Stephen King's It (1990)

Alex Haley isn't the only author whose name can help sell a miniseries.  Stephen King, a worldwide favorite, had a slew of miniseries made from his books, though "It" is the best of the lot, appropriately scary and definitely creepy, but with King's unique sense of humor intact.  And an evil clown.  You can't top an evil clown. 

I should add that it makes sense to turn "It" into a miniseries rather than a feature film like so many other King tales because this one has an emotional resonance to it that TV did so well at the time.  All of King's stories have true heart to them somewhere (poor Carrie is a victim of her mother, Annie of her lonely life, etc.), but "It" balances precariously on the fine line between emotional truth and emotional goo.  The latter would have been laughed out of a movie theater, so it's better on TV where it can be PG, meaning gooey and scary as heck, rather than scary as hell. 

You don't need to be told that the story takes place in Maine.  They all do.  In the present, a little girl rides into her backyard as a storm is brewing, hearing the laughter of children and seeing the craziest clown.  Her mother goes to fetch her, only to find out the kid is dead.  Librarian Tim Reid is worried because six kids have gone missing, with varying excuses.  This murder has him spooked.  "It's time to tell the others what's happening," he says to himself. 

The others would be his childhood friends.  There is writer Richard Thomas, married to complaining Olivia Hussey (as far from the Virgin Mary as you can get), unhappy that he is writing a screenplay based on one of his.  Tim calls Richard first and there starts a flashback to 30 years ago.  Younger Richard (Jonathan Brandis, keeping Richard's stutter that appears only when he thinks of this episode), has an annoying little brother he sends out in a rainstorm with a boat made out of newspaper.  The boat goes down the sewer and as the little brother is going to reach for it, the scary clown Pennywise (Tim Curry) appears.  Pennywise taunts the kid with all the fun stuff in the sewer and then bares his fangs and kills the tyke.  Guilty Young Richard goes into his brother's room and a book of pictures flutters and leaks blood.  "I forgot, how could I forget?" Richard says and leaves his wife, with the parting words that his brother was murdered and never told her because he "forgot." 

Next up is drunken John Ritter, complete with a fling of the night in massive shoulder pads.  He's a New York City architect who lives in a gigantic loft, so gigantic it's the size of a borough.  As he's kissing the bimbo, he tells her how fat he was a child, and that's when Tim calls.  Timing, huh?  Tim asks him to return to Maine, and John, who claims to remember "very little," shoos away the bimbo and gulps down a drink.  "You're going to kill yourself," she says.  "No, but it might be better if I did," he snaps and then takes the elevator all the way up to one of his buildings for his flashback.  Young John is new in town, but he's so fat that the cool kids make fun of him.  The main cool kid looks as if he's been held back about 15 years, and he's sent to detention, causing one of the other kids to quip, "it's gonna be a good funeral" to Young John.  And, of course, on his way home, the cool, if noticeably older kids, attack him, but he escapes into a sewage tunnel, where they are distracted by two of the other outcasts, one of them being stuttering Young Richard.  Young John has a lot of problems.  Not only are his new friends all considered nerds, but he's had to move to Maine with his mother because his mother is on the dole, dad having died in Korea.  Back at the creek where he hid out from the old cool kids, he sees a vision of his father, which soon turns into the evil clown, with Tim Curry going all out,.

The only female member of the gang is Annette O'Toole, living as a designer in Chicago with an overbearing business partner and lover, Ryan Michael, who scares the hell out of her.  Since it's 1990, she's designing a collection to be bought by the Japanese.  The Japanese owned everything in in the 80s, remember?  Annette gets her call from Tim while Ryan should be combing his chest hair, but is instead on the hunt for a bottle of champagne.  Annette tries to leave after the call, but Ryan slaps her.  "You've forgotten your lessons," he says, pulling out a strap with which to whip her.  She knocks him out with a bottle of cold cream and threatens to kill him in the best up close melodrama acting she can muster.  In her flashback, she is a nerdy girl with an abusive father who receives a lovely poem from Young John.  He brings her to meet his other new friends and they have fun together at the creek.  Young Annette hears voices of dead kids calling to her from the sink and a balloon pops through and explodes, covering her in blood.  The scene is so chilling because the blood is only in her mind and her father touches the sink, covered in blood he can't see and then keeps touching her.  "You'll die if you try," the clown's voice repeats over and over. 

Meet Dennis Christopher, then and now an asthmatic helpless without his inhaler, and the runt of our goofy gang  As an adult, he lives with a shrieking mother, and as a kid, he and his pals were constantly running into those ever-aging cool kids and getting into trouble.  The nerdy kids have become quite a crowd, smart asses who speak like then current Borscht Belt comedians, but his mother says, "you don't need any friends but your old ma."  She forbids him to shower with the other kids, but the phys ed teacher refuses to let him off from showering.  Alone in the shower, suddenly all the nozzles turn on and start chasing him around the room.  The clown comes out of the drain to taunt him about his weaknesses and then bares those horrible fangs. 

Since it's 1990, Harry Anderson was still a big star and an obvious choice to be in a miniseries (thankfully time would flatten his annoying nonsense crap).  In the present, he's a successful comedian (really playing against type, stretch it, Harry).  Harry's agent isn't happy that Harry has to go back to Maine.  Who will sub for Carson next week like Harry was supposed to do?  "Let Leno do it!" how prophetic.  In the past, he's a red-haired kid with glasses.  As he and his friends are down at the creek, a police officer comes to tell them another child has been killed and they should always be there together, never alone.  Now about 47, the evil cool kids are after him because he dropped food on them at the movies and they go after him in the cafeteria, but he has the last laugh because they slip on mashed potatoes.  The principal sends him to the basement to get a mop to clean up the mess (Annette's father is the janitor).  Down in the bowels of the school, he encounters the clown dressed as a movie monster, giving his usual refrain about teaching the kids to "float."  Young Harry runs back upstairs and announces to the whole school that there's a monster in the basement and all but his friends laugh at him.  They have all seen things too horrible to understand as well.

Tim deserves a flashback too!  His starts in class, where the teacher asks what we've all been asking of the 84-year old cool kid, "how many years will you be in this classroom with me?"  Young Tim likes stories about death, people who vanished, etc.  Of course, being the only black in town (in all of Maine, no doubt, since it's 1960), he's picked on mercilessly.  The nerd brigade is discussing the visions they have had for the first time when he is chased into their presence by the cool kids (walkers not included).  The nerds are wondering what they are seeing.  Is it in their imagination or is it real?  Anyway, Young Tim comes running their way and since they hate the senior cool kids, they help him.  "The fat boy, the Jew and the sissy..." the main cool kid addresses them, including epithets for all of them.  "I have bones to pick with all of you," he tells the nerds, who then pelt him and his friends with rocks.  It turns into a giant melee, with the geeks winning the day.  The main old cool kid is left behind and the seven threaten to "put you in the hospital" before sending him off brave togetherness.  If this weren't Stephen King, it would be almost inspiring.  "You want in," Young Tim is asked?  "We're seven now.  Lucky seven," Young John notes and then they take a picture together.  In one of Tim's books on macabre old stuff, they see pictures of Pennywise the Clown.   "It...It..." Young Richard stutters and then the book comes to live.  It's a few hundred years ago and Pennywise is running through the barely-settled town right to talk to them.  "I'm everything you EVER were afraid of," he yells at the kids.  The kids want to tell someone, but they know no one will listen.  "You grow up, you stop believing," Young Richard notes, before taunting the clown to make an appearance so he can kill him, begging help from his friends, who of course all agree. 

Last of the group is Richard Masur, a happily married adult man in a bow tie who suddenly turns into a bowl of jelly when Tim calls.  The new flashback has all of the kids swearing allegiance to each other by taking a puff from Young Dennis' inhaler and then going into the castle-like entrance to the sewer system.  The 106-year old cool kids spot them and want to know where they are going, but the leader chirps, "they are not coming out."  They follow the nerd brigade, though one of the three is a little frightened.  A lot of weird stuff happens in the sewer, noises and lights.  Young Richard M is grabbed by two of the old cool kids.  "I guess you're the first," they say, pulling out a switchblade.  After way too long, they notice that Young Richard M is gone, just the bullies are cutting the buttons off his shirt.  The weird lights and sounds come blowing into the room and takes away one of the old cool kids, bending him in half and sucking him into a sewer pipe.  And then he's gone.  The lights come back for the main old cool kid, turning his hair shocking white, but Young Richard M is able to get back to his friends, where they join hands against the approaching "it."  The presence hovers over them and then disappears, or so they think.  Suddenly the world's largest sewage system (in Maine, no less), is flooded with a vapor.  Young Richard T tells them they have to be strong and resist.  Each of the kids is taunted by a voice important to them, almost getting them to break the circle, but they remain strong.  Young Richard M is taken by the clown, who says "you always taste better when you are afraid.  I am eternal child, the eater of worlds and children...and you are next," the clown hisses until young Dennis sprays his inhaler at the clown and then Young Annette knocks a hole in his head with a slingshot.  He's sucked down into the bowels of the sewer in one of the cheapest special effects of the decade, trying to take the kids with it.  They aren't sure if he's really dead or not. 

The kids make a pact that if It ever returns, they will all come back.  Young Richard M is at first the only hold-out, but he too swears and they all join arms. 

Back in the present, Richard M's wife finds him in the bathtub, having slit his wrists.  IT is scrawled on the wall in blood.

The second parts starts with Richard T coming back to Maine and going to visit his brother's grave.  There are seven graves dug and the clown pops out from one of them, telling Richard there is a grave for each of them, except the one on the end, already taken.  Richard, sporting the stupidest hairdo in miniseries history (a pony tail, which on him looks utterly ridiculous), goes to the library, where Tim has set up a shrine to his books, since he's the most important author to ever come out of the town (Stephen King does like to scribble instead of masturbate now and then).  Tim takes him to "poor town," where Tim now lives.  "It's clean and better yet, it's paid for," rather pathetic Tim whines. 

Harry arrives in town, zipping past the old movie theater in his convertible where he sees his birth AND DEATH dates on the marquee.  Harry rushes to the library, wher ehe sees the clown and hundreds of balloons, each one popping and drenching a library denizen in blood.  "You're all too old to stop me!" the clown yells at Harry.  Worse of all, he repeats Harry's awful jokes in his scary voice.

Tim and Richard are fooling around in a parking lot with an old bicycle they used to ride and see the clown in a deck of cards. 

Every important John, who hasn't lost a huge amount of weight in 30 years, arrives in town, stopping at the creek just as a fat kid is being tormented by appropriately youthful bullies.  He sees the corpse of one of his bullies by the entrance to the sewer, or at least things he does.  He sees the clown hitchhiking and then a balloon appears in his car telling him "turn back now." 

When Dennis gets back in town, he remembers the pharmacist telling him the medication he's been taking is a placebo, which he thought to be a lie.  The pharmacist is still there, sitting in a back room asking for a cigar.  Dennis tries to thank him, and the pharmacist remembers him.  Or does he?  Suddenly he grabs Dennis and tells him to leave in the clown's horrid voice.  Annette comes back and goes to her old house, where she finds out her father died a few years ago.  The widow who lives there now invites her in and lets Annette "freshen up" (people still did that by 1990?).  Of course it's the sink where the clown had appeared to her.  She sees the widow slurping tea, which is blood and then she turns a vision of her father in drag (uglier than Norman Bates).  That vision turns into the clown, telling her to leave town.  But, all along, she's actually just been standing in the street, because the house is boarded up.  Just her and a balloon. 

The gang gathers for Chinese food, seeing each other for the first time in years.  Annette faints after calling them all "old men" and then kisses everyone.  It's a love-fest, a real one by the way she kisses a few of 'em!  Dennis says he can't remember much about the past, except spraying his inhaler at a clown.  By the way, this gang of six screaming adults talking about a giant clown attracts no attention among the other restaurant patrons.  As if they were "The Big Chill," there is a montage of the gang yucking it up at the Chinese restuarant, drinking and eating without a care in the world.  The conversation turns to the old bully, who was pulled out of the sewer by the police and confessed to killing all the kids, now living in an institution and looking age appropriate (Michael Cole is now playing him).  Just as the gang members are talking about him, the clown appears to him in the institution and asks for his help again to kill the kids. 

Back at the restaurant, they are not all in agreement to pursue what they came for, until they start opening the fortune cookies and blood, bugs and such come out of them.  Their horrified reactions do get noticed by the waitress.  After all that!  They run as fast as they can from the restaurant.  They head the library, where Harry goes into his comedy schtick, none of it funny, as they try to get in touch with Richard M.  When they find out what happend to him, the comedy stops. 

This reminds Richard T to tell us that Richard M, always the non-believer, was the last one to see It.  He had been out birdwatching one afternoon and heard a voice calling him into a house.  He goes and the door locks behind him.  To ward off the mummified figure approaching, he recites the names of all the birds he can recall and that sets him free.  According to Dennis, Richard M was the only one who ever saw It, "what was behind the clown."  They all need a drink, but when they open the mini fridge, balloons come out and Richard M's head taunts them about how awful their lives are, before once again hearing that "they all float down here."  In one of those epic Stephen King moments, the library is attacked: the books fly off the shelves, rain comes pouring down, everything happens, but when the gang members join hands in a circle, it all stops.  Harry pulls out the schtick again to ask everyone to leave.  Why does he have to yell it like a coke-snorting 80s comic when he could just ask politely (hmmmm). 

Meanwhile, It, in the form of one of the dead-no-longer-aging cool kids, begs Michael to help again, giving him a switchblade as a way to escape.  When the guard comes to stop him from leaving, a clown with a dog's head attacks and kills him (or maybe it's just another ghoulish mind trick). 

It's up to Tim to fill the gang members in on what happened.  Stephen King is not a sloppy writer and his book is far tighter than the screenplay here, but there are some revealing details in the expository scenes.  We find out that the murders of children happen every 30 years, that the adults in the town know about it but can't speak of it and that the whole town is nuts.  Tim, being a lover of mass murders, has tracked the murders throughout the years.  "For some reason, there's something very special about us being together...otherwise It would have picked us off one-by-one," Tim says, reminding everyone that as kids they were losers and as adults, they are all financially successful, but none have kids.  They all appreciate that Tim has stayed in town when they didn't.  Awww, that's sweet of them. 

Olivia has decided to track Richard to Maine and stops at a gas station to ask for directions where she encounters the clown. 

Annette fills in another memory, the blood in her bathroom as a child.  All of the other kids see it.  "I fell in love with all of you guys that day...and after we cleaned it up, the blood never game back," she tells them.  As morning is dawning, none of them want to be alone, even keeping their hotel doors open when they need things from their rooms.  Michael shows up in Tim's room and stabs him, though the others don't hear it.  Annette can even recite the poem young John wrote for her and they are making out hot and heavy when John realizes it's the clown he's kissing. 

Finallly, Dennis and John break into Tim's room and pull Michael off Tim, with the switchblade going into Michael.  Tim isn't completely deda, so they all pile into Harry car and speed off to the hospital (nobody trusts an ambulance, I suppose.  Annette and John have a repeat kissing/poem recitation moment, this time for real, after Annette has a mini breakdown.  Dennis catches them smooching and calls them back into the hospital.  Tim is going to live.  Richard tells him the cover story, that they all got drunk, Tim danced on a table and fell.  "Anyone who has seen me dance will know that's a lie," Tim whispers, obviously forgetting his days as Venus Fly Trap on "WKRP."  Tim confides to Richard that he went back to the sewer as an adult to pick up the two rocks Annette had used to crack the clown's skull, and walked out with graying hair.

And what to do with Michael's body?  They realize that if they call the police, the town will not handle it correctly.  Some want to leave and some want to simply ignore it.  Harry turns on the TV to find out there has been a rash of child killings in town, but everyone is in too much of a hurry to leave and he wants to stick around least of all!  On the way out, Richard sees a vision and decides, in an emotion speech to the others about fear, that "I don't want to be scared anymore.  I'm going back in," he tells them and we flash back to his young self begging for help as he had 30 years earlier.  Of course they all join in a group hug.  Group hugs are awfully popular in this movie, strange for a Stephen King novel filmed in 1990, more appropriate for say, "Designing Women?"

They all go to the sewer, armed with Annette's slingshot and the rocks Tim saved.  Harry puts up a fight for a moment, once more making sure we understand he's giving the worst performance in the flick, but he agrees to go in as well.  It turns out the massive sewer has not changed much in 30 years.  Robert finds Olivia's purse and goes running down the hallway after her, alone.  Richard hugs his knees to his chest and starts stuttering, but Annette gives him the verbal equivalent of a slap across the face and brings him back to his senses.  "Stay close together," they agree.  They find their way to the center room where they once battled It, and It is there once again, showing up in the form of the newspaper boat Richard had made for his brother.  The brother is there too, blaming Richard.  "You sent me out and it killed me," he says and Richard starts to collapse again, but his friends urge him to fight the feelings of guilt and fear.  When he openly denies the vision, it disappears. 

A vision of the clown replaces it to tease them all into doubting themselves.  "Maybe we can't fight that thing.  It's like trying to fight smoke," Harry he weakling says, but Richard knows that It wakes up every 30 years to cause mayhem and death and it's time to stop it.  So, he sets the paper boat adrift in the water and they follow it to a door littered with bones.  Dennis picks this moment to tell the group he's a virgin.  He is afraid to sleep with anyone he doesn't love and he's never loved anyone but this gang.  None of them volunteer.  Maybe once they kill It, someone will step up to that plate, but that's something only Mr. King knows. 

They come to a room filled with coccoons and Richard sees Olivia in one.  But, a giant spider bars his access to her.  Time for Annette to do her thing with the slingshot.  "Damn it to hell," Richard says to her, but the first stone misses.  The second stone is a direct hit, but a light emanates from the spider that hypnotizes all of them.  Annette goes to find her first stone and Dennis remembers to use his inhaler, saying he believes in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, but not It.  The giant spider grabs him and Annete gets another chance, hitting it dead center in the light coming from its torso.  It releases Dennis and scampers away, but the damage is done and Dennis dies. 

The remaining four go after the giantn spider and beat at it tearing out it's center, killing it.  They race back to the cocoon room where the cocoons descend and Richard is able to save Olivia. 

Tim puts one last journal entry about It and his mind forgets everything that happened.  Harry goes onto a movie career, John and Annette get married and have a baby, "breaking another curse," while Richard and Olivia have stayed in town for a while since Olivia's mind is gone.  Tim admits they have to ask each other's names now and then, so fully have they erased the memories.  Before leaving, Richard takes Olivia on the bike he had used to help Richard M escape It and rides through town until he mind returns. 

I have to be honest, the end is really anti-climactic, one of those times a visual medium can't compete with the written word.  The gang's attack of the spider is really quick and so easy that one wonders why it couldn't have been done 30 years previously.

But, the three hours leading up to that finale are great fun.  It's nice to see a miniseries delve into the spooky.  No World Wars, not sagas of rich families through ages, no history lesson and definitely no sappy romance.  "Stephen King's It" is it's own piece, standing firmly on the shoulders of veteran TV actors who can make it work, with especially good acting from Tim Curry, who gets to soar into wild overacting on purpose!

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)

I admit it, I've been going through Jane Seymour withdrawal.  It's been weeks since we last caught up with our Muse of the Miniseries.

This time, she's once again ideally cast in a grand spectacle.  By 1982, we probably did not need yet another retelling of Baroness Orczy's splendid "The Scarlet Pimpernel," (with elements of her "Eldorado" added quite seamlessly) but with a cast like this, the material seems fresh and natural.  In the 1990s, it was tried as a Broadway musical and bombed.  It clearly did not need music.  This is a swashbuckling romantic tale and the miniseries setting is the perfect way to tell it.  Three outstanding lead performances launch what could have been merely dressy and rococo into something tense and delightful. 

Sink me, it's the French Revolution and I don't need to tell you that means it's a bad time to have a title, money or fame (unless you are leading the Revolution, but the Revolution had so many Revolutions the leaders kept getting killed).  The movie opens with the guillotine doing its thing, much to the adoration of the crowd, made up of the dirtiest extras of 1982, poor things.  In the prison cell where everyone is being held, one family is lucky as they are being rescued by the infamous Scarlet Pimpernel, a man of many disguises who, with his minions spirits friends out of France to safety in England.  In this particular case, it's in coffins, which are almost checked at on of Paris' gates, but The Pimpernel is too smart to be caught that easily. 

The Scarlet Pimpernel is really Sir Percival Blakeney (an ideally cast Anthony Andrews, who did "Ivanhoe" almost simultaneously), who has to adopt the air of foppish English gentleman in order to keep everyone off his track.  In 2011, we might call his behavior "flaming" or "over the top," but Baroness Orczy was too proper for that.  "Surely he must be an angel in disguise," a friend in Paris, unaware of who he is, tells him.  "Amen," Sir Percival says while taking two hits of snuff. 

Enter Marguerite St. Just (our beloved Jane Seymour), a grand actress who is willing to leave a the stage in the middle of a performance to meet her brother Armand (Malcolm Jamieson), who was in the middle of being severely beaten when Sir Percy rode to the rescue and dispensed with two ruffians with an epee and a few jokes.  Armand, a revolutionary, is in love with a nobleman's daughter, and it was her father who had him beaten.  Sir Percy, immediately infatuated with Marguerite, snags an invitation to a soiree. 

Marguerite's main man is Chauvelin (Ian McKellan), a top revolutionary who goes around arresting aristocrats and "making long noble speeches."  He's pompous, but he's powerful.  Just as he's telling Marguerite about how the Reign of Terror will assure they can get married, Sir Percy arrives, working Chauvelin's outfit from "limp cravat" to cuffs, speaking of nothing but fashion to get him to leave the room.  He's done it on purpose to be alone with Marguerite and tell him how much he adores her.  "I don't know if you're mad..." Marguerite tells him when he asks her to tell him "everything...very very slowly so it will take a very very long time" "or madly in love," he finishes her sentence. 

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the topic of an angry denunciation by Robespierre (Richard Morant) himself, who tells Chauvelin the man needs to be rooted out in order to stop giving hope to the aristocrats that they can be rescued. 

At her soiree, an agent of the Pimpernel's had received a note and Marguerite snatched it before Chauvelin could find it.  It speaks of the Marquis de St. Cyr, the man who had her brother beaten, who is supposedly making plans to smuggle the Dauphin from his Paris prison cell.  It's as she's trying to puzzle it the next day that Sir Percy arrives to take her on a picnic, once again avoiding having to show papers because he shames the guard by not immediately recognizing France's most beautiful actress.  He does romance exceedingly well, bringing with him musicians, fruit, wine and even an aristocrat smuggled in a picnic hamper who escapes while Percy kisses a dazzled Marguerite. 

Chauvelin believes that the Pimpernel must be an Englishman brought up in the French way, so that he can pass between the two cities, on guard in Paris and at ease in London.  Robespierre assigns Chauvelin to be his man in London, and Chauvelin asks to have the former ambassador Count de Tournay (Denis Lil) accompany him.  The Count is a friend of Percy's and very much an anti-revolutionary.  He is not happy about the assignment and is sent to prison for refusing, which Chauvelin hopes will flush out the Pimpernel since de Tournay is at the center of English society in Paris.

"We must maintain our anonymity and mask our identity, even if means suffering the mockery of others, being taken for fools, fops, nitwits, even cowards," Percy tells his friends back in London who want to brag to their "lady friends" of their exploits.  He's brought the news that Louis XVI has been killed and de Tournay has been arrested. 

Chauvelin has discovered all of Percy's love notes and the one she rescued from the fire and he confronts her with it after a performance one night (where she's dressed to kill and dripping in jewels).  He says she should have brought the note to his attention, but she claims to have been confused, not knowing what to do.  Oh, but Chauvelin says he loves her and would never let anything bad happen.  Plus, it's the man who had her brother beaten.  "You can't honestly believe I would have a man and his entire family sent to their deaths out of spite?" she asks.  The argument only gets more heated from there, as he promises to follow her conscience over the republic always.  "Some causes can become some warped, like some men!" she says dramatically.  But, Marguerite is not always the smart cookie and when Chauvelin says Percy is back in London, she reacts so happily that Chauvelin is undone.  He opens the door to leave and Percy is standing there.  "Bonjoor Monsoor," he says and then compliments him on his cravat.  "You've been taking lessons," he jabs.  "Forget Chauvelin, forget every man you've ever known, but me," Percy tells Marguerite when she says Chauvelin scares her.  Then comes a rather unfortunate lapse in writing.  "You are so...elusive," she wonders, asking him if he's an actor too.  "Elusive" is part of the poem circulating about The Pimpernel ("They seek him here/They seek him there/Those Frenchies seek him everywhere/Is he in heaven or is he in hell/That damned elusive Pimpernel").  The conversation about masks and hiding and such is all a bit cloying, but this is high romance.  It can't be avoided.

Dressed to the nines more elaborately than Liberace, has a conversation with Armand where he tells the young revolutionary he must help in rescuing de Tournay.  He admits to Armand, who has never really been 100% given to the cause, that he is The Scarlet Pimpernel.  I bet Armand regrets that crack about Percy not ever having a serious thought in his head.  Armand gets de Tournay to say he'll go to London and take Chauvelin so he can find his sworn enemy. 

The Pimpernel outwits the same idiot guard again by dressing up as a dirty (of course) female wine merchant, by having one of his men pretend he has the plague.  The French guards arrive moments later telling the guard to stop any female wine merchant they can find and a gaggle of soldiers chase after them.  Except the guards are actually members of the Pimpernel gang and two are actually de Tournay's wife and daughter being spirited to safety.  It's all delicious fun.

To say that Chauvelin is upset when he hears Marguerite is going to marry Percy is an understatement.  He thinks she's doing it because Percy is rich.  He then asks her what she wants to do about St. Cyr.  He had promised to do nothing that would betray her confidence, but now he uses it against her.  Failure to turn in an enemy of the republic is considered treason.  Soldiers come to arrest St. Cyr, and the warrant mentions Marguerite St. Just as his accuser. 

Percy and Marguerite are married in a glittering small ceremony, he actually better dressed than she.  Never have two people looked so pretty together, but there are very few brides who would let her beloved outshine her.  Anthony and Jane stare into each other's eyes during the whole ceremony, pulling out all the stops to make this scene as bountifully romantic as possible. 

Since Chauvelin has lost his bargaining chip when de Tournay's family escapes, he now decides he'll follow Marguerite to London where all of society will be at her feet, thus easily finding The Scarlet Pimpernel.  That's one big issue at the wedding party.  The other is that Percy is told St. Cyr and his family have been beheaded, and his wife's name was on the warrant.  "From this moment on, she must never be trusted.  We cannot risk a betrayal," he says, in one of those creaky plot twists that thankfully did not survive the 19th Century.  If he had just asked her what happened, she would have told him the truth!  But, that would rob the story of tension.  Plus, when the truth inevitably comes out, it will be a moment of supreme love, no doubt. 

Percy and his followers have their biggest escapade yet, to rescue the Dauphin.  The poor kid is being kept in prison, taught to refer to his mother as a whore.  "I detect a hint of defiance behind those eyes.  Keep at him, Fouquet, he must be all ours," Robespierre hisses. 

The whole gang is in England, with Armand fully in on the plans to rescue the Dauphin.  Their rescue plan depends on finding even the tiniest change in the boy's routine.  Those matter will have to wait, because foppish Sir Percy has to take Marguerite to The Prince Regent's (Julian Fellowes) garden party.  They are the butt of all gossip: that she married him for his money, that no one else would have him, that they aren't at all happy together.  The Prince is every bit as dandy (gay) as Percy.  At the party, Marguerite is denounced as having had St. Cyr killed, and Percy does not defend her.  "It seems, my dear, you have finally found a way to repay St. Cyr," he says coldly.  Marguerite believes he still loves her, despite the chill that has fallen over his attentions to her.  She confronts him about his behavior in another "behind the mask" speech.  "The man I fell in love with still exists somewhere," she says after he refuses her invitation to share her bed because he has an important appointment in town the next day to have his buckles fixed. 

Letters to Armand are intercepted and given to Chauvelin as the cat and mouse game heats up.  Chauvelin summons him back from England.  Marguerite wants him to stay and begs Percy to help as Armand is to be married.  "What has poor Armand done to be condemned to matrimony," Percy snaps.  Marguerite runs off and Armand confronts Percy.  Armand, who knows the whole situation, tells Percy he can trust Marguerite, that she is not spying, but Percy is too focused on rescuing the Dauphin.  He assures Armand he has not ceased to love her.  "I will love her until the day I die.  That is the tragedy," he sighs before picking up the escape plans once again. 

Chauvelin arrives in England to taunt Marguerite and they verbally spar in some snappy dialogue and then Chauvelin asks her outright to spy for him ("for France," he corrects her) and find The Scarlet Pimpernel.  She refuses, no matter what.  But, Chauvelin has a trump card: the letter to Armand.  He blackmails her by saying, "I will have your brother's head or The Pimpernel's."  This puts Marguerite in rather a tight spot, just the kind of thrilling spot romance novels depend upon. 

Percy has seen Chauvelin talking to Marguerite and tries to find out what she knows, not even trying trickery, just asking her openly.  She lies and says she hasn't seen Chauvelin, which disappoints Percy.  "If anyone will catch The Scarlet Pimpernel, it won't be Chauvelin...he can't even tie his cravat," Percy jokes, but Marguerite is angry.  He tries to get her to confide in him, but she's so burnt by his treatment of her that she can't.  "What's the point?  We don't even speak the same language anymore," she snaps. 

At a ball that evening, Chauvelin has paid off the waiters to spy for him and one of them sees one of the cohorts passing a Pimpernel letter to another cohort.  Percy launches into his Pimpernel poem again and Chauvelin asks Marguerite to dance so he can find out her decision.  She agrees to help, having no choice and he tells her to find out what is in the note.  "How?" she asks.  "I leave that to you ingenuity as a consummate actress," he says snidely.  Percy leaves the room to play a game with the Prince and a giant dance number ensues.

Marguerite leads the gang in a second spirited number, trying to get the letter out of Sir Andrew's cuff, much to the dismay of his fiancee.  Marguerite pretends to start fainting, and Andrew takes her out of the room.  "I only need to close my eyes for a moment," she says and when she does, he pulls out the letter to read it.  As he starts to burn it, she races to grab it and pretends she loves the smell.  She knocks something off the table so she can read the note and then pretends she thinks it's a love note.  Marguerite dutifully reports what she's read of the letter to Chauvelin.  There is to be a meeting in the library at midnight. 

As midnight draws near, the tension escalates.  Chauvelin sweats nervously.  Marguerite is in the library and Percy arrives, telling her not to turn around.  She's there to warn him that Chauvelin knows and tells The Scarlet Pimpernel she's doing this to save her brother.  Percy tells her she's already been responsible for St. Cyr and his family's deaths, and explains how Chauvelin blackmailed her.  "If this is true, you are a very brave woman," Percy tells her, absolutely throbbing with love for her now that he's learned the truth.  "I don't even know who you are," she says, never bothering to even sneak a look.  Another creaky plot twist, I know, but the dialogue is gushing and romantic.  "Touch me, so that I may know you are real," she begs of him as he stands behind her.  He puts his hand on her shoulder and she feels the ring that contains his pimpernel mark.  Does she know?

At midnight, every clock in the house chimes and Chauvelin rushes to the library anxiously, with Percy sending Marguerite out the window.  Andrew and the others know better than to enter the library and Percy pretends to be asleep on a couch.  Chauvelin certainly doesn't suspect him, but he does find one of Marguerite's earrings on the floor and a few lights go off in his nefarious head.  Percy flies off to do his duty, to his yacht at Dover, and when Andrew asks him what he should tell Marguerite, he says, "tell her I love her...more than ever!"  Marguerite catches Chauvelin on his way out the door on his way back to France and tells her he will let Armand live, but only if he catches The Scarlet Pimpernel. 

Jane Seymour has a terrific opportunity to play it up when she figures out her husband is The Pimpernel.  He leaves a note for her in under a picture of himself, some tripe about having to go to the country.  She looks up at the picture and sees the pimpernel crest on his ring, the one she felt on her shoulder.  She whirls around the room and sees pimpernels all over the place.  "The Scarlet Pimpernel...Percy...oh God, what have I done?" she whispers melodramatically. 

In Paris, everyone is bobbing around the plot regarding the Dauphin, everyone trying to get his hands on him.  There's the Austrian Ambassador who wants to collect a ransom, but is also part of The Pimpernel's gang.  There is Armand, not particularly bright and almost giving away the whole plot, and Chauvelin's goons trying to arrest anyone they can.  Chauvelin sends orders to arrest Armand, who is in the arms of his fiancee.  She's clever and pretends she's with a different Monsieur St. Just, one who is more important than Armand.  The goon believes it, but Armand still has to escape via the roof so no one finds him.  When Chauvelin finds out about the St. Just mistake, he's livid and decides to handle it himself, sending spies to Armand's fiance's house, though he's long gone.

As for Percy and his comrades, they finally have their plan to get the Dauphin to safety.  The plot depends on exact timing and care, with any error absolutely fatal.  Armand is told he must stay in England and Percy reminds of his "oath to the league."  "You must learn to trust me my friend," Percy tells Armand, who is worried about his beloved Louise.  Percy promises Louise will be safe in England. 

Marguerite is the one who is going to spoil the whole affair by convincing one of his friends to take her back to France.  Or maybe Armand will do it (these St. Justs are not particularly bright) by slipping out of Percy's chamber and returning to Louise, whose house is being watched.  Percy is awake and knows Armand has escaped, so he must have a plan. 

As for the Dauphin, the moment for escape comes exactly at noon when his servants are changed.  The old ones are sent packing and new ones replace them.  When the new ones go to look in at the boy, they see the back of his head under a blanket.  Percy, in disguise as a half-wit, fools the gate guard AGAIN (the joke is getting a bit stale) and leaves Paris with the Dauphin, only moments before Chauvelin discovers it's a doll in the bed, with the calling card from The Scarlet Pimpernel.  Time is so important, and no one is there in the countryside to meet Percy and the Dauphin.  Percy kills time by revealing himself to the boy as soldiers race out of Paris.  Percy will have to make a dash for it himself.  He's in a heavy cart and soon the soldiers are on his heels, firing a shot into his shoulder.  The cart is destroyed, but Percy and the boy are not with the remains.  They have escaped the hollow of a tree and finally come in contact with Andrew.  He then has to return to Paris to rescue Armand. 

Percy, in all his finery, goes to Louise's house, but of course it's a trap.  Chauvelin is there waiting for him, having already captured Armand.  Percy, slipping back into his fop act, stalls for time in trying to bargain Armand and his life for the Dauphin's and then tries to escape, but is caught.  Marguerite arrives at Chauvelin's office with a letter of clemency from the Prince of Wales.  She demands to see Percy and Chauvelin obliges.  Percy is in the dank horrible prison and Chauvelin gives them two minutes alone (well, not quite alone since he's watching through the door).  There's a giant embrace, swelling music and a big kiss.  "How I prayed you would come!" he says and they both forgive the other.  Chauvelin has agreed to let Percy go if he tells the revolutionaries where the Dauphin is, but Percy refuses.  He suddenly thinks of a plan, gives her the ring and there is a plan.

The details of the plan are complex, with Percy, Marguerite and Chauvelin all trying to outsmart each other on their way to the Dauphin.  Half of Paris seems to be chasing after him.  The other half are those grubby extras.  "Two birds with one stone, the Dauphin and The Scarlet Pimpernel. My seat on the committee is assured due to you primitive noblesse oblige," Chauvelin brags to Percy, his prisoner in a carriage on the way to the fortress where the Dauphin is being held.  Chauvelin arrives to find everyone gone, with only a Friar left to tell Chauvelin that the boy has been taken already to Spain and thence to England ("just as I suspected," sneers Chauvelin, not knowing the boy has been taken to Austria).  Chauvelin begs for Marguerite's life, but she wants to die with him.  He begs her to trust him.  "I shall return to haunt you," he tells Chauvelin and kisses Marguerite before being taken to the courtyard for execution.

Percy is stood before a firing squad and we hear "ready...aim...fire" as Chauvelin almost has an orgasm.  He orders Marguerite and Armand back to Paris for execution.  But, come on, you don't believe Percy really died!  Of course the soldiers are Percy's men and he introduces them to Chauvelin gladly, his own soldiers tied up in a closet.  Percy is confident, but Chauvelin says the only way off the island fortress is through his soldiers standing guard, but out another window, Percy shows Chauvelin his yacht waiting for the league.  Chauvelin grabs a sword and the two battle it out with swords, as expecting in this kind of 18th Century schmaltz-fest.  Marguerite worries over every clash of the blades as the two run around the entire set, cutting candles, jumping over stairs and, in Chauvelin's case,  having that horrid cravat undone by Percy button by button.  Percy is a much better swordsman, of course, but he toys with Chauvelin. Percy wins and volunteers to go back to Paris to fetch Armand's Louise.  Armand begs for the honor and Percy is happy to let him have it so he can go back to England with Marguerite. 

On the boat back across the channel, it's Marguerite's turn to recite the Pimpernel poem.  "Sink me, the lady's a poet," Percy says before they dissolve into the final kiss. 

Romance and chivalry reign supreme and the miniseries nailed every touch that Baroness Orczy so lovingly tucked into her work. 

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981)

Folks, we cannot avoid the Kennedys forever.  The miniseries all but created a subgenre out of them and in 2011, there is a new one (if it ever airs).  I know, I know, Bj, you're saying, you did "Onassis: The Richest Man in the World."  Yes I did.  But, Jackie didn't enter that one until midway through and frankly, Francesca Annis was way out of her league even trying the Jackie whisper.

So we go back to 1981 and "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy" for a smothering and adoring portrait of Jackie Kennedy as delivered by Jaclyn Smith, who can always be counted on to be proper and polite in her acting.  This is also relatively safe territory (remember, Jackie was still alive) because this miniseries is about her childhood, marrying into the Kennedys and the Presidency.  So, none of that money-grubbing Onassis stuff.  This is still the pure Jackie, the nation's darling.  It's gooey loving stuff, perfect for Jackie-philes.  I can't imagine even the Onassis family wouldn't be charmed, that's how sugary sweet it is.

Oh, and I should warn those who expect Jackie's early life to include her most enchanting relatives, Big and Little Edie Beale, they aren't in it.  That's how rosy this story is.

If it's not safe yet to bash Jackie, it's okay to get digs in on her parents.  Black Jack Bouvier (Rod Taylor) is a charming sot who stays out all night and only makes it to Jackie's horse show by accident, having spent the night away from his wife Janet (Claudette Nevins).  "I want a divorce, Jack," Janet says as soon as he shows up at the show, "tired of the debts and the drinking and...the whores!"  The discussion is put on hold as Jackie is thrown from her horse.  She's okay, she's okay.  Breathe, folks.

The parents to get divorced, though they argue over custody of the girls.  Girls, plural, but sister Lee has yet to make any appearance.  Poor Lee, always passed over for Jackie.  While Jackie sits alone on a swing, Black Jack gives her a goodbye speech that even she doesn't believe (and I don't understand). 

We next encounter Jackie as a teenager, now finally played by Jaclyn Smith.  Yes, I said a teenager.  Obviously, they should have gotten a younger actress to take on Jackie at this age, but viewers wanted their Jaclyn as quickly as possible, so get out the teased fright wig with the bows and the saddle shoes, because one of Charlie's Angels is in disguise as a pre-debutante.  She's unhappy that her mother is marrying Uncle Hughie Auchincloss (Donald Moffat).  It's not such a bad life.  She inherits three siblings (at the expense of the one she has) and Hugh is wealthy, whereas Black Jack can't spend money fast enough.  But, best of all, Uncle Hughie has horses, and there's nothing Jackie loved more than horses until she found books late in life (that includes two husbands, a dream job and, by some reports, her kids).  That doesn't mean that Jackie doesn't still love her father.  The rogue takes her shopping and buys her whatever she wants (Lee too, though she doesn't have any lines), but the bills get sent to the Auchincloss household.  Janet decides to send Jacqueline to Miss Porter's School, far away from father.  "I don't mind seeing her that often," she says to Uncle Hugie's logical statement that they will also be far away, "as long as he doesn't see her." 

She prefers to be Jacqueline to her roommate Sue Norton (Julie Johnson), who informs her all students actually work at the school.  She waits tables, though not very well.  She's something of a rebel at school, and when the rules come down on her, she calls Dad to sympathize, one free spirit to another.  "All I can do is speak French and that won't get me a husband."  She wants someone like her father, but he steers her away from that.  "Your Adonis is getting old, I'm afraid," he says, leading her in a direction away from his type. 

After graduating Vassar, she wants to work in publishing, at a newspaper run by Waldrop (Dolph Sweet).  With her hair cut short, Jackie is off to become "The Inquiring Photographer."  Unfortunately, though she's good with pictures, her questions scare off the subjects.  "Noel Coward said..." or "Winston Churchill said..." put off normal Americans. 

Jack Kennedy (James Fransiscus) shows up at a dinner party, the two arriving together by accident.  He is charming and she's engaged!  She is intrigued by this gutsy man who seems to think being President is a fait accompli.  "Oh, you speak French, do you?" noodle-headed Jack asks.  He invites her to lunch to discuss his presidential aspirations over lunch in his office.   "Do you mind being a replacement?" Jackie asks knowing that Papa Joe had originally wanted his older, now deceased son, to have the position.

She sends him a fancy lunch and he asks her on a date, for which she's very excited.  Unfortunately, he brings along a campaign strategist and the two chat all night, leaving Jacqueline to seethe.  "Don't you ever think of anything but politics?" she yells at him when they argue on her doorstep.  "I just like what I do, I guess," he says and Jackie asks him if his "other girls" mind his work ethic.  She's about 10 years too early for that crack, because soon enough those girls will become his work ethic!  But, they kiss and she melts. 

In short order, she has to break up with her fiance and get over to London to cover the coronation.  Don't ask one coronation.  There was only one in the 20th Century that mattered.  On a double-decker bus, she finds people horrified at the money wasted on the coronation.  Jackie then has another problem: their fathers.  Black Jack hates Joe Kennedy because he blames him for losing his money when Joe was head of the SEC, not to mention a host of other sins (some of which Joe probably committed, some of which Black Jack probably committed).  A phone call in Foggy London Town excites Jackie, until she realizes the purpose of Jack's call is to remind her to bring home books on foreign politics she promised to get him.  She has to drag them all the way back and she's not happy.  In the middle of a harangue right there at the airport, he asks her to marry him.  "You sure you're not doing this to get out of paying for the books?" our super sassy soon-to-be Senator's wife asks.  She says yes, and is then told to keep it a secret so his image as an eligible bachelor can be kept, at least for now.

Black Jack is not happy!  He's raging about hating the Kennedys when John shows up to meet the old buzzard.  It start uncomfortably, until Jack Kennedy asks Black Jack to turn on a fight on the TV and they can drink over the fight. 

That was easy.  Now it's time to meet the Kennedy clan, playing football when first encountered.  Joe Kennedy (Stephen Elliott) loves nothing more than competition and they force Jackie to play, in heels and pearls.  After Jackie is knocked to the ground, that's it for her.  Her aversion to sports at Hyannisport would be legendary.  "I'm afraid your family will kill me before I marry into it," she tells Joe Kennedy, who can only think of her class and "ziparoo" in order to boost Jack's career.  Jackie then lets loose with her terms for marrying Jack.  It's a high-energy speech and Joe approves, saying, "you're gonna be a great wife...and more importantly, you're going to be one hell of a First Lady."  Note what's missing in this exchange, the infamous financial bargain apparently struck between them that would appear in Kennedy miniseries.  No, no, this one is still the Camelot-approved version. 

Plans for the wedding turn into a series of stroke-inducing battles between Joe Kennedy and Janet Auchincloss, but done as a comic montage.  Poor Black Jack has to beg a store for a cutaway, his credit long gone at any store.  "That girl, my daughter, is all that is holy to me...a cutaway...I want to prove to that mob who Jacqueline's real father is," he says to the store owner, who agrees.  He's full of bravado for the press, but nervous enough to head straight for the bar. 

Janet insists that Hugh give her away.  "He's earned the right," she says, and tells Jackie how nervous Black Jack is, playing doom-and-gloom by saying he may not even show up.  And of course that's what happened.  Jackie puts off the walk down the aisle as long as possible, but when Black Jack is nowhere to be found, Hugh steps in to walk Jackie down the aisle.  Lee looks.. .oh, wait, sh doesn't seem to be at the wedding anywhere.  The Kennedys are sort of cut in half too, but it's far more obvious to lop off an only sibling.  As the couple pronounces their vows, the hotel manager finds Black Jack passed out on his bed. 

Jackie chooses a gorgeous house for her family, gets pregnant and is then horrified at how it's used by Jack's cronies discussing his political future (feet on the table, cigar ash on the rugs and more).  Jackie as Martha Stewart is appalled.  Political disappointment comes quickly when Jack loses a bid for Vice President.  Old Joe never wanted it for him anyway.  But, Jackie doesn't get to comfort her husband.  That's handled by a political team member who comes barging into the hotel suite.  Jack gets a summons from his father in France, but Jackie says she can't go.  He tells her to stay with her mother.  "I can't play nursemaid and be in politics," Jack yells at her, but it makes no difference.  "You seem to have forgotten one thing, Jack.  When things go wrong and you go running to your family, that's what I am," but it falls on deaf ears. 

While on a yacht with his father discussing politics, Jack gets a wire that the baby was born stillborn.  Husband and wife have no words for each other, but in the car ride home, Jackie, in her big sunglasses, does accept when Jack grabs her hand.  But, the next scene has Jack back at the political game.  Jackie is pregnant again.  At a luncheon for glad handling, Jackie is summoned to a hotel where it's obvious her father is dying.  This miniseries is not exactly subtle.  Good is followed by bad is followed by good is followed by bad.  St. Jackie doesn't even admit to her father she came to see him, but that she has been out shopping, so as not to embarrass him.  She confides in her father she she's afraid like he is, of being watched, of doing the wrong thing, and Black Jack, in Rod Taylor's best Australian accent, tells her, "when you walk into the White House, remember who you are.  Smile.  Chin up.  Eye straight ahead and when you take center stage, create an aura around yourself, maintain a certain influence, with hold a little something, tease a little bit, be mysterious and above all, never let them know what you're thinking."  Her entire career is summed up in that convenient little speech.

Baby Caroline comes out completely healthy.  Jack gives her minute of paternal pride and then it's off to the campaign in a montage that has both Jack and Jackie looking utterly ridiculous.  She's pregnant again, but exceedingly popular, and because she speaks so many languages, she's invaluable.  The clan gathers at Hyannisport to await the election returns.  Jackie has a rather unbelievable speech that when she voted she voted only for him.  Essentially, she didn't vote in any other category so as "not to dilute" the vote for her husband.  That's the sort of pretty speech that can only come from TV writers. 

When they Kennedys move into the White House, she has her first press conference.  Poised and eloquent, she wants to be supportive of her husband and her children.  When a reporter asks her how much she spends on clothes in a year, she snaps, "really, is that the most important question you people have?"  Her press secretary jumps in to say that Jackie will wear only Oleg Cassini, only American-made and will wear her out fits multiple times.  The press has no other questions.  "Pretty dogs," one says, to break the silence.  "What do they eat?" another asks.  "Reporters," she deadpans. 

Now the movie has to stick to paint-by-numbers, which means Jackie complains about the reporters, the condition of the White House, which is almost set on fire when she and Jack insist a fireplace be used that hasn't been used in decades.  Now she has a project, to turn the White House into a cultural show place, "the prettiest home in America," she calls it.  So whitewashed is this piece that Jackie's notorious TV showing of the White House lacks her bumping into the walls and slurred speech. 

Arriving in Paris, the mobs are there calling her name, not his, and of course we can't leave out Jack's famous quip while meeting with DeGaulle that "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris and I have enjoyed it."  Paris goes hog wild for Jackie in a glittering montage.

Unfortunately, after that, Jack insists Jackie go with him to Texas to shore up political support "and show those damn broads what good taste is really like."  Air Force One takes off in slow motion and as it hits the sun, a gunshot goes off and that's all we know of the assassination.

She tells the story of what happened to friendly reporter Theodore White (Will Hunt).  Her monologue is shot in extreme close-up, holding back tears properly, but sticking to the facts.  It's well-delivered by Jaclyn Smith, probably the only time here she's allowed to actually develop a character.  "What do you want me to write, Mrs. Kennedy?" White asks.  She quotes Alan Jay Lerner's lyric from what she mistakenly calls a "musical comedy" (funny though it may be in certain moments, it's musical drama).  "Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot, for once brief shining moment known as Camelot," she coos.  "There will never be another Camelot again," is her final word on the matter and the legend is born. 

Masada (1981)

No offense to the wars or the soldiers who fought in them, but thank goodness we have a war miniseries that is not about World War II or The Civil War.  "Masada" reaches back 2000 years to tell the story of the Jews fighting against Rome.  The outcome is as inevitable as the Confederates and the Japanese getting pulverized in their respective wars, but "Masada" is an inspirational tale.  Gone are the gooey trappings of modern war miniseries (in other words, the backstories that fill time between battles).  Instead, we return to the sword and sandal epics mid-20th Century Hollywood loved to produce.  This one is all about might versus right.  The Romans have the might and the Jews have the right.  To be fair, "Masada" does have two leading characters who are very flawed in the eyes of their own people.  The Roman General actually starts out lenient and trusting of the rebellious Jews, while the leader of said rebellious Jews can be awfully heavy-handed and pompous.  However, that cannot obscure the rah-rah inevitability of the few hundred Jews trying to overcome thousands of Roman soldiers, which makes this an action/war miniseries like all the rest, just with much smaller costumes.

Serious narration gives us bit of history before the action starts.  A camera comes from deep in the Israeli desert to swoop across the remains of the citadel that was once a live fortress.  In fact, modern Israeli soldiers are still sworn in at Masada, with the claim that they are "the most daring and defiant soldier in the world," certainly not an untrue statement.  Part of the ceremony is to recall the 960 Israelis who fought to defend the mountain from at least 10,000 Roman soldiers.  A cascading Jerry Goldsmith score, replete with a Jewish influence and the brass of Broadway, follows the soldiers up to the peak.  "A soldier has to wonder..." the narrator says and that's our cue to turn the clocks back to the year 70 AD.

Jerusalem is being destroyed by the Romans, it's holy Temple burned and pillaged, it's people slaughtered (including one woman pinned against a wall to have her arm chopped off in close-up), but some are fighting back.  Peter Strauss certainly is.  As he and his family formulate an escape plan, he and a Roman soldier, both showing a whole lot of leg, fight until Peter overcomes him.  Peter and his gang escape Jerusalem, going up in fake blue-screen flames that would made DeMille proud.  It's certainly an exciting opening.

Skip ahead three years.  Peter has vowed not to give into the Romans and he's set up camp atop Masada.  They have gotten good at picking off small bands of Roman soldiers, using clever ruses to intercept money and letters.  The latter reveal that the Roman government is going to tax the hell out of Palestine, but the General who has been in charge of the area is leaving, much to the dismay of his soldiers, who have been lagging in the hot desert for years. 

Said General would be Peter O'Toole, giving over his command to Dennis Quilley.  Peter is at his most regal here, playing miniseries dialogue like it's Shakespeare, and not one of the comedies.  As he's dictating a letter, a sad soldier somehow makes it through a legion of soldiers outside his tent door to assassinate him.  He gets him in the leg, but his his men ultimately get him.  Peter gives the troops a rousing speech.  "You stupid bastards.  It's almost over," he tells them to shame them, reminding them of their loyalty to the Emperor.  It's quite a speech, delivered with aplomb, and he wins back the affection of his men by not putting his would-be assassin to death.  "Masada" aired only weeks after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, and was therefore filmed long before, but leaving in this scene had to resonate with people at the time.

Back up on Masada, Peter Strauss decrees that it's time to go down to Hebron, but not everyone agrees.  The elders in the synagogue think eventually the Romans will go away and don't agree, but Peter is pretty convincing.  Not only does he have a big noble speech as well, but he also promises death to those who don't help, always so damn pushy.  The elders wonder why they bother.  "We can remind them that some Jews are free!" he roars dramatically.  He's obviously a good leader, because General Peter dictates a letter to the Emperor on the eve of his leave to say for sure, "the Judean War is over," noting that the band of Zealots of "melted into the population and the taxes have been collected for the first time in seven years.  He doesn't realize Zealot Peter at that very moment is assaulting Hebron, the soldiers caught in a trap and the grain reserves set on fire.  Victory for the Zealots!

This is bad news for General Peter, who orders a cavalry readied so he can ride majestically into Hebron, his face glowing from pounds of eye shadow rather than the sun.  He's not happy with the soldier in charge, who burned every third house without asking questions, thus having made the problem worth.  "Confess it, you just hated to see all that fire put to waste," he clucks at the stupid soldier who has learned absolutely nothing from the whole ado.  He yells, the soldiers yells back, hoping to be relieved of duty.  The only man captured in the whole escapade is Richard Pierson, who laughs at the General even tied upside down for a whole evening. 

Richard is allowed to go free so he can report back to Zealot Peter and ask for a meeting between the two leaders (the Peter leaders, if you will).  "These aren't Britons or Gauls we're fighting...these are grainy bastards without ethics," General Peter tells Dennis, with a world weary attitude that leads one to think he's personally conquered the entire known world.  He's just jealous and pissy, wise to the fact that Zealot Peter has waited until the dead of night to show up for the meeting, when the soldiers cannot see how many men he's brought. 

The meeting between the two men is a lesson in acting styles.  Peter Strauss doesn't really have one and Peter O'Toole invented his own, loud and bombastic, sounding full of grog and ham at all time.  General Peter makes a "statement of fact" that Zealot Peter's band will be killed, no matter how long it takes.  "I'm sick of dead Jews, live Jews, men, women and children and of your miserable and unyielding country," General Peter brays, and Zealot Peter tells him to go already!  No, no, General Peter isn't going anywhere because his pride as an officer of Rome won't let him leave while bandits still wander.  "Give us our due, man, we know how to kill," General Peter says, but Zealot Peter replies with, "prune the orchards and the best trees survive."  Geez, DeMille WOULD be proud: spectacle and atrocious dialogue, just what he always aimed for.  Zealot Peter says rebellions will rise forever and eventually overcome the Romans, an unlikely proposition, to General Peter marks him as "insane."  "I'm not about to argue about insanity with a man who got his commission from Nero," Zealot Peter snaps back.  Good point!  The loopy conversation ends with Zealot Peter spewing about how Masada is impenetrable and his people can hold off the Romans forever with "rocks and boiling water."  He promises that the war will go on as long as his people remember the crushing power of Rome.  Having promised Zealot Peter no harm if he came to talk to him, General Peter of course imprisons him.  Zealot Peter reminds him that he promised on his family name and honor.  "Honor, like patience, has its limits," General Peter says, getting in the last word of a conversation made up entirely of Biblical-sounding phrases that are really just gussied-up schoolyard bully-speak. 

Unfortunately, the two meet up again only moments later, but Zealot Peter is in a cage and General Peter taunts him from outside.  From inside the cage, Zealot Peter is awfully full of bravado, and General Peter keeps egging him on.  He tells the captured man that pretending to be unafraid of death is a Roman trick and he can "smell it a mile away."  Zealot Peter only grumbles that the General is making it hard for him to sleep.  At Peter O'Toole's vocal level, it's making it hard to sleep as far as Damascus, no doubt.  They take a minute to discuss religion.  Apparently one of Zealot Peter's cousins presented him as a Messiah, just like that Nazarene, and all of the confusing Messiah wanna-bes have created deep factions among the Jews.  He then gives the General a pearl of wisdom.  "You want to know how to destroy the Jews?  Leave them in peace. They'll be at each other's throats soon enough.  But, as long as we have an enemy, we are brothers," he says.  Geez, that's optimistic.  Kind of damned either way, eh?

After that conversation, General Peter returns to his hovel, starts drinking and worries that his shadow is getting too thin.  "I was fat when I came here," he says.  So just go already!

What does he do?  He has the guards bring in Zealot Peter so they can go another round.  "What does it take to stop you?" General Peter asks?  He claims he wants peace, and Zealot Peter says he wants freedom and the country back.  The General reminds him for a thousand years, someone has always run it, why not the Romans?  He then offers to bargain.  Zealot Peter wants one tax-free years, the temple rebuilt, a Jewish governor through whom Rome rules (he reminds the General of Herod, but that's actually a really bad example if anyone looks at history), an army of Jews instead of Romans who are "allies instead of enemies."  The deal is that if General Peter pulls the troops to north of Jericho, Zealot Peter will retire to Masada and end all raids.  General Peter agrees.  "It does make perfect sense," he admits. 

The two then sit down to a meal together, prolonging their time together.  Zealot Peter actually trusts General Peter, who thanks him with a drunken quip, "God above, the Oriental mind!"  Thankfully friends, that's the end of the conversation.  Not a great end to the gab-fest, but at least it's over.  They really are doing an imitation of "The Ten Commandments."  Peter Strauss is Charlton Heston, completely unable to act, but good at saying the words to make you think he can.  Peter O'Toole is Yul Brynner, obviously annoyed that these conversations keep occurring, but making the most of them by overacting until someone stops him (not that Peter O'Toole can ever be stopped).

Dennis is not happy that General Peter has let Zealot Peter go, mainly because the tax cannot be paid, but the General says he'll pay the taxes himself, assuming the Emperor will reimburse him.  He tells the soldiers they are pulling back to Jericho, no taxes are to be collected and even the huts of Hebron are to be rebuilt.  But, Dennis thinks this is madness and adds a note to the one General Peter has sent to the Emperor, one with the truth, apparently so juicy that the soldier he trusts with it actually hisses, "noooooooo!" as if he's just discovered that pink ostrich plumes have been discontinued. 

Dennis represents the Roman faction that believes this is all madness and then Zealot Peter has to return to his people and tell them of the deal, where he faces the same raised eyebrows and disbelief.  Can you blame any of them?  Two guys meet in a tent and solve a political crisis together?  History doesn't bear that one out well, now does it? 

Enough with the desert!  Let's have some fun in Rome.  Emperor Vespasian (Timothy West) is watching "Oedipus" with a whole assortment of people, but once it ends, the virgins are dismissed (aka, all the women) for a bawdy pantomime that goes a bit too far in mocking the emperor.

General Peter is welcomed back to Rome by David Warner, who is the only one allowed to speak to him.  Dennis note has arrived first, of course.  David leads him an audience with Vespasian under murky circumstances.  Vespasian doesn't know what Dennis has written, but Senator Nigel Davenport does, wondering aloud why Peter agreed to a truce and the troop pull-back.  Since Peter cannot speak in the room, not being a Senator, Vespasian has to defend him.  That goes well until Nigel tells the Emperor about the whole tax issue, Peter paying them himself.  Senator David Warner tries to help, by speaking like a banker and confusing all present, talking about coins and rates and percentages and such.  It quells that part of the argument.  Nigel is on a tear, and he has a lot of support. 

The Emperor knows he's fed Nigel and his cohorts a load of bunk and Peter is forced to defend himself.  He says the concessions are a small price to pay for peace.  The Emperor agrees, but politically, he cannot agree to the demands.  He insists that the rebels be brought to Rome and threatens that if he is forced from power and if he has to kill himself like the past few Emperors, Peter is going with him.  Oh, and Peter should know that Dennis is a spy.  Oh, and Peter is now Consul General of Judea.  Oh, and...wait...did Timothy West just say what I thought he said?  Let me rewind, hold on.  YES!  He did.  Wait'll you hear this corker! 

"It's hard to recognize you without a drink in your hand," he dryly notes to Peter O'Toole. 

Oh, now really!  That's too easy a shot.  We're talking about Peter O'Toole the actor and not his character, I assume.  The once-great actor has been reduced to a bad Roman wig and having to spend time shooting on location with Peter Strauss, does the picture really need to ground him any further into the dirt?  Then again, it's hard not to laugh at that jab.  O'Toole probably would have if he weren't too drunk.

Peter and Timothy wander around the room in circles while everyone else stands mute.  Timothy and Peter once had a dream of peace, but he's powerless to do anything about it in Judea because of the politics in Rome.  His own position is perilous. 

Back in Judea, the soldiers are restless and Dennis isn't doing a great job of  keeping them happy.  They are bored and unpaid, looking for land instead of money, which appeals to him because he'll get to keep the money.  The wily villain has a whole scheme concocted to steal piles of money while blaming the Jews.  To him, it seems ideal, but his second-in-command does not agree, especially since they can't give the soldiers land that doesn't even belong to them.

So, they simply take it, killing everyone in sight except for Barbara Carrera, an Egyptian hussy who sets her sights on the tribune and seduces him.  The soldiers take everything in sight.  Some of the displaced Jews are saucy enough to fight back verbally, for they have seen it all before, but the end result is the same: they are forced off their land and livelihood.  The only place for them to go is up to Masada, where they inform Zealot Peter that the truce has been broken by the land seizure.  Peter is in no mood to receive the same holy men who have consistently resisted his attempts at banding together and tells them that though they think they cannot be separated from their holy books, they better be prepared to work and fight. 

"We have Vespasian's answer, now let's give him ours," Zealot Peter tells his cohorts to bring the first part to a dramatic close (and to cue that twinkly music from the title credits again).

The rag-tag Jews are fighting back.  They are taking more Jews and all of the food and such up to Masada while poisoning the water, killing the Romans.  "Well, it seems to be localized," and increasingly idiotic Dennis Quilley says.  Before he and his cohort can formulate a plan, Governor General Peter O'Toole returns, with Anthony Quayle in tow, one or Rome's best soldiers.  Peter's servants redecorate the tent as he chews out Dennis big time, but also ordering all legions to "move on Masada."  While on the march, Peter notices "Jewish harlot" Barbara Carrera, mistress of the tribune, and finds her "rather stylish."  She plays Jewish about as convincingly as she played Native American as the unforgettable Clay Basket in "Centennial," which is not very convincingly, but she does make attractive window dressing in a story that really has no place for women. 

Incidentally, have you been asking how the Jews got all of their supplies up Masada, a rock with no easy way up?  It's a mountain that literally pops out of the land, straight up.  When we see a cow on pulleys, we have our answer.  It's not easy work, that's for sure.  Atop the mountain, Zealot Peter Strauss is proud of the work his people are doing in a montage that has him helping the farmers, the knife carvers, the guy with the sheep, pretty much everyone because he's that knowledgeable and talented. 

Work has to stop when the Roman army is spotted, so Zealot Peter orders the catapults brought and the stones readied.  As the two sides prepare, a bunch of nomads gather at the base of Masada, purely commercial agents who aim to supply the Romans with whatever bounty they can afford (prostitutes, don't you know).  Zealot Peter says he wishes sometimes he had that life, no worries about having to ever fight.

Zealot Peter than gathers the people and gives the pre-war speech.  He says the Romans can't survive the summer without supply lines of water, that the Roman catapults cannot reach up the steep mountain.  "Where they march is where we want them to be," he says, touching each child's head as he passes, all but sticking campaign buttons on everyone. 

The Romans do exactly what he predicted: they gather at the base of the mountain and look imposing with their horses and uniforms and masses of men on horses.  They are placed in positions of might.  "Impressive," says Consul General Peter.  "Impossible," notes Anthony Quayle.  "Exactly, that's why I brought you," Peter retorts.  The flags and trumpets are sent to the front of the line to dazzle the Jews, who react by tossing manure over the mountain.  Anthony says not to bother shooting rocks up the mountain because they can only be used as weapons back against them. 

Our two Peters argue by shouting up and down the mountain.  It's that easy to hear each other?  Thousands of soldiers and horses, wind, rock and all, and they just have to shout to be heard?  "Formalities are over.  Let's get to work," General Peter says.  The Romans build their own fortresses surrounding the mountain.  They manage to get a few men up a neighboring mountain to report on what they see, which isn't much, just a few children playing.  General Peter finally gets his revenge on Dennis and tribune Clive Francis by sending them on a suicide mission up the mountain for recon.  Before the tribune goes up the mountain, he wills Barbara to General Peter.  "Long live..." Clive starts to say, but Peter stops him.  "It's not necessary," he barks.  Zealot Peter orders the men to "test their marksmanship" and kill the two, who fall off the mountain in slow motion, from which Peter merely turns his head dramatically.

General Peter goes to look through the spoils of the two he's just had killed, meaning Barbara.  She's a sassy dame, asking to be let go, but knowing she's more valuable staying with the powerful man.  "Then I can be expected to be sent for?" she coos?  "You can be expected to be alive tomorrow morning," is all Peter will promise.  Sagacious Anthony tells Peter they have to build a ramp of rock up the mountain.  "It's a terrifying amount of work," they agree, as if they are putting lumps of sugar in their tea since the servants have the day off.  General Peter does ritual sacrifices to the Gods that involve blood, goat liver and shirtless boys. 

Completely bored extras dressed as Roman soldiers (they can't even summon up the energy to hoot properly at the end of a Peter O'Toole speech) start to haul rocks and build that blasted ramp up Masada.  Anthony Quayle is also something of an engineer, with all sorts of tools to make it go better.  I bet he wishes they had some Hebrew slave labor about now.  They built all those grand Egyptian monuments and never had to be paid!  Then again, they didn't have the opportunity to watch "The Ten Commandments."  Up atop Masada, Zealot Peter chirps, "I like to watch them work," rather than be frightened their ramp might actually work.  When General Peter allows the men to stop working and go buy goods from the nomads, the Jews pelt them with stones from above.  The rain of the stones does a lot of damage, to the men, to the horses and to the building operation, but General Peter has time to stop and ask Barbara how she feels about it all.  If she's getting paid per scene, she needs a whole lot more to do.

The Jews celebrate, but General Peter has a good point: why did they attack so early in the process?  They wasted an awful lot of stones.  However, he insists that the ramp project continue.  He issues all sorts of commands and then retires to his chambers, tired and thirsty.

Then comes the second great dig at one of Hollywood's most impressive drunks, but this time HE himself says it!  General Peter's servant silently brings him a cup of wine.  "Is the need so obvious you can see it in my face?" he asks his servant.  I'll answer that one: not exactly, rather what CAN be seen in his face is years devoted to the stuff.  This was before Peter O'Toole turned yellow, but after he started to look 20 years older than he was.

Back atop Masada, Zealot Peter is having a crisis of faith, for about the fifth time.  He claims to have stopped believing in God, and his poor wife only exists to play the foil in these conversations.  She asks him why he fights so hard if he doesn't believe, since the whole purpose of fighting is to preserve their monotheism against the Romans.  What he does believe for sure is that "no man should be another man's slave."  Then he unexpectedly shows up to pray in the synagogue, a place he has consistently avoided except to force the elders to work.  He's even invited to lead the congregation in a psalm.  He reads from the Torah, right to left appropriately, though in English.  Hey, the elders will take what they can get, I suppose.  Reading from the Torah, even in English.  Oh, DeMille would have a full erection watching this, especially when the voices become voiceovers to the Romans conscripting any humans they can find into forced labor.  I guess NOW they finally watched "The Ten Commandments."  It does not please the Jews on Masada to see slave labor brought in, especially since most of it is Jewish slave labor, the people who refused to join them on Masada.  That's a dirty trick, because now it means Jews will have to kill Jews if they attempt another rock raid. 

Anthony gives the Romans a speech about how to handle slave labor.  He believes in a strict eight-hour workday, followed by a day off, because after all, "these are soft, city types."  Apparently he thinks he's raided Paris and taken all the artists from the Left Bank.  Moreover, they are to be fed and watered on the job.  And, slaves to best when they see a reward in sight.  "Finally, whipping.  Now, we must expect to love five men a day from whipping...overwhipping is worse than no whipping because if the death rate is too high, we won't have enough men left," he says to the astonished crowed.  "Treat 'em decently and they'll do very nicely," he summarizes.  It's a terrific speech that would have gone over so well in the Antebellum South (though they wouldn't have bought a word of his bunk), but sounds utterly ridiculous and humane coming from a Roman general. 

A bath is brought to Barbara's quarters and filled with water, a precious substance forbidden to the soldiers because of its high salt content.  "Compliments of the Governor General," the pissy soldiers snap on their way out.  General Peter's mute slave pulls out the master's dead wife's death mask and then comes ANOTHER line about his drinking (Peter's, not the General's I suspect).  "I didn't drink this much even when I was in the field and knew I was coming back to her," he groans.  As if Peter O'Toole remembers why he drank on most nights?  "And I cannot keep drinking this way now!" he says, actually refusing another cup of wine.  That is the character, not Peter.  Peter O'Toole never said no to a topping off.  His dead wife speaks to him and then Barbara shows up in his tent.  Gulping down his wine, he lays it out plainly: he wants her as his mistress.  He has human needs.  "I hope I can make it reasonably pleasant for you," he says and she disrobes.  He explodes at that!  Apparently he wants more than just sex.  He wants "civility."  It turns into an argument, but eventually, he apologizes.  "From time to time, it would be important for me to have someone to whom I could talk to freely," he says, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because he's just lambasted her for being Jewish, but she's not THAT Jewish, I suppose.  Essentially, we're giving her something to do and trying to humanize him a little.  What is their first civil conversation about?  His dead wife and her suicide when she found out she had throat cancer.  Talk about a scene in desperate need of editing. 

There's trouble up on Masada.  The archers want to file a volley, but the elders will not let them because the slaves are fellow Jews.  Zealot Peter agrees with the elders.  He says they will only use two weapons: intelligence and the sun.  As they fill a water hole gleefully, the Romans on the next mountain can see, which doesn't help morale since water for the Romans and their slaves has been rationed.  The Jews start swimming in their abundant water, which can be heard down below.  That one hurts! 

Back in the time killing part of the story, Babs and General Peter are in bed, with silk sheets, where Babs is bubbling over with the events of her life.  It's not very interesting.  Was she a virgin on her wedding night?  Did she want to kill her arranged marriage husband? 

Another Roman animal sacrifice, more shirtless boys, more eyeliner on General Peter, and the soldiers ain't buying it anymore.  This time, the extras are told to barely react, which we know they do particularly well.  The kids on the mountain just laugh at laugh at the sacrifices.  Anthony comes up with another engineering marvel, this one approaching the engineering know-how of a suspension bridge, and General Peter goes for it.  The Romans and the slaves are barely alive, but they build this thingamajig.  Unfortunately, as good as the work is going, Anthony admits to General Peter that there is envy among the men because Peter is keeping Barbara.  She certainly looks well fed and wined.  Hell, the men are playing dice games to win water rations, but up on the mountain, there's a ton of water for laundry.  Zealot Peter decides right at noon to let the dirty laundry water cascade off the mountain.  To make it worse, Zealot Peter yells from the mountain that he wants to share it with their Roman "strangers," who aren't strangers anymore because they have all been watching so closely.  Okay, that would be fun, but then he has to go and ruin it by telling the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and then gets just plain long winded.  He uses the power of suggestion to try to turn the Romans against their commanders and on it goes.  Another DeMille moment, full of pomp, meaning absolutely zilch.  He compares General Peter to a monkey and asks if the soldiers will follow the "monkey up this hill on a pile of your rotting corpses?" 

Not only can the two Peters talk to each other, they can see each other easily, so once Zealot Peter is done, General Peter raises his fist to him and Zealot Peter bows his head mockingly.  General Peter goes into his tent and rails at Barbara that it's all so wasteful, when all he wants is peace.  But, a plan is formulating in his head because he knows Zealot Peter knows the Jews cannot survive up on that mountain forever.  "Vespasian's monkey!" he toasts to end the second portion.

Somehow, the Romans continue building Anthony's contraption.  The wind is picking up and a soldier suggests perhaps it means rain.  "It could be cantaloupes from Egypt too, but it's not," wise Anthony reminds him.  The Jews know a storm is coming, but the Romans of some legions are sent off to the nomads for "recreation."  That means a bunch of women wildly gyrating their hips.  Mutiny is on the lips of some men, while whores on on the lips of the others.  Peter and Barbara wander around and he buys her a necklace, which offends her because she's made to feel like a hooker when truly they are in love, or getting there. 

Zealot Peter and his cohorts, dressed as ninjas, repel down the mountain to feed the goats something that strange that will affect the way the sacrifices of the Roman priests will occur.  They do it and make it back up the mountain, but whatever they did remains unexplained.  Instead, we have ANOTHER bed scene with the general and his harlot that brings the movie to a dead halt.  Stick to the damn battle.  That's where the tension is.  A ridiculous love plot is completely without merit. 

So, what's been tossed down the goats' throats?  Live maggots.  The priests say that's happened only once before, at the death of Pompey the Great.  General Peter decides to give everyone a morning's rest so he can figure out how to fight the omen, which the priest tells him means the General has to run through the camp naked.  But, if he pays a huge amount of money, a priest will do it for him.  Peter doesn't believe the omen; he knows the Jews managed it at night.  "Oh, don't sulk like an underpaid streetwalker," he tells a confused Anthony, "I need you too much.  Without you, I feel outnumbered."  I'm not sure how the first part of that sentence has anything to do with the second part, but I'm going blame the heat and general frustration of the Romans on their inability to make any sense at this point (or the writers, who are clearly stretching a three-hour story into six and change).  The Jews watch in hilarity as priests run naked around the camp. 

As the Romans soldiers are planning mutiny, a gigantic wind storm of DeMille proportions tears apart their camp.  The buildings collapse.  The animals run wild and General Peter protects Barbara.  In the morning, the whole camp is in disarray.  However, the work must continue.  The mutiny is discovered and they must face trial.  Notably, one among the accused is the man who had earlier tried to kill the General Consul.  The punishment is to circumcise the men and send them into the desert with no rations.  That's gonna hurt. 

Purim arrives and the sound of merriment on Masada is just another reason for the Romans to be miserable. And it gets worse!  Unctuous David Warner shows up from Rome.  He says he's there to make sure that the schedule is still on time, but Anthony knows David has only self-interest motivating him.  However, General Peter is philosophical: what could be worse than this assignment?  David's visit couldn't come at a worse time.  Rations are being cut while work detail is increased and a series of mishaps get written down by his persnickety secretary. 

An easy solution for the gang on Masada would be to pick off the slaves with skilled archers, but Zealot Peter still refuses.  Now the men on Masada are beginning to doubt his leadership. 

As Romans are dying from thirst, Anthony is summoned to David's tent.  They start by trading insults in the best dialogue yet, but David gets to the point: is the big contraption going to be ready on time?  Anthony guarantees the tower and ramp will be done on time, as promised, "if I have to carry the dirt on my own back," Anthony says, though of course David has his doubts, toady that he is to an Emperor who needs all finished on time politically.  He sends a missive to the Emperor that the soldiers are no longer of any value to to the empire and gets in the FOURTH did at Peter O'Toole directly.  He's not sure what to say about the General, fearing blaming him outright will be politically dangerous.  He tells his secretary to write, "something about the drinking, perhaps."  Ah, the double entendre alcoholic lines never get old!

Anthony comes up with a way shave weeks off the project when he is hit in the neck by an arrow from Masada.  That's a setback, and now David has to start his letter to the Emperor all over again!  Before Anthony dies, he tells of his brilliant new plan, down to the hour of the attack due to the angle of the sun.  General Peter says all will continue as per the plan, but David puts his foot down.  In his capacity of Legate, he has the power of the Emperor, he relieves Peter of his command.  Peter gives him his necklace of Consul General and David orders fresh attack orders for the next day.  He's lacking the understanding General Peter had of his enemy and acts only for political expediency. 

Now it's David's turn to yell up to Masada (as General Peter makes plans to take Barbara home--"everyone should see Rome," he tells her) and fills the catapults with old Jews instead of rocks!  Zealot Peter is in a very difficult position here.  "It means they're losing and they know it," he tells his friends, who are looking to him for a decision.  The Jews on the mountain are horrified when David follows through with his threat and catapults old men against the mountain to sure death.  The third victim is to be Richard's father.  David just gets meaner and meaner!  He does it well, and that's why he won an Emmy for this, no doubt. 

Zealot Peter storms into the synagogue to have a conversation with God.  "Is this what you want?  They've done nothing wrong.  They're afraid of you and they love you...what more can you make them suffer?...If you are here, Jehovah of Sinai, TALK TO ME.  TALK TO ME or kill me," he rails as he clutches the Torah and cries.  He tells his wife he has to surrender to stop the Jew catapult routine. 

General Peter can't take it anymore and rushes from his tent to try to wrestle back control and it works.  The soldiers remain loyal to him and David only has his few German bodyguards, oh, and his fey fat secretary.  The worm leaves the white cylinder of Legate power for Peter.  Barbara is overwhelmed with joy. 

Now that the folks on the mountain have seen the catapults being pulled away, the elders change their tune.  They tell Zealot Peter they will fight, the first time they have done so.  Since he went into the synagogue and prayed himself, and since God has apparently listened, they feel "God has sanctioned your leadership" and everyone on Masada is behind him.  This makes for a hopeful end to the third part of the story. 

General Peter has an arrow shot up to Masada asking for a midnight rendezvous.  Those around him think he's insane, but those of us who have been watching since the beginning know these conversations are inevitable, not to mention long.  It starts with General Peter apologizing for the human catapult business.  Then he has to apologize for the broken treaty.  Zealot Peter throws it all back in his face, but General Peter yells louder, and more honest, saying that there is no way for the Jews to win.  Zealot Peter invokes the name of God as often as General Peter invokes the name of Rome as the ultimate being and ally.  "The odds are not five to one, and the bazaar is closed," Zealot Peter says, referring to their last meeting where they negotiated like marketplace buyer and seller. 

Barbara realizes that all hope is lost for he Jews once General Peter tells her Zealot Peter "has been favored with a religious conversion."  When religion played no part in what he was doing, when it was simply politics, he had an understandably spark in him.  Religion turns the situation into one where spiritual belief replaces reality and that will ultimately give Rome the upper hand. 

General Peter has decided that work on the ramp must be doubled, working day and night, and he even does the drudge work himself.  He is an inspiration to his men, who find it in them to work harder and the ramp and tower are built at terrifying speed to those who watch.  Up on Masada, the Jews finally arm themselves with breastplates, swords and shields.  The Jewish leaders inform the population on Roman tactics and how to beat them. 

The name of the Lord is Zealot Peter's explanation to his son as to why they will win.  They won't win this battle against the Romans, but they will win in the long run because God has promised them the land and every enemy who has taken it from them is no better than the dust he lets slip through his finger.  But, in the long run, Rome will be vanquished too.  The Jews then turn their fear into anger the Jewish slaves and they scream at them to fight back, which of course they can't do. 

It's Barbara's turn to let loose with a big loud speech.  It's rather unimportant because her character is so silly, but basically she says she admires the Zealots and that since Peter has never asked her what she wanted, he's assumed she's happy being a slave to him.  "I hate him.  I hate them all," she says of her fellow Jews, "because without them, I wouldn't be here," referring to the way they treated her when she first arrived in Judea.  "Then why hate me?" Peter asks.  "Because without you they wouldn't be here," believing in a hopeless cause.  The worst things the Romans have done is "force the rest of us to learn the truth about ourselves," she says.  He's assumed all along that she wants to return to Rome with him, but she replies that she's never had a choice.

Mercifully, this conversation ends when it is announced that the ramp is finished.  Hopefully it also means an end to the goat slaughters, shirtless boys and braying priests.  The the ramp finished, the tower is wheeled to it.  DeMille would have loved this too.  It makes for an imposing set piece, even though up close it looks like it's made of papier mache. 

The Jews all congregate outside to hear a sermon and pray together.  Service over, it's time to get ready for battle.  The men are arranged in battle formations and the women fill huge pots with water to boil.  They are all very excited until they see the tower the Romans have built for the first time.  Zealot Peter is told to think of something fast to tell everyone and to make it sound like Moses or everyone will lose hope.  His idea is to build an "inner wall that will absorb the blows" from the battering ram, but he's not so sure himself, because he mutters a bit old "damn you" under his breath. 

Everything is in place below the mountain.  The tower is moved into place and the soldiers are ready to climb it with ladders.  The music swirls and the tension mounts.  This is what we've been waiting for.  It's taken a few hours too of rhetoric too long, but now we have our exciting battle scene.  The Jewish archers are powerless against the metal tower and right before the battering ram starts smashing against the wall, General Peter sends a mind-to-mind message to Zealot Peter to surrender.  Of course he doesn't hear it and the battering ram does the trick, smashing through the wall, but only the first wall.  The second wall is impenetrable to the battering, so the Romans set fire to the wall, which means the water will have to be used to douse the fire.  But, the Romans are too close and can pick off Jews one by one with arrows. 

Both sides stop to see which way the wind will blow.  If it turns toward the tower, the tower will burn and be damaged, except for the iron plates.  So, General Peter sounds the retreat.  "We'll take it in the morning," he says.  The elders praise Zealot Peter for his faith, but he also knows the wind will shift back in their direction, destroying their walls. 

General Peter gives Barbara her freedom, hoping she'll choose to accompany him to Rome because he loves her.  He's hoping she'll stay.  "Do you love me?"  "Yes, of course," she says in a whisper and leaves his tent. 

The wind changes again after Zealot Peter and his wife tell their son the story of their meeting to waste some time.  He calls together his core people and asks each one, "what is possible?"  Everyone has an answer, but no matter what, "we will become Roman trinkets," he says.  He says even the worst of the Jews don't deserve the treatment the Romans will heap on them.  "I say we shouldn't insult the Roman flesh by letting them touch it while we live," he states gravely.  He's talking of mass suicide, Jonestown style.  I don't remember seeing vats of Kool-Aid, but I guess Zealot Peter has a plan.  Everyone agrees, but they worry about telling the whole Masada population.  So calm is Peter that he asks one of his men if he's had time to make love to his gal.  The answer is yes.

In order to tell everyone else what has to be done, Zealot Peter asks the butcher to explain how to kill without pain.  It's not making sense to anyone, and it gets worse because Peter works himself into a speechifying lather that sounds like random words sewn together, but delivered with enough gravitas that it sounds important.  Classic DeMille, yet again.  "There is only one way to stand before God and say 'I am free.  I have always been free,'" he tells them, reminding them that the Romans have never made good on a promise to not turn Jews into slaves after winning a battle.  It's a heavy bit of brainwashing, but apparently effective.  The women do their part for the cause by dressing in their finest and donning make-up.  "This is how I want them to find me," Mrs. Zealot Peter says.  The soldiers remove their armor and everyone agrees to the plan.  Then there is a hugging montage as everyone says their silent goodbyes. 

The holy books are placed in a secret chamber and then the knives come out.  Zealot Peter approaches his wife and son with a knife, all resigned to their fate. 

In the morning, the Romans are rested and ready.  Barbara has fled, as was her choice, but left behind the necklace he gave her.  General Peter tells the soldiers he wants Zealot Peter taken alive (oops, too late) and remember, "do your best!"  If that were the motto of the Roman empire, they wouldn't have gotten very far, now would they?  The Romans stream onto Masada, to "no sounds of any fighting."  General Peter goes up to Masada himself and finds nothing but quiet and emptiness.  Oh, and nearly 1000 dead bodies.  Naturally, General Peter wants some time alone once he finds his arch-enemy/best friend's body.  "I made a novice's mistake.  I overestimated you," he says.  "What in the name of common sense does something like this prove?" he wonders aloud.  "I would never have let this happen to you," is part of his speech, but does he really believe it?  Does he really think he could have saved them from slavery? 

"We have won a rock in the middle of a wasteland on the shore of a poisoned sea," General Peter expounds wearily as the Romans stake their claim. 

Back in the present, the Israeli flag flies over Masada as the army holds its induction ceremony there.  There is a sign promising that Masada will never be overtaken. 

Theoretically, the story of the Masada chapter in history is a fascinating one and the last section of this movie is quite thrilling, full of not only spectacle, but ethical and moral questions, characters with flaws and tough decisions to make.  Unfortunately, it takes over five hours of long speeches and lazy days to get there.