she is.  Most importantly, though, he wants to know if he was any good in bed, but she says they never made love, she's a Mrs. and she's off to go shopping.  At lunch a few hours later, the two are all starry-eyed.  "Is this really happening?  Can we make each other happy?" Claudia asks.  "You take my breath away," Stacy replies.  "Here, have some of this lovely toast," Claudia says, handing the pate-on-toast to Stacy, who bites into it sensually.  Okay, that may work for fruit and champagne in the moonlight, but there is nothing remotely sexual about pate-on-toast in a London pub.

As Stacy and Claudia grow closers (and after sex on the floor), she is told he has a son by a first marriage and a daughter by his second.  Claudia, who oozes charm, can't penetrate the son's haughty exterior.  She even finds out he has no desire to ever meet his sister.  An ocean or two away, drinking and fancy schools are not a part of Lindsay's life.  The mentally challenged sister is to be sent to a nearby and loving special school and Lindsay only speaks to the other daughter when she's dispensing worldly advice (Sada fills her in on Tsarist Russia).  All of this costs money and Lindsay has to take a movie role to pay for it.

Apparently "Princess Daisy" has no breaks, moving along faster than a roller coaster, though of course we know eventually we'll hit the part where it starts to slow down to an insane crawl.  Even tragedy can't stop it.

Lindsay's car goes over a cliff and she's gone.  Sada has to take the girls to England and Stacy, who only greets his healthier girl.  Even Claudia is put off by his atrocious behavior toward the challenged daughter, but he parks her in an institution.  "Terrible, tragic, grotesque, a terrible punishment" is how he describes his challenged daughter to Claudia, who finds his treatment of her "inhuman."  However, he does reveal his reason for this ill will.  His mother suffered from "insanity" and when his "heart turns to ice" at the thought of another like that.  When did insanity and retardation become the same thing?  That's both preposterous and insulting.  It gets worse!  He then breaks down into sobs telling Claudia that he's so proud of Daisy because she's a link to his old world, the one destroyed and gone.  This has Claudia throwing her arms around his neck in sympathy.  Suddenly, she's not so smart.

Fence-mender Claudia convinces the girl she wants to be her friend and understands her pain, patiently explaining everything to her.  She even convinces her to see her father, which she had been refusing to do until her sister was brought home.

Daddy's little angel has to agree to a chi-chi lunch every Saturday, in return for being able to visit her sister, to whom she takes sweets from said lunches.  Just as the thaw is melting, Stacy's son arrives, unexpectedly.  "Are you my brother?" she asks.  "Not quite," he says, imperiously.

The years go by and Merete Van Kamp is now playing Daisy and Dani.

Merete has gotten used to her lavish lifestyle, nearly being tossed out of school because she's been so spoiled.  A few sugary words and a smile to her father and he's jelly.  And still she takes sweets to her sister after the Saturday lunches.  The only issue between father and daughter is her sister.  He has made her promise never to "speak to me of her again." Merete brings up her frustration with her father's attitude to Claudia (they may be married or maybe not, an apparently minor detail) and Claudia confides in her that he actually does go to visit the institution once a month.

Also grown up, but more snarly than ever, is Stacy's son, now Rupert Everett.  Merete merrily asks him about his "castle" in Scotland.  "We don't call it a castle.  We call it a home.  I'm not sure I can explain that to you," he snaps snidely at dinner.  Stacy tears into him, telling him to be nicer to his sister.  "Wouldn't that be taking noblesse oblige too far?" Rupert retorts.  "If you can't be civil, you will leave my table," Claudia barks.  "Your table?" Rupert pushes, causing Stacy to pound the table that is so valuable to everyone.

Stacy is so incensed at Rupert's behavior that he rails to Claudia he will alter his will, where Rupert is currently designated as the executor for Merete's money, knowing the current arrangement is too dangerous for his beloved daughter.  Take a guess as to what is coming with talk of wills.  Need more information for that guess?  Stacy has taken up flying.

With Merete, Rupert and Claudia watching, his plane crashes and Stacy is killed.  Ah, and the will was never changed since it was a "first thing in the New Year" promise and it's now only Christmas.  Actually, the scene is really ghastly in terms of having his family witness the tragedy.  Rupert initially puts on a show of being sympathetic to his stepmother and half sister, but we know that won't last long.  Claudia takes Merete to France, though Merete is worried about leaving her sister.  Claudia explains that her sister does not have the same "concept of time," so Merete's sadness is replaced by the fun of outdoor markets and seaside villas.

Into the story comes Alexa Kenin, the daughter of Claudia's friend.  Alexa is boy crazy, even using "horny" as a word playing Scrabble.  While Alexa is describing her perfect man, waiter Jim Meltzer has been serving the girls, but sides with Merete's view that love is all that matters.  Merete and Jim go out on a date of bread and cheese to prove they are both romantics (to prove it to us, not each other).

In typical miniseries fashion, now that Merete is happy, Rupert swoops back into her life to make it miserable.  He rants angrily about Claudia, about Jim and anything else he can think of, and there's a notably incestuous feel to his anger.  When Jim leaves after dinner, Rupert tells him to stay away, which makes Merete sad the next day as she waits for the date they had arranged with no beau arriving.

When Merete joins Rupert for sunbathing, sporting a body that makes Twiggy look obese, Rupert is all drool.  To keep her close, he wants her in school in London, rather than in France with Claudia.  Then he makes sure she's still a virgin, though she's clearly not catching on to his general theme.  Not even at the market when he walks her around, his arm draped over her shoulder or holding her hand during a jaunt through a flowery field.

Finally, though, in that flowery field, he gets on his knees and declares his love for her.  Merete is scared, but he forces himself on her.

Merete shows up for dinner that night in her standard white outfit, but distant and odd, causing Claudia to worry, though Rupert seems rather delighted.  He tries to sneak into her bedroom that night, but the door is locked and she sits crying on her bed.  He stalks her, even in a small winding French street where he pins her against a building and insists they are meant for each other.  She's creeped out and luckily some villagers appear to interrupt his breathless declarations.  He sends her a little flower tiara for a festival the next day.

At the festival, where "I'm a Believer" is blaring, the extras are all having a very good time and Merete, still sporting that virginal white, puts on a brave face for beaming Rupert and unaware Claudia.  Even Jim is there, but he stays clear of her since Rupert is sitting right there.  "Rock Around the Clock" starts, so Merete dances with the locals (and Jim) to it and "Yakety Yak," though using a dance style that was last performed in a Jane Austen novel.

Since American rock tunes seem to be all the rage, Rupert puts on a golden oldie in Merete's bedroom when he comes to accost her for the second time, drunkenly demanding she wear the flower tiara he bought her.  Rupert forces it on her head and then assaults her for the second time in ten minutes.  Claudia had been given some sleeping pills by her doctor, so she is of no help.

Eventually, Merete tells Claudia, who has a showdown with Rupert.  "I'm willing to go to any lengths to protect her from you...any lengths!" she threatens, but he's unmoved.  He controls Merete's money and he knows Claudia would never air this noted family's dirty laundry (which, as we know, is almost all white and shows dirt very easily).  Claudia disagrees and sets an ultimatum, that Merete be sent to America and he will disappear from their lives.  "Only for now.  Someday, she will come to me," he hisses.

Not that anyone has mentioned her in ages, but Merete's twin is still languishing in the London institution and this puts more distance between them.

By the time 1970 arrives, Rupert is still obsessed with Merete, writing her love letters, which she rips up.  Luckily, her old chum Alexa is her roommate in college and so focused on men that she doesn't notice anything.  "You're trying to turn celibacy into an art," she scolds Merete.  "For a princess, you're really square," Alexa jokes when Merete says she wants to concentrate on her studies.

Merete is forced to call Rupert because all of her money had been tied up in a company that crashed.  "I'm afraid your inheritance no longer exists," Rupert tells her and also notes, "you'll have to come home and by doing it, live with me."  Finally, Merete remembers her sister, worries for her safety, but decides to go to New York and make it as an artist.  Claudia, also wiped out, tells Rupert of the half sister he's never heard of and even takes him for a visit.  He is going to have to pay the institution bills since he conveniently pulled all of his money out of the dying company.  He refuses, saying, "that creature in there has nothing to do with me!"

Only Merete can pay the bills, so she sells the last remaining piece of Tsarist bric-a-brac she has and then she needs a job.  She applies for a job at at agency that produces commercials, run by Paul Michael Glaser, who is irate that she traded on the owner's name, a friend of her late father's, to even get in the door.  That leads to the expected impassioned speech about her talents, her drive, how badly she needs the job and how good at it she will be.  She ends with, "sorry I wasted your time" and goes storming out. "Not bad," Paul says, "except for that bit at the end where you went from Joan of Arc to Joan Crawford." As usual, moving fast...

Merete gets the job, though she ruins a shoot, not that anyone cares.  Alexa moves to NYC and they lives together, but on her birthday, Alexa moans, "this being a grown-up is not all it's cracked up to be."  This despite their massive apartment (though sans furniture) and the apparent ability to be constantly high (it's a bit more than a Valley Girl accent).  Alexa wants to know why Merete avoids men and won't talk about her family.

Swimming in the opulence that Merete lacks, Rupert is the most sought-after bachelor in Europe.  By women.  At the opera, old men and over-tanned women discuss who will win him.  Paul wants to ask Merete out, but he finds her "unapproachable."  "I think I'm becoming obsessed with your private life...I don't know anything about it," he tells her, prodding her about the fact that she disappears to the country every weekend and draws horses.

Frankly, Rupert doesn't give Merete (either of them) a second thought, not until Eurotrash pals Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach (she was at least a Bond girl, though her acting is actually the more painful of the two) show him a magazine with Merete on the cover.  "Smashing dress, I wouldn't mind having it myself," Ringo quips, having as hard a time playing gay as Rupert does playing straight.  This scene is the weirdest in the movie.  Barbara can't understand why someone with everything in the world is friends with them (an understandable question).  "Because we're sensational and getting better at it every day," Ringo notes and then describes the outfit he wants Barbara to wear on a date she has that night.  I was beginning to think "Princess Daisy" was taking itself way too seriously until these two arrived.

Gay or European, suddenly all of them fade into the background when television's greatest ever he-man strides into the movie, though two-thirds of it have already been wasted without him: Robert Urich.  When first we meet, Robert wants to learn to ride a horse...in just three weeks!  "I never realized they were so...uh...tall," he says, greeted with his first horse, though jumping on nimbly enough.  Except backwards.  "Now we're both looking at a horse's ass," he jokes to the unsmiling instructor.  Robert is actually a very wealthy man, self-made no less, and takes to horse riding very quickly, looking dreamy in the requisite horse clothing.  He's doing this all for "the horsey set," invited to a country manse of a potential business partner.  His instructor tells him he'll never fit in with that crowd, they will see through him.  He wants the instructor's warn boots and for the right amount of money, gets them.

You guessed it, the minute Robert sets butt on a horse, he sees Merete galloping around, her blonde hair bobbing as the hosts tell him she has to be incredibly wealthy.  Unfortunately, also there are Ringo and Barbara wearing, I kid you not, matching outfits.  They have no money of their own, so they are forced to accept any invitations they get, especially this one because she knows Rupert's sister will be in attendance.  Somehow, they come up with a grand scheme to throw a party for his swimwear line (keep laughing, they are so ridiculous even they know they are camping it up) without having to pay for it.  I know Ringo Starr is easily the most famous name in the movie, but stack him up against someone like Robert Urich, and he's just a doofus with two pieces of shaved wood stashed somewhere nearby.

Robert and Merete meet while she's sketching under a tree, and she notices his boots immediately.  What his instructor failed to tell him is that those boots can only be worn by the master of the hunt ("fall off, Auntie Mame, fall off...fall off!") and he rides away in shame.  At that night's cocktail party, Merete is forced to endure Ringo and Barbara, who invites her to a dinner party.  Fortunately, Merete will be in Venice shooting a commercial, but not seeing her brother.  "You see, I was right, there is bad blood" between siblings.  Wait, it took meeting her to figure that out?  Wasn't that obvious by the fact that they didn't even know Rupert had a sister until seeing her on a magazine cover?

Still scheming, Ringo, in a sleep mask, satin pajamas and eating caviar, tells Barbara he's decided to "do away with our humble beginnings" and gave an interview saying he's related to Romanian royalty.  Via Liverpool, he neglects to add, never able to hide his accent.  To stir up trouble, Barbara calls Rupert to inform him Merete will be in London for one day, though his secretary can find no evidence of her.

Back in umpteen versions of white, Merete takes a side trip to see Claudia, her hair now streaked with gray, despite the fact that not even a decade can have slipped by and a style maven like Claudia would color that out before even the servants could see it.  Even dependable Sada Thompson is still attending to her and Merete is teary to be back "home," though it is the place where Rupert raped her.

A gigantic rainstorm and a strike of every local (yes, every single local, the question is asked) strand Merete and Paul in Venice.  "If I had to be stuck somewhere with someone, I'm glad it's Venice...and you," he says glumly as she plays "Chopsticks" on a courtyard piano.  They decide to go touring and perpetually pissy Paul decides they should see the dungeons where Casanova once lurked.  The man can't string together two sentences, but he knows about Casanova's psychology.  Merete is thrilled to see churches and such because when she was young, she only cared about the ice cream in Venice.  "You accomplished the impossible.  You made me relax," Paul says, but our dim Merete doesn't take that with insult.  Nor does she realize he meant "together" until he says so.  "Making love doesn't have to be a life-changing experience...but it can change an afternoon," he tells her, not a completely sure-fire way to waltz a woman into bed, let along this iceberg of the species.  

But, after Merete goes for yet another walk, she decides to have dinner with Paul and then they dance in his room because the "musicians are on strike."  There's a fire too, so we know what's coming, since "Princess Daisy" has no concept of subtlety (and no time to waste).  Though Merete nearly blunts the moment with her insistence on lighting patterns and too much talk, they do have sex.  And she seems to have liked it, though when the phone rings and wakes him up, all he can say is, "strike must be over."  

It is and the sunshine means they can shoot their commercial.  Merete sees Paul pawing the models, but a faithful coworker tells her not to bother with him, he's "never gonna change."  He later reports that a very chilly Merete told him, "if you were the last person on a desert island, you wouldn't have a relationship with a coconut."  Wow, there's a stinger!  

Worlds collide when Robert Urich comes to a meeting at the agency, since it's his commercials they are shooting.  Merete slumps under a hat so he doesn't see her.  No immediate danger of that, as Robert is too busy hating the campaign being pitched.  "I don't throw out an idea unless I know how to replace it," he rails, before demanding a laundry list of model qualities, ending with "she better be blonde."  Cue Merete's hat being torn off.  "She'll be perfect," he says.  "I'm not for sale," she barks.  "I have no intention of buying you...this is not the 18th Century and this is not a horse sale," he says, actually making that line seem less idiotic than it is because he's Robert Urich and can make any crap dialogue work.

Yacht party!  As Ringo goes around touching up the models, Barbara is playing anti-Cupid, holding the surprise of Rupert's impending arrival until it's too late for Merete to disappear.  He recognizes her, despite the fact that she's thrown a splash of blue into her outfit and when he creepily touches her hair and tells her to move back to London, she yells and stomps away, much to the satisfaction of Barbara and Ringo.  

In desperation, and angry that Merete is apparently disgracing the family name by working, he offers to not only support her and her sister, but also Claudia, whom he claims has fallen on hard times but hasn't mentioned it to anyone.  "That's blackmail, you're trying to buy me!" Merete hisses, right on the money for once, and just as Barbara and Ringo stop by to get yelled at as well.  

With only a small amount of time and no one else left, Merete goes to dinner with Robert, dressed in very uncharacteristic black.  Merete decides to play her version of hardball, insisting on $1 million, a two-year contract and nothing else objectionable to Robert, who agrees to her terms and gets her to smile.  Unfortunately, when he mentions a "business engagement" after dinner, she sours a bit.

When Paul hears of the deal, he is furious, and Merete is in her war white, so she's not backing down.  He tells her how smart she is, "how much I depend on you," but she won't listen.  "I have responsibilities," she carps.  This means Robert and Paul are going to lock horns at many a late-night creative session, though $20 million helps to sway Paul.  During a shoot where she's supposed to be dressed as on a horse, everyone feels it's wrong.  Merete takes off the jacket, so that she's just in white, of course, and BAM, they get the perfect picture.  She's disappointed to learn that Robert will not be attending their upcoming shoot in England (apparently the only place to do a horsey photo spread).  However, eagle-eyed Merete (at least one of her senses works) spots him watching the shoot from afar.

"The fact is, I'm wild about you," Paul tells Merete in a pub, wondering why Robert is so stand-offish.  "Oh," she replies and takes his hand.  "Why are you doing this to my hand?" he asks.  "Because you're my dear friend," she says.  "Oh," he parrots.  She tells him she "wanted" to love Paul, but it wasn't to be, hinting at some darkness in her past and then going the psycho-babble route that fizzles because Merete has so much trouble with dialogue, and this much at one time is mind-numbing.  "I don't want to be your girlfriend, ever," she ends with a laugh and Paul laughs too, though with the movie's most perplexing line: "Some one's having a Bar Mitzvah here tonight.  I'm not sure if it's you or me."  

In white, in curlers and feeding the ducks, Merete is surprised by Robert showing up.  Robert jogs through a cliche bit about growing up poor and hard work and such, but just as he's about to ask her some big question, they are interrupted.  

It's been a few hours of screen time and at least a decade of the movie's time before Merete goes back to the institution to see the other Merete, and then only for a passing second.  It's more important to put on a pink (pale enough to pass for white in some lighting) dress and have lunch with Robert at the very restaurant where Stacy took her every Sunday.  "You're still here?" she asks the head waiter.  "We're all still here, you are the one who left," he says without a trace of malice (and probably not much tip if he continues this line of thinking).  

The two have a very heartfelt lunch, where Robert admits he's always striving to get the approval of "the rich folks" and Merete finally tells at least part of her life story, everything but Rupert.  It's a serious scene, totally expected, but very one-sided.  Only Robert scores, and when he says, "I could be falling in love with you," try not to melt.  He sounds so sincere, not easy to do playing the scene against a blank wall.  On the way out, Merete sees Rupert, stops as his table and just stares.  The reporter he's with swears she looks just like Rupert's half sister in America and nonchalantly notes, "everybody has a twin somewhere."  That comment gets the wheels in Rupert's head spinning. 

Rupert, really upset that Merete is happy with Robert, calls Barbara to find out what's going on between the new couple and she relays the conversation as she paints Ringo's toes while he reclines in a bubble bath.  "Just who's side are you on?" he asks.  "The only side I've ever been on, ours," she replies.  You know, a good writer of trash like Dominick Dunne had a knack for inserting characters like this into his plots.  They were comic relief, but also had a point (and sometimes were even his stand-ins).  These two wandered in from some 70s acid trip and are frankly getting annoying.

Just as the campaign is hitting its zenith and Merete becomes super famous, sensational news hits the papers about her sister being "locked up in a dingy institution," which is, of course, untrue.  It's a lovely place.  She goes tearing off to Robert's lawyers, who cite the clause in her contract that she can't do "anything to embarrass" the company, as if having a mentally challenged sister is embarrassing.  "The fact that they printed mostly lies doesn't matter to you," she chooses to say, oddly more worried about the scandal aspect than her sister.

Merete hurries to England to find out that the institution allowed her sister to be photographed because Rupert sent a photographer to take a "private family photo."  As for Rupert, he's gotten all weepy and begs his fiancee, which she does after rolling her eyes.  But, unfortunately, he calls out his sister's name during the act.  Oops.  That never goes over well with another woman, and especially not when the name of the other woman is your sister!

Not getting any smarter, Merete agrees to meet Rupert at the country house, way out in the country.  Alone.  He drunkenly seems almost sorry, but then pulls out a shotgun and tells her to shoot him.  Instead, she gives him a dressing down, but when he points the gun at her and insists she declare her love, she refuses. He informs her he could shoot her, bury her and that "in the spring, wildflowers will grow out of your hair."  That doesn't even make sense to her, so she questions it.  He doesn't have a reply.  She calmly walks away and naturally, moments later, is startled by a gunshot.

Merete goes to recover in white pajamas at Claudia's.  Claudia gets her to fight for the truth, to print her side of the story, but also to realize that her sister is happy in her own world, a clue that no matter how much longer this story goes on, we won't be including said sister.  Wrapped up that uncomfortable plot point nicely, eh?

Of course, Robert follows her to France, to Claudia's villa, no less, on a horse!  When she wakes up under a tree and he's there on the horse, he says, "whistle 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' if you're happy to see me."  Lines don't get clunkier than that!  At dinner, he drags us even further into the muck of "mush," as he even calls it, with a giddy speech about his passion for her, all under the watchful gaze of proud Claudia.  A gentleman to the core, he then says, "I'll see you in the morning."  As he lays in shirtless glory in his bedroom, she, in a white nighty, sneaks into his, whispering, "if you're glad to see me, whistle 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.'"  Okay, if you're going to go for cloyingly cute with this back-and-forth reference, why pick THE MOST unromantic song ever?  It kills whatever sap might be forming.  Though they spend the night together for what is presumably her first gratifying sexual experience, he waits until a cab ride the next day to propose.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says to a crowd of friends and family in what looks like some mini Kremlin, "I give you, Princess Daisy," and she comes out in a puffy wedding gown and jewels that would have made Princess Grace blush, let alone some poor-as-dirt daughter of dead Russian nobility circa 1980.

Like every Judith Krantz novel and thus every adaptation (which she and her husband tended to produce), "Princess Daisy" suffers from a serious case of being too serious.  Other than Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach, everyone is so earnest.  The casting of unknown and untalented Merete Van Kamp is a wild miscalculation.  The lead part requires an actress with a natural vivacity, let alone someone who can play twins.  Merete seems frozen the entire time.  A better choice would have been Lindsay Wagner herself, in the movie long enough only to give birth and die, though obviously a bit too old for the part.  We've seen Stefanie Powers and Lisa Hartman in Krantz movies and though neither would themselves claim to be great actresses, they both have undeniable presence, lots of charm and the ability to smile their way through trash.  Merete can barely smile.  Luckily, pros like Lindsay, Stacy Keach and, above all, Robert Urich, help get us through what should be much more fun.  This story has riches to rags to riches, jet setters, everything that made 80s television such a guilty pleasure, but saddled with a boring leading lady, "Princess Daisy" just never manages to stay awake long enough.  There are giggles aplenty because the plot is so utterly inane (and bears what must be an intentionally striking resemblance to every miniseries that deals with the last of Russian nobility), because Merete is so inept and because Ringo Starr is playing a gay man who designs swimwear, but that's not quite enough to get us through the snoozier parts.  Though there's no hope of this ever being more than mindless trash, it never really tries too hard to be anything but.

There is also something supremely frightening that the core of the movie concerns one twin's pure love for her less fortunate sister, while the movie does everything it can to avoid said sister.  It's not even a case of being stuck in the time because by the early 80s, this kind of thing was already derisible.  It's just...well...I'm not sure, maybe unsettling.  It doesn't work.  It's the main character's motivation, but only when it's convenient to remember and the reasoning behind everyone's horror of knowing her is ludicrous.

And remember how many times I noted that everything moves to quickly?  Loyal friends, you know I RARELY say that about romance miniseries (or any miniseries for that matter), but this one could actually use another hour to clean up its plotting.  No, not another hour of barely literate cheese like the original three, mind you, so maybe I shouldn't finish the thought...

The Blue and The Gray (1982)

Virginia matriarch Colleen Dewhurst notes that her son John Hammond is different from the rest of the family because he has an artistic ability.  It if weren't 1859, that would be code, but since it is 1859 and said in the very serious "The Blue and The Gray," Colleen is actually talking about her quiet son's ability to draw.  John, who treats Paul Winfield with as much respect as his Pa, Lloyd Bridges, actually does draw well, and decides to leave the family farm, not a popular decision, to seek his fortune in Gettysburg, where he has an uncle who runs a newspaper.  He rebuffs the scorn of his brothers and even Lloyd's attempt to give him a gun upon leaving, asking for six months away from the farm to make money. 

Cute-as-a-button John (playing a character named John) has excellent timing.  His shady uncle's newspaper needs an artist to cover the sentencing at the infamous trial of John Brown (Sterling Hayden, for once putting his inability to do anything but stand still to good use), already found guilty by the time John arrives and starts furiously drawing.  Also at the sentencing is Stacy Keach, playing Jonas Steele, a mysterious man who asks John not to use his likeness in his drawing, as not everyone would understand what he was doing at the trial.  John agrees and Jonas thanks him by hiring him a hooker, always awkward for a virgin. 

"The Blue and The Gray" moves along at a clip pace, but is filled with wonderful details.  For instance, when John Brown is sent to the scaffold, he arrives on a cart that is also carrying his coffin.  It's an eerie way to spend one's last moments, and given only a second of screen time, but it shows diligence on the part of the creators. 

John takes Jonas home to his Northern family, where Jonas has a chance to flirt immediately with sweet Mary (Julia Duffy), who needs the fire to dry her hair while Jonas needs it to dry his beefy body.  "I hope you don't mind bold girls," she teases after fluffing the pillows on his bed and closing the door.  John gets a raise to $5 a week and free rent.  For about two sentences, his cousins wonder about the possibility of a war, but Uncle Jacob silences such talk.  Again, it's only 1859.

The next wee see of John, it's Christmas 1860 and he's back home, bringing the news of South Carolina's secession.  John's brothers are excited, but Ma realizes this could mean some of her sons might die, looking askance at John, knowing he might now have Northern sympathies, thus thinking further ahead than the rest of the family.  John's sister quickly marries her fiance, a businessman worried that the war will interrupt his trade.  Brother Mark (Michael Horton) uses the fact that he might die in battle to sneak a kiss from a dim bulb sweetie at the celebration. 

Politics come crashing into the fete when a posse shows up looking for runaway slaves at freeman Paul Winfield's cabin.  At first, John goes along with it, but when they threaten to hang Paul, John grabs a gun and tries to hold off the men, getting knocked out for his trouble by his own brother, already resplendent in his gray uniform.  The twin images of Paul lynched and his house burning a few yards away is as powerful a symbol of what is to come for the viewer as it is for John.

John can't handle what's happening and leaves (he's his mother's son, for she comforts the slave woman who was in love with Paul), fully horrified that a friend of his was killed while his family watched.  Civil War legends involve the literal splitting of families, "The Blue and The Gray" no exception.  Cousin Mary asks if he'll enlist with the North, and John wonders, "now how could I carry a rifle for the North knowing that one day I might be asked to point it at one of my brothers?"  He's in a delicate situation, having abandoned the South, but an accented-youth up North where everyone his age will be off to war.

This wouldn't be an epic without the unexpected guest stars, and "The Blue and The Gray" indulges in stunt casting of the highest degree, using Gregory Peck as Abraham Lincoln.  He makes a grand entrance on a whistle stop in Leaman's Place, John sketching away, invited into Lincoln's train car because Stacy Keach is one of his guards and because Lincoln says he and Mrs. Lincoln have never been sketched together.  Okay, that's stretching history to assume our fictional hero can get access to Lincoln that easily and on such a small turn, but that's to be expected in epic sweep for the sake of efficiency (just ask Robert Mitchum's Pug Henry, who manages to meet Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin and everyone but Madame Chiang-Kai Chek during "The Winds of War").  Peck's Lincoln is a savvy politician, telling John to pursue drawing and not take up arms, to show his family back in the South what the war really looks like.

Three of John's cousins enlist in patriotic fervor, two old enough to be kissed by welcoming ladies and one using the same "age on the shoe" trick used by the lying homesteaders in "Centennial" because he's not actually old enough.  Mother Diane Baker is not happy to be losing her sons, but Mary tells her she should be proud.  Diane and Colleen are sisters (separated by at least twenty years of wishful thinking) and have the same sense of looming disaster. 

Stacy Keach confesses to Julia Duffy, the only pretty schoolmarm in all of miniseries history, that he is Lincoln's bodyguard because he is a Pinkerton detective and goes way back with Abe, who was once the company's lawyer.  They share a romantic few moments by the lake where Stacy rambles on in one of those "I had this dream one time..." monologues that are hoping to be pulled out again at Emmy time.  They seal their passion for each other with a kiss and then a very quick proposal. 

There is a comic scene to follow the romance that again shows an attention to detail that makes "The Blue and The Gray" such a watchable history lesson.  One has the tendency to forget that armies are made of individuals, instead treating them as hundreds of individuals.   The wars of the 20th Century delighted in spewing numbers in the hundreds of thousands as a scare tactic.  There is a training scene with a new recruit we know is not going to make it.  This being the 1980s (in real life), of course our feckless private has buck teeth and looks like the product of in-breeding.  Anyway, during a training on how to load and fire a gun (which was admittedly complicated), John's ravishingly handsome cousins get it no problem, but the goober new recruit does it incorrectly and accidentally fires a shot.  No one is harmed and viewers can easily laugh, but the lesson is obvious: don't forget the Civil War armies were made of ho-hum BOYS who had never prepared for any sort of war and enlisted not necessarily to preserve or destroy slavery, but because it was a matter of honor to do so.

John is off to Washington to work for Harper's, nervous that he's never covered a war, but when Stacy Keach shows up (he's always popping up in the most unlikely of places), John begs to ride with him and they arrive at the camp where John's youngest cousin is about to die of galloping diarrhea. 

Stacy has another dream to relay, but this time only John is around to listen.  This dream is every bit as annoyingly cryptic as the last one, but it ends abruptly when Stacy realizes the army is very close (he's not a very good scout if it took him a dark night of seeing torches to figure that out). 

John gets to observe the war up close, with the first cannons finally roaring about 100 minutes into the movie.  If it seems odd that John is about twenty yards away from the cannons sketching violently, wait for Washington's finest ladies and gents to show up and watch with picnic lunches.  Snicker all you want but that's actually historical accuracy. 

In this very first battle we're shown, John's brothers and cousins happen to be fighting each other.  The brothers have the advantage (as the Confederacy usually did early in the war) with heavy cannons, and cousin Malachi wets his pants being fired upon (suave brother Jake is too sexy to have done such a thing).  This battle scene is very personal, not only because we know so many of the ordinary soldiers, but because the Civil War was really one of the last wars fought in the old hand-to-hand combat style that saw whole lines of soldiers downed by one round of gunfire, told to advance at all costs.  The battle's winner is constantly in doubt.  The Union advances, despite heavy casualties, but the fleeing Confederate soldiers are goaded by the example of General "Stonewall" Jackson refusing to move his position.  The saddest victim of the battle is a bedridden old woman whose house is used by the Confederate army as a locale for snipers, but easily blown to smithereens by Union cannonballs.  Northern soldiers flee the onslaught (as do the onlookers, now closer to the action than they expected), and Malachi proves once again he doesn't have the stomach for war.  It's not he who helps fellow wounded soldiers, but his cousin John, who isn't even a soldier!  Such goes the Battle of Bull Run.

The Union soldiers are chewed out by their superiors as a twinkly-eyed soldier with a "coward" sign around his neck is branded (oh, Private Lawrence Jones; great, the coward is the only gay kid in the whole army; a big "C" on his cheek ain't gonna disappear, even under the dark lights of a disco, but that's a lesson for another time).  John and his cousin Jake are worried about Malachi, who knows he should have been branded for running from the battle, but John is able to comfort him with the lesson this episode has worked very hard to make us understand: heroes in this war are not just the men who show up (or don't show up, as this was still a war where one could buy a surrogate to fight for him), but the men who work hard and struggle to form a cohesive fighting army.  Pride has no place in this horrid war.

It's destiny that John, as John, should meet Kathleen Beller, playing Kathy, on the battlefield.  In a full hoop skirt and parasol, she's almost split apart by a bomb, but John rescues her and she in turn helps a wounded soldier by ripping off a piece of her petticoat.  When John goes to find her, it turns out she's the daughter of one of television's baddest bad guys, a man who struck terror into the heart of every television detective for umpteen years, Robert Vaughn.  He's a Senator here who is at first not too happy that John is a..."journalist," the term that comes to the mind instead of "Southerner."  Kathy's fey friends, who of course ran from the battle, are horrified that Kathy was so moved by the experience that she wants to be a nurse.  "No gentleman would say that," her German fiance snarls when John supports her decision to blossom into Florence Nightingale.  The German wants to duel "on the field of (heaving heavily) honor" because John calls him out on running from the fighting instead of being unconscious as he claimed. 

"I hate duels.  They are stupid and they are dangerous...and going out of style," pop-up Stacy Keach says (they were also illegal by this time in American  history), acting as John's second.  To act as the same, the German has picked Otto Von Bismarck's grandfather, a man so old he probably showed up to help the British fight the American Revolution and has been wandering around Virginia ever since, but it's lucky he's there because he has an actual dueling handbook!  Okay, so even "The Blue and The Gray" is allowed some silliness.  Actually, it gets even funnier, because the German tries to kill John before the paces are called, meaning John is allowed to shoot him.  Grandpa consults the rule book again as John blows off the German's hat and humiliates him.

A hallmark of the American miniseries, and of American TV at the time, was the cliffhanger.  That's understandable, because these sagas were shown over multiple nights and they needed to bring back the viewers, but I question the logic of the finale of this first episode.  John's duel and obvious win of the girl would have made a nice little ending, but instead we drag back Gregory Peck, the only filmed Lincoln I can remember who is a damn good shot, testing out a rifle for his troops, though Stacy Keach is better with it.  Lincoln, a detail man apparently, is aware that Stacy is to be married and gives him the new rifle, a gun so dastardly and efficient we know it will be back as a plot point, as a wedding present. A stunned Stacy watches as THE Gregory Peck (or THE Lincoln) walks back to the White House.  This damn war isn't going to get any prettier.

It's a rather confusing cliffhanger, but there we have it, the end of Part 1 of "The Blue and The Gray."

Part 2 begins in the middle of 1862 at the Peninsula Campaign.  In the Union Army, John's two cousins (and the goober) are still going strong, and his Confederate brothers are also alive.  The Union has a fancy toy, a hot air balloon used by an aviation expert that can fly over the Confederate position and telegraph information back to the army.  Luckily, it flies higher than any artillery can reach. 

As for John, he's still courtin' Kathy, much to Papa Robert Vaughn's dismay.  The latter scrunches up his face to its most derisive and lays it out for John.  His daughter cannot risk her social position to be "intimate with an impecunious journalist."  He's happy (as happy as he gets) to hear Kathy is still unspoiled, though she sure as hell knows now to use her tongue when she plants a heavy kiss on John secretly.  Unfortunately, Robert still refuses to let her attend the wedding of Stacy Keach and Julia Duffy with John.

It's a shame, because it's a lovely wedding, though the first night is almost spoiled when Mary cuts her finger on broken glass and Jonas mistakes it for a bullet wound, the one in his dream where he brings harm to his beloved after they are married.  Foreshadowing, sure, but not yet!

I have some bad news.  Everyone sitting down?

You sure?

The goober soldier dies.  Not in battle, but murdered and pinned to a tree, so horribly that forensic and psychology expert Stacy Keach can tell this murder means something more than just war.

I'm sorry, I really am. I wanted him to live too, but we knew he was doomed.

Malachai runs from another battle, only to meet a Confederate soldier behind a tree.  Both need to reload their guns, but both are inept at loading it, so the two decide to talk it out in a rather tender exchange that again proves the theory that these armies are made of inexperienced men who truly have no idea what they are fighting for.  "Makes no sense shooting each other...there's plenty of folks willing to do it for us," the Reb soldier says, since both are chicken and have run from the battle.  Malachi asks what it's like to have slaves, but the Reb says he has no slaves.  He didn't even have shoes!  The scene is badly acted, yes, but highly effective.  And it ends with Malachai a hero, a Corporal no less, an unexpected touch (though almost ruined when Malachi kicks his heels up in the air walking away after getting it).

In case you have missed the point of the above scene, the theme is repeated when bathing Union soldiers find a little tiny boat loaded with tobacco from the Confederate soldiers across the river in return for coffee sent back.  The boat also has a note for John and his cousins to meet his brothers at night.  That makes me veeeeeery nervous. 

Brother Luke has invited John and his cousins to a barn dance behind Confederate lines where booze and broads abound.  In the third-in-a-row scene to hammer in the theme (it's a bit tiresome, but so innocent you can't get upset) as the Confederate soldiers warmly welcome their Union enemies with open arms.  John meets a girl who "if'n"s him into kissing her and drinking moonshine.  An uppity senior staffer is not happy to have the Blues there, but he lets them stay upon promise of Luke taking them home at dawn.  And he does, in a triumph of character over reality.  The uppity senior staffer offers Luke and his pal the choice of cleaning latrines or handling the new Confederate balloon.  Cleverness in war goes both ways.

Unfortunately, luck doesn't and Luke and his pal Bear land in enemy territory, with Bear taking a bullet to his considerable gut, expiring once he gives Luke the old "go run and save yourself" speech.  Luke is taken prisoner. 

In a pause for history, Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.  That minute over, after Lincoln and his cabinet pose like they were being painted, John trots off to visit Kathy.  His idea of romance is to relay the horrors of the battlefield, but Kathy is a nurse now and she understands.  Plus, John, three year older than when we met him, is still just as adorable and there's no denying him a smile and a squeeze of the hand. 

Nurse Kathy sees John having a horrible nightmare and pats down his sweat with great love in her eyes. She then sneaks a peak at his sketches, in another of those ideal little touches, to show the horror of the war.  It takes only three brief pages to show what 150 years of books have tried to bring to life.

Flash forward to Mississippi, 1863.  Students?  What does that mean is looming?  You, in the second row.  Put down the note and tell me what Mississippi 1863 signifies?  No, not the Battle of Midway.  We're not up to "War and Remembrance" yet.  Vicksburg!  Vicksburg!

John is trottin' around down there when he comes across some Union soldiers about to rape a black  woman.  Having saved her life, he finds out that his beloved men in blue haven't been treating the Southerners blacks so well, but with news of the Emancipation in hand, a bedraggled gaggle of slaves hiding in the forest are understandably thrilled.  John captures the glee of these now ex-slaves in his notebook.  John, sounding more and more like a textbook, tells them the truth, that the piece of paper only means something if the Union wins the war, but the leader of the gang tells him that they now have hope, something more powerful. 

The South is further painted in an unflattering light when John's brother Matthew goes to visit his married sister in Vicksburg, the one with the merchant hubby, who apparently is profiting from the misfortune of others (and she ain't so nice either, considering John cut out of the family for not fighting with the South--um, you wouldn't have a plot without that fact, you twit!).  Cue the door and Emma's bloody husband. With the spirit of Scarlett O'Hara in her, she races him to the hospital amidst cannon fire, good not only for him but because she's about to pop a baby!  Hubby Lester recovers and gets to meet his son.  Emma slips back into irrationality and insists Lester go back into business to take advantage of the fact that food and medicine are in short supply and they can make a fortune.  He says no, he's realized it's not right.

It's the last thing he says as a bomb decimates his hospital room. 

Though "The Blue and The Grey" soars beautifully, Part 2 is a bit of a let-down after Part 1.  Part 2, clocking in at nearly 45 minutes less than Part 1 seems more a history class than a fully plotted movie.  I forgive it because the history is not as leaden as we will see in other historical epics, but let's be frank, the fictional characters are a whole lot more fun when they are part of the plot rather than observing it.

Part 3 starts still in 1863, but back up North where Stacy Keach explains to his wife that battle could be headed their way, as Gettysburg isn't too far.  He then goes off to meet General Meade (Rory Calhoun, of all people), who knows the upcoming battle is going to be tough because Union supply lines are "a shambles."  It becomes Stacy's job to assure the railroad supplies get through, but it's immediately evident that he has an unenviable task. The Confederate soldiers set fire to a bridge they must cross and when they go to put it out, snipers attack.  Quick thinking, good guns and a pair of very tight pants on Stacy seem to save the day.

A small, but very bloody, hand-to-hand sword-to-sword combat battle erupts right outside of Mary Steele's house (literally right outside).  A Confederate soldier slinks in, bloodied and blind, slumped against the table where a picture of hubby Stacy watches over him, and Julia Duffy helps the soldier as the battle rages.  Unfortunately for Julia, a stray bullet kills her.  She's a victim of two stock issues in TV of this period.  The first is never to have a tearful goodbye with someone as it's a sure sign that you will never see each other alive again.  Rarely does anyone die after a quick peck and a "have a good day."  But, blubber and rant, and someone is a goner.  The second is that with only two hours to go before the end of the movie, we have to start picking off some lead characters.  Remember, these people (for the most part) are fictional.  They serve the story by lurking around historic events, but we haven't had a death since one of John's cousins way back in the first episode.  Unfortunately, given the low rank of most of the character soldiers in this movie, that's surprisingly low.  More than a few of our beloved characters would have been dead and now the movie is catching up with reality. 

The irony is piled on thick as Stacy brings the train to the soldiers, having successfully made it through all of the Confederate-inspired problems, not knowing his wife is close-by, dead on the floor next to a dead Confederate soldier (and that omnipresent picture of himself).  Perhaps it's those tight pants again, but Stacy feels something is wrong and rushes home to find his in-laws crying and Mary's body in a coffin.  The above two definites of miniseries death were inevitable for someone to die, but Mary's death was even more inevitable because Stacy had predicted it almost the first time they met.  She's been on borrowed time ever since.  "May I join you soon," he says and kisses her for the last time. 

Detail time again: Stacy leaves his wife's funeral, having buried her in a nice little plot, having to ride through a vast field of dead soldiers and mangled war supplies.  It's a beautiful, if horrifying, spectacle.

Gregory Peck digs into his vast reservoir of Oscar-winning focus to deliver Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. 

Back down in Mississippi, John is witness to the Siege of Vicksburg, a particularly grim spectacle that stops only three times a day so the soldiers can eat, separated by only yards of trenches (spooky foreshadowing of World War I).  Luckily all of the soldiers are so friendly that John can yell across the trenches that he wants to speak to his brother as the firing starts up again.  In a moment of sheer Americana-on-film, the soldiers halt the fight so John and his brother can talk for a few minutes.  "We're holding up the war," his brother even says at one point.  John's brother is still sore at John for not joining the Confederate army, but he admits he's matured, having seen the horrors of the battle, and he forgives John for simply taking a different path in life.  It's a touching moment (if unlikely), once again making sure we get the central themes of the piece. 

In the above conversation, John learned that his sister and her baby are trapped in Vicksburg and wants to get into the city.  What he finds is frighteningly grim.  The Union has utterly decimated the town.  It's a hell hole of burn-out buildings.  John tries to protect a lady from seeing a dead horse, but the woman pulls out a knife and rushes over to it to get her share along with others.  That's how desperate the situation is in Vicksburg. 

The creepy horseflesh grabber, Mrs. Lovelace, follows John and cackles her way through the streets of Vicksburg with him.  I pause here to point out a rare misstep in this film.  When John finds his sister's house, it's overgrown with weeds.  I know weeds move quickly, but it's only been a few months since we last saw this house freshly tended.  It wouldn't be overgrown that fast!

Anyway, Mrs. Lovelace leads John to "the caves," a shantytown where he does indeed find Emma, now a hag driven to insanity by the conditions.  It's not a happy reunion, but things get worse when the Union army marches down Vicksburg's main street, the town having surrendered, and Mrs. Lovelace still chewing whatever ash-covered scenery still remains.  I have not revealed until now that Mrs. Lovelace is played by the legendary Geraldine Page because Gerry sure as hell was slumming giving that performance.  On stage, it would have reached the upper balcony.  On film, it's just plain over-ripe.

With that, we leave 1863 and it's twin infamous turning points for 1864 and the Wilderness Campaign (the Wilderness being Virginia--we'll save anything further west for other miniseries).  Stacy and John discover a soldier murdered and stuck to a tree, just like our beloved goober back a few years ago and Stacy vows right there, before a dramatic music roll fade out to commercial, that he'll kill the demon who has been doing these killings. 

The major armies march toward each other in Virginia and it's here we see nearly all of our main fictional characters.  John has a brother and two cousins still alive and the brothers have two very quiet and tender scenes where Malachi admits to be as scared now as he ever was as the two try to help some new recruits cope with the oncoming horrors.  These unfortunately boys are still boys, five years into the story, still frightened boys fighting out of a sense of duty.

Malachi and Jake survive a harrowing trap and Malachi turns to lead the men when the company leader is killed.  Now it's their turn to ambush the Confederate soldiers and they do a much better job, not realizing they have wounded their cousin in the melee. 

John makes the first wildly out-of-character stupid decision of his entire life when he insists on going out into the battle "to save at least one life."  Stacy warns him against it, but follows after him, picking off three soldiers in a matter of minutes, but then forced to separate from John.  However, I suppose I have to go back on my assessment of John when he runs into a burning forest looking for survivors, only to come across...let's say it together...his brother, literally on fire as if the bullet in his chest isn't enough.  John is begged by his kin to kill him, but John demurs, rushing off for his horse to drag his brother to safety, only to watch a burning tree fall and kill him.  It's heart-wrenching, just the kind of character-driven moment that makes "The Blue and The Grey" so particularly special in its earnestly innocent way. 

But, there is another reason John and Stacy have had to separate.  Stacy hears the special humming of the man he knows to be the murderer of the goober and others, a character we briefly met and long forgot about, but Stacy kills him quickly, despite suffering a serious wound to his arm. 

Remember Kathy?  It's okay if you don't.  Not only haven't we seen her in a few years, but she hasn't made much of an impression.  John's beloved is a nurse at the hospital where they take Stacy to amputate his arm and treat him for pneumonia (and where he can hallucinate and talk to his dead wife who tells him it's not time to die yet).  And since John is always just a few steps behind Stacy, he soon shows up at the hospital to be reunited with his gal.  Unfortunately, he walks in when Kathy is kissing Stacy, just being kind to him since he thinks she's his dead wife.  That's the kind of soap "The Blue and The Gray" has mercifully done without most of the time, so I'll forgive it a lapse. 

John goes to the family farm, where he hasn't visited since he left in the first scene, to find one brother limping, one in jail and of course the one dead we knew about.  Sister Emma is there too, not longer nuts, but just as angry as the last time John saw her.  Pa Lloyd Bridges isn't any more forgiving, but don't he feel mighty bad when John gives him brother Mark's ashes. 

As for Colleen Dewhurst, well, the news isn't good, TV fans.  She's in bed with "influenza or something" and we know that's not good.  She's always had a soft spot for John, and they have a loving conversation.  "I live for the day when it (the war) is done...and we can all be together again," Ma says, not knowing one son is dead.  A line like that also speaks of upcoming death, sadly.  It's a miniseries role not to hope for the future, especially sick in bed! 

The Confederate Army shows up at the homestead, telling the family to leave because the battle, get this, is going to happen right on their property!  John refuses to take a gun and the family turns on him again.  Lloyd threatens to shoot him if he doesn't leave. 

We surge into high melodrama when Union soldiers invade the house and grab Colleen.  John finally takes up a gun and shoots three soldiers to rescue his Ma.  He then joins his father and brother at the barricade shooting at approaching Union soldiers.  Half-lame brother Matthew dies carrying the Confederate flag and he's buried alongside Mark's ashes (having gone back on their pledge never to tell Ma what happened to him).  The only thing this sequence missed was having Malachi and Jake be on the Union side of the battle.  But, there are still 40 minutes to go!

The melodrama was okay for a battle scene, but the following scene, a reconciliation between Stacy and John, is pure cheese.  But, the family needs Stacy to get brother Mark out of prison, though Emma refuses to trust him.  So, Stacy goes off to DC to get the order of release while John and Sis go to Elmira to keep Mark alive in prison until the order arrives.  Elmira in September 1864 is not a happy place to be!

The desk clerk at the prison, who looks a lot like John Lennon, hair and glasses included, foils wild Emma's plan to smuggle a gun into prison for Mark and ends up getting them both arrested.  Luckily, Stacy arrives in time and sounds officious enough to get them all released.  He and Sis Emma flirt on the way home as John apologizes to Kathy, whom Stacy brought for John.  John proposes and Kathy accepts.  She may indeed be the blandest of the lead characters, but John deserves a girl.

We zoom from there to April 1865.  Jonas shows up at John and Kathy's to announce the war is about to end.  He wants John by his side to witness the final moments, but Kathy insists he go.  They arrive just as Lee has signed away the South at Appomattox, where General Lee sweeps out in a huff and General Grant (an unusually restrained Rip Torn) looks pleased.  When Lee tells his soldiers he has surrendered, watch for another of those beautiful moments, very quickly.  They are disappointed that it's over, but as Lee rides off, one soldier drops his gun and falls to his knees out of utter exhaustion.  They would have all gone on fighting, proud to do so, but now that it's over, they can admit how tiring and scary it's all been.

On paper, the war is over (though there is one momentous event to come), and John and his cousins reminisce about those they've lost: brothers, cousins, wives, even the goober soldier.  "Let's sing to their memory," John says and they trot off join the rest of the soldiers doing the same.  It's wonderful that the soldiers themselves are so forgiving and itching for peace.  Politicians would beat the South into further submission with a decade of Reconstruction full of rules that amused Northern politicians and hardened Southern politicians into solidifying the next hundred years of outrageous violations of civil rights, but that's material for another miniseries (or ten).

At a cabinet meeting, Lincoln's dialogue all but portents his night at the theater, and Stacy Keach awakes in his tent to have a vision at what must be the exact time the Lincolns were taking their seats at Ford's Theatre. (to see "Our American Cousin," if anyone wants to remember that detail, which is not included in this retelling, just one of those details that is stuck in my head).  Stacy and John rush to the White House to warn Lincoln, arriving at the theater after the Booth has thrown the town into mayhem.  True to form, Mary Lincoln wails like a banshee as his pulse stops and Andrew Johnson is suddenly the new President (there's no miniseries about him, and rightfully so).  "Now he belongs to the ages," Secretary Seward says, as he did in real life. 

Against all typical-of-the-time TV odds, Mama Colleen has not died.  In fact, she's in fine form as her family celebrates a gaggle of weddings.  Hell, even Robert Vaughn looks pleased to be there, and that I know of, he made it a promise since sometime back in the 50s never to look pleased on television.  Stacy arranges a full family portrait, of the Geysers and the Hales, Blues and Grays, but this is not for one of John's sketches.  It's for his brand-new camera. 

Lincoln's words at Gettysburg play us out as we look at pictures of the family members. 

"The Blue and The Grey" is ideal historical fiction because its lead character is an observer.  None of the fictional characters in the piece actually affect history, they are here just foot soldiers or watchers.  John Hammond's character does manage to be in the most important places of the entire Civil War, but that's easily explained by his job.  If the second of three parts lacked for character development, and the third part soars into some oft-times laughable dramatics beyond the scope of most of the actors' abilities, overall, this is a miniseries to treasure.  It tells a great story, pacing it well, not letting it go on too long.  Perhaps that's why "The Blue and The Gray" has not entered the public memory the way the Herman Wouk miniseries or "The North and The South" have, but this is a sturdy gem that handles the Civil War in a fair and unique way, keeping politics at a minimum and story at a maximum.