Based on the works of Ray Bradbury, "The Martian Chronicles" may well be the most idiotic miniseries ever aired on American television. It's not the tackiest (that would be "Lace," which is great fun), it's not the most boring (that would be...oh, hell, there's way too much competition to pick just one), but maybe, just maybe, the dumbest. Bradbury was a master of science fiction, but this is just hokey as hell, bearing little resemblance to what he envisioned as our world and that of Mars in the future. Don't let me hang us up on introductions, let's just dive in.
Things are laughable from the onset. We start in July 1976, when the first spacecraft lands on Mars. The thing is so obviously a toy parked on dirt that I'm surprised one can't see the wires attached. "Mankind waited. Intense expectation for the answer to the question that had puzzled him [sic] for centuries. Is there life on Mars?" the narrator asks. He describes how most people on Earth are "non-believers," saying that it's possible that we have looked at Mars and just not seen anything, also noting that Martians would have thought the same thing of us if they landed a spacecraft "in the Sahara desert." Well, although I suppose that's true, it's not the most scientific argument.
"However, if the spacecraft had landed only a few miles on, things might have been different," we're told as the camera pans out to show more toys doubling as models, this time as Martian habitation. Wait, so we can send a spacecraft to Mars, but we can't get it to see anything more than a foot in front of its face? That doesn't say much for NASA, does it?
Part One: The Expeditions
Now it's 1999 and it's time for the "first manned expedition to Mars." Stock footage and more models show the launch of a rocket, unmanned, sent in preparation. The dozen people who seem to make up mission control seem fairly happy. Reporters are assembled so Colonel Rock Hudson can answer questions about the impending manned mission. Actually, he manages to avoid any real answers, tossing someone else to them and going into mission control to look at pictures and invite one the main men to brunch (don't laugh, his wife plans to be there). Actually going on the mission are Richard Oldfield and Richard Heffer. They hop into the module without their helmets or much gear, so I suppose by the fictional 1999 of this story, astronauts no longer need all that junk. There is no scientific explanation as to why not. Let's just chalk it up to a small budget.
The manned module is launched with no problem. It meets the rocket in space, a rocket which is completely immobile as the module attaches to it, looking way more sexual than it should.
Let's meet the Martians. James Faulkner is "Mr. K," "sitting in his room listening to his book." Wow, Martians are so advanced they have Books on Tape, which actually seems to be a gold-plated fan manipulated by James in gold nail polish. A few feet away, Maggie Wright is tossing and turning during sleep, seeing visions of the approaching astronauts, her fingers twitching. James notices this and hikes up his muumuu to go over and find out what is happening. She relays the dream to James, who does not believe there can be men on Earth "because there is too much oxygen for life to be sustained." Their science program is apparently no better than ours.
The module disconnects from the rocket (why did it need the rocket if it's perfectly mobile on its own?). The astronauts, still without helmets, announce their last transmission to headquarters. Oh, that's not good. You mean, there was no way NASA could use better communication devices. Maggie's visions of the astronauts also looks sexual, and when she relays it to James, she notes that the astronaut finds her "beautiful." The quality of vanity is equal on Mars! James thinks the dream is real, that they are about to have Earthlings invade the planet.
The astronauts joke with Rock that they won't start any wars, "which are more likely on Earth," but let's note that they don't have any weapons and there are only two of them, not to mention the fact that still no one believes there is life on Mars.
A pissy James, who is doing something with a stick over a vat of dry ice that looks like he's toasting a marshmallow, is not happy that Maggie wants to go out that night. He forbids it, the argument sounding like a man who knows his wife is having an affair. He is the one going out, with the intention to kill the men who are coming from Earth because he fears the men. He puts on a "mask of conflict," basically a metallic gas mask, and commands Maggie to "stay here!" and out he goes into the barren landscape while Maggie stays home, bubbling over with desire to know what's going on. We hear the module door open, shots fired and Maggie's fingers twitch all over. So much for a peaceful Mars-Earth first contact. She's definitely not happy that James has killed the men.
Let's pause to note that when we next see the model module and toy men dead in it, they are still not wearing any protective gear. The air quality really is so similar on both planets that the astronauts did not even need masks? Who knew?
Rock can't get in touch with the astronauts, so no one has any idea if they are dead or alive. He argues with General Robert Beatty, who isn't sold on second expedition to Mars to find out what happened. He refuses to let Rock go because he's "too valuable." Rock promises Bernie Casey he can go on the next expedition, should there be one. Bernie wants to go in one sentence, but in the next, he says there shouldn't even be a second, yet still wants to go. Yes, it's as confusing to hear it as it is to read that last sentence. "You know there's always a risk of losing lives on such an expedition," Rock says without any trace of emotion. "Sure, I know that," Bernie says, afraid of colonizing Mars if there are Martians living there. Rock doubts there is any life on Mars
Of course there is a second expedition, this one in 2000, landing with wildly overwritten dialogue for the narrator. The three astronauts aboard (neither Rock nor Bernie among them) wear nothing but polyester army suits (nope, no masks). "God in hell," the first one says. "I'll be damned," the second one says as they look at what appears to be a typical small American town. They see a house, a church and trees and grass. There is discussion that it can't be real because the first astronauts did not say anything about seeing what these guys are seeing. Well, they probably landed in a different space. After all, didn't the narrator tell us in the beginning that the Martians would have thought there was no life if they landed in the Sahara? If they had landed in small-town America, it would all be different. Thus, why isn't it possible that the astronauts have landed in small-town Mars? One astronaut thinks it looks just like his home town, causing another to ruminate that maybe every planet in the solar system has evolved in parallel. Well, if that were true, wouldn't we know about it? They would have the same ability to communicate that we do, so someone would have noticed the others!
They decide to walk into town and investigate. "It looks as though an entire town was transported from Earth. There's only one way this could have happened. It has to be that space travel began before the first world war," chirps one of them. Run that by me again? Why is that the only way this could have happened? What does World War I have to do with anything. "No, that's just not possible," one of the others says dismissively. "What other explanation is there?" the one who came up with the idea asks. I could think of about 15 without working at it too hard, but not so here. A pre-WWI scientific experiment it must be.
The three are Nicholas Hammond, Vadim Glowna and Michael Anderson. Nicholas decides to head to one of the houses, where a typical-enough housewife asks what they are selling, since they have randomly come to her door. "Where is this?" Nicholas asks. "Green Bluff, Illinois, 1979," she says. "Are you census takers, is that why you are in uniform?" she asks of them. Census takers? Anyway, Nicholas decides it's best since she speaks clear English to talk to her very loudly and slowly, saying they are from Earth, but she just notes this is Illinois and closes the door on them.
Going on the theory that this is still a very old scientific experiment, the thought is that people who colonized Mars simply make a replica of what they knew. But, Nicholas is suspicious, because Green Bluff, IL is where he grew up. That changes things a little bit, so they decide everyone must be under some sort of hypnosis. "That has to be it!" It does? Nicholas then spots a man he knows, his brother who died many years ago! How can he be alive? "Don't fight it...we're alive again, no questions asked," his brother says. That's a convenient way of ducking the question of what the hell is going on. Michael's grandmother shows up (he never lived in Green Bluff, so why is she there?). Even Vadim's Aunt Thelma pops around, and he's British!
The men go off with their dead relatives, overjoyed to be seeing these people again (and not particularly worried about separating). Nicholas finds his beloved mother playing the piano. "You're home now," she says.
"At mission control, the fate of the second mission is in doubt. There's been no communication from Mars from over 12 hours," we are told. At least someone is worried about them!
Back on Mars, Nicholas has a typical home-cooked meal and then dances to records with his mother. When he says he has to go back to the ship for a minute (oh, yeah, right, the ship), his family tells him not to leave or he'll miss the surprise due to arrive . Smart enough to be a NASA astronaut, but too dumb to figure out that something is seriously wrong with what he's experiencing, he listens to them. The surprise is his old girlfriend, who had been sent away to school by her parents because he was "from the wrong side of the tracks," despite living in what seems to be a very comfortable middle class home. They talk as if they were still teenagers, about standing up to her father and being together and all that crap. They even make out under the old tree in the front yard before he goes back inside to his old bedroom, which he shares with his brother. Still not wondering what's going on, Nicholas?
"I was just thinking," Nicolas says in his pajamas to his brother, who cuts him off there and laughs, "thinking is bad for you." 'tis true. The writers certainly can't be accused of it. He continues the thought that may be this really isn't Illinois, these people are not his friends and family. "Suppose there were Martians and they saw a rocket ship landing and had no defense against its weapons," the brother wonders, "supposed they used the only real defense they had...telepathy!" He goes on to explain that perhaps the Martians have locked into memories. "Would there be any other way to divide and overcome invaders?" he asks. That's as dim an explanation as the pre-World War I science experiment. Even if the Martians didn't have a single gun on their planet, by sheer force of number, wouldn't they be able to overcome three polyester-wearing astronauts who haven't shown the smallest evidence of their own weaponry? No, apparently not. "The Martian Chronicles" can only think of one explanation at any given point, so this must be it! "You couldn't disguise the air!" Nicholas says, suddenly having an attack of some sort. "The chocolate pudding was drugged. Of course you only thought it was chocolate pudding," his brother tells him. Now there you go! The Martians do have weapons! "Your death will be painless, Captain." There is some claptrap about how the Martians have seen the destruction on Earth and cannot allow that to happen, so they must "murder out of fear...forgive us," he says, now in Martian muumuu clothing as Nicholas dies.
The entire Nicholas episode hasn't made a lick of sense, but what comes next is even more far-fetched! The narrator tells us that the Martians are actually burying the three dead astronauts, "still under the influence" of the memories. Ah, so the Martians can't control these memories? Some of them can? Nicholas' fake brother and family could, but not Granny and not Aunt Thelma and the people digging the holes in the ground? Not even the pastor who presides over the funeral of the flag-draped coffins. Thankfully, we're told, the Martians lose those pesky memories as "nightmares fade into a new dawn."
Back on Earth in 2001, it's the night before the third expedition to Mars, this one being led by Rock himself. Hey, if the Martians don't swoon for his old-style Hollywood glamour, they must be a completely helpless race. He's will be joined by Darren McGavin (who, along with Rock, is at least 15 years too old for a fast car, let alone a rocket ship), who tells a worried wife that he doesn't mind going to Mars because "soon you'll all be making the same trip." Bernie is going along this time, defending the trip to Rock's wife Gayle Hunnicut, and so are John Cassady and Peter Marinker.
Staring up at a full moon, Gayle sits outside on her extremely well-appointed deck, afraid for Rock's safety. He's not the least bit nervous and he's the one blasting off. This sort of sad wife scene is a regular in the adventure miniseries as the brave husband goes off to an uncertain future. "We're not going to fail this time. I promise you. This time we're gonna make it," Rock assures her.
It's cold when the men reach Mars, lighting an electric fire (where does that plug into?) and looking at a cityscape they assume is deserted (oh, and no helmets, FYI). There are arguments about whether the Martians are alive or not and what fate might await them. "If Mars is ever colonized, a man could make a fortune here," Darren notes as the guys chuckle over cups of coffee. Bernie returns to the ship, having scoped out the planet, to tell everyone that some of the cities are deserted for centuries, but in one city, everyone died at most ten days ago. In one out of every five cities he went to, the bodies were new. "As far as I can figure, they died of chicken pox," he says. He has come to this conclusion without so much as a vial of blood drawn, without touching a corpse, nothing. They all have no trouble believing their fellow astronauts must have brought the chicken pox with them and decimated the Martian population. "As far as the Martians are concerned, this planet is finished," Bernie surmises. That should be enough of this illogical conversation, but Bernie continues, wondering aloud that this is akin to the "Greeks dying of mumps...the Roman empire dying of athlete's foot." There's a new take on history!
John Cassady, the feisty one of the bunch, decides the only solution is to get drunk and regale the boys with ribald stories and even a harmonica recital. This kind of uncouth behavior for sure means he's a goner. Anyone who drinks and talks of sex is destined to die by the rules of the American miniseries (at least in its early years). Even worse, John starts dropping wine bottles into a nearby river, so Bernie clocks him and knocks him into the river. Bernie's explanation for doing this? "I was ashamed." "Do you begrudge them some release?" Rock asks him, but Bernie, even the moralist, feels guilty about having killed Martians by bringing a disease to a planet without realizing it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (who in this movie are pretty stupid, so that's a bad comparison) to see this as a parallel to how the Europeans destroyed the Americas with new diseases. If this were later in the decade, we might throw in the AIDS epidemic too as another parallel. "If there are any Martians left, they are going to grow to hate us," Bernie says after a looooooong winding argument with Rock that reads like an apologetic history lesson. "No, you're wrong. No hatred here. They were a graceful, philosophical people. They wouldn't mind us here any more than they would mind children playing on their lawn, knowing, understanding children for what they are. Looking at all this, we all know we're not so marvelous and we are children. We're LEARN from Mars," Rock says, summoning up all of his command of acting to make that drivel sound almost believable (if you come from the camp that said Rock could not act, then just laugh along with it).
The team decides to explore one of the abandoned cities, with his really just a series of papier mache three dimensional geometric pieces. "Who were they, I wonder. Who were their kings?" Rock asks, for some reason not wondering about their queens. Bernie runs off on his own, but no one knows why.
When we next see Bernie, his killing John (thankfully, the guy was damn annoying) and saying, "I'm the last Martian." He tells the rest he's been living in a Martian city for the time he's been away, reading their literature and studying their culture. "Then one day a Martian appeared to me and said, 'give me your boots' and then he said 'give my your uniform' and I did. I offered him my weapon, but he said he had his own," Bernie relates in a monotone fashion that is a sign of some sort of possession. Bernie kills the two remaining non-stars in the mission and then walks back to the city. Of course it wasn't Bernie, but a clever Martian-brainwashed version of him. Only Rock and Darren are left to wonder what happened (they were conveniently absent when Bernie came to kill everyone--whatcha doin' in the spaceship, boys?).
Rock and Darren go off in search of Bernie, who shoots at them with his Martian weapon (didn't we hear previously that the Martians didn't have weapons?). It's going to be a fight between our polyester pals to see who can survive. Bernie offers a truce, putting down his weapon, but Darren cautions against it, especially when Bernie insists only Rock meet him. "Don't do it!" he clucks like a schoolteacher who has just caught a student trying to flush a frog down a toilet. Bernie explains to Rock that he fears for what people will do to the Martian planet, considering how they have screwed up their own. Yes, Bernie, we get it: Earth dwellers suck and have been killing each other senselessly for thousands of years. He feels he has to kill Rock and Darren to avoid another expedition, but if they do come, he will meet every single one as long as he's alive to kill every single astronaut who approaches to spare the planet. There are two problems I see what that plan. First, Bernie can't live forever and second, if he kills men for just walking off a rocket ship, is he any better than the Earth dwellers who kill so easily? He's the man with the message, but unfortunately hasn't thought it through particularly well. Another preachy argument ensues, but Bernie asks Rock to follow him for a half an hour to see how the Martians live, and Rock actually does it!
"The secret to Mars is that they discovered the secret of cooperating with nature. That the reason for living is simply life itself, nothing more than that: the enjoyment of pure being," Bernie explains, no doubt getting props from environmentalists. Rock cuts through the discourse of life, art, science by asking how they can also kill. Oh, well, that would be because they have to defend themselves. Whose side are we on? I've lost track. This scene is a complete smack in the face to the lack of humanity back on Earth. In 1980, this would have resonated. It still resonates, but the writing is too damn awful to draw much sympathy.
Completely undermining his own argument, Bernie asks Rock to go back to Earth with his message, but if no one believes him, Rock can just tell everyone Bernie went crazy. I think that will be perfectly obvious.
Rock and Darren have a gun battle with a Martian and kill him, only to tear off his mask to find it's Bernie. "Only then did [Rock's character] fully realize what was going to happen. Men would come to the new frontier. They would come because they were afraid or unafraid, because they were happy or unhappy, they would come with small dream or large dreams or no dreams at all, but they would come. And then what would happen to Mars?" the narrator informs us. Couldn't that incredibly complex few sentences, which are merely a bunch of contradictions, have been best summed as "we will be coming."
That's the end of the first episode. Frankly, my voice is hoarse from laughing. I can't wait for what comes next.
Part Two: The Settlers
Now it's 2004. It's time to colonize Mars. General Robert Beatty is interviewed by a reporter as a way to catch us up on the last three years (not the most clever way of doing it, but what would you expect by now?). The General is convinced no life is left on Mars, the Martians done in by that nasty chicken pox epidemic. A gigantic swarm of dildos...I mean rockets, goes to Mars to start building. In charge of the whole planet is our old pal Colonel Rock Hudson. The narrator tells us that those who went to Mars have turned it into a replica of Earth (and this time, not a secret, like that pesky theory about pre-WWI hush-hush stuff). The places where the first two expeditions landed are named after dead astronauts. Rock has a mountain named after him, another astronaut a creek, another, well, you get the picture.
By 2006, Wolfgang Reichmann is one of the people who has come in search "of the unattainable." With wife Maria Schell in tow, he has built a beautiful home, but there is "only one thing missing." He misses fallen relative Michael Anderson. In bed one night, Wolfgang hears whistling and, despite a giant storm, goes to find out what it is. There's a man outside and both Wolfgang and Maria recognize the figure as Michael! Maria runs away in terror, but Wolfgang tells him that if he's cold, he'll leave the door unlocked and Michael can come in. Stupidity runs in this family.
The next morning, Wolfgang hopes Michael is there, and he is, making breakfast as if he never disappeared. Wolfgang is shocked to find his son alive, but through Martian mind tricks, he had done something to Maria as she slept so that she's not at all surprised by his presence. So the mind tricks don't work on Dad, just Mom? "There's something about you. You are [Michael's character's name], but yet you are not," Wolfgang notes. Very good! Wolfgang may just earn a D in Miniseries Stupidity, where everyone else here is flunking en masse.
There are two types of people who can always be found whenever new colonies are formed: missionaries and hookers. The missionaries apparently get there first. Father Roddy McDowell and Father Fritz Weaver are there on a "quest for God himself." Just off the spaceship, both kneel and Father Fritz prays. "How did you like space travel?" Rock asks them, the most natural question one can ask in this situation.
Father Fritz asks about a rumor he heard, that a man up in the hills broke his legs, but was healed by a blue light. "There is no scientific evidence of the light," Rock tells them, as if science has ever stopped anyone here from theorizing. The priests are anxious to find out about this Martian phenomenon, but when Rock tells them there is no native life left on Mars, they will have to settle for the transported people who need religion. However, Rock confides his last conversation with Bernie to the priests, the one where Bernie said there were "a few" Martians still left. "I've been wondering about it ever since," he says, not that he's done anything to actually pursue it. He's too busy swapping one polyester pant suit for another. He does indeed believe there are some Martians left somewhere.
Rock takes the Padres to an archaeological site, but Father Fritz is upset that the abandoned monuments are being taken apart, because the warning Bernie issued to Rock is rattling around in his head. Father Fritz decides they will walk back to town, over the objections of prissy Father Roddy. They leave the main road and Father Roddy issues nothing but complaints as they traipse around rocks in their sandals. "We'll be all right. God is everywhere," is Father Fritz's answer to Father Roddy's protestations that they are lost. Are we sure God is interested in Mars? His attentions certainly seemed to wander when he was in charge of just Earth! Father Fritz is obsessed with meeting Martians, while Father Roddy just wants to convert humans. Just in time to cut their senseless chatter short, three orbs of light appear.
"We come with God!" Father Fritz says to them, but apparently they are not interested, because they disappear as quickly as they appeared. He yells after them, but all this does is cause an avalanche. The orbs return to save the priests from falling rocks and then go away again. "It's proof that they have souls," Father Fritz says, because he believes the orbs made a conscious decision to protect them, but Father Roddy thinks this is bunk. He would rather save the miners and laborers Rock had mentioned. Yeah, of course he would.
Not only does Rock have to send out a search party for the priests, but his more pressing problem is immigration. Rabble has been coming to Mars and that's not party of his idyllic plan for the planet. But, too many people want to leave Earth because of its problems.
Back in the mountains, Father Fritz is visited again by the three blue lights. One light picks him up and deposits him at the base of the mountain. "You save me. You wouldn't let me die...You know! You understand!" he tells them, before ruining the moment by vowing to build a mission right there, "but instead of a cross, a blue sphere, the Martian Christ. We will live with you and we will help you discover God." Spoken like a true one-track-mind missionary. The orb speaks. "We are the old ones," he is told. "Once we had bodies...then we learned to free ourselves. We have lived in the winds and skies since then...How we came to be has been forgotten...we have put away the weaknesses of the body and live in the grace of that whom you call God," it continues, before listing a few of the seven deadly sins that they claim never to have committed. The orb thanks him for the offer of a church, but they aren't in need of one since their very selves are churches, but they do tell him to build one for people. As if science fiction lunacy weren't enough, now we're adding religion to the mess of "The Martian Chronicles." Anyway, when Father Fritz wakes up Father Roddy, the latter is awfully confused by what he's told. He has the perplexed look of...of...well, anyone watching "The Martian Chronicles."
Here's another question I have to pose: why are their clouds on Mars just like there are on Earth? Could no one cut them out of the film?
Michael shows up again at Wolfgang's. "Are you going to ask me who I am?" he asks Wolfgang, who says no. Why not? I want to know! At dinner, Maria suggests they all go into town, but Michael says he's afraid of the city, and their plastic-utensil dinner turns into an argument. Maria will hear no refusal, they are going! "Stay close father, I don't want to get caught," Michael tells Wolfgang. They go into a town that looks like 1976, not 2006. There is absolutely no attempt made by the creators here to even guess at what 2006 might look like. Bell bottoms, satin shirts, the whole deal. Michael is freaked out by the crowds and disappears. Luckily, Wolfgang encounters Rock and asks him for help, until Rock figures out he's asking about a dead astronaut. By that time, Wolfgang has scampered off.
In what looks like an old bookmobile turned into a church-on-wheels, Father Fritz has no parishioners. Perhaps if he used seats with backs instead cubes, people would want to show up and pray. Suddenly, he seems blood dripping into the holy water and the hands of a man who has been crucified. The man is...yes, the man is Jesus (a very handsome Jon Finch). The crown of thorns, the flowing locks, all of it. Okay, you guessed it. He's not really Jesus, just a Martian manifestation, a new bodily form of that being that had been Wolfgang's son a few minutes ago. "Release me!" he begs of Father Fritz, who believed the orbs, but doesn't believe this isn't Jesus. "Beneath all of this, I'm another being!" he insists. "If you force me into this guise much longer, I will do. It's more than I can hold," Martian Jesus yells, explaining to Father Fritz that he's forced into this bodily being because Father Fritz is such a believer in Christ. Father Fritz simply turns around, tells the being to go and he's gone. So why all the yelling and screaming? All it took was a denial from Father Fritz and it's done. Hell, the apostles denied him three times in the same amount of time.
Just at the right moment, Rock shows up to get the full explanation from Father Fritz. "He can look like anyone they have in mind. Anyone," he dramatically says, telling him that it's the people in town who unconsciously demand that this Martian take a human form. Wolfgang is looking for Michael and a friend tells him a dead woman has been spotted, so this poor Martian is being made to take form after form after form. He finds the Martian, now a woman, and she can't change back into Michael, even though Wolfgang pleads that Maria will die if her son disappears again. He promises the Martian, "we'll never come into town again," and the Martian morphs back into Michael. Everyone starts chasing the Martian, because they all want to believe the various forms he has taken and a weird montage ensues where the Martian keeps alternating forms as everyone grabs for him. Just as it's getting good (this is the best scene in the movie so far), the Martian gasps for air and dies. Oh, swell. They have killed another one! But, it does mean Rock has proof there are still Martian alive.
When Rock arrives home, wife Gayle asks, "have you heard the news from home? There's going to be a war." Since Rock can't possible act well enough to show what's going on in his mind, the narrator needs to explain it to us. He decides to return to Earth to bring his family to safety. Gayle says the family should just come on the next shuttle. "Don't you understand? There won't be any more shuttles!" Rock snaps, without explaining why. "Then we'll be cut off isolated," Gayle winds, her sweater so tight you can see through her bra. Well, yes, Gayle, but you do have an entire planet and lots of people there. It's not the worst place to be with the Earth dwellers do each other in. Rock gets in touch with his brother to find out the President has siphoned all money for space into the defense budget and the colony is cut off, which prompts Rock to pick that very moment to admit they don't know very much about Mars and may not be able to sustain their lives. Wait, no one knew that before? Rock and company have been lying to everyone?
In a desperate state, Rock hightails it to the local burger joint, which is run by Darren McGavin in a rhinestone cowboy outfit, complete with fringe. Rock also gets to meet Darren's wife, Joyce Van Patten, wearing even more fringe. Rock lowers the boom that the colony may be doomed because no one else will be coming, that travel from Earth has been cut off. "You stay here at your own risk, but if you change your mind, be in town tomorrow," Rock tells them and rides off. I would say this was the most useless scene in the movie so far, but there have been so many worthy candidates for that honor, that it's merely one of the more amusing diversions.
As Joyce and Darren are worrying if Rock is right, a Martian shows up, wearing regulation muumuu, but also a big V mask to cover his face. He has something for Darren, who panics and shoots the Martian instead of taking the offered item. It turns out it was only a message. "We better go get the shovel," Darren says. Darren spends the next scene justifying his actions to Joyce until she sees a bunch of "sand ships" making their way to the restaurant. Darren can't believe what they are, because "I bought the last one...at an auction!"
The sand ships are just what they sound like, ships that use wind to guide them, masts and all. Darren's car is broken, so their only hope of escape is in the sand ship he bought. The three Martian sand ships chase them, as a pace only slightly faster than an injured elephant could manage. The wide shots show them to be toys pulled by string, really bad models. Darren pulls out a gun and shoots the Martians in one ship, killing them, but there are still two others with plastic figurines in them. The Martians board Darren's sand ship, but not to kill him, but rather to give him the deed to over half the planet. "We need you now. Prepare. Tonight is the night," the Martian tells Darren and Joyce before going off in his sand ship.
Joyce finds Earth on her telescope, which looks like an x-ray machine and while Darren is looking at it, it suddenly goes red and a mushroom cloud bursts open. The Cold War fascination with nuclear war has come to pass. "It looks like it's gonna be an off season," Joyce giggles to Darren, having gone completely bonkers. The second parts ends on this note, an odd one of comic relief given that the Earth has just launched a nuclear war.
Part Three: The Martians
It's now November 2006. "The Earth is dead, but are there people still alive?" the narrator asks. Rock is about to find out, since he's piloted a rocket ship back to his home planet in search of his brother. At mission control, it's deserted. Not even a dead body to be found. Rock is able to press a button labeled "Memory" to watch his brother and everyone else disappear when the war happened. Since when does nuclear war make bodies disappear? Maimed and twisted, limbs lost, all of that, but full-on disappearance? They never taught us that as we all hid under our desks in those endless school drills.
"The town is dead," our increasingly kill-joy-like narrator tells us of the colony on Mars. Everyone seems to have disappeared, except Christopher Connelly, who plays kick the can and pitches pennies to amuse his lonely self. Where did everyone go? Why is Mars abandoned too? Christopher hears a phone and runs to answer it, but no one is there. His guess is that "a pole blew down somewhere, activated the circuit and you rang all by yourself, didn't you?" That's up there with the pre-World War I secret space travel theory. After he walks away, the phone rings again in a different place. He breaks into a house to answer it, but he's too late. Christopher decides to call every number in the phone book, in order, to find out who might still be there. Rattling off the names one-by-one, he gets a "no reply" screen from every number until Gladys Livingston, who seems to be the only person on Mars with an answering machine. "I would be glad to leave a message," Christopher yells into the phone, "GO TO HELL!"
Christopher assumes the only person left on Mars must be a woman, though he has no concrete proof of why he thinks that, and guesses that the woman must be at a beauty salon, so he calls them. Wait! How sexist is that? If she's the only woman left on Mars, what would she be doing at a beauty salon? Why be beautiful? But, it works! He dials all of the beauty salons and Bernadette Peters picks up at one of them. Excited, Christopher gets in his travel thingamajig, a weird little airborne motorcycle, to fetch Bernadette.
The narrator tells us that there are actually a few people left on Mars, who didn't go leave with "the exodus," although he neglects to tell us why there was an exodus or where the people went. Lousy friggin' narrator! Barry Morse is also alive, using his telescope to find any sign of life and therefore potential rescue. His wife and daughter have remained with him and one night, he spots a ship in space, assuming it's coming for him and they will be saved. His not-very-helpful wife sits near his telescope and knits as he frantically tries to make contact with the ship. Alas, despite the colorful light show of lasers he beams up at the ship, no one responds.
Christopher shows up at the beauty salon to find va-va-va-voom Bernadette decked out in jewels, make-up and a fresh hairdo. She won't shake his hand because "my nails are wet." What does he do first? Asks her out on a date. No discussion of survival, no mutual worry that they are the last people on Mars, just a date. She agrees. He dons a sequined red coat with ruffled shirt and she wears a form-fitting satin dress with a fur stole. They go to a restaurant, but of course it's deserted. I thought the Darren-Joyce scenes were grating in their comic flippancy, but this scene tops them all. Bernadette asks for a drink and Christopher puts some extra alcohol in it. Um, she's kind of a sure thing no matter what, because you are the last man around!
Bernadette is hysterically self-absorbed, insisting on sitting near mirrors. "Does my hair look all right? I had such a time trying to give myself a permanent and then trying to style it. Ugh!," she says, focused only on the mirror and ignoring Christopher. She then criticizes the drink he's made and she wants food. Lucky Christopher. He's met the only single woman still on the planet and she's a self-entered nitwit. The entire tone of the miniseries has gone from non-sensical science fiction to completely inane comedy, which is not the least bit helpful or interesting. While Christopher cooks in the kitchen, Bernadette reapplies her make-up a few times and stays focused on herself. She's still doing it when dinner is served. "I just can't eat that much. I have to watch my figure," she chirps, talking of how her beauty regime has been interrupted. "That's the trouble with living on Mars. The latest fashions don't get here soon enough," she bleats, hating the cut of her dress. Christopher reminds here there was a war on Earth, but she can't be bothered with that as she plucks her eyebrows. Why didn't she leave Mars with everyone else? "They wouldn't let me take all my clothes," she replies, much to Christopher's stupefaction. He has a better excuse, being in the mountains alone when the evacuation occurred. Finally, Christopher has enough of her ridiculous self-absorption and ends the dinner, saying he's tired and wants "to go to bed now."
On the way to her house, Bernadette rattles on about her wardrobe, make-up, shoes and everything she's been able to get for free, but Christopher just wants to get her into bed. At the door, she sends him off, telling him they should have brunch the next day so he can start fixing all of the broken appliances. She won't allow him in, but gives him a list of things to buy in order to complete those repairs. The narrator informs us that Christopher was "fairly disenchanted" and "vows never to return." Fairly disenchanted? There's one woman left on earth and he can't have her! I would say he's more than "fairly disenchanted." Furthermore, he flies in his little machine over 10,000 miles to put Bernadette out of his mind, "but still he can find no peace." Where did he get the fuel to fly 10,000 miles? Just asking.
Barry has had no more luck saving his family. "Don't worry...haven't you go everything you want right here?" his wife asks. His wife and special needs daughter (I kid you not, they have actually given him a special needs daughter) are as oblivious to their lonely state as Bernadette, playing endless hands of gin rummy as Barry paces. He spots another rocket and does that laser show thing again, and this time the ship lands.
Who is on the ship? Rock Hudson, of course, and, for some reason, Father Roddy McDowell. Rock recognizes Barry, but has to deliver the bad news that they can't go back to Earth, but he invites his whole family to stay with him. For the second time in five minutes, Barry almost collapses, which is miniseries lingo for "he's a goner."
Rock is puzzled when he meets Barry's family. When Barry goes into the kitchen for drinks, Rock confides in Roddy that the wife and daughter seem to be frozen in time. He was at their wedding and no one has aged. He says the daughter should be much older and comments on how young Barry's wife looks. Rock sneaks out to poke around the buildings on Barry's property, finding two graves...for Barry's wife and daughter! Getting Roddy alone again, Rock tells Roddy of his discovery, that the wife and daughter have been dead for seven years.
Barry gives a teary toast to his family and visitors, only to suffer a massive heart attack. He begs Rock not to tell the fake wife and daughter they are not real and then promptly dies. The wife and daughter don't react at all emotionally. "How do you feel?" Rock asks, and the wife says, "he didn't want us to cry. He didn't teach us how." The fake wife and daughter actually know they are fake, but since they don't have any sad emotions programmed in, they go on with their chores. As Rock and Roddy leave, Roddy gets all philosophical, saying they should leave the fake wife and daughter because they don't know anything but the life they are leading and should be left alone to lead it. Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night, buddy.
After Rock and Roddy leave, Christopher shows up at Barry's home, where the wife is knitting and the daughter is playing a game. He is welcomed by mother and daughter warmly. They are programmed to make people happy, so now they have a purpose again. "You have come to the right place...precisely!" the fake wife says with a large smile. That neatly wraps up Christopher's story, albeit in a nonsensical hokey manner.
Also left on Mars is Darren McGavin, still sporting his cowboy outfit, though minus the rhinestones and the toupee. He tells Rock that Joyce had taken to her bed the night of the nuclear war and hasn't been up since. But, he has supplies enough to make coffee. Darren shows Rock the deed the Martians gave him. Rock is flabbergasted that there might still be Martians alive and he wants to talk to them. Darren doesn't advice chasing them. "They look weird," he says, like a four-year old boy. Since Darren shot at one of the Martians, Rock is upset because "all I've ever wanted is to see a Martian, to talk to one," and Darren's behavior has probably chased them away.
Rock has a brilliant thought (without taking the time to think of it): what is the Martians knew that Earth was going to destroy itself and they gave Darren the land grant so survivors could start over. "What's the point of destroying two civilizations?" he wonders aloud. So, the Martians, apparently not upset at the chicken pox decimation or anything else, are actually nice aliens who wanted to help the humans, but just couldn't express it correctly? Hmm, okay. If you say so.
Our hero goes to one of the city ruins and there encounters a muumuu-clad Martian who speaks a language Rock doesn't understand. So, the Martian puts his hand over Rock's head and suddenly he can speak English. "My God, you're a ghost!" Rock says, shocked, when he goes to put his hand on the Martian's shoulder and his hand goes right through him. The same happens when the Martian does it to Rock. I guess sex is completely out of the question. The Martian knows nothing of Earth, the plague of chicken pox or anything else that's happened in the movie. Rock sees only an empty city, but the Martian can see lights and beings and even an ocean. We have our final swooping explanation now. "This can mean only one thing. It has to do with time. You're a figment of the past!" the Martian says. "You are from the past," Rock argues. Each has proof he's alive, but it's not convincing enough to the other.
Rock is finally getting his chance to talk to a Martian and the conversation makes absolutely no sense. The Martian wonders if perhaps what Rock is seeing isn't the ruins of his own civilization. "Who can tell what is past and what is future?" the Martian wonders. I can! The past is my faith in television before seeing "The Martian Chronicles" and my future is more cynicism after having seen it. "All that matters is that you see your world and I see mine. Isn't that enough, no matter what we each believe?" the increasingly-maddening Martian asks Rock, trying his hardest to give this miniseries a moral, where for over four hours it's lacked one. More of the same follows, though the rhetoric gets more absurd, sounding like random words strung together. "Life is its own answer. Live it day by day and expect no more," the Martian says, as if that means ANYTHING.
After giving Rock a whole lot to think about (and the rest of us a royal headache), the Martian announces he has to go to his people and Rock has to do the same. They part as if they are going to dinner parties on opposite sides of town.
"His dream of sharing this world with a few survivors of a race that has existed here for eons" is forever gone, the narrator says of Rock. What we didn't know is that Rock's wife and kids are still living, though bored with their existence. Gayle suggests the kids watch a movie, but they have seen them all "a million times." Rock returns to his family and suddenly has an idea. First, however, he gets his big speech moment, the one we knew was coming, where he rephrases the Martian's words for his wife's benefit. "We're leaving this place," he tells her. "Where are we going?" "Where it all started." Where what started? Time immemorial? The movie? The scene? He packs the family into a boat and puts some dynamite in a suitcase. He promises the kids they will see Martians! "How far are we doing, Dad?" one asks. "Four million years," Rock responds. I have no idea what that means. Sorry, I wish I could help. He takes his family to the ancient Martian outpost, where he just had the conversation with the maybe-past-maybe-present-maybe-future Martian. The last few moments are padded by reminders of past moments. Rock decides they will live there, but the wife and kids aren't sold on it, so he pretends it's temporary. He uses a campfire to burn the last vestiges of humankind, starting, by the way, with "Das Kapital." "I'm burning what's behind us, burning a way of life, the same way of life that burned on Earth," he says before launching into a full assault castigation of humans, who are greedy and war-loving. But, the four of them will start fresh on Mars, as if it's some sort of Garden of Eden. How exactly are they going to procreate? Rock's not so good with the ladies, but there's only one lady around anyway!
He promises his kids they will see Martians, but what he shows them is their reflection in a pool of water. Get it, they are no longer Eartlings. They are Martians because they live on Mars and have no more connection to Earth. To guarantee they can't go back, he blows up the last remaining rocket.
I'm torn as to what actually is the biggest problem with "The Martian Chronicles." It's too easy to pick the acting, because no one has a chance given the script. Is it the special effects? They are awfully cheap, and this was made after "Star Wars," so it would have been nice to spend a bit more money. It's not actually anything physical. It could be the wildly shifting tones. The deadly serious beginning section turns boring for the second and almost comical for the third. But no, the biggest problem is the lack of any actual sense. Not only does the script constantly force us to believe its conclusions, it doesn't bother to explain them. Science fiction is not supposed to make sense on its own, but the fun of science fiction is watching the creators come up with plausible reasons to explain what is happening. How many times did "Star Trek" explain its goofy plots with machines or races of people who didn't exist? Every episode, but it was believable! In "The Martian Chronicles," characters run around two planets making sweeping assumptions and no one questions them. When one's mouth hangs open in surprise for nearly five hours, the miniseries has a problem.
That said, there is so much deliciously awful fun to be had here, it's worth looking at. Where else will you see Rock Hudson as the head of a space program or Roddy McDowell as a priest? Only in "The Martian Chronicles."
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Playing For Time (1980)
Not just another World War II miniseries, "Playing for Time" has pedigree. Based on a true story, the TV version was written by no less than Arthur Miller and directed by no less than Daniel Mann. Arthur Miller did not sit himself down to write for any screen, big or small, that often!
It's the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as a concentration camp survivor that is the wild card. The movie was shown in 1980, just the time when Redgrave was trotting around the world with her pro-Palestinian views, therefore a bizarre choice to play Jewish here. But, Redgrave is one of those actresses so convincing, so damn good and so full invested in her roles, that watching it decades later when the politics have subsided, that's all that matters. Perhaps she was cast for shock value or perhaps because of her skills. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. We're taking "Playing for Time" as an American miniseries and not as a Redgrave political platform.
Furthermore, it turns out not to be the casting, but rather the script, that should be the center of discussion. Gorgeously written, it goes to great lengths to not only defend the downtrodden, as expected, but to also bring a bit of character and, daresay, humanity, to the German characters. This is Arthur Miller, not just any hack, so nothing is 100% crystal clear. There is a lot to wonder and argue about, which is not something usually done when it comes to discussions of Auschwitz. Normally, there is a clear division of good and evil, and though there is no attempt to blame the Jews and exonerate the Nazis, there is a lot of time devoted to how everyone is supposed to react to their various situations, Jews and Nazis alike, a very different and welcome take, especially from a miniseries, always so devoted to pulling tears instead of thoughts out of the head.
Fania Fenelon (Vanessa Redgrave) is a noted French cabaret singer as the movie starts, even doing a number while Nazis hobnob in the club where she performs. But, after a few seconds of documentary footage, Fania is in a crowded train car East, cooed over by everyone in there. An elderly gentleman tells her, "Madame Fenelon, your music is the soul of Paris!" Finally, it's noted that they all may be on the train because they are Jewish, and Fania is only "half" and it's never been a strong part of her identity. At first, the group in the crowded train car is fairly nonchalant, playing chess, cracking jokes, but as times goes by, they start to get cagey and when the urine bucket is accidentally knocked over with no relive of an open window, it becomes dire.
Their train finally stops at a concentration camp and the women are quickly shirked of their clothing and hair, despite still being totally confused about what is happening. The haircutting scene is chilling. The soundtrack has just the sound of dozens of unoiled shears going and screams from the outside. Fania is then tattooed, noticing that some women are allowed to keep their hair. It's only Jews who are shaved, but for finding that out, she gets an extra smack from Frau Schmidt (Viveca Lindfors).
During the trip, Fania befriended Marianne (Melanie Mayron), who assumes her crime is having a boyfriend in the Resistance. "My boyfriend wouldn't let me join because he said it was too dangerous," she cries to Fania as they are huddled together in a cold prison house. Fania discovers they are sleeping next to a dead woman and Marianne panics. To calm her down, Fania rambles off a fairy tale as we see the crematorium at full blast. Fania is part of the crew made to dispose of the remains. Here's where an author like Arthur Miller comes in handy. He assumes we know the history of what happened, so it doesn't take us an hour to get into the story. All of this, including some very harsh documentary footage, has taken only about 15 minutes.
"Does anyone know how to sing 'Madame Butterfly'?" howls a guard. Fania is taken to a room where other emaciated shaved women with yellow stars are playing musical instruments. She walks in slowly and is cleaned up a bit and fed by Etalina (Robin Bartlett), who, along with Michou (Anna Levine) recognize her as a celebrity. The conductor of the troupe is Alma Rose (Jane Alexander), described as "not a warm heart."
Haughty Alma, sporting a full mane of hair, enters and demands to hear Fania play the piano. Nervously, Fania goes to the instrument, hesitant to touch the beloved keys, but soon able to both play and sing. She's tearing through the song, the music filling her again, much to the delight of the assembled all-female orchestra, when in comes Frau Mandel (Shirley Knight), looking more like an Andrews Sister than a Nazi, but she has the attitude right. "Do you know any German music?" she asks Fania, who responds that she cannot join the orchestra unless her friend Marianne gets to join too. Frau Mandel's eyes pop out with anger, but Marianne gets to sing...really badly. Not that the actress does it badly, the character. So badly that we hear dogs barking outside (a bit of schtick this piece certainly doesn't need). "See that they get clean and send them to me at the depot," Frau Mandel says as she leaves. They are in!
What we learn first is that this orchestra is pretty lousy. But, for some reason, Frau Mandel treats them very well, bellowing that Fania should have warm boots and stay well-clothed to protect her voice. It gets downright creepy when Frau Mandel bends down and puts the found warm boots on Fania's feet. The Frau either has a well-thought-out plan in mind or is a lot of bit lesbian. The script right now doesn't tell us, so it will be interesting to see which way it goes.
"Why is it so loud? This is not band music! We are not playing against the wind!" Jane yells at the women. "Music is the holiest activity of mankind," she says and tries to scream musicality into them before bolting through them in disgust. Etalina explains that they all know they are lousy and the fault really lies with Alma. "We were just a marching band," she says, made to play as prisoners went about their work duty, but culture-loving Alma started them on the classics. "She's a victim of her own pride," Etalina says and everyone agrees, mainly because now the Germans love the orchestra, but they can only play three songs, which are starting to bore the people in charge. Fania is convinced to orchestrate some new songs for them.
The girls tell Alma that Fania has agreed and Alma actually takes the news well. They even share a laugh over having to do more German songs. "I'd like to think I'm saving my life rather than pleasing the SS," Fania notes, but Alma asks "do you think you can do one without the other?" That knocks Fania down a bit. There's no copy paper, but they will get around that. "We're artists. We can't help that. There's nothing to be ashamed of," Alma says before dismissing Fania, as a way of justifying the work they are doing while so many others around them suffer.
The first concert with Fania seems to go well. They do the classics well enough and then Fania gets a French pop song as a solo.
However, all is not harmonious among the orchestra members. Etalina is the sassy one in the group, telling somehow-ravishing Elzvieta (Marisa Berenson) that "you can say the word...g.a.s.s.e.d." when Elzvieta tries to get them to see their misery. In fact, there's even some rivalries. They refer to some Polish women as "those bitches" and won't even talk to them! Fania rises above it all, saying she would share anything she has with the rest and would expect the same. As much as they are women trying to get along in terrible conditions, they do try to have a bit of fun, betting Fania for details of fashionable Paris. There's talk about a group of women recently arrived from Holland who had beautiful curls and when asked where they are now, Etalina says they've most likely been gassed. Fania tries to hush such talk. "Why not say it? We'll be better prepared when our time comes," Etalina argues, bringing that conversation to a dead halt.
Fania collects the girls and sings "Stormy Weather" for them, letting Marianne take over. She's gotten better. That makes everyone feel a bit more chipper(when a song as depressing as "Stormy Weather" can do that, you know you're in trouble), but the next morning, the marching band section of the orchestra has to play for the camp workers as they are beaten. Fania asks to watch, seeing and hearing the screams from the crematorium and all of the other awful horrors of the camp.
Marianne remains a problem, refusing to see what is really going on in the camp, begging Fania to find her food and help her. Fania tries to make the poor girl see the truth, but Marianne hides in the shell of a child. Meanwhile, Etalina snaps that "we'll need another 100 Years War before we get a score out of you" to Fania, though some defend Fania, saying it's "hard work." That last line is tossed off casually, but if you think about it, it actually shows the lofty position these women are in. They are in Auschwitz, no doubt about it, and could die at any minute, but they are more protected inside the rehearsal room than everyone else at the camp. "Hard work" becomes relative in the struggle to keep mentally stable.
The slow orchestrating process annoys Alma, who pulls Fania aside to ask why she can't be faster. She confesses that she was spat on that morning. "I didn't realize how much they must hate us," Fania says, referring to everyone else in the camp who must see them as getting special treatment. "Yes, of course, what did you expect?" clip Alma retorts, offering to send her back to the other barracks if she's unhappy. "I'm just not used to being hated like this," Fania whines, but Alma snaps her out of it by telling her it's a matter of life or death and Fania better get used to it. The taskmaster in Alma is her way of surviving. So, Vanessa madly orchestrates all through the night as the gruesome sounds of wailing captives, guns and sirens blare.
When Marianne brings Fania a small crumb of food, Fania refuses it because she knows Marianne got it by letting a man have sex with her. Marianne has started to develop a spine, saying bitingly that what she did for the food was no different than what the orchestra does for the Germans. "It doesn't matter anyway. We won't live to get out of here," she says bitterly. "What if we do live?...You're treating yourself like some mortal piece of meat," Fania tells her, but they are both confused and desperate and no one has any sense of what is right or wrong anymore. Fania does eat the scrap of food, though her face is contorted in confusion as she does and then she breaks down in tears, a hopelessness that is not helped by the sounds of machine guns outside.
As Fania witnesses another convoy of women coming in, she's overcome, but told by a carpenter to "live" so she can tell the story of it all to God. As if that isn't confusing enough to her, one of the girls comes into her bed to confess a crush she has one one of the others. "You're young, what else is there but love?" Fania tells her, ultra modern in her sensitivities.
Contrary to what one might expect, when Fania is asked to sing specially for the Germans, in various languages, she does not shudder from it. Instead, she concentrates on the song, usually keeping her eyes closed, and acts them beautifully. No matter her situation, the music is always triumphant in her, always her personal bright spot. "Did you ever hear anything more touching?" Frau Mandel asks head Nazi Dr. Mengele (Max Wright). She then tells Fania to thank Dr. Mengele, and when Fania works up the nerve to actually do it, she interrupts the rest of the Nazis and tells them her real last name is "Goldstein." "You must learn to sing German songs," Commandant Kramer (Clarence Felder) tells her, noting that it makes his work so much easier. When the Nazis love you, they can be very king! Frau Mandel asks Fania if she needs anything and has her people send away for toothbrushes. Not only that, the whole orchestra gets goodies.
Marianne is the only one who sees Frau Mandel's attentions to Fania as suspect. When she even suggests that Fania would sleep with her for the perks, Fania is quick to shout back, "there's no danger of that" and then goes back on the attack, since Marianne is busy whoring herself for anything she can get. The argument goes deeper when Etalina remarks that Frau Mandel is actually beautiful. The others are horrified, but not Fania. "She is beautiful. And she is human. What disgusts me is that a woman who is so beautiful can be doing such things. We are of the same species!" she snarls at everyone, but most of the crowd isn't with her. It's an interesting point, but obviously a tough one to pull off in the middle of a concentration camp.
A drunken Marianne stumbles into the barracks to report that a doctor has told her none of them will ever be able to bear children because of the fear and the diet. This sends Elzvieta to her knees praying (she's Catholic), but Fania knows that Marianne is only acting the way she does out of sheer terror. She tells Marianne that she can control her desire for food (which is what she's trading sex for) if she learns to share what she has with all of the rest, and Marianne knows it's true.
When the group's cellist gets sick, Alma rushes to make sure she isn't gassed, encountering Mala (Maud Adams), a Jewish woman who is a legend in the camp. She was one of the camp's first prisoners and managed to escape, buck naked, but when she was found, she managed to stay alive because she spoke so many languages and rose to the ranks of the camp's head translator. She and her boyfriend have supposedly even helped people escape. Fania, in the middle of a particularly harsh rehearsal with Alma, questions Fania as to how Mala got so powerful. "Mala is a miracle," Alma says. "She's the hope of everyone here. Even these Nazis somehow sense a glory within her." As Fania tried before with Frau Mandel's beauty, this is another attempt to humanize the whole situation, finding hope wherever one can.
The recital gets even uglier because Alma strikes Etalina for hitting a wrong note, which meets no one's approval. "If it weren't for my name, they'd have burned them up long ago," she tries justifying to Fania, asking her why everyone "resents" her so much. Alma says that orchestra members throughout Germany and Austria are regularly slapped, and this should be no different, because they must "respect" her. At the bottom of her toughness is her need to protect all of the women. She tells Fania that as long as the Nazis are kept happy, they will all survive, so why shouldn't she be tough? "We can't really wish to please them," Fania says, but Alma argues against that. "You have me wrong, Fania. You think I fail to see...I refuse to see!" Alma continues. By throwing herself into nothing but the music, she's creating her own way of dealing with the truth around her. She urges Fania to "create all the beauty you are capable of creating" and devote herself fully to her artistry in order to survive.
Alma returns to the room with her own violin, going into a truly wondrous solo, tears coming to her eyes. Certainly Fania recognizes how Alma's music has become such a strong defense mechanism for her. Of course, it's quickly interrupted by Fraut Schmidt, who demands the Jews separate from the others. Marianne gets herself and Fania exempted since they are only half Jewish as the others are trotted out for delousing.
Being half Jewish allows Fania and Marianne to remove half of their stars, which causes another argument in the barracks. Fania, as always, roars the loudest. She's tired of the world being separated into groups and fed up with life. Marianne retorts that "we're also betraying the Catholics. Our mothers were Catholic," and then finds Fania resewing on the ripped half of her star.
After being told 12,000 "angels" per day are being gassed, Fania finds Marianne again turning tricks and begs her to share, but Marianne refuses. She remains alternately astonishingly unaware and yet extremely practical.
The barracks are in turmoil because Mala has escaped with her boyfriend. The orchestra members turn it into a romance fable and Elzvieta says, "let's play something for them!" They start a wedding march and everyone is briefly happy. Just after, truckloads of non-Jewish Poles arrive, scaring the orchestra members, who can't understand what the Nazis are doing. Frau Mandel picks one child out of the lot and takes him away, much to the horror of the kid's mother, who is ignored. When Frau Mandel asks Alma why the girls are so upset, Alma says it's because they all fear the Poles will be given their barracks. Frau Mandel, giddy with delight over this kid, assures them no one from the barracks will be killed. She leads the child around, cooing that she needs to take him to find new clothing. "Work hard," she chirps briskly as she leaves. Once again, Giselle (Marcell Rosenblatt) is the voice of reason, but Alma insists they get back to rehearsing. As they do, Frau Mandel is seeing playing with the child among burning clothing and the despair the camp grounds. As if that's not bad enough, Mala and her boyfriend have been caught and are publicly put to death while everyone watches. The juxtapositions of all this so quickly is meant to be shocking, and it is. One moment Frau Mandel is insisting they will be safe and the next she is nodding to have the chairs kicked out from under Mala and her boyfriend. Hope and fear can barely be separated.
During rehearsal one day, while Fania is playing the piano, it's literally taken out from under her, newly taken to the officers quarters. The Commandant also takes Greta (Grace Stover) from the orchestra to be a maid for his wife, and then places a whole host of other conditions on the women, who are being made to play for Dr. Mengele's special patients, the insane, as an experiment on what music will do to them. Frau Mandel makes the whole episode more uncomfortable by talking to Fania, who says they could use more food. Apparently Alma has said extra rations "should be earned," and though Fania agrees with her in front of everyone, Alma hauls her into her office to blast her again. According to Alma, the girls don't deserve it until they place a piece perfectly. Again, the perfection of music is her best chance of survival, but of course she can't make anyone else understand that. Fania starts to cry, saying, "I'm merely trying to decide whether I wish to live." "Oh, come now Fania, no one dies if they can help it. You must try to be more honest with yourself," Alma cautions.
A male cellist is brought over to train Etalina, who is reduced to schoolgirl giggles as he just leans the cello up against her. Naturally, a moment of joy like that has to be trumped by more disaster. Paulette (Verna Bloom) returns after her stint in the hospital to report that once the concert for Dr. Mengele's patients is over, the patients are all being gassed. Though Paulette is barely able to stand up, she insists on rehearsing, perhaps an actual convert to Alma's way of thinking?
Etalina tells Fania that when they were playing outside, she saw her family coming in on a recent convoy (as the sounds of bullets and death pad the soundtrack). "I wasn't sure," she says, breaking into hysterics. "But what could you do?" Fania says, embracing her. It's a very stark moment. There has been so much discussion over whether or not Fraul Mandel is human, but how has the humanity of these women changed? "I have no answers anymore. I'm living from minute to minute," Fania tells Paulette, who asks her if she should have told the other patients about the immiment gassing. Her transforming is becoming quite clear.
As bombs clamor, hope rises that the war is ending. Fania goes off to be alone and Elzvieta follows her. "Everyone tries to tell you their troubles, don't they? You're someone to trust, Fania. Maybe it's because you have no ideologies, just satisfied to be a prisoner. One senses so much feeling in you," Elzvieta notes, but in a praising demeanor. It's a short speech, but a very interesting one. "I'm dying by inches and very well I know it," Fania responds, proof that she hasn't completely lost her self. Elzvieta cries about her lost life. "I only want one Jewish woman to understand," she weeps, trying to equate her situation with theirs. The truth is that they are all being handled so miserably, Jew or not. Elzvieta begs for forgiveness, but Fania doesn't know why she seeks it. She's done nothing to anyone personally. "It's meaningless. I'm afraid nothing you can do will ever change that," Fania says. Okay, so maybe she has lost her self. This is a powerful scene, well done by both actresses, who are so utterly confused by the situation that they don't know whether life or death is the better option.
Alma beams with delight in telling Fania, "I am going to be released!" Apparently the Germans want her to tour for the troops. Fania notes that she'll be playing for the people who are keeping them prisoner, but Alma sees it merely as "playing for honorable men," soldiers, not Nazis. "Not all Germans are Nazis. You're nothing but a racist if you think so," Alma says. "The only Jew to play for the German army! My head will explode," Fania says at the lunacy of the whole situation, just as Frau Schmidt enters to offer her congratulations and to invite Alma to a farewell dinner. There's something very desperate about her offer, and Alma is flabbergasted, and Fania of course sees it. Alma castigates her for being so negative and Fania can't make her see the other side. "You're totally wrong about practically everything, but I must say, you probably saved us all, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart," Fania says to Alma. "You can thank my refusal to despair," she replies.
The ladies are brought into their rehearsal room, given flowers and made to stand around a casket draped with a Nazi flag. Dr. Mengele is there and so is Frau Mandel, with the baby. They pull Fania oer to see the corpse, which of course belongs to Alma. All of the women are made to file by and leave flowers on her body. Dr. Mengele even kisses her violin and places it in the box with her. It should be no surprise that Alma is dead, especially after a speech celebrating her ability to leave the concentration camp.
Fania tears off to find out what happened and Alma was poisoned at dinner. They were never going to let her out! Fania returns to the room to find Olga (Christine Baranski) conducting, and very badly. She tries to grab the wand from Olga and a big battle ensues. As Olga yowls "they want an Aryan to conduct," Fania screams that Alma left it to her to conduct. When I say battle, I mean battle, with hair-pulling, punching and the rest. A plane swoops over the camp and Olga and her fellow non-Jews try to make the music continue while the Jews race to the window to watch. Unfortunately, the plane upon which the latter built their hopes is shot down. Quick freedom is not coming.
They have a more pressing enemy. Marianne returns one night with a fur stole, having gotten it "from the executioner," the others rail. "He killed Mala and others," they say, but she cuts them off, asking "whose side do you think you are on? Because if anybody is not sure, you are on the side of the executioners. You go out. You ask any prisoner in this camp. They'll be happy to tell you!" Giselle wants Fania to argue this position, but Fania thinks Marianne is right. Though she admits that nothing is their fault and that they are innocent, "we've changed. We've learned a little something about the human ways...and it's not good news." Fania sticks to her idea that even the Nazis are human, though Giselle doesn't want herself equated with them. The discussion is put on hold when Dr. Mengele arrives, and Olga offers to play for him. Fania assures Dr. Mengele, who is petrified into silence by the sounds of the planes bombing around them, that the orchestra will do "our utmost" to honor the memory of Alma and play for him as planned. It satisfies him enough and the girls agree, although Giselle tells her she hopes Fania will never have to beg again. Alma's idea about the music saving them is proving true.
Frau Mandel is the next visitor, asking for "Madame Butterly" by Fania and Marianne as the clutches the hat of her beloved little adopted boy. "The greatness of a people has always depended on the sacrifices they are willing to make," Frau Mandel tells Fania, saying she gave the boy "back." There's a sacrifice: send the boy back to an almost certain death from his plush existence with her. Skewed as it may be, it underlies the point Fania has been making over and over, that they are all humans. Maybe good, maybe bad, but human, having feelings on some level. I won't deny it's somewhat cheesy to have given Frau Mandel such an obvious little plot turn to show her humanity, but one can't help but see that all-important point.
As the Allies approach, the VIPs hustle to leave the camp, with Frau Mandel literally shooting a woman to get a spot on a departing truck. Olga insists they rehearse, but the rest refuse. "She finally gets an orchestra and the war has to end," Etalina quips as Olga despairs over not being able to lead.
It turns out Frau Mandel did not make it on a truck and she's out of her mind the next morning. "I seem to have lost it, the little hat," she tears around weeping (referring to the adopted boy's hat). Elzvieta and Fania are pried apart, with Fania giving the other money because she says, "I'm not sure I want to live." Marianne is still on the make, trying to seduce the soldiers dragging them from the camp. She even beats Fania with a piece of wood to stay in good with the soldiers, but the soldiers drop the girls as soon as they can, since the Russians are due any minute. The camp survivors stuff themselves into a building of misery. Some are dying, some are even giving birth. Fania wants to give up, but the ladies won't let her! Prayers start up as everyone realizes the Germans are done and the Russians are there to save them.
The Germans, Marianne with them, are put onto trucks and then pelted with rocks furiously by the survivors. Fania, weak and ready to die, is carried to safety and then asked for a statement. Given a recording device, she sings into it, in French, a song of victory and survival. Music is the way to escape.
The movie itself, Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Alexander all won Emmy Awards. It would be tough to deny how much the deserve it. Vanessa's performance as a woman with dwindling confidence in the face of utter confusion is one of her strongest, but I actually think the best performance is Jane's. It's unflinching and unlikeable, but utterly real. Never maudlin, never corny, always toeing the line exactly, it's ideal. They are all terrific, even Shirley Knight is as a Nazi!
In less than three hours, "Playing for Time" manages to portray the entire Holocaust with a more intimate passion than its bigger and brassier World War II miniseries cousins. It also dares to ask some very pointed questions and demands the viewer think about them. In 1980, that was still possible. In another ten years, forget it.
It's the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as a concentration camp survivor that is the wild card. The movie was shown in 1980, just the time when Redgrave was trotting around the world with her pro-Palestinian views, therefore a bizarre choice to play Jewish here. But, Redgrave is one of those actresses so convincing, so damn good and so full invested in her roles, that watching it decades later when the politics have subsided, that's all that matters. Perhaps she was cast for shock value or perhaps because of her skills. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. We're taking "Playing for Time" as an American miniseries and not as a Redgrave political platform.
Furthermore, it turns out not to be the casting, but rather the script, that should be the center of discussion. Gorgeously written, it goes to great lengths to not only defend the downtrodden, as expected, but to also bring a bit of character and, daresay, humanity, to the German characters. This is Arthur Miller, not just any hack, so nothing is 100% crystal clear. There is a lot to wonder and argue about, which is not something usually done when it comes to discussions of Auschwitz. Normally, there is a clear division of good and evil, and though there is no attempt to blame the Jews and exonerate the Nazis, there is a lot of time devoted to how everyone is supposed to react to their various situations, Jews and Nazis alike, a very different and welcome take, especially from a miniseries, always so devoted to pulling tears instead of thoughts out of the head.
Fania Fenelon (Vanessa Redgrave) is a noted French cabaret singer as the movie starts, even doing a number while Nazis hobnob in the club where she performs. But, after a few seconds of documentary footage, Fania is in a crowded train car East, cooed over by everyone in there. An elderly gentleman tells her, "Madame Fenelon, your music is the soul of Paris!" Finally, it's noted that they all may be on the train because they are Jewish, and Fania is only "half" and it's never been a strong part of her identity. At first, the group in the crowded train car is fairly nonchalant, playing chess, cracking jokes, but as times goes by, they start to get cagey and when the urine bucket is accidentally knocked over with no relive of an open window, it becomes dire.
Their train finally stops at a concentration camp and the women are quickly shirked of their clothing and hair, despite still being totally confused about what is happening. The haircutting scene is chilling. The soundtrack has just the sound of dozens of unoiled shears going and screams from the outside. Fania is then tattooed, noticing that some women are allowed to keep their hair. It's only Jews who are shaved, but for finding that out, she gets an extra smack from Frau Schmidt (Viveca Lindfors).
During the trip, Fania befriended Marianne (Melanie Mayron), who assumes her crime is having a boyfriend in the Resistance. "My boyfriend wouldn't let me join because he said it was too dangerous," she cries to Fania as they are huddled together in a cold prison house. Fania discovers they are sleeping next to a dead woman and Marianne panics. To calm her down, Fania rambles off a fairy tale as we see the crematorium at full blast. Fania is part of the crew made to dispose of the remains. Here's where an author like Arthur Miller comes in handy. He assumes we know the history of what happened, so it doesn't take us an hour to get into the story. All of this, including some very harsh documentary footage, has taken only about 15 minutes.
"Does anyone know how to sing 'Madame Butterfly'?" howls a guard. Fania is taken to a room where other emaciated shaved women with yellow stars are playing musical instruments. She walks in slowly and is cleaned up a bit and fed by Etalina (Robin Bartlett), who, along with Michou (Anna Levine) recognize her as a celebrity. The conductor of the troupe is Alma Rose (Jane Alexander), described as "not a warm heart."
Haughty Alma, sporting a full mane of hair, enters and demands to hear Fania play the piano. Nervously, Fania goes to the instrument, hesitant to touch the beloved keys, but soon able to both play and sing. She's tearing through the song, the music filling her again, much to the delight of the assembled all-female orchestra, when in comes Frau Mandel (Shirley Knight), looking more like an Andrews Sister than a Nazi, but she has the attitude right. "Do you know any German music?" she asks Fania, who responds that she cannot join the orchestra unless her friend Marianne gets to join too. Frau Mandel's eyes pop out with anger, but Marianne gets to sing...really badly. Not that the actress does it badly, the character. So badly that we hear dogs barking outside (a bit of schtick this piece certainly doesn't need). "See that they get clean and send them to me at the depot," Frau Mandel says as she leaves. They are in!
What we learn first is that this orchestra is pretty lousy. But, for some reason, Frau Mandel treats them very well, bellowing that Fania should have warm boots and stay well-clothed to protect her voice. It gets downright creepy when Frau Mandel bends down and puts the found warm boots on Fania's feet. The Frau either has a well-thought-out plan in mind or is a lot of bit lesbian. The script right now doesn't tell us, so it will be interesting to see which way it goes.
"Why is it so loud? This is not band music! We are not playing against the wind!" Jane yells at the women. "Music is the holiest activity of mankind," she says and tries to scream musicality into them before bolting through them in disgust. Etalina explains that they all know they are lousy and the fault really lies with Alma. "We were just a marching band," she says, made to play as prisoners went about their work duty, but culture-loving Alma started them on the classics. "She's a victim of her own pride," Etalina says and everyone agrees, mainly because now the Germans love the orchestra, but they can only play three songs, which are starting to bore the people in charge. Fania is convinced to orchestrate some new songs for them.
The girls tell Alma that Fania has agreed and Alma actually takes the news well. They even share a laugh over having to do more German songs. "I'd like to think I'm saving my life rather than pleasing the SS," Fania notes, but Alma asks "do you think you can do one without the other?" That knocks Fania down a bit. There's no copy paper, but they will get around that. "We're artists. We can't help that. There's nothing to be ashamed of," Alma says before dismissing Fania, as a way of justifying the work they are doing while so many others around them suffer.
The first concert with Fania seems to go well. They do the classics well enough and then Fania gets a French pop song as a solo.
However, all is not harmonious among the orchestra members. Etalina is the sassy one in the group, telling somehow-ravishing Elzvieta (Marisa Berenson) that "you can say the word...g.a.s.s.e.d." when Elzvieta tries to get them to see their misery. In fact, there's even some rivalries. They refer to some Polish women as "those bitches" and won't even talk to them! Fania rises above it all, saying she would share anything she has with the rest and would expect the same. As much as they are women trying to get along in terrible conditions, they do try to have a bit of fun, betting Fania for details of fashionable Paris. There's talk about a group of women recently arrived from Holland who had beautiful curls and when asked where they are now, Etalina says they've most likely been gassed. Fania tries to hush such talk. "Why not say it? We'll be better prepared when our time comes," Etalina argues, bringing that conversation to a dead halt.
Fania collects the girls and sings "Stormy Weather" for them, letting Marianne take over. She's gotten better. That makes everyone feel a bit more chipper(when a song as depressing as "Stormy Weather" can do that, you know you're in trouble), but the next morning, the marching band section of the orchestra has to play for the camp workers as they are beaten. Fania asks to watch, seeing and hearing the screams from the crematorium and all of the other awful horrors of the camp.
Marianne remains a problem, refusing to see what is really going on in the camp, begging Fania to find her food and help her. Fania tries to make the poor girl see the truth, but Marianne hides in the shell of a child. Meanwhile, Etalina snaps that "we'll need another 100 Years War before we get a score out of you" to Fania, though some defend Fania, saying it's "hard work." That last line is tossed off casually, but if you think about it, it actually shows the lofty position these women are in. They are in Auschwitz, no doubt about it, and could die at any minute, but they are more protected inside the rehearsal room than everyone else at the camp. "Hard work" becomes relative in the struggle to keep mentally stable.
The slow orchestrating process annoys Alma, who pulls Fania aside to ask why she can't be faster. She confesses that she was spat on that morning. "I didn't realize how much they must hate us," Fania says, referring to everyone else in the camp who must see them as getting special treatment. "Yes, of course, what did you expect?" clip Alma retorts, offering to send her back to the other barracks if she's unhappy. "I'm just not used to being hated like this," Fania whines, but Alma snaps her out of it by telling her it's a matter of life or death and Fania better get used to it. The taskmaster in Alma is her way of surviving. So, Vanessa madly orchestrates all through the night as the gruesome sounds of wailing captives, guns and sirens blare.
When Marianne brings Fania a small crumb of food, Fania refuses it because she knows Marianne got it by letting a man have sex with her. Marianne has started to develop a spine, saying bitingly that what she did for the food was no different than what the orchestra does for the Germans. "It doesn't matter anyway. We won't live to get out of here," she says bitterly. "What if we do live?...You're treating yourself like some mortal piece of meat," Fania tells her, but they are both confused and desperate and no one has any sense of what is right or wrong anymore. Fania does eat the scrap of food, though her face is contorted in confusion as she does and then she breaks down in tears, a hopelessness that is not helped by the sounds of machine guns outside.
As Fania witnesses another convoy of women coming in, she's overcome, but told by a carpenter to "live" so she can tell the story of it all to God. As if that isn't confusing enough to her, one of the girls comes into her bed to confess a crush she has one one of the others. "You're young, what else is there but love?" Fania tells her, ultra modern in her sensitivities.
Contrary to what one might expect, when Fania is asked to sing specially for the Germans, in various languages, she does not shudder from it. Instead, she concentrates on the song, usually keeping her eyes closed, and acts them beautifully. No matter her situation, the music is always triumphant in her, always her personal bright spot. "Did you ever hear anything more touching?" Frau Mandel asks head Nazi Dr. Mengele (Max Wright). She then tells Fania to thank Dr. Mengele, and when Fania works up the nerve to actually do it, she interrupts the rest of the Nazis and tells them her real last name is "Goldstein." "You must learn to sing German songs," Commandant Kramer (Clarence Felder) tells her, noting that it makes his work so much easier. When the Nazis love you, they can be very king! Frau Mandel asks Fania if she needs anything and has her people send away for toothbrushes. Not only that, the whole orchestra gets goodies.
Marianne is the only one who sees Frau Mandel's attentions to Fania as suspect. When she even suggests that Fania would sleep with her for the perks, Fania is quick to shout back, "there's no danger of that" and then goes back on the attack, since Marianne is busy whoring herself for anything she can get. The argument goes deeper when Etalina remarks that Frau Mandel is actually beautiful. The others are horrified, but not Fania. "She is beautiful. And she is human. What disgusts me is that a woman who is so beautiful can be doing such things. We are of the same species!" she snarls at everyone, but most of the crowd isn't with her. It's an interesting point, but obviously a tough one to pull off in the middle of a concentration camp.
A drunken Marianne stumbles into the barracks to report that a doctor has told her none of them will ever be able to bear children because of the fear and the diet. This sends Elzvieta to her knees praying (she's Catholic), but Fania knows that Marianne is only acting the way she does out of sheer terror. She tells Marianne that she can control her desire for food (which is what she's trading sex for) if she learns to share what she has with all of the rest, and Marianne knows it's true.
When the group's cellist gets sick, Alma rushes to make sure she isn't gassed, encountering Mala (Maud Adams), a Jewish woman who is a legend in the camp. She was one of the camp's first prisoners and managed to escape, buck naked, but when she was found, she managed to stay alive because she spoke so many languages and rose to the ranks of the camp's head translator. She and her boyfriend have supposedly even helped people escape. Fania, in the middle of a particularly harsh rehearsal with Alma, questions Fania as to how Mala got so powerful. "Mala is a miracle," Alma says. "She's the hope of everyone here. Even these Nazis somehow sense a glory within her." As Fania tried before with Frau Mandel's beauty, this is another attempt to humanize the whole situation, finding hope wherever one can.
The recital gets even uglier because Alma strikes Etalina for hitting a wrong note, which meets no one's approval. "If it weren't for my name, they'd have burned them up long ago," she tries justifying to Fania, asking her why everyone "resents" her so much. Alma says that orchestra members throughout Germany and Austria are regularly slapped, and this should be no different, because they must "respect" her. At the bottom of her toughness is her need to protect all of the women. She tells Fania that as long as the Nazis are kept happy, they will all survive, so why shouldn't she be tough? "We can't really wish to please them," Fania says, but Alma argues against that. "You have me wrong, Fania. You think I fail to see...I refuse to see!" Alma continues. By throwing herself into nothing but the music, she's creating her own way of dealing with the truth around her. She urges Fania to "create all the beauty you are capable of creating" and devote herself fully to her artistry in order to survive.
Alma returns to the room with her own violin, going into a truly wondrous solo, tears coming to her eyes. Certainly Fania recognizes how Alma's music has become such a strong defense mechanism for her. Of course, it's quickly interrupted by Fraut Schmidt, who demands the Jews separate from the others. Marianne gets herself and Fania exempted since they are only half Jewish as the others are trotted out for delousing.
Being half Jewish allows Fania and Marianne to remove half of their stars, which causes another argument in the barracks. Fania, as always, roars the loudest. She's tired of the world being separated into groups and fed up with life. Marianne retorts that "we're also betraying the Catholics. Our mothers were Catholic," and then finds Fania resewing on the ripped half of her star.
After being told 12,000 "angels" per day are being gassed, Fania finds Marianne again turning tricks and begs her to share, but Marianne refuses. She remains alternately astonishingly unaware and yet extremely practical.
The barracks are in turmoil because Mala has escaped with her boyfriend. The orchestra members turn it into a romance fable and Elzvieta says, "let's play something for them!" They start a wedding march and everyone is briefly happy. Just after, truckloads of non-Jewish Poles arrive, scaring the orchestra members, who can't understand what the Nazis are doing. Frau Mandel picks one child out of the lot and takes him away, much to the horror of the kid's mother, who is ignored. When Frau Mandel asks Alma why the girls are so upset, Alma says it's because they all fear the Poles will be given their barracks. Frau Mandel, giddy with delight over this kid, assures them no one from the barracks will be killed. She leads the child around, cooing that she needs to take him to find new clothing. "Work hard," she chirps briskly as she leaves. Once again, Giselle (Marcell Rosenblatt) is the voice of reason, but Alma insists they get back to rehearsing. As they do, Frau Mandel is seeing playing with the child among burning clothing and the despair the camp grounds. As if that's not bad enough, Mala and her boyfriend have been caught and are publicly put to death while everyone watches. The juxtapositions of all this so quickly is meant to be shocking, and it is. One moment Frau Mandel is insisting they will be safe and the next she is nodding to have the chairs kicked out from under Mala and her boyfriend. Hope and fear can barely be separated.
During rehearsal one day, while Fania is playing the piano, it's literally taken out from under her, newly taken to the officers quarters. The Commandant also takes Greta (Grace Stover) from the orchestra to be a maid for his wife, and then places a whole host of other conditions on the women, who are being made to play for Dr. Mengele's special patients, the insane, as an experiment on what music will do to them. Frau Mandel makes the whole episode more uncomfortable by talking to Fania, who says they could use more food. Apparently Alma has said extra rations "should be earned," and though Fania agrees with her in front of everyone, Alma hauls her into her office to blast her again. According to Alma, the girls don't deserve it until they place a piece perfectly. Again, the perfection of music is her best chance of survival, but of course she can't make anyone else understand that. Fania starts to cry, saying, "I'm merely trying to decide whether I wish to live." "Oh, come now Fania, no one dies if they can help it. You must try to be more honest with yourself," Alma cautions.
A male cellist is brought over to train Etalina, who is reduced to schoolgirl giggles as he just leans the cello up against her. Naturally, a moment of joy like that has to be trumped by more disaster. Paulette (Verna Bloom) returns after her stint in the hospital to report that once the concert for Dr. Mengele's patients is over, the patients are all being gassed. Though Paulette is barely able to stand up, she insists on rehearsing, perhaps an actual convert to Alma's way of thinking?
Etalina tells Fania that when they were playing outside, she saw her family coming in on a recent convoy (as the sounds of bullets and death pad the soundtrack). "I wasn't sure," she says, breaking into hysterics. "But what could you do?" Fania says, embracing her. It's a very stark moment. There has been so much discussion over whether or not Fraul Mandel is human, but how has the humanity of these women changed? "I have no answers anymore. I'm living from minute to minute," Fania tells Paulette, who asks her if she should have told the other patients about the immiment gassing. Her transforming is becoming quite clear.
As bombs clamor, hope rises that the war is ending. Fania goes off to be alone and Elzvieta follows her. "Everyone tries to tell you their troubles, don't they? You're someone to trust, Fania. Maybe it's because you have no ideologies, just satisfied to be a prisoner. One senses so much feeling in you," Elzvieta notes, but in a praising demeanor. It's a short speech, but a very interesting one. "I'm dying by inches and very well I know it," Fania responds, proof that she hasn't completely lost her self. Elzvieta cries about her lost life. "I only want one Jewish woman to understand," she weeps, trying to equate her situation with theirs. The truth is that they are all being handled so miserably, Jew or not. Elzvieta begs for forgiveness, but Fania doesn't know why she seeks it. She's done nothing to anyone personally. "It's meaningless. I'm afraid nothing you can do will ever change that," Fania says. Okay, so maybe she has lost her self. This is a powerful scene, well done by both actresses, who are so utterly confused by the situation that they don't know whether life or death is the better option.
Alma beams with delight in telling Fania, "I am going to be released!" Apparently the Germans want her to tour for the troops. Fania notes that she'll be playing for the people who are keeping them prisoner, but Alma sees it merely as "playing for honorable men," soldiers, not Nazis. "Not all Germans are Nazis. You're nothing but a racist if you think so," Alma says. "The only Jew to play for the German army! My head will explode," Fania says at the lunacy of the whole situation, just as Frau Schmidt enters to offer her congratulations and to invite Alma to a farewell dinner. There's something very desperate about her offer, and Alma is flabbergasted, and Fania of course sees it. Alma castigates her for being so negative and Fania can't make her see the other side. "You're totally wrong about practically everything, but I must say, you probably saved us all, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart," Fania says to Alma. "You can thank my refusal to despair," she replies.
The ladies are brought into their rehearsal room, given flowers and made to stand around a casket draped with a Nazi flag. Dr. Mengele is there and so is Frau Mandel, with the baby. They pull Fania oer to see the corpse, which of course belongs to Alma. All of the women are made to file by and leave flowers on her body. Dr. Mengele even kisses her violin and places it in the box with her. It should be no surprise that Alma is dead, especially after a speech celebrating her ability to leave the concentration camp.
Fania tears off to find out what happened and Alma was poisoned at dinner. They were never going to let her out! Fania returns to the room to find Olga (Christine Baranski) conducting, and very badly. She tries to grab the wand from Olga and a big battle ensues. As Olga yowls "they want an Aryan to conduct," Fania screams that Alma left it to her to conduct. When I say battle, I mean battle, with hair-pulling, punching and the rest. A plane swoops over the camp and Olga and her fellow non-Jews try to make the music continue while the Jews race to the window to watch. Unfortunately, the plane upon which the latter built their hopes is shot down. Quick freedom is not coming.
They have a more pressing enemy. Marianne returns one night with a fur stole, having gotten it "from the executioner," the others rail. "He killed Mala and others," they say, but she cuts them off, asking "whose side do you think you are on? Because if anybody is not sure, you are on the side of the executioners. You go out. You ask any prisoner in this camp. They'll be happy to tell you!" Giselle wants Fania to argue this position, but Fania thinks Marianne is right. Though she admits that nothing is their fault and that they are innocent, "we've changed. We've learned a little something about the human ways...and it's not good news." Fania sticks to her idea that even the Nazis are human, though Giselle doesn't want herself equated with them. The discussion is put on hold when Dr. Mengele arrives, and Olga offers to play for him. Fania assures Dr. Mengele, who is petrified into silence by the sounds of the planes bombing around them, that the orchestra will do "our utmost" to honor the memory of Alma and play for him as planned. It satisfies him enough and the girls agree, although Giselle tells her she hopes Fania will never have to beg again. Alma's idea about the music saving them is proving true.
Frau Mandel is the next visitor, asking for "Madame Butterly" by Fania and Marianne as the clutches the hat of her beloved little adopted boy. "The greatness of a people has always depended on the sacrifices they are willing to make," Frau Mandel tells Fania, saying she gave the boy "back." There's a sacrifice: send the boy back to an almost certain death from his plush existence with her. Skewed as it may be, it underlies the point Fania has been making over and over, that they are all humans. Maybe good, maybe bad, but human, having feelings on some level. I won't deny it's somewhat cheesy to have given Frau Mandel such an obvious little plot turn to show her humanity, but one can't help but see that all-important point.
As the Allies approach, the VIPs hustle to leave the camp, with Frau Mandel literally shooting a woman to get a spot on a departing truck. Olga insists they rehearse, but the rest refuse. "She finally gets an orchestra and the war has to end," Etalina quips as Olga despairs over not being able to lead.
It turns out Frau Mandel did not make it on a truck and she's out of her mind the next morning. "I seem to have lost it, the little hat," she tears around weeping (referring to the adopted boy's hat). Elzvieta and Fania are pried apart, with Fania giving the other money because she says, "I'm not sure I want to live." Marianne is still on the make, trying to seduce the soldiers dragging them from the camp. She even beats Fania with a piece of wood to stay in good with the soldiers, but the soldiers drop the girls as soon as they can, since the Russians are due any minute. The camp survivors stuff themselves into a building of misery. Some are dying, some are even giving birth. Fania wants to give up, but the ladies won't let her! Prayers start up as everyone realizes the Germans are done and the Russians are there to save them.
The Germans, Marianne with them, are put onto trucks and then pelted with rocks furiously by the survivors. Fania, weak and ready to die, is carried to safety and then asked for a statement. Given a recording device, she sings into it, in French, a song of victory and survival. Music is the way to escape.
The movie itself, Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Alexander all won Emmy Awards. It would be tough to deny how much the deserve it. Vanessa's performance as a woman with dwindling confidence in the face of utter confusion is one of her strongest, but I actually think the best performance is Jane's. It's unflinching and unlikeable, but utterly real. Never maudlin, never corny, always toeing the line exactly, it's ideal. They are all terrific, even Shirley Knight is as a Nazi!
In less than three hours, "Playing for Time" manages to portray the entire Holocaust with a more intimate passion than its bigger and brassier World War II miniseries cousins. It also dares to ask some very pointed questions and demands the viewer think about them. In 1980, that was still possible. In another ten years, forget it.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Women of Brewster Place (1989)
"The Women of Brewster Place" is one of those when-bad-things-happen-to-good-people-and-happen-and-happen-and-happen sagas, but this one tops 'em all because it doesn't pick just one social inequity with which to challenge our minds; it uses them all! Racism? Check. Sexism? Check. Ageism? Check? Gender inequality? Check (both hetero- and homosexual). Impressively, it crunches them all together into a confined sense of space and time. "Centennial" has nearly all of the above as plot issues, but is spread out over 20+ hours and 100+ years!
"How, Bj," you say, "how can all of this be crunched into a two-night miniseries? It's not possible!" Oh, friends, it's possible because helming the whole thing is (trumpets blaring) Oprah Winfrey. She's one of the producers and its star, in that time when she thought herself an actress. She's a long way from "The Color Purple," where she actually proved her mettle, and thankfully a long way from "Beloved" where she destroyed that mettle. If Oprah can squeeze social injustice into one hour of chat, I suppose it's not impossible to tuck all of Gloria Naylor's book into four hours for us.
In fact, "The Women of Brewster Place" was so critically acclaimed and so wildly successful with viewers that it was turned into a weekly TV series, starring Oprah Winfrey. But, after less than half a dozen episodes, the show was canned and it's since been erased from history (as I might be now for bringing it up). Left standing is "The Women of Brewster Place," the miniseries, which is tough to actually review smoothly because it's at once outstanding and utterly grating. When the actresses are playing real and honest, the thing soars. When they dip into the pathos side of things, they all but reach through the screen and beat the tears out of the viewer. There's only so much crying I'm willing to do for one miniseries and this one would have to be 10 times as long to merit all it thinks it deserves.
The narration is, naturally, by Oprah, playing a Tennessee woman living in a cul-de-sac slum, cut off from everything by a brick wall. Oprah tells us just a tad, but then hits us with the main point of the miniseries, which will be obvious all on its own: "When we women came together, there was a power inside us we never felt before."
She arrives on the block as an old woman, taking an apartment with a lovely view of the wall. As she looks at her new digs, she remembers the past, back in the country, where she's feeding chickens and being pestered by Clark Johnson, who wants to spend some special time with her. Oprah tells him he curses too much and he says "you and your 'ain't'" knocking her Christian values in favor of easier hedonism. "All the women I know, they don't remember nothing but the good times they had with me," and that is supposed to keep them happy in more miserable times. Clark is especially turned on by Oprah telling the story of her family's last name, one that goes back to slavery. He gets what he wants (after she finishes her story).
But it only takes one time to get pregnant, and that's exacty what happens. Oprah's father, Paul Winfield, is so furious he refuses to speak at all, but her mother, Mary Alice, is more understanding. She tells her daughter that having a baby is not wrong, but "the sin is in the fornicating and I done forgave you for that a long time ago." After Mary's touching speech, Paul gets one too, lest we go 53 seconds with some preaching. He actually forgives her too, but only because he thinks a former beau is responsible, but she tells him the father is someone different and he goes ballistic. "Tell me of I'm gonna beat it out of you," which he does with fists and a broom. Mary rushes out with a shotgun and proclaims, "you touch my child again and I'll meet your soul in hell." Now it's Paul's turn to cry, saying "I had such hopes for that girl."
Goodbye country living, the unmarried pregnant girl is off on a Greyhound bus. Oprah lives in a boarding house where she gives birth with the support of her friend Jackee Harry, but that support is about to be yanked out from under her too. Jackee is moving to New York City. "They got this place called Harlem with nothing but wall to wall colored doctors and businessmen," she rambles and then invites Oprah to come with her, but the latter is skeptical and decides to stay put with her baby.
Happy for about five minutes, she awakes to find a rat in her bed, having just finished off the baby's bottle. She has to leave that boarding house, but it's hard to get new digs. Eccentric old lady Barbara Montgomery finally takes them in, offering her food and her house. As she coos over "that pretty red thing " (the baby) and tells stories of her five husbands, she manages to tell Oprah she won't charge her for living there. She's lonely, since she has only her young granddaughter for company.
The years go by and Barbara is concerned that Oprah does not have a man. "I have my hands full raising my son," she protests when Barbara asks her for the umpteenth time why she doesn't date. The argument expands to include Barbara chastizing Oprah for letting her son sleep in bed with her. Oprah claims that he's afraid of the dark. They have had this argument for years, but this is the last time because Barbara dies. Her granddaughter is taken by the girl's father, but Oprah promises her son no one will take him away, her plan being to stay in the house and give her son a good life.
Indeed he has one, becoming grown-up Eugene Lee over a cup of coffee. The child actors are now banished and the aging make-up and graying wigs are hauled out for Oprah. Having fallen asleep reading the Bible, Oprah is awoken by a phone call from Eugene saying he's in jail for having killed a man. She insists on mortgaging the paid-for house so Eugene doesn't have to sit in prison until the trial. Ever naive, Oprah tells Eugene he won't be found guilty because it was an accident and the jury will see the evidence of that, but Eugene knows better. "A jury? That jury's gonna be so white, they gonna think we just had a snowfall," Eugene reminds her, summing up Southern justice quite nicely.
You know what happens next. Let's not even waste time playing the guessing game. After a speech like that, the kid is history, cutting and running. By this point, with her hair completely gray, it's time for Oprah to put on her ratty fur coat, grab her suitcase and a little plant (this reference to "A Raisin in the Sun" is noticeable, except when Mama Younger took her houseplant, she was moving from the slum to a house, not the reverse like Oprah is doing) and dispense with the flashback.
She is pulled from remembering by Lynn Whitfield, the little girl she helped raised, now all grown up. Lynn knows Oprah is miserable in the city, now sounding like Barbara Montgomery as she clucks over Lynn's fatherless child, and tries to make Oprah as comfortable as possible. Brewster Place is filled with unique characters, and two of them argue constantly outside Oprah's door. There's blue-haired senior Olivia Cole, direct from every other miniseries, and Phyllis Stickney, a young mother of a brood of loud brats. Pre-feminism feminist rich girl Robin Givens is moving in with her boyfriend and nervous about it. Into the squalor of the neighborhood sweeps Jackee in a giant car, wearing a fur-trimmed suit and feathers in her hair, having left her man and taken his car as a method of escape. Her problem is that she's never had a "regular job," going from man to man as a kept woman, and right now, she has no prospects in that department. Oprah invites her to church to meet a nice man, though Jackee wonders why Oprah is still single with all of her church-going. "Child, I done banked those fires long ago," she snaps back.
Brewster Place is a haven for crime, with Glenn Plummer the drug-pushing mastermind of it all. The women hate him and his gang, but the police won't even listen to their complaints. Robin wants to start a tenant's association, but she doesn't get too far before spotting one of Phyllis' kids eating out of the garbage. Hauling him to his TV-loving mother, who moans, "now I'm gonna miss Rachel coming out of her coma," Robin is shocked to hear that Phyllis knows her kid is a dumpster diver and does it to find sweets that she won't allow her kids. In fact, she's indignant that Robin has even hinted that her kids aren't well-fed. "I got four books of food stamps," she says proudly! When she tells boyfriend Leon about it, he reminds her that life in the ghetto is not like anything she's known. "These people have had the life beaten out of them for years and you can't change that overnight," he tells the budding do-gooder.
The bad news just keeps piling up. Lynn finds out she's pregnant by William Allen Young, a rather ornery man, but no one is very excited. Lynn thinks it will be nice to have a sibling for her other child, but William loses his job and is afraid of how they will manage. "When I have this baby, I'll have my tubes tied," she says, but he can't see that far into the future. "I swear, with you and these two kids on my back, ain't nothing ever gonna happen," is his response before tearing out of the apartment. Cue the abortion. "I'm still young. I got plenty of time," Lynn cries to Oprah as she tries to make her understand why she had to do it.
Robin's biggest problem is her mother showing up unexpectedly. Cicely Tyson looks glamorous in a Chanel suit, refusing to call her daughter by her back-to-Africa name (this is the 1960s, FYI). Cicely keeps harping on the fact that Robin has no phone, which costs $75. Cicely wants to pay for the phone, but Robin refuses, preferring to "make it" on her own. "This is how poor people live," Robin notes, to which Cicely replies, "but we're not poor." "No, Mama, you're not poor!" Robin volleys back. Robin is easily the most annoying character in the movie because her character's plot has aged the worst. The drama of the poor in the ghetto is universal and always timely, but the once-stock character of the rich girl wanting to live among what she considers "our people" died with the 60s, when people actually did that. Robin Givens is ideal casting, I admit, but the character is given to us with no sense of humor and nothing to her that says she's anything but that stock character that even by 1989 had ceased to be realistic.
Cicely is only around briefly, but that doesn't stop her for going for the gold with this bit when Robin gets all high and mighty about her parents being wealthy, to her an affrontery on black culture: "Then know this. I am alive because of the blood of a people who never scraped or begged or apologized for what they were. They asked only one thing of this world, to be allowed TO BE! And I learned through the blood of these people that black isn't beautiful. It isn't ugly. It isn't kinky hair. It isn't straight hair. BLACK IS JUST BLACK!" As if that hissing isn't a present enough to an actress, it continues. "It broke my heart when you changed your name. I gave you my grandmother's name, a woman who bore nine children and educated them all, who held off six white men with a shotgun when they tried to drag off one them off to jail for not knowing his place. And you have to reach into an African dictionary to make a name that would make you proud! When I brought my babies home from the hospital, I swore to whatever gods would listen that I would use everything I had or could get so that my children would be prepared to meet this world on its own terms, so that no one could make them ashamed of what they were or how they looked...that's not white or red or black or purple. That's being a mother." Cicely uses every trick in the acting handbook to gnaw on the scenery. It's a hokey speech, to be sure, especially delivered by Cicely with her hand to God, but she's a total pro in a wasteland of so-so actresses and thus makes it work regally. If spoken by anyone else, it would be a laugh riot.
"There's gonne be trouble," Olivia Cole says to Jackee, both sitting on the stoop. They are referring to "two young girls living by themselves," Lonette McKee and Paula Kelly. Jackee doesn't see the harm, but Olivia has a suspicion that they are going to be throwing parties. Oh, she doesn't know the half of it!
Jumping back onto her high horse, Robin intensifies her efforts to form a tenants association, this time going after Phyllis, who has one of those moments I mentioned in the opening. Up until now, Phyllis has kind of been the comic relief, but when Robin sits in her apartment, Phyllis gets to prattle on about how much she loves her kids, something about baby dolls and Christmas wishes. It doesn't work, not coming from her mouth. What does work is the topper to the starry-eyed monologue. "And they they grow up and turn into these little dumb asses!" she roars back into action, upset that one of her kids ruined a curtain rod, while Robin is actually concerned about the kid it fell on. As if her unwarrented parental lessons aren't enough, Robin invites Phyllis and her kids to an all-black Shakespeare production. I don't care where the kids are growing up; no one that young should ever have to sit through Shakespeare, worst of all one of the comedies!
Pissed off about something, William arrives home to tell Lynn he's leaving for a job on the docks in Maine...or Newport...or somewhere he can't exactly remember. Lynn wants to go with him, but he refuses. They argue loudly while in the other room, their baby chases a cockroach into an electrical outlet with a pair of scissors. A sound effect is the only thing we need to know how that ends up. Lynn is catatonic with self-hatred while Oprah feeds the neighborhood shiva-sitters. Jackee pulls Oprah aside to ask if anyone knows where William has "taken his sorry butt" and Oprah declares, "no, but he better keep it there!" They come to the conclusion that Lynn is trying to slowly kill herself by not eating and getting very sick.
Here comes Big Bad Oprah, the one who probably practiced this scene on some employees before letting it rip before the cameras. Gulping air into her chest and standing erect, she tears into Lynn's room and announces, "I promise you, you leave this world, it's going to be over my dead body." She grabs Lynn, rocking her and shouting, "come on back" over and over as the music swells and Lynn gets the tears flowing. Oprah gives her a nice bath, which is filmed in an unfortunate style that makes it seem strangely sexual, though it's obviously anything but. Lynn finally dissolves into the expected crying fit with Oprah's meaty arms tucked around her.
It's Shakespeare time! Phyllis wraps her 15 or so kids in their finest wrapping for the outing, even gussying herself up. Olivia's eyes almost pop out of her head when she sees the well-behaved family trotting off, shocked to hear what they are doing.
Also surprised is Oprah, who goes to check in on Lynn, only to find her and her belongings gone. She's upset, but nothing stops her from going to church. There's a guest reverend, Douglas Turner Ward, and Jackee sets her sights on him. She manages to find out in 30 seconds that he's a widower, all but throwing herself at the poor man while Oprah disapproves. "If you had batten them eyelashes any faster, we would have had a dust storm in there," she growls. This time, however, Jackee doesn't take Oprah's sass and gets another of the movie's Big Moments. "No upstanding decent man could ever see in her anything but a quick good time. Well, let me tell you something...I've always traveled first class, maybe not in the way you approve of with all your fine Christian principles, but it's done all right by me. And I'm gonna keep going top drawer until the day I leave this earth. Don't you think I got me a mirror? Each year there's a new line to be covered. I lay down with this body and I get up with it every morning and every day it cries for a little more rest than the day before. Well, I'm gonna get me that rest and it's gonna be with a fine man...and all you slack-mouth gossips and roosters can just be damned. You know I've always known what they have said behind my back, but I never thought you'd be right up there with them," she bravely says to Oprah. Since Oprah insists the man only wants sex, and Jackee has finer thoughts, it's a stand-off. I have to give Jackee the credit here. Instead of delivering her Big Moment in a shrill manner, she is sedate and calm, a nice counterbalance to all the overheated Big Moments everyone else can't resist using.
And how do things end up for Jackee? She gets all kittenish in Douglas' car as he says he couldn't take his eyes off her in church, that most women don't look beautiful in church anymore, blah, blah, blah, and then it's inside for some jazz-infused sex. "God and me ain't got a lot to say to one another," Jackee confesses after the act, continuing the thread she started with Oprah, that it's time to change her life. Unfortunately, Douglas isn't there to hear the lovely lesson, as he's in the bathroom getting dressed. "Yeah, is there somewhere I can drop you off?" Oh, let's pray together that Oprah doesn't go hog wild with the "I told you so" routine. When she gets home, Oprah is in her rocking chair listening to Jackee's records, saying "I wasn't worried," but we all know she was. Friendship triumphs again.
"Those two sure do shop a lot. Where do you reckon they get all that money from?" Olivia wonders, back to her new favorite targets, Lonette and Paula. "They...you know...that way!" Olivia tells Oprah and Jackee, who don't believe it, but let Olivia spew anyway. Olivia watches the girls from her window, hoping for proof.
In her zeal to better the neighborhood, Robin paints a mural on the brick wall, but Oprah is negative about the whole concept. The drug dealers will only spray paint over it. "I don't know why it's gotta be here," she says, pouring out dirt from two dead plants, the very symbol of the wall's confinement. "Traffic control," Robin answers, because she's actually researched it. It seems that Brewster Place "got the wall" because there are no rich people in the area. Oprah has a new reason to be indignant, so Robin tells her to do something about it. "I could tear down this wall with my bare hands, they'd just send someone in the next day to put it up again," she whines. "But at least you would have done somthing," Robin says, only to be shut up by Oprah's call of "you're young, you'll see what I mean."
At home, Lonette wonders to Paula if she's noticed that "people aren't as nice as they used to be." Paula is of the opinion that neighborhood gossips don't mean anything, building up to a boil as she reminds Lonette that every time she feels "they" are judging Lonette and Paula, the girls have to move and give up what was apparently quite a good life, now living in the ghetto because it's the only place left. "Look out the window...you see that wall? It's the end of the line...and I'm not moving again!" Paula rails, but Lonette calls her on her bitchy mood and the two soon iron it out. Lonette is a teacher and worries that parents will find out about her, but Paula tells her not to fret so much.
Believe it or not, Robin puts together her tenants association and everyone gathers. Robin's aim is to present a united front against the landlord who owns all of the Brewster Place buildings, but the cast would rather pick at each other, especially Olivia, who takes this opportunity to bash the lesbians once again, before spewing at Jackee for defending them, tramp that she is. Lonette shows up while the gang is working itself into a lather. Robin wants someone to take the minutes and Lonette volunteers. "Ain't we supposed to vote who we want for secretary?" Olivia opines. Big Moment cue. As the masses harumpfh about her behavior, she stands up and starts. "Why should a decent woman get insulted while you all take the sides of the likes of THEM [the lesbians]? Pick on me! Pick on me! Like I'm the one going around in a filthy unnatural way," she snarls, holding one of Robin's African statues for protection. "You ain't welcome here!" Olivia shouts. But Lonette tries to defend herself, but Olivia isn't letting anyone steal her thunder. "You forgot to close your shades last night and I saw. I saw the both of you, you and her standing in the bathroom door dripping wet and naked as you be," before launching into a tirade that is delivered as if she is the last living snake on earth. It's a hoot, but hey, as they say in the computer world, "garbage in, garbage out." Olivia's character is simply and old-fashioned bitch, so she might as well have fun playing it. She's halted first by Moses Gunn, the sweet-natured superintendant, and then by Robin, who calls her a "self-righteous old wench." Olivia leaves, her face contorted with hatred for everyone.
Moses chases Lonette out of the meeting to make sure she's okay, even inviting her to his place for tea. "I don't get that much company," a clearly nervous Moses says. They confide in each other so Lonette can unroll her troubled back story. She was kicked out of the house at 17 and her letters home went unanswered. She even tried to call once, but her mother hung up. As she gets her shot at the big cry, Moses takes her hand and says she reminds him of his long-gone handicapped daughter. "I liked you from the first off," the kindly old man says.
Next to get up into Lonette's business are the gang members (including Mike Tyson, Mr. Robin Givens at the time), who tease Lonette. Glenn, not the most clever gang leader, offers to show Lonette what a "real man" can do, but Robin jumps in and snaps back, "from what I hear, she wouldn't even notice." Robin and Lonette do not frighten easily and the gang slinks off. Paula is anxiously awaiting her arrival when Lonette gets home because they have been invited to a club by some gay friends. Lonette refuses, claiming she's always hated the club and the men. "They're nothing but a couple of fags," she says. "So what, we're nothing but a couple of dykes," Paula retorts. "You can call yourself anything you want to, but you leave me out of it," Lonette says, causing Paula to rattle off all the names lesbians are called, asking her girlfriend why she "can't accept it." Lonette views her sexuality as nothing different, but Paula disagrees. You want to know how Lonette came to her conclusion? Well, we're gonna hear it anyway. While I agree with the speech 100%, it's too cheesy to take seriously. Apparently, the only two "constants" in her life are her "beige bra and oatmeal" because the day before she first fell in love with a woman, she had her beige bra and oatmeal and the day after she fell in love, same thing. Thus, nothing is different. Paula argues her side and frankly, I find her more convincing.
The tenants association (which means Robin) puts on a block party, turning the cul-de-sac into a fun atmosphere of good music and good food. Oprah gets Olivia to participate by sending her for ice, and Olivia grudgingly accepts. Jackee is invited to dance. "Girl, you better act your age," Oprah warns her, and Jackee says, "I am. 35," and joins the fun.
Pushing her way through the dancing is returning Lynn, looking healthy and happy in a polka dot dress and big sun hat. She explains to Oprah that she's been living in New York City and wanted to take a few days off from her new life to see Oprah and Jackee, who can tell from Lynn's sparkle that she has a boyfriend. "Oooh, I'm gonna bake your wedding cake," Oprah chants, no doubt dreaming of licking the bowl already.
Lonette gives in and gets dressed to go to the club. Now it's Paula's turn to sulk. "I'm gonna go without you," brave Lonette says, though Paula says, "you won't last there five minutes without me." The stubborn lovers stand their ground and Lonette leaves. Just as she's about to get on the bus, she decides against it, looking up to see Paula chain smoking in the window. She goes knocking on Moses' door, looking for a good shoulder and tea, but he's not home. Instead, it's Glenn she finds, still angry at the jokes she made at his expense. Pulling out a switchblade, he forces her into a corner by the brick wall and rapes her, the music from the block party drowned out by the haunting score as he beats her to the ground and bends over.
Night has long fallen, but the party is still raging. Jackee is leading all of the youngsters in dancing and Oprah is feeding everyone the special Angel Food cake she and Barbara made growing up. Oprah even mentions her son by name and admits, "it's not so bad" remembering. Oprah sends Moses to the brick wall to fetch a box for the trash and he discovers Lonette bleeding on the ground. In an altered mental state, she views him as a threat and smacks him over and over with a piece of wood. When Moses doesn't return with the box, Oprah has to go herself. She makes the grisly discovery of dead Moses and horrified Lonette.
"Come quick, some awful's done happened!" Oprah yells into the party, then running (Oprah running, which is not to be confused with Jamaican Olympians are capable of) for help. They try to get Lonette up, but she just sees Glenn and swings her piece of wood. Paula hears the police come and decides to see what is going on. An extra tells her that Moses has been beaten, by "your friend" as the woman says. Lonette insists that Paula be allowed into the ambulance with her and by now the party mood has disappeared.
And then it comes. Yup, the moment we've been waiting for. The climax, Oprah-style. As rain starts to come down, Oprah gulps air again and looks at the brick wall. "That's why I don't trust trying no more. The harder folks try, the more something comes along and smacks 'em down. It's always something standing in the way of good...and I'm tired of it!" This is the 80s, before Oprah could snap her fingers and make the wall disappear, so her character has to walk slowly through the rain drops to the wall with courage and strength, taking a rusty tool and hitting the wall, the crowd dazed momentarily. Jackee joins her, their wigs drenched as they hammer away at the wall. Then Lynn and Phyllis join. And Robin too, with her boyfriend. More and more come and they chip away at the wall, one brick at a time. The music goes into gospel overdrive as our leads take out bricks and pass them behind them, the spirit of community raging inside of everyone. The look on Oprah's face tells her character's whole story. Sirens are heard and Jackee says that "they gonna throw all our butts in jail," to which Oprah responds with the classic, "then I guess we gonna have to tear down that too!" Further dialogue is unecessary
That's the end.
Actually, 20+ years after watching "The Women of Brewster Place" for the first time, I found it more dated than I had expected. The social injustices shouldn't seem as, well, for lack of a better word, trite, as they do here. The whole thing plays like a history lesson, which is a shame because there are some great opportunities to dive into character moments here. The actresses are game, but the script just gives them speech and speech and they don't end up as lovable as they should, instead settling in as types: the cranky old lady, the middle-class slummer, the happy-go-lucky tramp, although two lesbians are definitely unexpected!
Mama Oprah is, naturally, front and center, and she gives as good a performance as anyone could in the role of den mother to the community, but frankly, she does that better when she's herself and not playing a character. Hindsight makes this movie seem incidental. Why can't Oprah just descend in a helicopter, tell someone to tear down the wall and be back home by snack time? She's friggin' Oprah, for crying out loud!
"How, Bj," you say, "how can all of this be crunched into a two-night miniseries? It's not possible!" Oh, friends, it's possible because helming the whole thing is (trumpets blaring) Oprah Winfrey. She's one of the producers and its star, in that time when she thought herself an actress. She's a long way from "The Color Purple," where she actually proved her mettle, and thankfully a long way from "Beloved" where she destroyed that mettle. If Oprah can squeeze social injustice into one hour of chat, I suppose it's not impossible to tuck all of Gloria Naylor's book into four hours for us.
In fact, "The Women of Brewster Place" was so critically acclaimed and so wildly successful with viewers that it was turned into a weekly TV series, starring Oprah Winfrey. But, after less than half a dozen episodes, the show was canned and it's since been erased from history (as I might be now for bringing it up). Left standing is "The Women of Brewster Place," the miniseries, which is tough to actually review smoothly because it's at once outstanding and utterly grating. When the actresses are playing real and honest, the thing soars. When they dip into the pathos side of things, they all but reach through the screen and beat the tears out of the viewer. There's only so much crying I'm willing to do for one miniseries and this one would have to be 10 times as long to merit all it thinks it deserves.
The narration is, naturally, by Oprah, playing a Tennessee woman living in a cul-de-sac slum, cut off from everything by a brick wall. Oprah tells us just a tad, but then hits us with the main point of the miniseries, which will be obvious all on its own: "When we women came together, there was a power inside us we never felt before."
She arrives on the block as an old woman, taking an apartment with a lovely view of the wall. As she looks at her new digs, she remembers the past, back in the country, where she's feeding chickens and being pestered by Clark Johnson, who wants to spend some special time with her. Oprah tells him he curses too much and he says "you and your 'ain't'" knocking her Christian values in favor of easier hedonism. "All the women I know, they don't remember nothing but the good times they had with me," and that is supposed to keep them happy in more miserable times. Clark is especially turned on by Oprah telling the story of her family's last name, one that goes back to slavery. He gets what he wants (after she finishes her story).
But it only takes one time to get pregnant, and that's exacty what happens. Oprah's father, Paul Winfield, is so furious he refuses to speak at all, but her mother, Mary Alice, is more understanding. She tells her daughter that having a baby is not wrong, but "the sin is in the fornicating and I done forgave you for that a long time ago." After Mary's touching speech, Paul gets one too, lest we go 53 seconds with some preaching. He actually forgives her too, but only because he thinks a former beau is responsible, but she tells him the father is someone different and he goes ballistic. "Tell me of I'm gonna beat it out of you," which he does with fists and a broom. Mary rushes out with a shotgun and proclaims, "you touch my child again and I'll meet your soul in hell." Now it's Paul's turn to cry, saying "I had such hopes for that girl."
Goodbye country living, the unmarried pregnant girl is off on a Greyhound bus. Oprah lives in a boarding house where she gives birth with the support of her friend Jackee Harry, but that support is about to be yanked out from under her too. Jackee is moving to New York City. "They got this place called Harlem with nothing but wall to wall colored doctors and businessmen," she rambles and then invites Oprah to come with her, but the latter is skeptical and decides to stay put with her baby.
Happy for about five minutes, she awakes to find a rat in her bed, having just finished off the baby's bottle. She has to leave that boarding house, but it's hard to get new digs. Eccentric old lady Barbara Montgomery finally takes them in, offering her food and her house. As she coos over "that pretty red thing " (the baby) and tells stories of her five husbands, she manages to tell Oprah she won't charge her for living there. She's lonely, since she has only her young granddaughter for company.
The years go by and Barbara is concerned that Oprah does not have a man. "I have my hands full raising my son," she protests when Barbara asks her for the umpteenth time why she doesn't date. The argument expands to include Barbara chastizing Oprah for letting her son sleep in bed with her. Oprah claims that he's afraid of the dark. They have had this argument for years, but this is the last time because Barbara dies. Her granddaughter is taken by the girl's father, but Oprah promises her son no one will take him away, her plan being to stay in the house and give her son a good life.
Indeed he has one, becoming grown-up Eugene Lee over a cup of coffee. The child actors are now banished and the aging make-up and graying wigs are hauled out for Oprah. Having fallen asleep reading the Bible, Oprah is awoken by a phone call from Eugene saying he's in jail for having killed a man. She insists on mortgaging the paid-for house so Eugene doesn't have to sit in prison until the trial. Ever naive, Oprah tells Eugene he won't be found guilty because it was an accident and the jury will see the evidence of that, but Eugene knows better. "A jury? That jury's gonna be so white, they gonna think we just had a snowfall," Eugene reminds her, summing up Southern justice quite nicely.
You know what happens next. Let's not even waste time playing the guessing game. After a speech like that, the kid is history, cutting and running. By this point, with her hair completely gray, it's time for Oprah to put on her ratty fur coat, grab her suitcase and a little plant (this reference to "A Raisin in the Sun" is noticeable, except when Mama Younger took her houseplant, she was moving from the slum to a house, not the reverse like Oprah is doing) and dispense with the flashback.
She is pulled from remembering by Lynn Whitfield, the little girl she helped raised, now all grown up. Lynn knows Oprah is miserable in the city, now sounding like Barbara Montgomery as she clucks over Lynn's fatherless child, and tries to make Oprah as comfortable as possible. Brewster Place is filled with unique characters, and two of them argue constantly outside Oprah's door. There's blue-haired senior Olivia Cole, direct from every other miniseries, and Phyllis Stickney, a young mother of a brood of loud brats. Pre-feminism feminist rich girl Robin Givens is moving in with her boyfriend and nervous about it. Into the squalor of the neighborhood sweeps Jackee in a giant car, wearing a fur-trimmed suit and feathers in her hair, having left her man and taken his car as a method of escape. Her problem is that she's never had a "regular job," going from man to man as a kept woman, and right now, she has no prospects in that department. Oprah invites her to church to meet a nice man, though Jackee wonders why Oprah is still single with all of her church-going. "Child, I done banked those fires long ago," she snaps back.
Brewster Place is a haven for crime, with Glenn Plummer the drug-pushing mastermind of it all. The women hate him and his gang, but the police won't even listen to their complaints. Robin wants to start a tenant's association, but she doesn't get too far before spotting one of Phyllis' kids eating out of the garbage. Hauling him to his TV-loving mother, who moans, "now I'm gonna miss Rachel coming out of her coma," Robin is shocked to hear that Phyllis knows her kid is a dumpster diver and does it to find sweets that she won't allow her kids. In fact, she's indignant that Robin has even hinted that her kids aren't well-fed. "I got four books of food stamps," she says proudly! When she tells boyfriend Leon about it, he reminds her that life in the ghetto is not like anything she's known. "These people have had the life beaten out of them for years and you can't change that overnight," he tells the budding do-gooder.
The bad news just keeps piling up. Lynn finds out she's pregnant by William Allen Young, a rather ornery man, but no one is very excited. Lynn thinks it will be nice to have a sibling for her other child, but William loses his job and is afraid of how they will manage. "When I have this baby, I'll have my tubes tied," she says, but he can't see that far into the future. "I swear, with you and these two kids on my back, ain't nothing ever gonna happen," is his response before tearing out of the apartment. Cue the abortion. "I'm still young. I got plenty of time," Lynn cries to Oprah as she tries to make her understand why she had to do it.
Robin's biggest problem is her mother showing up unexpectedly. Cicely Tyson looks glamorous in a Chanel suit, refusing to call her daughter by her back-to-Africa name (this is the 1960s, FYI). Cicely keeps harping on the fact that Robin has no phone, which costs $75. Cicely wants to pay for the phone, but Robin refuses, preferring to "make it" on her own. "This is how poor people live," Robin notes, to which Cicely replies, "but we're not poor." "No, Mama, you're not poor!" Robin volleys back. Robin is easily the most annoying character in the movie because her character's plot has aged the worst. The drama of the poor in the ghetto is universal and always timely, but the once-stock character of the rich girl wanting to live among what she considers "our people" died with the 60s, when people actually did that. Robin Givens is ideal casting, I admit, but the character is given to us with no sense of humor and nothing to her that says she's anything but that stock character that even by 1989 had ceased to be realistic.
Cicely is only around briefly, but that doesn't stop her for going for the gold with this bit when Robin gets all high and mighty about her parents being wealthy, to her an affrontery on black culture: "Then know this. I am alive because of the blood of a people who never scraped or begged or apologized for what they were. They asked only one thing of this world, to be allowed TO BE! And I learned through the blood of these people that black isn't beautiful. It isn't ugly. It isn't kinky hair. It isn't straight hair. BLACK IS JUST BLACK!" As if that hissing isn't a present enough to an actress, it continues. "It broke my heart when you changed your name. I gave you my grandmother's name, a woman who bore nine children and educated them all, who held off six white men with a shotgun when they tried to drag off one them off to jail for not knowing his place. And you have to reach into an African dictionary to make a name that would make you proud! When I brought my babies home from the hospital, I swore to whatever gods would listen that I would use everything I had or could get so that my children would be prepared to meet this world on its own terms, so that no one could make them ashamed of what they were or how they looked...that's not white or red or black or purple. That's being a mother." Cicely uses every trick in the acting handbook to gnaw on the scenery. It's a hokey speech, to be sure, especially delivered by Cicely with her hand to God, but she's a total pro in a wasteland of so-so actresses and thus makes it work regally. If spoken by anyone else, it would be a laugh riot.
"There's gonne be trouble," Olivia Cole says to Jackee, both sitting on the stoop. They are referring to "two young girls living by themselves," Lonette McKee and Paula Kelly. Jackee doesn't see the harm, but Olivia has a suspicion that they are going to be throwing parties. Oh, she doesn't know the half of it!
Jumping back onto her high horse, Robin intensifies her efforts to form a tenants association, this time going after Phyllis, who has one of those moments I mentioned in the opening. Up until now, Phyllis has kind of been the comic relief, but when Robin sits in her apartment, Phyllis gets to prattle on about how much she loves her kids, something about baby dolls and Christmas wishes. It doesn't work, not coming from her mouth. What does work is the topper to the starry-eyed monologue. "And they they grow up and turn into these little dumb asses!" she roars back into action, upset that one of her kids ruined a curtain rod, while Robin is actually concerned about the kid it fell on. As if her unwarrented parental lessons aren't enough, Robin invites Phyllis and her kids to an all-black Shakespeare production. I don't care where the kids are growing up; no one that young should ever have to sit through Shakespeare, worst of all one of the comedies!
Pissed off about something, William arrives home to tell Lynn he's leaving for a job on the docks in Maine...or Newport...or somewhere he can't exactly remember. Lynn wants to go with him, but he refuses. They argue loudly while in the other room, their baby chases a cockroach into an electrical outlet with a pair of scissors. A sound effect is the only thing we need to know how that ends up. Lynn is catatonic with self-hatred while Oprah feeds the neighborhood shiva-sitters. Jackee pulls Oprah aside to ask if anyone knows where William has "taken his sorry butt" and Oprah declares, "no, but he better keep it there!" They come to the conclusion that Lynn is trying to slowly kill herself by not eating and getting very sick.
Here comes Big Bad Oprah, the one who probably practiced this scene on some employees before letting it rip before the cameras. Gulping air into her chest and standing erect, she tears into Lynn's room and announces, "I promise you, you leave this world, it's going to be over my dead body." She grabs Lynn, rocking her and shouting, "come on back" over and over as the music swells and Lynn gets the tears flowing. Oprah gives her a nice bath, which is filmed in an unfortunate style that makes it seem strangely sexual, though it's obviously anything but. Lynn finally dissolves into the expected crying fit with Oprah's meaty arms tucked around her.
It's Shakespeare time! Phyllis wraps her 15 or so kids in their finest wrapping for the outing, even gussying herself up. Olivia's eyes almost pop out of her head when she sees the well-behaved family trotting off, shocked to hear what they are doing.
Also surprised is Oprah, who goes to check in on Lynn, only to find her and her belongings gone. She's upset, but nothing stops her from going to church. There's a guest reverend, Douglas Turner Ward, and Jackee sets her sights on him. She manages to find out in 30 seconds that he's a widower, all but throwing herself at the poor man while Oprah disapproves. "If you had batten them eyelashes any faster, we would have had a dust storm in there," she growls. This time, however, Jackee doesn't take Oprah's sass and gets another of the movie's Big Moments. "No upstanding decent man could ever see in her anything but a quick good time. Well, let me tell you something...I've always traveled first class, maybe not in the way you approve of with all your fine Christian principles, but it's done all right by me. And I'm gonna keep going top drawer until the day I leave this earth. Don't you think I got me a mirror? Each year there's a new line to be covered. I lay down with this body and I get up with it every morning and every day it cries for a little more rest than the day before. Well, I'm gonna get me that rest and it's gonna be with a fine man...and all you slack-mouth gossips and roosters can just be damned. You know I've always known what they have said behind my back, but I never thought you'd be right up there with them," she bravely says to Oprah. Since Oprah insists the man only wants sex, and Jackee has finer thoughts, it's a stand-off. I have to give Jackee the credit here. Instead of delivering her Big Moment in a shrill manner, she is sedate and calm, a nice counterbalance to all the overheated Big Moments everyone else can't resist using.
And how do things end up for Jackee? She gets all kittenish in Douglas' car as he says he couldn't take his eyes off her in church, that most women don't look beautiful in church anymore, blah, blah, blah, and then it's inside for some jazz-infused sex. "God and me ain't got a lot to say to one another," Jackee confesses after the act, continuing the thread she started with Oprah, that it's time to change her life. Unfortunately, Douglas isn't there to hear the lovely lesson, as he's in the bathroom getting dressed. "Yeah, is there somewhere I can drop you off?" Oh, let's pray together that Oprah doesn't go hog wild with the "I told you so" routine. When she gets home, Oprah is in her rocking chair listening to Jackee's records, saying "I wasn't worried," but we all know she was. Friendship triumphs again.
"Those two sure do shop a lot. Where do you reckon they get all that money from?" Olivia wonders, back to her new favorite targets, Lonette and Paula. "They...you know...that way!" Olivia tells Oprah and Jackee, who don't believe it, but let Olivia spew anyway. Olivia watches the girls from her window, hoping for proof.
In her zeal to better the neighborhood, Robin paints a mural on the brick wall, but Oprah is negative about the whole concept. The drug dealers will only spray paint over it. "I don't know why it's gotta be here," she says, pouring out dirt from two dead plants, the very symbol of the wall's confinement. "Traffic control," Robin answers, because she's actually researched it. It seems that Brewster Place "got the wall" because there are no rich people in the area. Oprah has a new reason to be indignant, so Robin tells her to do something about it. "I could tear down this wall with my bare hands, they'd just send someone in the next day to put it up again," she whines. "But at least you would have done somthing," Robin says, only to be shut up by Oprah's call of "you're young, you'll see what I mean."
At home, Lonette wonders to Paula if she's noticed that "people aren't as nice as they used to be." Paula is of the opinion that neighborhood gossips don't mean anything, building up to a boil as she reminds Lonette that every time she feels "they" are judging Lonette and Paula, the girls have to move and give up what was apparently quite a good life, now living in the ghetto because it's the only place left. "Look out the window...you see that wall? It's the end of the line...and I'm not moving again!" Paula rails, but Lonette calls her on her bitchy mood and the two soon iron it out. Lonette is a teacher and worries that parents will find out about her, but Paula tells her not to fret so much.
Believe it or not, Robin puts together her tenants association and everyone gathers. Robin's aim is to present a united front against the landlord who owns all of the Brewster Place buildings, but the cast would rather pick at each other, especially Olivia, who takes this opportunity to bash the lesbians once again, before spewing at Jackee for defending them, tramp that she is. Lonette shows up while the gang is working itself into a lather. Robin wants someone to take the minutes and Lonette volunteers. "Ain't we supposed to vote who we want for secretary?" Olivia opines. Big Moment cue. As the masses harumpfh about her behavior, she stands up and starts. "Why should a decent woman get insulted while you all take the sides of the likes of THEM [the lesbians]? Pick on me! Pick on me! Like I'm the one going around in a filthy unnatural way," she snarls, holding one of Robin's African statues for protection. "You ain't welcome here!" Olivia shouts. But Lonette tries to defend herself, but Olivia isn't letting anyone steal her thunder. "You forgot to close your shades last night and I saw. I saw the both of you, you and her standing in the bathroom door dripping wet and naked as you be," before launching into a tirade that is delivered as if she is the last living snake on earth. It's a hoot, but hey, as they say in the computer world, "garbage in, garbage out." Olivia's character is simply and old-fashioned bitch, so she might as well have fun playing it. She's halted first by Moses Gunn, the sweet-natured superintendant, and then by Robin, who calls her a "self-righteous old wench." Olivia leaves, her face contorted with hatred for everyone.
Moses chases Lonette out of the meeting to make sure she's okay, even inviting her to his place for tea. "I don't get that much company," a clearly nervous Moses says. They confide in each other so Lonette can unroll her troubled back story. She was kicked out of the house at 17 and her letters home went unanswered. She even tried to call once, but her mother hung up. As she gets her shot at the big cry, Moses takes her hand and says she reminds him of his long-gone handicapped daughter. "I liked you from the first off," the kindly old man says.
Next to get up into Lonette's business are the gang members (including Mike Tyson, Mr. Robin Givens at the time), who tease Lonette. Glenn, not the most clever gang leader, offers to show Lonette what a "real man" can do, but Robin jumps in and snaps back, "from what I hear, she wouldn't even notice." Robin and Lonette do not frighten easily and the gang slinks off. Paula is anxiously awaiting her arrival when Lonette gets home because they have been invited to a club by some gay friends. Lonette refuses, claiming she's always hated the club and the men. "They're nothing but a couple of fags," she says. "So what, we're nothing but a couple of dykes," Paula retorts. "You can call yourself anything you want to, but you leave me out of it," Lonette says, causing Paula to rattle off all the names lesbians are called, asking her girlfriend why she "can't accept it." Lonette views her sexuality as nothing different, but Paula disagrees. You want to know how Lonette came to her conclusion? Well, we're gonna hear it anyway. While I agree with the speech 100%, it's too cheesy to take seriously. Apparently, the only two "constants" in her life are her "beige bra and oatmeal" because the day before she first fell in love with a woman, she had her beige bra and oatmeal and the day after she fell in love, same thing. Thus, nothing is different. Paula argues her side and frankly, I find her more convincing.
The tenants association (which means Robin) puts on a block party, turning the cul-de-sac into a fun atmosphere of good music and good food. Oprah gets Olivia to participate by sending her for ice, and Olivia grudgingly accepts. Jackee is invited to dance. "Girl, you better act your age," Oprah warns her, and Jackee says, "I am. 35," and joins the fun.
Pushing her way through the dancing is returning Lynn, looking healthy and happy in a polka dot dress and big sun hat. She explains to Oprah that she's been living in New York City and wanted to take a few days off from her new life to see Oprah and Jackee, who can tell from Lynn's sparkle that she has a boyfriend. "Oooh, I'm gonna bake your wedding cake," Oprah chants, no doubt dreaming of licking the bowl already.
Lonette gives in and gets dressed to go to the club. Now it's Paula's turn to sulk. "I'm gonna go without you," brave Lonette says, though Paula says, "you won't last there five minutes without me." The stubborn lovers stand their ground and Lonette leaves. Just as she's about to get on the bus, she decides against it, looking up to see Paula chain smoking in the window. She goes knocking on Moses' door, looking for a good shoulder and tea, but he's not home. Instead, it's Glenn she finds, still angry at the jokes she made at his expense. Pulling out a switchblade, he forces her into a corner by the brick wall and rapes her, the music from the block party drowned out by the haunting score as he beats her to the ground and bends over.
Night has long fallen, but the party is still raging. Jackee is leading all of the youngsters in dancing and Oprah is feeding everyone the special Angel Food cake she and Barbara made growing up. Oprah even mentions her son by name and admits, "it's not so bad" remembering. Oprah sends Moses to the brick wall to fetch a box for the trash and he discovers Lonette bleeding on the ground. In an altered mental state, she views him as a threat and smacks him over and over with a piece of wood. When Moses doesn't return with the box, Oprah has to go herself. She makes the grisly discovery of dead Moses and horrified Lonette.
"Come quick, some awful's done happened!" Oprah yells into the party, then running (Oprah running, which is not to be confused with Jamaican Olympians are capable of) for help. They try to get Lonette up, but she just sees Glenn and swings her piece of wood. Paula hears the police come and decides to see what is going on. An extra tells her that Moses has been beaten, by "your friend" as the woman says. Lonette insists that Paula be allowed into the ambulance with her and by now the party mood has disappeared.
And then it comes. Yup, the moment we've been waiting for. The climax, Oprah-style. As rain starts to come down, Oprah gulps air again and looks at the brick wall. "That's why I don't trust trying no more. The harder folks try, the more something comes along and smacks 'em down. It's always something standing in the way of good...and I'm tired of it!" This is the 80s, before Oprah could snap her fingers and make the wall disappear, so her character has to walk slowly through the rain drops to the wall with courage and strength, taking a rusty tool and hitting the wall, the crowd dazed momentarily. Jackee joins her, their wigs drenched as they hammer away at the wall. Then Lynn and Phyllis join. And Robin too, with her boyfriend. More and more come and they chip away at the wall, one brick at a time. The music goes into gospel overdrive as our leads take out bricks and pass them behind them, the spirit of community raging inside of everyone. The look on Oprah's face tells her character's whole story. Sirens are heard and Jackee says that "they gonna throw all our butts in jail," to which Oprah responds with the classic, "then I guess we gonna have to tear down that too!" Further dialogue is unecessary
That's the end.
Actually, 20+ years after watching "The Women of Brewster Place" for the first time, I found it more dated than I had expected. The social injustices shouldn't seem as, well, for lack of a better word, trite, as they do here. The whole thing plays like a history lesson, which is a shame because there are some great opportunities to dive into character moments here. The actresses are game, but the script just gives them speech and speech and they don't end up as lovable as they should, instead settling in as types: the cranky old lady, the middle-class slummer, the happy-go-lucky tramp, although two lesbians are definitely unexpected!
Mama Oprah is, naturally, front and center, and she gives as good a performance as anyone could in the role of den mother to the community, but frankly, she does that better when she's herself and not playing a character. Hindsight makes this movie seem incidental. Why can't Oprah just descend in a helicopter, tell someone to tear down the wall and be back home by snack time? She's friggin' Oprah, for crying out loud!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Little Gloria...Happy at Last (1982)
We've already done the "boo hoo, being rich is so difficult thing" with in "Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story." We watched her go from ignored infant to destitute old lady, dead with only few thousand dollars.
Gloria Vanderbilt's story is still going because unlike her fellow debs, she's still alive. "Little Gloria...Happy at Last" concerns a very specific episode in her childhood and does not delve into her many marriages, her many careers (yes, the jeans) or even her motherhood (one son would sadly commit suicide while the other would become Anderson Cooper). Sticking to this one episodes in her life allows for tight rendering, augmented by a wonderful script and truly outstanding performances. There are also some wildly over-the-top moments, but this is a miniseries after all.
This is an outstanding piece, which is is surprising, because it could have been so trashy.
At a party in 1922, Reggie Vanderbilt (Christopher Plummer) meets Gloria Morgan (Lucy Gutteridge). The former is, of course, a member of old society, the Vanderbilts having forced their way into society by threatening to buy it a few decades earlier. The latter is one of the Morgan sisters who are successful society figures. Gossip columnist Maury Paul (John Hillerman) has led the charges for the girls, of which Lucy is the only single one. Among the more awkward moments at the party is when Reggie's daughter dances by saying hello, the exact same age as Gloria. But, Reggie is so entranced by Gloria that he minds neither that nor Gloria's incessant and dimwitted chatter. She's as shallow as a blow-up pool.
Gloria takes a spin around the dance floor with Maury while Reggie has an attack of some sorts that is calmed by nip from his flask. "You mean he drinks a lot?" Gloria asks Maury. "Just close your eyes and dance," he tells her.
Rushing home to her mother, Gloria can't wait to talk about her meeting Reggie. Her sister has already told their mother, Laura Morgan (Glynis Johns), who sees only dollar signs. Overly-theatrical Laura has only one idea in her ever-spinning brain. "He's the wealthiest, most eligible bachelor in the whole country. Don't complain how he dances," the cautions her daughter, her own eyes wide with possibility.
Gloria and her mother are invited to the Rhode Island summer home to see Reggie's horses and to meet his mother at her own home, The Breakers, one of Newport's most famous abodes. The stately mansion is dominated by Alice Vanderbilt (Bette Davis). Unlike bubbly Laura, who is informal and grasping, Alice is regal. Also there for the party is one of Reggie's siblings, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (Angela Lansbury). "Unlike Reggie, I don't flourish under the dazzling glare of publicity," Gertrude says as a warning to Gloria that she's doesn't fully approve of his lifestyle. After all, she's just an artist with a sculpture studio in Greenwich Village. She wants to open a museum (and eventually would, The Whitney Museum).
Poor Alice gets it worse, having to listen to Laura go on and on about her South American roots and some fake ancestry, not to mention how she has pushed two daughters into impressive marriages. Bette Davis has one of her better late career moments when she is able to roll those knowing eyes at Reggie while Laura spins another yarn.
Reggie is summoned to tea by his mother. "She's not one of THE Morgans, you know," she tells Reggie, who says he wishes she were as he's apparently broke. Moving on from their differing social stations, Alice is more upset that the Morgan sisters have "been around." "How can a girl of 18 been around?" Reggie asks. Alice tries to battle Reggie a bit, but ultimately the Vanderbilt family's recently-acquired status cannot be ignored, so the only leg Alice has to stand on is Gloria's fast reputation. Gloria takes care of that one and has a doctor verify she's a virgin, causing Reggie to howl at a lunch and Alice to do the same at her mansion when a letter arrives with the results.
"When a family's divorces begin to outnumber its marriages, we must question the intelligence of its romantic choices, but in this case, there are no questions to be asked," Alice says at the head of a very long table of expensive-dressed extras. She then takes her pearls off and gives them to Gloria, as "all Vanderbilt women must have pearls," and Reggie can't afford to buy her any. In a car home, Reggie lays out his true financial status: he doesn't have one. He's living off the generosity of his mother. As long as he's alive, they are fine. But, when he dies, his wife will not get a penny, all of his trust fund going to a child from a previous marriage, unless Gloria can produce an heir, in which case, that child will get half of the fund. "I don't care about you or about the future as long as I can have you now," Gloria tells him, in one of those only-in-a-miniseries lines that dooms poor Reggie to death only 30 minutes into the movie.
Gloria's sisters and mother discuss the upcoming nuptials. All three have had lousy marriages, both daughters on the verge of divorce and Laura living a separate life from her husband. In one breath, Laura is deluded about who wins with this marriage (she feels the Vanderbilts are lucky to be marrying into a family of bogus Spanish nobility), but then understands practicality and hopes that Gloria produces an air before Reggie dies.
In the next scene, said daughter is born. Laura takes control in the hospital room, launching into one of her long-winded monologues about how difficult the birth was. "Out Little Gloria," she notes as the nurse takes the baby away to be fed. Laura, rushing up the stairs at top volume, has found a nanny for Little Gloria, Nurse Emma Kieslich (Maureen Stapleton). They need someone, because Reggie uses the twinkling of ice in his glass as a sort of rattle. With Gertrude as godmother, Little Gloria is christened, which does not meet the approval of arch-Catholic Nurse Emma. She and Laura sit in the car on the way back and rip into the Vanderbilts for allowing a Episcopalian service. Nurse Emma intends to pray for her soul.
At 18 months old, Little Gloria still has Nurse Emma living in the same bedroom with her. Gloria thinks it's odd, but apparently she hasn't yet figured out that Nurse Emma is a certified loon. Reggie stumbles home drunk early in the morning, coughing uncontrollably, but pays a visit to the child, blowing out the candle that Nurse Emma has put near Little Gloria for religious protection. With Reggie dying on the sofa, Gloria is summoned by Laura to go with her and visit Laura's own dying mother in Chile. "I wish I were going with you. I've never been to Chile," he ruefully says. Reggie has never been, and he knows he'll never go.
The dying husband takes precedence over the dying grandmother (whom she's never met anyway), but Gloria does not make it in time before he dies. "He's gone, my dear," Alice says simply (she had to deliver a similar line in "Where Love Has Gone," and has lost none of her I'm-slumming-so-badly attitude about it). Gloria faints upon hearing it, but Alice nods a servant over to take care of Gloria.
The family and friends gather at Alice's home, where she and Gertrude discuss funeral plans. "All local social functions will be canceled, of course," Alice notes. "The casino lowered its flag to half mast," is Gloria's only addition.
Lawyer Gilchrist (Michael Gross) comes to the Morgan family with the details of the will, which are not pleasant. As Reggie noted, there is a $5 million trust to be split between Reggie's two children, and Gilchrist notes that Little Gloria and the trust fund need a guardian. Laura has another of her outbursts (Glynis Johns is having the time of her life in this role), arguing with everyone in the room and topping it all with this chuckle of a line: "What is going on here is a little infant baby with a fortune of money and a mother who does not have a red cent!" Her daughters and poor Gilchrist can only listen to this hilarious harangue.
Maury notes in his column that Gloria and her lawyers have decided to fight the will, saying that Gloria needs money to take care of the child. The judge agrees to $1000 a month, an amazing sum in those days.
By 1931, Gloria is primarily living abroad, using the $1000 on herself. Gilchrist comes to visit her on the Riviera, discussing sister Thelma's new affair with the Prince of Wales (Lucy Gutteridge had played Thelma in "The Woman He Loved," which we've already discussed. Gloria herself has a gigolo lover, but Cilchrist is actually there to deliver bad news that Gloria has to move Little Gloria back to New York City because it's not considered correct for an American heiress to be living anywhere but America. Having learned histrionics from her own mother, Gloria snaps, "it's a pretty awful state of affairs when a person's child becomes a rope around her neck and has to be dragged wherever she wants to go...it's all Gloria's fault!" Gloria loves the society life and refuses to give it up for her child, so she dumps Little Gloria at Aunt Thelma's in England. Now it's Nurse Emma's turn to get all huffy, filling Little Gloria's head with only bad things about her own mother. Nurse Emma reports all of the child's mother's antics to Laura. She is also the obvious hand behind Little Gloria's letters to Laura, for her own phrases creep into them. "Read them and weep, Mr. Gilchrist. READ THEM AND WEEP!" Laura bellows, digging down to the deepest register of her voice to come off like an overzealous Medea. She's there to have Gloria and Little Gloria brought back to New York City (Laura is fighting with Gloria, which is her own selfish reason for wanting Gloria's wings clipped).
A fleet of cars drive past bread lines in a heavy-handed touch that is a bit too much for this movie as mother and daughter arrive back in New York City so Little Gloria can have her tonsils removed. Gloria buys her daughter a car and driver of her own as Little Gloria sees newspaper clippings about the Lindbergh baby and begins to worry about herself. Aunt Gertrude is in the middle of one of her Bohemian parties (the kind that Lansbury's Mame would have approved of) when the Gloria stop by. She hammers in the idea of protection and advises Gloria to hire a bodyguard. They hire one, but they hardly need one because Nurse Emma "has never taken a day off" and still sleeps in the same bedroom as her charge. Good luck getting by Nurse Emma! Laura makes it worse, by storming in one day and throwing down the newspaper article about the Lindbergh baby's murder. She reads the entire gruesome article, which gives Little Gloria horrible nightmares.
Gloria is only somewhat concerned about Little Gloria's mental state, rushing off to Europe again. Aunt Gertrude asks to take Little Gloria to her home on Long Island, where she brings a gaggle of doctors to discuss Little Gloria's condition. There are apparently no physical issues, but a whole lot of mental ones. One doctor blames Nurse Emma's poisoning thoughts, but that is brushed aside because Gertrude says the child is utterly devoted to her and, after all, her own children were raised by nannies. One of the doctors is Gertrude's lover and she dashes over to Europe for a tryst with him, little better than Gloria. Upon returning, Gertrude is a little put out by all of the money Nurse Emma has been spending on doctors. Gertrude decides to take Gloria to see the doctor with her and he does indeed feel that Little Gloria's physical issues are the result of emotional distress and that Little Gloria should stay in the country and be pampered by Gertrude.
A year goes by and Gertrude assembles all the lawyers to her mansion to lower the boom. She starts off by reminding everyone that Little Gloria has flourished under her care, her own mother absent and in the papers for bad behavior, tucking in a apology to Laura, who is seated next to her. "I'm behind you 1000%!" Laura wails. Gertrude feels the child should live up to her Vanderbilt name, with her. She also has Gilchrist wire Gloria in Europe to say that the trust administrator is threatening to cut off the money to Gloria since Little Gloria's bills are being paid by Gertrude. When Gloria returns home, she wants to bring Little Gloria back to the city, but she's "so happy" in the country, as noted by Gertrude and Gilchrist. The plan is coming together nicely. They petition the trust administrator to agree to lower Gloria's monthly settlement from $4000 to $750. "Can't something be done for me to get my baby back?" Gloria wonders, just now starting to catch on to all that has already been done to undermine her status as mother.
So, off she goes to another lawyer, Nathan Burkan (Martin Balsam), and a family friend and tells him the whole story. Nathan admits that Gertrude believes herself "beyond the laws of man and nature," and the first step in fighting her is to have Gloria appointed guardian now that she is of age (she was only 18 when a surrogate was appointed). At a court hearing, a lawyer brings a complaint against the petition to have Gloria named guardian, standing up in the balcony of the court room to do so, as dramatically as possible. So, who should be behind this theatrical display? "Mrs. Laura Morgan, Mrs. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt's own mother," she says, with the press rushing out the door to go file their stories.
The war for Little Gloria is on.
Gloria's sisters go to Laura to tell her she's being ridiculous and that no mother would do this to her child. Laura argues that Little Gloria has been neglected. "You'd think she was Little Orphan Annie," one sister chirps. Plus, Laura traveled around the world and left her own daughters. The sisters are wise to Laura's reasons, that she's never gotten over the fact that Gloria refused to let her live with her. "She threw me out on the street, her own Mama!" Oh, and as for the money her daughters send her every month, she is fine losing that because she has a benefactor. "I could not face my God if I did not do this," she rants to her daughters.
Dying Alice Vanderbilt is filled in on all that's been going on by Gertrude, who is only too happy to run down the list of Gloria's faults (she's dating a man "of the Hebrew persuasion"), though Alice reminds her Gertrude's only life has not been scandal-free. The difference, according to Gertrude, is that she's always kept her life private, not "lived in front of the news reels." Alice still intends to leave Gloria money in her will.
"I'm not happy with my mother," poor Little Gloria tells Aunt Gertrude, who tells her indeed she does have to pay her mother a visit. Between Nurse Emma, Laura and Gertrude, they have made Gloria out to be a an uncaring mother. Even Nathan agrees that Gloria has botched motherhood, so Gloria is determined to change all of that. A montage shows Little Gloria having fun her with mother, trying on all of her jewels an learning to balance a checkbook. Gloria takes a further step in renting a house in the country to combat Gertrude's notion that Little Gloria is better off there. For all of her faults, Gloria may be genuinely sorry for them and intends to right the wrongs.
Little Gloria is horrified at the prospect at having to live with her mother, fearing she's being kidnapped away from her current life. Gloria fires Nurse Emma, saying Little Gloria doesn't need a nurse, so Nurse Emma puts in a call to Gertrude (busy making a statue of a nude man). The next thing we know, Nurse Emma is sprinting down the steps with Little Gloria, almost making it to the door when Gloria discovers them. Nurse Emma lies her way out of it and takes the child to Gertrude's studio. Gertrude is meeting with the lawyers when Little Gloria bursts in, screaming that she doesn't want to be with her mother, an event no doubt staged for maximum effect by Gertrude and Nurse Emma so the lawyers can see just how horrified Little Gloria is by her mother. Actually, she's been further poisoned. "I hate my mother," she tells the doctor. When Gloria and her sister show up at Gertrude's, Little Gloria flies into a rage and now battle lines are more like trenches.
Gloria leaves without her daughter (a mistake) and rushes to Nathan, who tells her she's being followed. He wants her to come clean with everything about her life so they are not surprised by anything in court. Nathan decides to serve Gertrude with a writ of habeas corpus. The press is delighted to see Gloria arrive and then Gertrude with Little Gloria. Laura is there in court with Nurse Emma, who has gone through a complete makeover and is now sporting jewels and furs. Judge Carew (Barnard Hughes) gets the court case going, noting from the beginning that the whole case comes down to Gloria's fitness to be a mother. In fact, the circumstances will have to be "extraordinary" to get to the point where Gloria would be sent to anyone but her mother.
Up to now, "Little Gloria...Happy at Last" has been relatively free of miniseries goofiness, but now we're about to dive into the udder of the cow that creates it. It's not that the movie is jumping off track, because it will remain a thrilling tale, but with all the acting talent assembled here, no one is going to pass up the chance to give up courtroom melodrama.
Nurse Emma is the first witness, listing all of the people who lived in the house, "all supported by the child, the child's money." Because Nurse Emma starts going with both guns loaded, Judge Carew gives her a speech about using her deep to "clamp down on her tongue." Nathan objects to every single question and answer, understandably, since Nurse Emma makes sure it all sounds juicy: bankrupt princes, dirty books and, most of all, that Gloria has never taken her daughter to church! When Nathan questions Nurse Emma, he suggests that she was the one who made Little Gloria write them. The testimony is so battering that Maury tells his readers that "it was a blistering tale no skin lotion could sooth."
Gertrude and Gloria each hold press conferences. Gertrude does it in a large expensive room, calm and choosing every word carefully. Gertrude admits the case is about Gloria's fitness as a mother, but Gloria has a different take, that it's about money. "$80 million couldn't possibly be wrong," she tells the reporters. With a smile, Gertrude purrs that "money has never been an issue in this case" pronouncing it as iss-you, rather than ish-oo.
Gloria's French personal maid is next up on the stand, re-iterating a lot of Nurse Emma's testimony, though Judge Carew gets in some good comedy moments when he says the sex of the people in the dirty books doesn't matter. "Homosexual, bisexual, trisexual," he notes to the delight of the court, is still dirty. The maid takes it one enormous step further, saying she saw Gloria kissing another woman. The reporters literally jump over each other to file that one! Judge Carew decrees that "future testimony will be given in private." He then tells everyone that he's decided to issue his own summaries of each day's events to the press, which Nathan doesn't like.
In a cast that includes winners of every major award ever given out, Tony winner Glynis Johns does the most to grab the miniseries and make it her own. We've seen her wild antics before, but nothing compares one for her testimony, a marvel of hysterical scenery chewing that could only come from a great actress. She takes the stand all in black, a cross around her neck with simple pears, clutching yet another cross to her bosom. "It is not her fault, but my daughter was not born with a maternal instinct. She was indifferent to the child," she starts off rather slowly. She builds momentum when she claims to have told Gloria to spend time in the US to avoid the "entanglements" of Europe. "I love my daughter. It's for my baby's sake that I'm doing this, your honor. It's the sacrifice of my life I'm making. I'm going to remain alone in this world, without anybody. If she had committed murder, I would have taken it on my own shoulders for her. It's not for the baby, not if she had murdered the baby! But I did not know I would be called to go through the Calvary on earth that I have to go through. How did it come to this?" she spits out, with the crying, the chest beating and then, finally, the raise of the cross to heaven. How does one not stand up and applaud?
Oh, man, Glynis Johns nails it. She's playing a woman even more shallow than her daughter, a woman who has to play both sides, and she does it. It wild, it's hokey and it's everything a good acting teacher would cringe at, but it sure as hell lands perfectly at the center of a courtroom section. Even the judge can't follow that act and declares the court in recess until Monday.
Gloria and her sisters go to Gertrude's house to see Little Gloria, who shrieks in protest upon just hearing they will be arriving. Shouting, "don't kill me" from the other side of the locked door, Little Gloria tries to avoid the visit by stealing the key to the door from a servant and throwing it in the fireplace. When they get in, Aunt Thelma tries a sweet approach, but Aunt Consuela goes for guilt, telling Little Gloria that she's hurting her mother by acting so badly. Finally, Little Gloria goes to see her mother and they hug.
Things get worse for Gloria as the butler's testimony is leaked to the papers. "Somebody has betrayed my confidence," the judge yells at those in the court. Next up on the stand is the doctor, who doesn't even try to top the performances of the leading ladies.
Speaking of, it's Aunt Gertrude's turn on the stand. Playing the dowager Vanderbilt, she certainly can't do what Glynis did, but she can deliver the testimony in a different way, going for full seriousness and gravity to steal some thunder.
It's decided that Little Gloria has to testify, but only in the judge's chambers with the two lawyers present. "Couldn't you learn to love your mother?" Judge Carew asks. Gloria resolutely says she could not. She says she wrote nice letter with pictures and such because "I'm afraid of her." The judge asks Gloria to say her prayers and she can't, causing consternation from the judge. "Girlie, how old were you when you began to hate your mother?" an exasperated judge asks, and Gloria isn't sure, but remembers people telling her bad things about Gloria.
When Aunt Thelma takes the stand, Judge Carew goes into a religious speech about the sign of the cross, complaining about the "sad state of affairs" regarding religion. It's a blowsy speech, one that could question his actual sanity. But, those around him are all nuts, so he fits right in.
Finally, Gloria takes the stand in a rather simple black ensemble, starting her testimony with a year-by-year description of her upbringing, split between America and Europe. It's a lovely travelogue. Nathan is proud to have scored some points showing that to her, that life seems normal. Then Gloria says she only physically assault her child once, over unwashed money, and it was only a grab on the shoulders before "sending her off to Nanny." Nathan brings up the lesbian affair, which Gloria denies. Crying buckets, Gloria swears she never noticed that her child hated her and tops it off with a faint. "A child belongs with its mother," a sign outside reads as Gloria and her sisters exit the courtroom. To further drum up public support, Maury even loads hid column with praise for Gloria.
Gloria's testimony resumes with a cross examination. Lawyer Smythe (Joseph Maher) shows Little Gloria's letters to her grandmother, which are full of fear and hatred for her mother. But, Gloria wins the argument with the lawyer by saying that if the letters Little Gloria wrote to her were forced, maybe these were too. Aunts Thelma and Consuelo like that one! Smythe asks Gloria why she thinks her own mother has taken Gertrude's side over hers. "She wants the guardianship of the child, so she can have the money," Gloria says of her mother. Gloria dissolves into tears when Smythe goes back to Gloria's constant absences. "What are you trying to do, break my heart?" she cries.
With testimony over, all everyone can do is wait until the decision is handed down. Barbard Hughes gets another chance to ham it up in delivering his decision. He says that he hopes Gloria can have a part in her daughter's life, but without disrupting the way it is working now. "Mr. Justice Carew has decied that the child, Gloria Vanderbilt, will not have for the future the life it has had from the death of its father until June, 1932." Gertrude has won custody, it seems, but Judge Carew, in talking to the press, seems completely bonkers, so we will have to wait until the final written decision.
When that comes, it is decreed that Gertrude has won custody, must be taught religion properly, that Nurse Emma has been fired and that Gloria has visitation rights on weekends, for July and at Christmas. Little Gloria has a fit when Nurse Emma is "given her walking papers," as Nathan so succinctly puts it.
ly
"To Little Gloria...happy at last," Laura toasts with Gertrude. However, Maury decides to blame the judge in his column with some colorful language and a great deal of moralizing, though he does note the sad truth of the whole case, "that the victim is the little rich girl herself, Gloria Laura Vanderbilt."
There could be twenty sequels to this movie, as Gloria Vanderbilt lead a particularly notable life (and is still living it as an author of the kind of erotic books her mother was castigated for supposedly posessing), but anything more than this case would be pure Dominick Dunne-like crap. It would be an exploitation. In having to revolve this story around the feelings of a tiny little girl, "Little Gloria...Happy at Last," by necessity, has to play it straight and not take sides. Sure, her mother is shown to be a flighty society doll, but also a victim of her time and no worse than any others of her generation. Solid Aunt Gertrude certainly provided stability, but was hardly a paragon of perfection. Each person in the story had a motive for wanting Little Gloria: money, power, social position, etc. The movie is fair to all of them in presenting both sides.
However, it's the acting that really cements this movie as miniseries perfection. It is crammed with stars and instead of going for the goofy, they really play their roles as written. Angela Lansbury is a model of matriarchal decorum, constant and serene. Glynis Johns has the best role in the film, essentially the comic relief, and though she's a gorgon, at least there is a reasoning behind it. Bette Davis and Christopher Plummer excel in small roles and Lucy Gutteridge does her best stacked up against all the pros.
Gloria Vanderbilt's story is still going because unlike her fellow debs, she's still alive. "Little Gloria...Happy at Last" concerns a very specific episode in her childhood and does not delve into her many marriages, her many careers (yes, the jeans) or even her motherhood (one son would sadly commit suicide while the other would become Anderson Cooper). Sticking to this one episodes in her life allows for tight rendering, augmented by a wonderful script and truly outstanding performances. There are also some wildly over-the-top moments, but this is a miniseries after all.
This is an outstanding piece, which is is surprising, because it could have been so trashy.
At a party in 1922, Reggie Vanderbilt (Christopher Plummer) meets Gloria Morgan (Lucy Gutteridge). The former is, of course, a member of old society, the Vanderbilts having forced their way into society by threatening to buy it a few decades earlier. The latter is one of the Morgan sisters who are successful society figures. Gossip columnist Maury Paul (John Hillerman) has led the charges for the girls, of which Lucy is the only single one. Among the more awkward moments at the party is when Reggie's daughter dances by saying hello, the exact same age as Gloria. But, Reggie is so entranced by Gloria that he minds neither that nor Gloria's incessant and dimwitted chatter. She's as shallow as a blow-up pool.
Gloria takes a spin around the dance floor with Maury while Reggie has an attack of some sorts that is calmed by nip from his flask. "You mean he drinks a lot?" Gloria asks Maury. "Just close your eyes and dance," he tells her.
Rushing home to her mother, Gloria can't wait to talk about her meeting Reggie. Her sister has already told their mother, Laura Morgan (Glynis Johns), who sees only dollar signs. Overly-theatrical Laura has only one idea in her ever-spinning brain. "He's the wealthiest, most eligible bachelor in the whole country. Don't complain how he dances," the cautions her daughter, her own eyes wide with possibility.
Gloria and her mother are invited to the Rhode Island summer home to see Reggie's horses and to meet his mother at her own home, The Breakers, one of Newport's most famous abodes. The stately mansion is dominated by Alice Vanderbilt (Bette Davis). Unlike bubbly Laura, who is informal and grasping, Alice is regal. Also there for the party is one of Reggie's siblings, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (Angela Lansbury). "Unlike Reggie, I don't flourish under the dazzling glare of publicity," Gertrude says as a warning to Gloria that she's doesn't fully approve of his lifestyle. After all, she's just an artist with a sculpture studio in Greenwich Village. She wants to open a museum (and eventually would, The Whitney Museum).
Poor Alice gets it worse, having to listen to Laura go on and on about her South American roots and some fake ancestry, not to mention how she has pushed two daughters into impressive marriages. Bette Davis has one of her better late career moments when she is able to roll those knowing eyes at Reggie while Laura spins another yarn.
Reggie is summoned to tea by his mother. "She's not one of THE Morgans, you know," she tells Reggie, who says he wishes she were as he's apparently broke. Moving on from their differing social stations, Alice is more upset that the Morgan sisters have "been around." "How can a girl of 18 been around?" Reggie asks. Alice tries to battle Reggie a bit, but ultimately the Vanderbilt family's recently-acquired status cannot be ignored, so the only leg Alice has to stand on is Gloria's fast reputation. Gloria takes care of that one and has a doctor verify she's a virgin, causing Reggie to howl at a lunch and Alice to do the same at her mansion when a letter arrives with the results.
"When a family's divorces begin to outnumber its marriages, we must question the intelligence of its romantic choices, but in this case, there are no questions to be asked," Alice says at the head of a very long table of expensive-dressed extras. She then takes her pearls off and gives them to Gloria, as "all Vanderbilt women must have pearls," and Reggie can't afford to buy her any. In a car home, Reggie lays out his true financial status: he doesn't have one. He's living off the generosity of his mother. As long as he's alive, they are fine. But, when he dies, his wife will not get a penny, all of his trust fund going to a child from a previous marriage, unless Gloria can produce an heir, in which case, that child will get half of the fund. "I don't care about you or about the future as long as I can have you now," Gloria tells him, in one of those only-in-a-miniseries lines that dooms poor Reggie to death only 30 minutes into the movie.
Gloria's sisters and mother discuss the upcoming nuptials. All three have had lousy marriages, both daughters on the verge of divorce and Laura living a separate life from her husband. In one breath, Laura is deluded about who wins with this marriage (she feels the Vanderbilts are lucky to be marrying into a family of bogus Spanish nobility), but then understands practicality and hopes that Gloria produces an air before Reggie dies.
In the next scene, said daughter is born. Laura takes control in the hospital room, launching into one of her long-winded monologues about how difficult the birth was. "Out Little Gloria," she notes as the nurse takes the baby away to be fed. Laura, rushing up the stairs at top volume, has found a nanny for Little Gloria, Nurse Emma Kieslich (Maureen Stapleton). They need someone, because Reggie uses the twinkling of ice in his glass as a sort of rattle. With Gertrude as godmother, Little Gloria is christened, which does not meet the approval of arch-Catholic Nurse Emma. She and Laura sit in the car on the way back and rip into the Vanderbilts for allowing a Episcopalian service. Nurse Emma intends to pray for her soul.
At 18 months old, Little Gloria still has Nurse Emma living in the same bedroom with her. Gloria thinks it's odd, but apparently she hasn't yet figured out that Nurse Emma is a certified loon. Reggie stumbles home drunk early in the morning, coughing uncontrollably, but pays a visit to the child, blowing out the candle that Nurse Emma has put near Little Gloria for religious protection. With Reggie dying on the sofa, Gloria is summoned by Laura to go with her and visit Laura's own dying mother in Chile. "I wish I were going with you. I've never been to Chile," he ruefully says. Reggie has never been, and he knows he'll never go.
The dying husband takes precedence over the dying grandmother (whom she's never met anyway), but Gloria does not make it in time before he dies. "He's gone, my dear," Alice says simply (she had to deliver a similar line in "Where Love Has Gone," and has lost none of her I'm-slumming-so-badly attitude about it). Gloria faints upon hearing it, but Alice nods a servant over to take care of Gloria.
The family and friends gather at Alice's home, where she and Gertrude discuss funeral plans. "All local social functions will be canceled, of course," Alice notes. "The casino lowered its flag to half mast," is Gloria's only addition.
Lawyer Gilchrist (Michael Gross) comes to the Morgan family with the details of the will, which are not pleasant. As Reggie noted, there is a $5 million trust to be split between Reggie's two children, and Gilchrist notes that Little Gloria and the trust fund need a guardian. Laura has another of her outbursts (Glynis Johns is having the time of her life in this role), arguing with everyone in the room and topping it all with this chuckle of a line: "What is going on here is a little infant baby with a fortune of money and a mother who does not have a red cent!" Her daughters and poor Gilchrist can only listen to this hilarious harangue.
Maury notes in his column that Gloria and her lawyers have decided to fight the will, saying that Gloria needs money to take care of the child. The judge agrees to $1000 a month, an amazing sum in those days.
By 1931, Gloria is primarily living abroad, using the $1000 on herself. Gilchrist comes to visit her on the Riviera, discussing sister Thelma's new affair with the Prince of Wales (Lucy Gutteridge had played Thelma in "The Woman He Loved," which we've already discussed. Gloria herself has a gigolo lover, but Cilchrist is actually there to deliver bad news that Gloria has to move Little Gloria back to New York City because it's not considered correct for an American heiress to be living anywhere but America. Having learned histrionics from her own mother, Gloria snaps, "it's a pretty awful state of affairs when a person's child becomes a rope around her neck and has to be dragged wherever she wants to go...it's all Gloria's fault!" Gloria loves the society life and refuses to give it up for her child, so she dumps Little Gloria at Aunt Thelma's in England. Now it's Nurse Emma's turn to get all huffy, filling Little Gloria's head with only bad things about her own mother. Nurse Emma reports all of the child's mother's antics to Laura. She is also the obvious hand behind Little Gloria's letters to Laura, for her own phrases creep into them. "Read them and weep, Mr. Gilchrist. READ THEM AND WEEP!" Laura bellows, digging down to the deepest register of her voice to come off like an overzealous Medea. She's there to have Gloria and Little Gloria brought back to New York City (Laura is fighting with Gloria, which is her own selfish reason for wanting Gloria's wings clipped).
A fleet of cars drive past bread lines in a heavy-handed touch that is a bit too much for this movie as mother and daughter arrive back in New York City so Little Gloria can have her tonsils removed. Gloria buys her daughter a car and driver of her own as Little Gloria sees newspaper clippings about the Lindbergh baby and begins to worry about herself. Aunt Gertrude is in the middle of one of her Bohemian parties (the kind that Lansbury's Mame would have approved of) when the Gloria stop by. She hammers in the idea of protection and advises Gloria to hire a bodyguard. They hire one, but they hardly need one because Nurse Emma "has never taken a day off" and still sleeps in the same bedroom as her charge. Good luck getting by Nurse Emma! Laura makes it worse, by storming in one day and throwing down the newspaper article about the Lindbergh baby's murder. She reads the entire gruesome article, which gives Little Gloria horrible nightmares.
Gloria is only somewhat concerned about Little Gloria's mental state, rushing off to Europe again. Aunt Gertrude asks to take Little Gloria to her home on Long Island, where she brings a gaggle of doctors to discuss Little Gloria's condition. There are apparently no physical issues, but a whole lot of mental ones. One doctor blames Nurse Emma's poisoning thoughts, but that is brushed aside because Gertrude says the child is utterly devoted to her and, after all, her own children were raised by nannies. One of the doctors is Gertrude's lover and she dashes over to Europe for a tryst with him, little better than Gloria. Upon returning, Gertrude is a little put out by all of the money Nurse Emma has been spending on doctors. Gertrude decides to take Gloria to see the doctor with her and he does indeed feel that Little Gloria's physical issues are the result of emotional distress and that Little Gloria should stay in the country and be pampered by Gertrude.
A year goes by and Gertrude assembles all the lawyers to her mansion to lower the boom. She starts off by reminding everyone that Little Gloria has flourished under her care, her own mother absent and in the papers for bad behavior, tucking in a apology to Laura, who is seated next to her. "I'm behind you 1000%!" Laura wails. Gertrude feels the child should live up to her Vanderbilt name, with her. She also has Gilchrist wire Gloria in Europe to say that the trust administrator is threatening to cut off the money to Gloria since Little Gloria's bills are being paid by Gertrude. When Gloria returns home, she wants to bring Little Gloria back to the city, but she's "so happy" in the country, as noted by Gertrude and Gilchrist. The plan is coming together nicely. They petition the trust administrator to agree to lower Gloria's monthly settlement from $4000 to $750. "Can't something be done for me to get my baby back?" Gloria wonders, just now starting to catch on to all that has already been done to undermine her status as mother.
So, off she goes to another lawyer, Nathan Burkan (Martin Balsam), and a family friend and tells him the whole story. Nathan admits that Gertrude believes herself "beyond the laws of man and nature," and the first step in fighting her is to have Gloria appointed guardian now that she is of age (she was only 18 when a surrogate was appointed). At a court hearing, a lawyer brings a complaint against the petition to have Gloria named guardian, standing up in the balcony of the court room to do so, as dramatically as possible. So, who should be behind this theatrical display? "Mrs. Laura Morgan, Mrs. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt's own mother," she says, with the press rushing out the door to go file their stories.
The war for Little Gloria is on.
Gloria's sisters go to Laura to tell her she's being ridiculous and that no mother would do this to her child. Laura argues that Little Gloria has been neglected. "You'd think she was Little Orphan Annie," one sister chirps. Plus, Laura traveled around the world and left her own daughters. The sisters are wise to Laura's reasons, that she's never gotten over the fact that Gloria refused to let her live with her. "She threw me out on the street, her own Mama!" Oh, and as for the money her daughters send her every month, she is fine losing that because she has a benefactor. "I could not face my God if I did not do this," she rants to her daughters.
Dying Alice Vanderbilt is filled in on all that's been going on by Gertrude, who is only too happy to run down the list of Gloria's faults (she's dating a man "of the Hebrew persuasion"), though Alice reminds her Gertrude's only life has not been scandal-free. The difference, according to Gertrude, is that she's always kept her life private, not "lived in front of the news reels." Alice still intends to leave Gloria money in her will.
"I'm not happy with my mother," poor Little Gloria tells Aunt Gertrude, who tells her indeed she does have to pay her mother a visit. Between Nurse Emma, Laura and Gertrude, they have made Gloria out to be a an uncaring mother. Even Nathan agrees that Gloria has botched motherhood, so Gloria is determined to change all of that. A montage shows Little Gloria having fun her with mother, trying on all of her jewels an learning to balance a checkbook. Gloria takes a further step in renting a house in the country to combat Gertrude's notion that Little Gloria is better off there. For all of her faults, Gloria may be genuinely sorry for them and intends to right the wrongs.
Little Gloria is horrified at the prospect at having to live with her mother, fearing she's being kidnapped away from her current life. Gloria fires Nurse Emma, saying Little Gloria doesn't need a nurse, so Nurse Emma puts in a call to Gertrude (busy making a statue of a nude man). The next thing we know, Nurse Emma is sprinting down the steps with Little Gloria, almost making it to the door when Gloria discovers them. Nurse Emma lies her way out of it and takes the child to Gertrude's studio. Gertrude is meeting with the lawyers when Little Gloria bursts in, screaming that she doesn't want to be with her mother, an event no doubt staged for maximum effect by Gertrude and Nurse Emma so the lawyers can see just how horrified Little Gloria is by her mother. Actually, she's been further poisoned. "I hate my mother," she tells the doctor. When Gloria and her sister show up at Gertrude's, Little Gloria flies into a rage and now battle lines are more like trenches.
Gloria leaves without her daughter (a mistake) and rushes to Nathan, who tells her she's being followed. He wants her to come clean with everything about her life so they are not surprised by anything in court. Nathan decides to serve Gertrude with a writ of habeas corpus. The press is delighted to see Gloria arrive and then Gertrude with Little Gloria. Laura is there in court with Nurse Emma, who has gone through a complete makeover and is now sporting jewels and furs. Judge Carew (Barnard Hughes) gets the court case going, noting from the beginning that the whole case comes down to Gloria's fitness to be a mother. In fact, the circumstances will have to be "extraordinary" to get to the point where Gloria would be sent to anyone but her mother.
Up to now, "Little Gloria...Happy at Last" has been relatively free of miniseries goofiness, but now we're about to dive into the udder of the cow that creates it. It's not that the movie is jumping off track, because it will remain a thrilling tale, but with all the acting talent assembled here, no one is going to pass up the chance to give up courtroom melodrama.
Nurse Emma is the first witness, listing all of the people who lived in the house, "all supported by the child, the child's money." Because Nurse Emma starts going with both guns loaded, Judge Carew gives her a speech about using her deep to "clamp down on her tongue." Nathan objects to every single question and answer, understandably, since Nurse Emma makes sure it all sounds juicy: bankrupt princes, dirty books and, most of all, that Gloria has never taken her daughter to church! When Nathan questions Nurse Emma, he suggests that she was the one who made Little Gloria write them. The testimony is so battering that Maury tells his readers that "it was a blistering tale no skin lotion could sooth."
Gertrude and Gloria each hold press conferences. Gertrude does it in a large expensive room, calm and choosing every word carefully. Gertrude admits the case is about Gloria's fitness as a mother, but Gloria has a different take, that it's about money. "$80 million couldn't possibly be wrong," she tells the reporters. With a smile, Gertrude purrs that "money has never been an issue in this case" pronouncing it as iss-you, rather than ish-oo.
Gloria's French personal maid is next up on the stand, re-iterating a lot of Nurse Emma's testimony, though Judge Carew gets in some good comedy moments when he says the sex of the people in the dirty books doesn't matter. "Homosexual, bisexual, trisexual," he notes to the delight of the court, is still dirty. The maid takes it one enormous step further, saying she saw Gloria kissing another woman. The reporters literally jump over each other to file that one! Judge Carew decrees that "future testimony will be given in private." He then tells everyone that he's decided to issue his own summaries of each day's events to the press, which Nathan doesn't like.
In a cast that includes winners of every major award ever given out, Tony winner Glynis Johns does the most to grab the miniseries and make it her own. We've seen her wild antics before, but nothing compares one for her testimony, a marvel of hysterical scenery chewing that could only come from a great actress. She takes the stand all in black, a cross around her neck with simple pears, clutching yet another cross to her bosom. "It is not her fault, but my daughter was not born with a maternal instinct. She was indifferent to the child," she starts off rather slowly. She builds momentum when she claims to have told Gloria to spend time in the US to avoid the "entanglements" of Europe. "I love my daughter. It's for my baby's sake that I'm doing this, your honor. It's the sacrifice of my life I'm making. I'm going to remain alone in this world, without anybody. If she had committed murder, I would have taken it on my own shoulders for her. It's not for the baby, not if she had murdered the baby! But I did not know I would be called to go through the Calvary on earth that I have to go through. How did it come to this?" she spits out, with the crying, the chest beating and then, finally, the raise of the cross to heaven. How does one not stand up and applaud?
Oh, man, Glynis Johns nails it. She's playing a woman even more shallow than her daughter, a woman who has to play both sides, and she does it. It wild, it's hokey and it's everything a good acting teacher would cringe at, but it sure as hell lands perfectly at the center of a courtroom section. Even the judge can't follow that act and declares the court in recess until Monday.
Gloria and her sisters go to Gertrude's house to see Little Gloria, who shrieks in protest upon just hearing they will be arriving. Shouting, "don't kill me" from the other side of the locked door, Little Gloria tries to avoid the visit by stealing the key to the door from a servant and throwing it in the fireplace. When they get in, Aunt Thelma tries a sweet approach, but Aunt Consuela goes for guilt, telling Little Gloria that she's hurting her mother by acting so badly. Finally, Little Gloria goes to see her mother and they hug.
Things get worse for Gloria as the butler's testimony is leaked to the papers. "Somebody has betrayed my confidence," the judge yells at those in the court. Next up on the stand is the doctor, who doesn't even try to top the performances of the leading ladies.
Speaking of, it's Aunt Gertrude's turn on the stand. Playing the dowager Vanderbilt, she certainly can't do what Glynis did, but she can deliver the testimony in a different way, going for full seriousness and gravity to steal some thunder.
It's decided that Little Gloria has to testify, but only in the judge's chambers with the two lawyers present. "Couldn't you learn to love your mother?" Judge Carew asks. Gloria resolutely says she could not. She says she wrote nice letter with pictures and such because "I'm afraid of her." The judge asks Gloria to say her prayers and she can't, causing consternation from the judge. "Girlie, how old were you when you began to hate your mother?" an exasperated judge asks, and Gloria isn't sure, but remembers people telling her bad things about Gloria.
When Aunt Thelma takes the stand, Judge Carew goes into a religious speech about the sign of the cross, complaining about the "sad state of affairs" regarding religion. It's a blowsy speech, one that could question his actual sanity. But, those around him are all nuts, so he fits right in.
Finally, Gloria takes the stand in a rather simple black ensemble, starting her testimony with a year-by-year description of her upbringing, split between America and Europe. It's a lovely travelogue. Nathan is proud to have scored some points showing that to her, that life seems normal. Then Gloria says she only physically assault her child once, over unwashed money, and it was only a grab on the shoulders before "sending her off to Nanny." Nathan brings up the lesbian affair, which Gloria denies. Crying buckets, Gloria swears she never noticed that her child hated her and tops it off with a faint. "A child belongs with its mother," a sign outside reads as Gloria and her sisters exit the courtroom. To further drum up public support, Maury even loads hid column with praise for Gloria.
Gloria's testimony resumes with a cross examination. Lawyer Smythe (Joseph Maher) shows Little Gloria's letters to her grandmother, which are full of fear and hatred for her mother. But, Gloria wins the argument with the lawyer by saying that if the letters Little Gloria wrote to her were forced, maybe these were too. Aunts Thelma and Consuelo like that one! Smythe asks Gloria why she thinks her own mother has taken Gertrude's side over hers. "She wants the guardianship of the child, so she can have the money," Gloria says of her mother. Gloria dissolves into tears when Smythe goes back to Gloria's constant absences. "What are you trying to do, break my heart?" she cries.
With testimony over, all everyone can do is wait until the decision is handed down. Barbard Hughes gets another chance to ham it up in delivering his decision. He says that he hopes Gloria can have a part in her daughter's life, but without disrupting the way it is working now. "Mr. Justice Carew has decied that the child, Gloria Vanderbilt, will not have for the future the life it has had from the death of its father until June, 1932." Gertrude has won custody, it seems, but Judge Carew, in talking to the press, seems completely bonkers, so we will have to wait until the final written decision.
When that comes, it is decreed that Gertrude has won custody, must be taught religion properly, that Nurse Emma has been fired and that Gloria has visitation rights on weekends, for July and at Christmas. Little Gloria has a fit when Nurse Emma is "given her walking papers," as Nathan so succinctly puts it.
ly
"To Little Gloria...happy at last," Laura toasts with Gertrude. However, Maury decides to blame the judge in his column with some colorful language and a great deal of moralizing, though he does note the sad truth of the whole case, "that the victim is the little rich girl herself, Gloria Laura Vanderbilt."
There could be twenty sequels to this movie, as Gloria Vanderbilt lead a particularly notable life (and is still living it as an author of the kind of erotic books her mother was castigated for supposedly posessing), but anything more than this case would be pure Dominick Dunne-like crap. It would be an exploitation. In having to revolve this story around the feelings of a tiny little girl, "Little Gloria...Happy at Last," by necessity, has to play it straight and not take sides. Sure, her mother is shown to be a flighty society doll, but also a victim of her time and no worse than any others of her generation. Solid Aunt Gertrude certainly provided stability, but was hardly a paragon of perfection. Each person in the story had a motive for wanting Little Gloria: money, power, social position, etc. The movie is fair to all of them in presenting both sides.
However, it's the acting that really cements this movie as miniseries perfection. It is crammed with stars and instead of going for the goofy, they really play their roles as written. Angela Lansbury is a model of matriarchal decorum, constant and serene. Glynis Johns has the best role in the film, essentially the comic relief, and though she's a gorgon, at least there is a reasoning behind it. Bette Davis and Christopher Plummer excel in small roles and Lucy Gutteridge does her best stacked up against all the pros.
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