Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 12--THE END (and insights)

We are at the end.  We've made it through the first acknowledged Great American Miniseries.  As we enter the final lap, some lives are fraying (Peter Strauss' and Susan Blakely's) and some are flying (Nick Nolte's).  The problem child has wised up and become a dependable man with a son and a fiancee.  The once-dependable man is hassled and henpecked.  How will it end?

At the very end of Chapter 11, Nick's seemingly blissful existence was about to gain cloud cover as sworn enemy William Smith had found him.  He had beaten up William Smith a few years earlier, so badly that William lost an eye.  As Chapter 12 starts, Herbert Jefferson brings Nick the news that William is nearby.  For now, Nick is so happy with his son back and in love with Kay, who finally accepts his proposal of marriage because she's pregnant.  

Fortunes are up for Nick, but down for Peter Strauss, his political career on the rise, but very unpopular with the youth who are angry at his position on ROTC.  In fact, he orders an editorial written "drawing parallels between the New Left and Hitler."  That's how out-of-touch he's become.  Worse yet, Susan has become a full-time lush, so bad even the maid can't deal with her.  She and Peter have a massive fight where both admit it is time to think about their failing marriage.  

The students decide to picket Peter's house, throw rocks and get Susan to open the door, naked and drunk.  Peter blames the mayor, the police and everyone else but himself, and only because of the affects it may have on his political career.  This is where he finally snaps.  All the years of creating his perfect life have been derailed and he becomes...his brother.

He goes to the school paper and tears the place up, punching a guy, knocking down a shelf accidentally on a girl, who is blinded by the chemicals falling on her, all of it caught by salivating photographers.  Their lives have finally reversed, to some degree.  

Susan goes to the hospital to dry out, worried that she has ended her husband's career, but he now takes full credit.  The guilt is eating at him, especially when the blinded girl acts very heroic about her state.  Peter and Susan want another chance, if she can give up alcohol and he can give up politics.  

Peter and Susan travel to France for Nick and Kay's wedding.  It's a joyous wedding and other than a sip of wine for a toast, Susan doesn't drink.  Nick is thrilled to have Peter there.  His present to his brother is a radar that Nick has always wanted for his boat.  "This is the greatest damn wedding anybody ever had," Nick claims in drunken delight, before passing out.  "I'm afraid the wedding night might have to be postponed," Kay admits in good cheer.  

In case the true reversal of fortune for the leads has not become obvious, it's Susan who points it out, telling Peter she can't believe how well Nick has turned out.  "He's changed so much," she ruefully says.  "Haven't we all?" Peter adds.  "But he's changed for the better."  

Unable to sleep, Susan leaves Peter in bed and goes to a bar.  Who joins her there?  William Smith, of course.  A local rushes to Nick to tell him he's spotted Susan in a seedy strip club with William Smith.  Nick tracks her down and finds William trying to rape Susan.  When Nick bursts in, William holds a knife to Susan before the inevitable William-Nick fight.  Susan is beaten up a little, Nick must worse, but when Nick has the chance to kill William, the latter begs for his life and Nick leaves him with it.  As he tells Kay proudly, "I could have killed a man, but I didn't."

Naturally, Peter is angry at Susan, both full of excuses, and the subject of divorce comes up again, tabled again.  

William exacts his revenge, looking from yards away as his goons stab Nick.  When Kay finds him, he's barely alive.  That means a hospital scene!  Naturally, it's between the brothers, Nick barely able to speak, but wanting his brother there at the very end.  "You go get 'em...you go get the bad guys," Nick says.  "I don't know who they are anymore.  I think I'm one of them," Peter cries.  "No...you're not," Nick assures him and then dies.  This scene is brief and handled beautifully, where it could have easily been drawn-out and maudlin.

Nick's ashes are thrown into the ocean by his son and wife, with his brother, sister-in-law and loyal Herbert in attendance.  "He died on the happiest day of his life," Kay assures Herbert.  Peter and Susan are able to join hands with some amount of hope as the miniseries finally ends.

And there you have it, all of "Rich Man, Poor Man."  It still sparkles with true genius.  The early episodes looked like they might have to rely heavily on vets like Ed Asner and Dorothy McGuire, who were utterly fantastic, but the three leads definitely stepped up and controlled the 12 parts like pros.  Actually, it would stand to be some of their best work ever.  Sure, Nick Nolte rose to superstardom, but it was erratic and often fueled more by controversy than talent.  Peter Strauss and Susan Blakely stayed with television.  Peter would not only return for more of "Rich Man, Poor Man" in an ill-advised sequel, but would pretty much play the same good-guy character to this day (and in a few big miniseries).  Susan Blakely

What's new is not the story, but the telling.  The 1970 Shaw novel could have very easily been condensed into a major motion picture, probably cutting most of the characters and all of the charm, leaving us with cardboard characters and fey storytelling.  Instead, a bunch of brave people decided to try something different: taking a lot of what British television had been doing for ages (and, in truth American television had tentatively done previously), filming the whole story, or most of it, in epic style. We're not chopping Shaw down to two hours, or even three.  It received 12 episodes and was broadcast over enough time to keep viewers interested.  This is something new.  It's not the standard 20some episodes of a cop or hospital show, where viewers didn't have to watch every week to know what was happening, but it was given the opulent treatment of a successful television drama.  It's also not daytime soap opera, which had done all of these plots before, stretching them out over years at a time.  It's a mix. Thus the term miniseries.  Everything is wrapped up in a tight package, but the package is bigger than ever mounted before.  

If a fairly hokey and predictable novel like "Rich Man, Poor Man" could be done in this style, what about something bigger?  What if we don't just travel through 20 odd years with a few people and a bunch of costume changes?  What if we go even bigger?  After all, that's what Hollywood is known for. In the immediate future, there was the bravery of adapting Alex Haley's "Roots," a long but very stark look at the very heart of American society, and further down the road such enormous sagas as "Holocaust," a European-based equivalent of "Roots" and every bit as brave, "North and South" or "Winds of War."  But, "Rich Man, Poor Man," while sending producers scrambling for well-reviewed long novels, also realized that it wasn't necessarily the saga of the thing, but the soap in it too, which led to "The Thorn Birds" or "East of Eden."  Hell, some of them weren't even that intelligent and spread before us "Harem" and "Kane and Abel," pure trash dolled up to look like the millions of bucks they cost.  

But they were all successful, to varying degrees, and this push toward big television kept on going for 20 years.  It ended with cable television and the Internet pulling away focus, but that's a story for 1995 or so, not 1976.  In 1976, "Rich Man, Poor Man" was staggeringly new, full of vivacity and emotion, setting rules for an entire genre no one knew would necessarily follow.  After all, this could have been an enormous dud.  If viewers were not gripped from the onset, there was no chance of keeping them hooked (a lesson learned years later when the miniseries reached its most outlandish size with "War and Remembrance").  But, "Rich Man, Poor Man" hooks.  It has real characters, small-town people with real problems.  Sure, they get a little lofty at the end, but their problems are always real: fear, jealousy, happiness, love, loss.  That's the secret to all the Great American Miniseries: dress them up in whatever finery you want, cast the hell out of the piece, give it all the trappings, but make it somehow relatable to people turning on their television sets.  They aren't paying money to go to a theater and see this, so they aren't trapped.  The only way to keep them is to grab hold from the beginning and never let go.  From the moment Rudy Jordache plays his bugle to herald the end of a devastating world war and the moment Tom Jordache sneers at it, from Axel Jordache miserable in a basement bakery to Mary Jordache ignoring the badness to focus on her shining star son, or even the simplicity of Susan Blakely as a candy striper reading "Gone With the Wind" to wounded soldiers, these are people the folks at home can understand.  Understand them, understand their problems, and stick to that.  The problems may get loftier (in minute ways like state politics here or in massive horrors like slavery or concentration camps in later pieces), but the way the characters deal with them will not.  Watch Meryl Streep in "Holocaust" and though the world is exploding around her, she only wants her husband back.

And that, as I see it, is the secret to the Great American Miniseries, letting the viewers in for a limited time to emotions they can comprehend.  Television usually keeps us outside of the box, laughing at outrageous Lucy ruining Desi's show, or Dorothy and Sophia snapping at each other, or by having Dr. Kildare solve yet another medical mystery we would never have been able to understand, ditto for Jessica Fletcher, asking us to stop our lives and give them over to other people for 30 or 60 minutes.  Not so with the miniseries.  Sure, you can send us to Medieval Japan in "Shogun," but what are we asked to believe there?  That the hero wants to understand what he's never seen and then falls madly in love?  Not so far-fetched (emotionally).  What was the secret behind "A Woman Named Jackie?"  That one of the 20th Century's most discussed women loved and hated and regretted and feared.  Sounds real enough to me, no matter the costumes or the sources of those emotions.  

Unfortunately, not every miniseries will be this intelligent, but they don't have to be because not everybody wants to think with the television on, though they can still come inside.  What emotions are we expected to have for Ted Bundy in "A Deliberate Stranger?"  None, it's just there for shock value, as would be many true-crime sagas, but we breathlessly follow Mark Harmon's every move.  What are we to make of "Fresno" other than feeling the hangover that comes with biting the hand that feeds you (and badly)?  Nothing, it's just there because someone thought it would be clever.  Or traditional epics that had been filmed before like beloved "Ivanhoe" or "The Scarlet Pimpernel?"  Nothing, just bask in the glow of their incredible storytelling for which you don't have to leave your home and pay money for seats and popcorn to get drawn in.  Granted, Ted Bundy and the French Revolution are delicious hooks for a television audience and they deserve more than just an hour condensation, but there is also the value of pure entertainment to be considered.  After 12 episodes of Susan Blakely's moping in "Rich Man, Poor Man," one has had enough.  One can still relate, but one can also want it to end.  The great thing is that it does, because the miniseries always end.  They do not continue season after season.  With that, we're back to the brilliance of creating such a genre.  

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 10

Once teenage dreamers, the three leads of "Rich Man, Poor Man" are about as adult as possible when Chapter 10 starts.  Peter Strauss is running for public office, supported in words, but not spirit, by his wife Susan Blakely, who has just miscarried, and Nick Nolte wants to leave the merchant marines to start a yacht charter business on the French Riviera.  For once, it's Nick who seems the happiest of the lead characters, though that can always change quickly as the plot starts to come to its climax.

It's 1962, Marseilles.  Nick and his buddy Herbert Jefferson are still technically tied to the merchant marines and thus the merciless and very childish hazing of muscular moron William Smith.  After enjoying two days away, they come back to two day's worth of dirty dishes, cleaned up just in time for William Smith to dirty the whole kitchen again.  He's s different kind of villain than any other in the movie.  The first was Ed Asner, an immigrant with crushed dreams that proved too heavy to bear, but not a bad man at heart.  Then there was Robert Reed, who deflowered the leading lady and has been playing puppeteer with the lives of the leads for decades, though not without their knowledge of agreement, a manipulative man who likes to enjoy power, but also does good with it.  William Smith is just a cartoon bully.  He looks like a cartoon villain and is written like one, so ridiculously evil that he's not even worth enjoying as a character because you know he'll get his miniseries comeuppance in a big way (though, not to ruin anything, it only partially happens here--we have to wait for "Rich Man, Poor Man Book II" to get the true end of his inane plotting).  He's the prototype for a lot of miniseries villains to come, the main one being Adolph Hitler.  Even in the miniseries that are told from Hitler's point of view, or try to imbibe the story with some semblance of German sympathy, Hitler is always the raving lunatic who will meet the bad end, so let him overact the hell out of his scenes because our leads will always end up just fine (well, except in "The Bunker," where he is the lead).

In a truly grotesque piece of business that is handled with "Rich Man, Poor Man's" usual flair for knowing exactly what to show and what not to show, William Smith follows his favorite target, Herbert Jefferson, into his cabin where he more than suggests they are going to have sex.  Herbert Jefferson tries to fight him off, but William Smith puts him in a choke hold and the camera pans down to his foot closing the door.  William Smith emerges smiling and sated when Nick Nolte sees him.  Nick goes to his friend, but we only HEAR him say, "it's alright, I'm okay" and then Nick is in the dining room where we know he's going to exact some sort of revenge.

He throws his drink in William Smith's face and they agree to a rumble.  Nick was warned not to fight, lest someone recognize him from his past life as a boxer and remember the crime from which he's running.  The two tussle with the rest of the crew watching and Nick actually knocks him out.  "I've seen that guy fight as Sunnyside Gardens," one of the crew members says, right before William pulls a knife and jams it into Nick's leg in a surprise attack.  Nick beats him to a bloody pulp.  No use being upset as they take William Smith off in a stretcher, looking like he's lost an eye.  The character deserved it he was merely a plot device to bring Nick back to reality.  The captain doesn't turn him into the French authorities, but he does tell him to leave ship in NYC, where the man who recognized him knows he can cash in on what he knows.

Back in New York, Peter has become a popular politician fighting against the corruption of the old guard, running for a state senate seat, but losing steam.  Wife Susan Blakely is a shellacked politician's wife with a hairdo and wardrobe that bore even her.  His campaign manager, Van Johnson, has brought his wife along, played by the 1950s most questionable Oscar winner, Dorothy Malone.  She's an old hand at surviving politics.  She has a dose of realism and a big drink for Susan (which has already started to become a problem for the latter).  Dorothy and Susan watch as Peter, Van and the others start to play politics every bit as hard as what he's supposedly fighting.

While Dorothy and Susan are enjoying their drinks, a call comes in that Peter's mother, Dorothy McGuire, is very ill.  "Damn it," he curses, having to leave politics for his mother, who used to be the darling of his life but has turned into a petty annoyance (in truth, the character has been turned from a wonderfully-developed and understanding woman into a rather idiotic shrew, so it's hard to work up a whole lot of sympathy).

As Nick's boat steams into the New York harbor, one cannot help but notice a IMMENSE error.  The camera pans around the buildings and comes to rest on the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center.  Watching such a noticeable camera move is obviously a shock to anyone watching "Rich Man, Poor Man" after 2001 will obviously be startled by the gleaming towers, but that's not the problem.  The problem is that it's 1962, more than a decade before they were completed and years before they were even started!  That's simply bad editing.  No one noticed that?

William Jefferson and Nick Nolte have to part, at least for now, their dreams of chartering yachts in France put on hold.  Nick returns to the fleabag where he had hidden out before shipping off to find out that Peter had stopped by looking for him.  "Want me to get him?" his friend asks.  "What I want, in this order, is a bottle, a blonde, something to eat and a newspaper," Nick decides.  Nick realizes he's been recognized on the boat and he's told the mob guys are still after him, so Nick needs a gun.

Just as Nick is given the gun, Peter comes into the room, starting at the barrel of it.  It's a hokey go-to-commercial moment that we will see over and over again in the ensuing years, and one that even daytime soap operas had down pat by 1976.  It would take nighttime soap operas to make a moment like that carry interest for an entire summer, rather than through a few minutes of advertising for cat chow and bleach alternatives.

The brothers have not seen each other in many years, and it may seem strange that a VIP like Peter Strauss, risking being caught in a seedy motel with his on-the-lam brother, a gun and a hooker (the blonde is still there), has to deliver the news about their mother in person, but that's drama for you.  Peter simply drops the news about their mother's condition amid all the squalor and the two drive upstate.  Nick is the chattier one, seemingly proud of his brother.  Peter is most happy to announce he's "finally" married Susan.  They seem as different as, well, a rich man and a poor man, but even Peter takes a swig out of the bottle as they dash to face mom in the hospital.

Dorothy McGuire has made it through all of "Rich Man, Poor Man," including the weird character transformation, and she certainly deserves the hospital deathbed scene you knew was coming the moment we heard she was sick.  It even starts with a priest, a monsignor, no less, having just administered last rights.  "She's been holding on until you could get here," he tells Peter.  The doctor isn't even sure she can hear, but no actress is going to give up this chance!  She seems catatonic, clutching rosary beads, but then her hand twitches.  She speaks, incomprehensibly, asking for Peter, not realizing it's her other son there with her.  "Is that you?" she asks him, slowly.  He pulls out a present he long ago promised her, a scarf with a Mediterranean map, lying a little and saying he already has his operation going and his son back with him.  She has a slow apology for short-changing him.  "I gave so much to [Peter], there wasn't enough left over for you," she says, no doubt sparking water works in millions of viewers.  "Try not to hate me," she asks and then asks Nick to hold her as she finally dies.  It's interesting to note that Peter has not been in the room the whole time.  It's her wayward son, the one she discarded, who is with her as she breathes her last.  Nick acts the moment beautifully, quietly realizing the impact of the moment.

Susan is out in the hallway, not having seen Susan since her night with Robert Reed, but he can only handle so much emotion.  "Am I the only one who needs a drink around here?" he asks.  Robert Reed, sporting gray hair and a weird accent, weirder than before, is at the funeral.  He also hasn't seen Susan or Nick since the night as his house.  "I hope we can get together, discuss old times," he says like the cunning fox he is, but Susan is mature now.  "I'm really not one for discussing old times," she retorts, pulling her hand away from his.  Peter is the only person there who doesn't know the secrets that could still split them all.

However, Susan, in yet another turban, can't help but remember the past and as Nick drinks heavily, he's a little fuzzy on things.  Peter brings up the fact that Nick set the fire that fateful night at Robert's place, asking him why he set the fire.  Luckily, the conversation steers clear of the exchanged glance Nick and Susan shared that night, but when a guest calls Peter away, Susan plays martyr and snaps at Nick, "now would be as good a time as any to tell him."  "There's nothing to tell.  Really.  Truth is, my eyes were so burned from that fire, everything is a blur," he gallantly replies.  Susan has a panic attack and Nick comforts her, but one of Peter's political cronies storms in with good news, though Peter seems oblivious to the fact that it's a bad time; Nick and Susan clearly see the absurdity.

It's a moment like the above that begs the question, once again, of just who is the rich man and who is the poor man?  On the surface, life has sucked for Nick, yet he's always content, always able to deal with what life throws him, while Peter has boxed himself into a shrink-wrapped life that is rather unpleasant and entirely too clinical.  Unfortunately, the acting isn't always consistent enough to completely power this question, but at least the writing realizes it.  A lot of bigger and grander miniseries will be coming that ask bigger and grander questions in far more stilted or laughable ways.  "Rich Man, Poor Man" yet again glosses over the truth with a light touch, just enough to make one aware that it has not spiraled into epic boredom, grasping to get to the end because it has to (take that "Scarlett").

The brothers meet in the kitchen in the middle of the night and it's the first time they use the title words to describe each other.  It turns out Nick is richer by almost $50K, a complete surprise to him.  You see, the last time they met, when Nick gave Peter the $3K he felt he owed Peter for Ed bailing him out of jail, Peter took the money and invested it.  It's grown into piles of money, money Nick can use to finance the dream he had with Herbert Jefferson in France.

As Nick and Herbert depart, and after Nick says "I'm running out of people to hate," finally aware that his brother has never been his enemy," Peter promises to find Nick's son for him.

On election night, the race is close, but it seems Peter is winning when of course more drama gets in the way.  Susan is at home, drunk as hell smashing her beloved photographic history with a hammer.  "I want to take you to bed," Peter says, meaning put her to bed, but Susan has a different take on it.  "You won't be the first, and if I play my cards right, you won't be the last either!" she spits.  Miniseries mantra: when things seem good, they are about to go downhill quickly.  Susan is a crying mess when the press arrives at Peter's house to announce he's won the election.  It's his most exalted moment and her biggest nightmare.  There is no happiness for someone without unhappiness for someone else.

If Chapter 10 taught any lesson, it's that those who seem to be at the bottom have nothing to lose and all to gain.  Nick is a man running for his life who walks into a huge amount of money and can finally set his life on course.  Meanwhile, Peter is a man at the top, which is a tough place to be because one cannot go any higher, one can only fall, and with the mess Susan has turned into, she's threatening to drag him down with her.

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 9

The brothers of "Rich Man, Poor Man" seem to be going through a change.  Who is good and who is bad?  It's hard to tell.  Sure, Nick Nolte has to leave the country for pissing off the Mafia, but it's self-protection.  It's Peter Strauss as the hard-nosed businessman who is becoming less attractive.  Age and money have given him an ego, but then again, the people around him (his mother, his boss, even Susan Blakely) are also fairly unpleasant people, nothing like the hopeful innocents who celebrated the end of World War II.  As we pick up the story in 1962,  it's unclear who is to be admired anymore.

Peter is breaking up the financial partnership with Ray Milland, who is as upset as Peter's mother.  "Who retires at 35?" Ray asks.  "He has no time for anything, not even his mother," Dorothy complains.  The next step is politics, as local bosses try to draft him into running, not caring what party he's affiliated with.  He also proposes to Susan AGAIN and she puts him off AGAIN, though her reasons are wearing awfully thin, so thankfully this time, she agrees to marry him!  Yes, in fact, here is a television moment that is different: a wedding begins the episode rather than ending it.  


I'm not entirely sure what Susan's outfit is all about: turban on her head, fur-ringed around the neck.  Dorothy talks during the wedding, telling an uninterested Ray she wishes her other son were there, but "he's in South America, the merchant marines."  Give that about eight seconds to settle in and we're doing 70s stereotyping without apology.  Nick gets off his ship and there is a man resting on the ground with his sombrero over his face.  


Nick sees a fight going on at the wharf, where insanely muscular William Smith almost kills a guy with his bare hands.  They take an instant dislike to each other.  


In high contrast, Peter is on the golf course, the ultimate rich man's enclave.  He's playing with his old pal Tim McIntire, who wants to replace him at the company and is also dating Kim Darby.  Peter tells him Kim is seriously mentally wigged out, but Tim doesn't believe him.


From there, Peter goes to meet the political bigwigs, headed by none other than Van Johnson (wearing a big wig on his head, FYI).  They want Peter to run, but Peter takes the high road: no deals or anything without his knowledge.  Basically, he doesn't want to be in any one's back pocket.  You have to laugh at that sort of naiveté, and I'm sure audiences in 1976 did, as they would elect unknown Jimmy Carter over known quantity Gerald Ford, their first chance to blot the stain of Watergate.  Unctuous Van agrees to the terms, though with a glint in his eye that says, "yeah, whatever."


Nick meets another seagoing reject, Herbert Jefferson Jr.  Herbert is friendly, but Nick tries to keep to himself.  In comes William Smith, who slings every racial epithet at Herbert Jefferson, with whom he refuses to be in the same room.  Nick doesn't say a thing, but finds Herbert Jefferson later to explain that he can't be caught fighting or else someone will recognize him.  


Still going with the fur theme, this time on her peignoir, Susan is very pregnant and very ill-tempered.  She yaps at Peter any chance she gets and though she denies missing her old life, she clearly does.  As Peter is about to leave for the day, Susan starts having horrible pain.  She's lost the baby.  


Waiting outside his home when Peter gets there is nutso Kim Darby, who tells him, "I wish it were her who died," not at all what Peter wants to hear, and she continues shouting through the door when he locks her out.  Alone, he can have his first breakdown of the entire miniseries.  However, he always makes conversation swing back to himself, even with Susan at the hospital where he offers to get out of politics if she doesn't like it, but since he feels he can fix the entire system from within, he wants to keep at it.  She has no choice but to agree.  


At a stopover in the French Riviera, Nick (who kind of speaks a bit of French) and Herbert Jefferson decide to buy a boat in order to give charter tours so they can live there the whole time.  However, the boat costs $15K.  Nick somehow thinks he can get the money and his son and live comfortably there.  


Despite Peter's warning, Tim marries Kim, giving Dorothy and Ray a chance to bitch to each other again.  Even at her wedding, Kim starts in on Peter.  It's at the wedding that Susan gets to meet Van and the rest of the political team.  They have their own ideas about what to do with Susan during the campaign, none of which seem to thrill her.