So far, we've avoided miniseries sequels, but I'm afraid we cannot do it any longer, folks. In fact, they are nearly as old as the American miniseries itself. Does anyone remember "Rich Man, Poor Man Book 2?" It has neither the poor man nor the girlfriend and is pretty tough going, especially at 20 or so hours. But, then there is "Roots: The Next Generation," which is fantastic. So, in the first few years of the movement, we got mixed signals on whether sequels were okay or not.
(for the original "Lace" go back to January 30 on this blog)
When it comes to "Lace II," sequels are not okay. "Lace II" is as brain-dead as they come. "Lace" is utterly delightful in its dedication to camp. Very few miniseries actually have lines that everyone knows, but who doesn't know "which one of you bitches is my mother?"
"Lace II" tries to equal that line but you only strike gold once. Having watched "Lace" many times, it never occurred to me to question the paternity of our leading vixen, because it was so much fun just figuring out the maternity. Paternity questions are ho-hum. The excitement of "Lace" was watching three teenagers (played by very mature actresses) hide a pregnancy not only from everyone they knew, but also from the story! Even daytime soap operas couldn't manage that one. For many hours, we are forced to trudge along and find Phoebe's father, a completely uninteresting tale that is not only daft in the telling, but re-invents things that happened in "Lace" very differently, as if we won't remember. Wouldn't the only people watching "Lace II" be "Lace" fans? They won't forget, trust me!
And, "Lace II" is such a bad idea that the Bess Armstrong, revealed to be the bitch of a mother, passed on doing the sequel, in which her character is the clear lead! From the moment she turned it down, everyone else should have also, but noooooooo, the rest are here. "Lace II" has none of the lovable lunacy of the original and is in fact so inept as to be head-scratching. But, that was 1980s American television greed, for you, just toss the product out there and hope for the best.
The credits unroll over a cloying pop song performed by Deniece "Let's Hear It For the Boy" Williams as a humongous billboard of Phoebe Cates is painted over the Palace Theatre (home at that point to "La Cage Aux Folles") in New York City.
Phoebe is stressing over that night's movie premiere. "Mother, what am I going to do about my hair?" she asks Bess Arm...oh, right, she didn't come back, asks Deborah Raffin (a sure sign of miniseries trouble) as non-moms Arielle Dombasle and Brooke Adams fuss over their outfits too. Phoebe looks ridiculous in a clinging red number, but the fans are there to see her and they don't care, all fourteen of them.
Phoebe picks the premiere of her movie to tell the world Deborah is her mother. That doesn't sit well with Deborah's parents, as her mother passes out upon hearing the news that "that floozy" is her granddaughter on TV. Now, Phoebe and Deborah have not only forgiven each other the heartache and hell of "Lace," but have such a good relationship that they sing about West Virginia together as they enter that state to visit Deborah's parents, in matching white turbans, no less. All we've ever known about Deborah's character (or Bess' in the original) is that she was American and went to a European private school. She did not have a lesbian mother or drunken Aunt Hortense to liven things up (since they killed off Aunt Hortense in the first one, Angie Lansbury can't help us out of this muck--not to worry, she did the sequel of "Rage of Angels").
Therefore, we did not know that the very same West Virginia town that birthed famous magazine editor Deborah was also home to astronaut James Read (who has the distinction of being in TWO of the worst miniseries sequels--we'll get to "North and South Book 3" eventually). As the gals are driving into town, there is a parade in his honor, and the town is closed down, half-day, for the celebration. "Banks too?" he says snidely, obviously unimpressed. Reckless Phoebe literally drives into the parade, scattering it all over the place, to the consternation of the town fathers and bandleaders. However, they get over it quickly when they realize it's Phoebe, who gamely poses for pictures as old pals James and Deborah get re-acquainted. "The movie star most men want to be on a desert island with and the astronaut most women want to be in orbit with," the huckster mayor shouts as everyone crowds nearer. Remember, this was before Buzz Aldrin did "Dancing With the Stars," so astronauts still had cache.
Deborah's parents, Bruce Boa and Richena Carey, are quite a pair. Imperious Richena allows no talk at dinner, until Deborah tries to break the ice. After noting that she's illegitimate, thanks, Phoebe starts to get a little snide. Richena says, "well, it's terrible to admit," as everyone braces for the worst, "but I've never seen any of your movies." Relief! Bruce has. "When?" his wife asks. "When I went to Baltimore with the lodge," that city of sin! "You never told me," she sasses back, and Bruce only wants to know "what is going through your mind" when doing her sex scenes. "New dresses, new shoes, new wallpaper, recipes, but I'll tell you something that isn't...the lodge members in Baltimore," Phoebe replies and everyone dissolves into gigantic peals of laughter.
Trouble in husband-land. When Arielle arrives home, her husband is in bed with the secretary, but I give him credit for using a different line than expected. "It isn't EXACTLY as it appears," James Faulkner says. Oh, such clever writing! Arielle throws his clothing out the window and then declares that if he can have a midlife crisis, so can she. It's better than poor Brooke, whose husband has a heart attack on the flight back to London!
Then the plot can finally start. Phoebe wants to meet her father. Deborah produces a picture of a man in a military uniform and says that's her father and he's dead, but Phoebe pushes, so Deborah pulls out the the story of Lucinda Lace she wrote all those years ago in private school and gives Phoebe a missing chapter. "Oh, I better warn you, some of it might be unpleasant." Ah, thank you. Because Phoebe hasn't spent her whole life being unpleasant, suddenly a prude?
The story starts with Michael Fitzpatrick (the only other major role from the first to be recast), the banker with whom "all three girls fell in love," repeating a scene from the original "Lace" but having to reshoot it with two new actors. He's the one who took Deborah to the dance, requiring more reshooting and then in bed afterwards, a third reshot. Deborah falls playing field hockey (yeah, put a wig on the ladies and they look positively...40!) and announces she's "just a little bit pregnant."
Those who remember "Lace" will know that every problem was discussed head on, "srough sick and sin," with everyone putting their thumbs together and imitating Arielle's French accent. Deborah wants an abortion, but how? "There are ways," Arielle notes and skulks around a pharmacy until taking heaps of medication to force one. That doesn't work, and I'm sure Phoebe is thrilled to be reading she was truly unwanted. Her friends think Michael should know, but Deborah refuses because his family has planned his future, but they decide to tell him anyway, until they see him with his fiancee and chicken out. "Three years later, he would die a hero's death in Vietnam," the chapter concludes, and the mystery of Phoebe's father is over. Wow, a 30-minute movie, that wasn't so bad.
It ain't over, don't get excited.
Phoebe isn't upset to have been possibly aborted because, she claims with pride, she had abortions at the same age. Instead, she wants to read the rest of the book, but Deborah says, "it's silly schoolgirl stuff" and takes it away.
Plus, they have to rush back to New York because Deborah has been offered an interview with Walter Gotell, a reclusive Vietnamese "rebel leader" and for $50K, he'll tell his story to her magazine (she thinks that it's because her book on Vietnam was so good). Phoebe is pissed because Deborah won't be with her in Los Angeles, "to make my first Hollywood film." It will only take a week to do everything, so she'll meet Phoebe then. Yes, folks, Deborah Raffin, and her hefty shoulder pads, are off to Vietnam! Who the hell is she, Rambo? In the 80s, Vietnam was a big deal, with the Republican Party trouncing the Left by making it unpatriotic to speak ill of the war, but what in heaven's name is it doing in "Lace II?"
Off to Vietnam Deborah goes, taken from a tourist pack and hidden under a sheet in a boat to bypass the authorities. When she finally gets to the remote area to meet the general, a few guards are murdered and then she meets Christopher Cazenove (another miniseries regular, but second-tier). They instantly despise each other, which means they will, of course, fall in love. She tells him, "I'm not very good on a horse," but that's okay, because they will be riding elephants as "they make less noise," Christopher tells her.
Out in LA, Phoebe writes her name in the cement outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater, which was something no one had done for decades at that point, but her (seemingly decreasing) fans go wild for it.
Christopher, his merry band of bandits and Deborah arrive at their location where they banter like all people who will eventually be in love. She counts out the $50K in hundred dollar bills, until General Walter has her stop at $45K, saying she'll have no voice left for questions. Oh, come on, let her count out the last amount, she got that far! General Walter, who seems about as Vietnamese as Christopher or Deborah, taunts Christopher about his fancy education and then squirms out of being interviewed by Deborah.
I can promise you will be absolutely mystified by the scene Phoebe shoots for the movie. It appears to be some sort of music video, in which a bunch of extras in tacky clothing dance around a pool while Phoebe is shy behind plants and drinks and then gets pushed into the pool. It doesn't make any more sense if you watch it twice or try to puzzle it out, so let's just move on.
After needing just one take, Phoebe goes to her dressing room, where two Asian men (or one, and one in heavy Asian make-up) grab her. They are there to deliver a message and one wants to rape her, but thankfully there is a knock at the door.
Plucky Deborah is kept from General Walter, but not from the truth. She's there to witness the killing of a young man under Christopher's orders. "He told us everything he knew, we can't afford prisoners," he tells Deborah. She wants to contact Phoebe, but is told, "we don't have direct dial." He pulls out a game and she snaps, "I didn't come all this way to play checkers with a stiff-upper-lip sadist." Oooh, that's tellin' him, Deborah. She looks and sounds ridiculous at all times, though somehow, he manages to pull off his "Apocalypse Now" role decently. They play, but argue over British-American word differences like "lift" and "braces." She wants to know what "noble cause" he shares with the general and he rattles off words like freedom and better life, but that's boring. "Most girls fine me irresistible," he tells her and they banter more, before he lowers the boom everyone else has figured out but her. "How long am I going to be here." "It's hard to say. It's rather up to that famous daughter of yours."
Yes, gang, she was lured all the way to Vietnam as a hostage for one million dollars. "You may be overestimating my daughter's affection for me," but he's confident. "The game isn't over," she yells, throwing the table aside. He comes to hit her, she flinches and he merely brushes aside a strand of her hair.
I know what you are thinking: why did they kidnap her and why did they bring her to Vietnam. I have no answers. Of all the people in the world to use as a hostage, a magazine editor with a famous daughter is not the first I would choose. There are far more valuable people. And why schlep her all the way to Vietnam when they could just stash her closer to home and still get the money? I don't think anyone thought of that. So, just suspend all notions of reality and follow it along to the inevitable conclusions you can see coming miles away! I'm not saying it won't be painful getting there...
Phoebe has to ask her producer for the million ransom as an up front payment of her salary, but when he refuses, he threatens to "sue ya." "Go ahead, sue me for every cent I haven't got," while standing naked in her dressing room. Phoebe calls her old pal Terence Rigby, the Greek shipping magnate, and begs him for money, again. She promises never to ask again. He hangs up on her after putting one of his expensive girls on the phone for a few seconds. The magazine can't afford it either. "The next thing for me is a trip to Philadelphia," Phoebe decides, to bilk her father's family out of the pocket change.
She does herself up in kid gloves and a business suit, but her grandfather's secretary isn't fooled. Peter Jeffrey is thrilled to see her because he's never met a movie star, only "presidents and statesmen," but he's confused as to why she's come to see him. Not filling in all the details, she asks for the money and THEN tells him "your son was my father." "You are not his daughter," he says and she goes off on one of her spaz attacks, but then retracts to get all simpering and sweet. Peter tosses her out, insisting his son is not her father and very confidently.
Deborah, wearing white, finds herself in the middle of a war zone when troops storm the not-at-all-hidden rebel enclave. Wait for the moment when Christopher comes rushing by on a horse to scoop her up as bombs explode around them. If that isn't romance, I don't know what is! This much schmaltz and on free TV! The general is dead, so Deborah thinks she's free, but not so. "I read Lace and the other lurid tabloids. Your coming here was my idea, and so was the ransom demand. I even anticipated this eventuality, so nothing's changed," he says. "So much for heroes on white horses," she snaps. "Do heroines still believe in such things?" he ends, closing down that conversation. Wait, you didn't see it coming that Christopher was in charge the whole time?
Remember Brooke Adams? Her husband dies. Remember Arielle? She throws a party where she and her husband do nothing but insult each other while the rest of the guests do equally catty remarking, but Arielle flirts with Patrick Ryecart, who says he'll spirit her away to London and "flaunt" their passion for each other. That's put on hold when a butler brings news of Brooke's hubby's death.
That news is also heard in the Kingdom of Sydon. Remember King Anthony Higgins, the unfailingly polite monarch with the heavy bronzer? We know he's always had a thing for Brooke. So, he dispatches an envoy to the funeral with the message that "the timeless desert sand has been known to assuage deep personal grief."
The kidnappers call Phoebe and want the money, but she gets an extension of seven days. They aren't very good kidnappers, are they? Since when does she get to dictate the terms? So, she follows through on her threat to out the Philadelphia blue-bloods as her family. But, Phoebe rifles through her mother's drawers and finds a secret addendum to the Lucinda Lace book.
Next thing we know, Phoebe shows up at Brooke's hubby's funeral, interrupting the minister with, "I want to know the truth." She does know how to make an entrance. This forces us into ANOTHER flashback, with Deborah very pregnant and the others playing badminton. Deborah goes into labor and tells Brooke the father might not be the man they all think it is. Arielle decides to tell Phoebe what she knows, merely interrupting the flashback to send us into another. This time, Deborah goes, as a reporter, to Vietnam, to tell Michael about their child. "Tell me, are there any atheists in foxholes?" "I'm not sure, but I do know there is an idiot who let you get away," he replies. He apologizes for his family and for listening to them. They declare their love for each other, he'll leave his wife for her after the war, so she shows him pictures of their daughter. He's speechless, for a moment, and then launches into a big doozy that ends with, "I have never been able to have children." Now we know why is father was so sure of himself, eh?
"Before you go into mourning, I need your help to save my mother's life," Phoebe begs of Brooke, and Arielle of course. Phoebe reveals that the chapter about her father was written three times and she needs their help to figure out her paternity and for some money, which neither of them has. So, they have to figure out which of the three stories of Deborah "being violated" is true. King Anthony's name comes up, and so does James Read's, someone we never knew existed back in "Lace." Phoebe quips, "the daughter of a budding astronaut? You might have been a Martian!" That doesn't sit well with Phoebe. She gets snarky and decides to do it all on her own. "Through thick and thin, like hell!"
But, ignoring her tantrum, Arielle and Brooke suddenly remember some details and we're sent into flashback land again (if they just TOLD us what was happening, this could have all been wrapped up in a single evening, rather than over two nights of valuable primetime real estate). They agree to help. Brooks asks, "what do you want us to do?
"I want you to help me find out which one of those bastards is my father," Phoebe snarls to end the first part of the movie. She did that in the first "Lace" and it was a fantastic moment. Here it falls flat
The press wants to know who her father is and she says they will have to wait until her big press conference.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Deborah has decided to turn her situation into "Taming of the Shrew." She knocks Christopher's gun into the water and dashes for his horse. He grabs her, they tussle and he gets her to calm down. He then reads her diary entry about him, which is flattering. "I didn't write what I really thought," she says, the dim bulb.
Phoebe, Arielle and Brooke each take a version of the story to follow it through. Arielle contacts the boy she slept with years ago, the soccer player, because one version says the rapist was on the soccer team. They force Brooke, against her will, to go to Sydon and confront King Anthony, leaving Phoebe to tackle James Read, because she's "the only one who has ever met him," as if asking him about violating a woman years ago would be any less awkward from a stranger? "I am prepared to do anything to get that money," Phoebe tells her mother's pals and is brought into the "sick and sin" pact, she and her camel toe.
Deborah, punked by the locals into eating spicy food, takes advantage of a moment when no one is watching her to get all "Mission Impossible" and escape, though again in white, not at all an obvious color. She stops at every pillar to look around, not very good at this disappearing thing. She comes across Christopher, wounded and passed out from a fierce battle with the other side of whatever he's rebelling against. She wants to run, but she wants to help. Run? Help? Run? Help? I think you know which it is.
First up is Arielle, off to see her former soccer love, hunky Francois Guetary, who has been reduced to being a gym teacher. Arielle drives her fancy car and sits on it all sexy-like, except the car is not fancy and she's not dressed for sexy. He wants to speak to her, and she agrees to go back to his place. The man on the hockey team is Patrick Ryecart, with whom she has been flirting, the world-famous composer. Francois expects a little fumble-and-tickle, but Arielle claims, "I'm pressed for time," stops and adds, "on the ice, you were so formidable" and blows him a kiss goodbye. I used to think anyone with a French accent could get away with anything, but not our Arielle. A combination of bad writing and even worse acting kills that notion.
Brooke goes to Sydon where King Anthony is there to meet her as a helicopter pilot. "Welcome back to my humble home," he tells her as they pull up to his castle. The Queen is none too happy to see her, but the king's young son is excited.
Even wounded and living as a rebel in the jungle, Christopher has his tart tongue. Waking up to find Deborah keeping a vigil at his bedside, he says, "any relation to Florence Nightingale?" "How about a fair trade? I save your life," she says, to which he replies, "and because you were foolishly sentimental, you want me to do the same." Ah, sweet bickering. "I want you to be human for once." "Sorry," he replies. "What are you? What are you doing here anyway?" she thinks to ask. There's a story, thank you for asking. Like Zorba the Greek, he always has a story, this rascal. His father was a diplomat who didn't agree with the government and was killed. That story of tragic boyhood loss leads into the following: "and what are you? Editor? Nurse? Woman? To conclude the interview, I do regard self-sacrifice as an essential part of life" and pulls her in for a kiss. I'm sorry, what? How did we go from his father in front of a firing squad to the cascading of a thousand violins and sex under the mosquito net? Everyone watches their silhouettes from outside and are probably wondering the same thing.
King Anthony has important problems. His peasants are starving because there is no water. "How can I lead them into the modern age?" he wonders. She says she's seen worse people with money. "You must learn to distinguish between unhappiness and misery," he says, with a veiled reference to perhaps someday being his queen, or at least a harem gal. We've had the helicopter, a boring classical recital and a long horse ride and still she hasn't broached the subject of Deborah in the past.
Waking up after a night of gettin' busy, Deborah asks if she can go. He says he so desperately needs the money for the people, and now she's, of course, sympathetic. But what if Phoebe can't get the money. Yeah, that's a problem because he didn't anticipate falling in love with her, but "she has to raise the money." "You aren't human. You just aren't!" she starts, leading into, bar none, the absolute worst dialogue exchange in all of "Lace II." She claims he has "an Orestes Complex, which means, sexually speaking, you're all mixed up." "That's not what you said last night." If this were Jerry Springer, we could cue the audience on that one! "Oh no she didn't!" But, there is no Jerry Springer, so the writers go for more nonsense, such as "Judy. We just made love. You can call me Judy!," her character's name.
Arielle has a box at the symphony all to herself to watch Patrick conduct his orchestra. Watching him, we dissolve into flashback to the dance we saw in "Lace" and though it's refilmed, I will give them credit for remembering that the song playing was "Summer Place." The rest is pretty brand new. Deborah sees Patrick and thinks he looks "miserable," wanting to "cheer him up." They also remember the next song was "Mack the Knife," but at no point in "Lace" did Patrick break into the dance and try to take Deborah. When Michael tells Deborah they can't be together, she accuses him of just "wanting a body." Fleeing Michael, she meets Patrick on the street, where he leads her into a scary taxidermy store. She's creeped out and tries to leave, but he stops her. Violation #1.
Arielle and Patrick go driving through Paris singing opera. Did you know Arielle had a world-class opera voice? Neither did she, but she lip syncs decently. Their attempted seduction of each other is laughable. The puns and the accents are big hazards, but unsubtle Arielle tries to trap him. "I find this conversation increasingly boring," he says. She makes her accusations, they play the longest cat and mouse scene and he declares, "Countess, you have no proof. No proof at all," as she grabs her fur and storms out of his Paris abode.
Things have to start moving faster, because we only have an hour left and two options to go, one that should be somewhat romantic and one that will be just awkward. And then we have to wrap up the plot. I'm so glad we've wasted 3/4 of the whole thing on unimportant gibberish!
Luckily, astronaut James Read happens to be in Paris, so Phoebe doesn't have to trek back to the US to find him. She just has to put on her favorite outfit of a fur and hanky over her head, with sunglasses, and James can see her in the not-so-big crowd, knowing at some point he must follow her, to what turns out to be a very remote location outside the city (where he is staying as well)
The second version of the violation takes place during a brand new time period we didn't even know existed back in "Lace." Somehow, Deborah found time to go home to West Virginia during her fertile few days (the other two possible stories take place at school, reasonably enough). There is a hay ride, songs by a campfire, hide-and-go-seek in the dark and bing-bang-boom, Deborah finds herself in trouble. James traces her to an abandoned barn. Apparently she is the ONLY woman of them all to think to hide in there, giving her alone time with James, who always looks and acts the good guy, so he's not believable as a menacing rapist. Then again, we don't know if this version is the truth, so it could just be (not at all) good storytelling. Where the first version found her abused by a crazy man, this one is worse because we get the "you know you wanted it" rapist. Violation #2.
Phoebe is all dressed up when James arrives, with a fire lit, flowers on display, everything that one would want for a really good seduction. Wait! Wait! A seduction? Isn't he possibly her father? She's going to seduce him into revealing the truth? That's taking a chance, eh? We've gone into trash overdrive, but possible incest? That's too much even for "Lace II." Phoebe calls James and tells him to go out onto his balcony. Naturally, she has the next one over and tells him to "jump" the space between them. "It's a two story drop," he says. "You can do it. One small step for mankind, one little leap for Lili," she giggles. Being an astronaut does not make him particularly coordinated and he almost falls, but is finally able to climb onto her balcony. "It must have been wonderful to grow up on a farm. How big was it?" Phoebe asks after a few glasses of wine. "Pretty big," he says, not talking about his farm, we assume.
When he goes to touch her, she finally realizes this may be too much and reminds him she's just his old gal's "little girl." He removes his hands, but only for a second. "Do you want to go to bed with me?" she asks? "How much?" "Very much." "A million dollars much?" "No, no roll in the hay is worth that much," she replies, with an apt pun for how he might have gotten to be her father. She's the one who mentions incest and he's shocked, denying it completely. "She wanted to be the most important person EVER to come out of Haddington," he says, bursting her bubble about her "good little mother," "and I beat her there too!" he explains, telling Phoebe that Deborah was also so competitive with him, of course she would invent lies about him. Phoebe tosses her threat to him, one million at the Ritz on Saturday, or she goes public. "One thing you should know about astronauts, honey, they don't scare easily," he says and darts from the room.
That leaves only King Anthony. We pick up that flashback where Brooke runs from his room after he tries to have sex with her. That happened in "Lace," so we're good so far. At the same time, Deborah is leaving Michael, so she bumps into King Anthony on the street, but she won't be able to make it back to school since there are no cars around. Crying that "I'll be expelled," she brings out the gallant in him. He sneaks her into his hotel so they can come up with a plan. "My tutor said a good lie is always rooted in the truth," King Anthony tells her, apparently having formulated a plan in his mind already. Speaking of his tutor, coincidentally, "he gets expert tuition in how to make love," he throws out there just in case. He grabs for Deborah, noting "I will not be rejected twice in one night." This version of events is the most idiotic yet. We know King Anthony to be a gentleman at all times, madly in love with Brooke. In fact, he's never bothered to even meet her friends, let alone pick one up on the street. On top of that, "Lace" showed that Brooke did not make it back to school, instead returning to King Anthony's room and making love, most romantically. But, "Lace II" has us believe that in the few moments between when she left and when she returned, Deborah was snuck up to his room and raped AND that after that, Anthony redressed and was ready for more, sweetly, in a snap. Violation #3.
Brooke can't sleep because she has yet to confront King Anthony, despite being in the palace for days. She grabs a robe and goes walking through the palace, where no one is standing guard, and is able to get into the throne room and sit in the queen's chair. King Anthony apparently couldn't sleep either and arrives only a second later, in a caftan. "Did you enjoy what could be...?"he asks. "What could have been?" she corrects him. He gets on his knees and promises to "give it all up" for her. Oh, suddenly he's Edward and she's Wallis Simpson? "Sorry, I forgot my moral restraint, I must wait for a more appropriate time," he claims when she rushes away. Finally, she gets to the threat. She asks if he remembers Deborah, but he doesn't remember. She tells him Deborah is being held for one million dollars ransom and that Phoebe is Deborah's daughter ("ah yes, such scandal reaches even here"). Brooke tells him she intended to blackmail him, but the story is so ridiculous, she's had trouble. "You realize what you're accusing me of is a capital offense in a Muslim country," he says, furious. "I'm not accusing you. I don't believe it, I've never believed it!" "But you want me to deny it! I'm the King of Sydon, how dare you!" Brooke runs from the room in tears. But King Anthony follows, looking so damn in the shadows that there's no resisting him. She's ready to have him right then and there, but he merely kisses her hand and tells her to leave. When daylight comes, she leaves, in the same outfit that brought her there, so they must be her traveling togs (or they filmed the arrival and departure at the same time and didn't think to change her costume).
The press is hounding Phoebe for the revelation of her father, because apparently that's all that's going on in the world. Truly, there are more paparazzi than fans at any given moment. She puts them off, saying she wants to wait for her mother. They insist she fix a time and date, so she does. "Don't forget to show up," one of then says all angry as she drives off. She goes to find Brooke, who is, as always, drunk. "I lost the respect of the only man I ever really loved," she tells Phoebe, who is not at all concerned if it doesn't mean Deborah's release. "We all have to keep praying until midnight," she tells Brooke.
With tears streaming down her face, Phoebe watches the clock tick toward midnight. Finally, a taxi pulls up to the hotel and a man with a briefcase gets out, but we only see the briefcase. He knocks on Phoebe's door just in time. The man is...
...Michael Gough, a banker who has brought the money. He has no idea whose money it is. "Our function was just to deliver it to you," he tells her, "but there was a personal message." There is a note that merely says, "to my daughter, belatedly and with love," but it's not signed.
The money gets to Vietnam in record time, by the next scene! There is no direct calling as Christopher snapped at Deborah before, but apparently wire transfers are all the rage. Deborah is free to go, but Christopher chases after her with a big open-mouthed kiss. "Would you have really killed me?" she asks. "Neither of us will ever know," he replies and Deborah is off to freedom.
Wait! Wait! All that, the kidnapping, the threats, the bickering, the sex, the love, and Deborah just leaves Vietnam without him? Wow, romance just isn't her thing! In the course of this movie, she's been violated three times and held prisoner in Vietnam. No wonder Deborah Raffin signed up after Bess Armstrong passed! Who wouldn't want to play this version of Judy Hale?
Reunited, Deborah chirps, "it's nice to have a rich daughter," but Phoebe says she's not (another problem that I didn't want to mention, because in "Lace," her character was wealthy beyond imagination, and there has been no explanation of where her money went--bad stocks?) and that she got it from dad, "who finally acknowledged me." Phoebe explains how she, Brooke and Arielle "followed Chapter 12 through to its logical conclusion." Logical? In "Lace II?" Logic died the minute the credits started. Hell, logic died the minute they gave "Lace II" the green light.
"If it's any consolation, you have royal blood," Deborah tells Phoebe when the latter insists on knowing the truth. Wow, that's anti-climactic, as opposed to "Lace" where it took ten minutes for Bess Armstrong to walk back to Phoebe's room, while Phoebe did that weird bird-gyration thing in her teddy and they finally met as mother and daughter. Now, our four hours fizzled with one line, and the answer is the dumbest of the three possibilities, though the most inevitable. It wasn't going to be one of the guys who was new to the story, come on! You had this figured out already, I know you did. "He was promised secrecy in return for the money, but why shouldn't I let everyone know?" Phoebe asks. "It would make me feel better." "Then this time, it's up to you," Deborah tells her. "Yes, mother, it is."
It's time for the big announcement. There are droves of reporters and cameras in the hotel. Phoebe arrives, saying, "I don't know what all the fuss is about." You are the one who called the press conference! Your paternity is apparently more important than world peace (or Vietnamese freedom fighters). Arielle and Brooke are there to support Deborah and Phoebe. So is King Anthony, watching from a balcony above the lobby. She...talks...very...slowly...to...take...up...all...the...remaining...time...as...everyone...waits...with...baited...breath. "My...father's...name...is..."
"is"
"his name was"
and she claims Michael was her father. Sure, it's easy to blame the dead guy with no active sperm. I'm sure they are going to be thrilled to death in Philly! Since he was a nobody who died in Vietnam, the press isn't all that excited. Deborah and Brooke are happy with that answer, and of course, so is King Anthony.
The four women hug in slow motion, turn to the cameras and freeze. That's the end of "Lace II."
Not to worry, as of 2011, there has been no "Lace III." I'm sure you are just itching to know who Phoebe's great-great-grandparents are, but alas, the movie just has not been made.
"Lace II" really is abominable. It has an insane story, terrible acting and a storyline that takes so long to tell and goes nowhere, with a hokey ending. "Lace" was delightful cheese all the way through. It knew how to keep the camp sharp, but there is no effort to even try in "Lace II." Turning Phoebe's character into a wonderful daughter is not believable and not at all in the spirit of Shirley Conran's book. It gives Phoebe nothing to play, and even less to poor Brooke and Arielle, who agreed to make this crap. Deborah Raffin no doubt thought she was signing up for greatness. After all, "Lace" was enormously popular, so why the hell not go for a sequel? Well, "Rage of Angels II" should have been a clue. It's one thing to make a sequel to "Roots" or "Rich Man, Poor Man" because those books are true classics, with characters that, even at their worst, have possibilities for more. The story of "Lace" is self-contained. It's a gooey romance saga with excitement and glamour and a big twist, but it all ends neatly. There is absolutely no reason for a sequel, and certainly not because someone gets kidnapped in Vietnam!
But the sequels didn't stop with crap like "Rage of Angels II" or "Lace II." Oh, no. "The Thorn Birds" had one, "V" had one, "North and South" had one (though, to be fair, that one actually came from a third John Jakes' Civil War novel). Hell, even "Hollywood Wives" had a sequel as late as 2005.
We'll just never learn when it comes to sequels. I mean, "Lace II" should cause us to stop and think, but we'll never REALLY learn in the end.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Blood & Orchids (1986)
Hawaii in 1937 does not initially look like a fantasy, and it won't through "Blood & Orchids." In fact, the first scene shows four hardworking native lads toiling in sugar cane fields. The day over, they go out for the night with some alcohol.
Their night is not nearly as formal as the one spent by naval officers and their fancily dressed girls. Seemingly perfect couple William Russ and Sean Madeleine Stowe are dancing until she decides she needs some air. The drunk cane field workers go skinny dipping. Madeleine isn't really getting air, but rather about to have sex with her husband's best friend before the announcement that she's pregnant blunts that moment. Boyfriend Matt Salinger, up for a naval promotion, tells her to have an abortion, but she won't hear of it. She threatens to tell everyone, so he slaps her silly. Trying to get help, she drips blood on the free-growing orchids (we have our title).
It's left to the four cane workers to discover her, still alive, but beaten up and naked. Only one of them wants to take her to the hospital, and when he drops her off, he runs away with the others. Since they are natives and she is white, they fear what will be assumed. And they are right. A police officer sees them running, finds the car and the alcohol. Madeleine asks for the doctors to call her mother, Jane Alexander, and they react immediately, as mama is a big deal in the Territory.
"Blood & Orchids" captivates from the onset, not wasting any time in getting to the meat of this story: white girl is battered and left for dead, so it's assumed the natives had to have done it. Throw in the navy and a very wealthy mother, and you have all of the elements needed for a gripping American miniseries, a fictionalized account of a real-life 1932 case. There is local color, overwrought performances that are supposed to be that way, stars galore, trials, police, the whole deal. It's a soap opera crammed into a few hours and a damn good one.
The policeman who will ultimately be involved is Kris Kristofferson, clean-shaven and almost unrecognizably youthful, who chats with his gal pal, waitress Susan Blakely (miniseries royalty all the way back to "Rich Man, Poor Man"), in an unflattering dark wig. Their "where-do-we-stand" conversation is interrupted by Kris being summoned to take the new case, but Kris leaves Susan his key on the way out so they can meet later.
The racial undertones that will be so important are not whitewashed. Jane Alexander is giving a dinner party for some high-toned men in white tuxedos and blames questionable maid service on the fact that "she's new, gentleman," which means essentially, she's native and not used to my stuffy ways. The topic of statehood comes up, and there is some argument. "What about the Orientals? What do we do about them?" one asks. "Follow my lead, don't say anything," Richard Dysart cracks and everyone laughs. "There will be no statehood. The democratic process would raise holy hell around here," he continues. Queenly Jane agrees, saying, "we govern here by divine right, chosen by God to lead these people. Controlling three million acres of sugar cane fields as the four of us do, I should think the natives should be grateful for the jobs we provide them." If the sentiment is heavy and patronizing, it's not historically inaccurate. Big companies did dominate Hawaiian history once the Americans got there and they did essentially rule the islands from their well-appointed mansions.
When Kris comes to tell Jane her daughter is in the hospital, she reacts with elegant sang froid, excuses herself from her guests and goes with him to the hospital still decked out in her finest. Kris opens the front door for her, but she elects to sit in the back. Even under the circumstances, she'll follow every rule of decorum invented by the snob class.
At the hospital, Jane's first concern when Madeleine opens her eyes is "who did this?" Madeleine is very clear that it's not the four native men who brought. "They saved me, they are innocent!" She also clears her husband, but Jane keeps pushing. "I'm responsible because I'm the pregnant one!" Madeleine blurts out. Jane raises herself up to her full height, now angry that her daughter is pregnant by a man clearly not her husband, desperate to know who the father is. Madeleine begs with all of her strength to make Jane go, but that's not going to happen, as she tells her daughter, "I'm going to wait right here until we get our stories straight. You are not going to destroy me. I created an empire from your father's estate and I have a position here. No one's higher. You will not drag me down in disgrace." That is one ice-cold bitch. As protective of position of Claudette Colbert's Alice Grenville, as blind to truth as Lee Remick's Frances Schreuder in "Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder" and as nutso as Meredith Baxter's Betty Broderick, who at least did the dirty work herself, Jane Alexander's character may indeed give her the title of Meanest Miniseries Mother, but she's just getting warmed up! Wait until you see her in full battle armor.
William rushes to the hospital where Jane stops him at the door to his wife's room. "I'm her husband," he insists when she won't let him in. "Yes you are her husband. Can't she sleep?" she tells more than asks. She then turns to Kris and informs him that "those four men raped her, they beat her, they almost killed her." Wow, in only a few minutes, she's come up with a whole brand new truth to cover up the whole sordid affair, just fine with sending four innocent men to some sort of doom. With that, the four men are arrested and booked.
Kris starts his questioning with Robert Andre, the one who first spotted Madeleine and insisted on getting her to the hospital, despite the fears of his friends. Kris is actually friendly to him, until he drops the rape bombshell, which Robert denies. "Maybe it was your three friends who had the hot pants tonight," Kris attacks, then going back to good cop to get him to rat out his pals.
Lawyer James Saito arrives, roused out of bed by Robert's sister, Dorothy Roberts, since he's the only lawyer Robert knows. His friends are not pleased that he's Hawaiian as well. "Up against them? Why don't we just confess!" The men scream and threaten each other, and soft-spoken James is unable to answer any questions, instilling no faith. Driving James home, Dorothy launches into him for being "like a lump" and not helpful. "How many cases have you had? How many times have you been in court? How many lives have you saved?" she wants to know. He meekly answers, "I'm just starting out." Robert and he only know each other because James was Robert's math teacher in high school.
The next morning, Honolulu wakes up to news of the ghastly affair and Kris starts his detective work in earnest, yielding some clues very quickly. He finds Madeleine's clothing just outside the restaurant where she and her husband had gone dancing. Dr. George Coe declares Madeleine will heal perfectly, but Jane asks him to lunch to discuss "another matter." Then it's Kris' turn with Madeleine and Jane insists she identify the four men as her assailants. No, she wants to tell the truth. "Very well, what is the truth?" Jane asks. When she hears it, she's furious and tells Madeleine she will make sure William finds out the truth. "I hate you, you're evil!" Madeleine cries. "I'm not evil. I'm a survivor," Jane insists. With her mother holding onto her neck and her husband now in the room, Madeleine tells Kris the four men, who are brought into her hospital room, are the ones who attacked her.
At the bail hearing, James' inexperience shows, but he does prove that he understands the law. The prosecution wants the men held without bail and he not only gets the judge to agree to bail, but to knock it down from $10,000 to $2,500, not that the families can even afford that. He assures the men he will get the money, for which Dorothy attacks him. "You filled them with false hope. I hate you for that," she says, as prickly as she was the night before.
James goes to the only native Hawaiian he can think of who might have the money, Princess Huanani Minn, who is not happy he ignored her "absolutely no visitors" sign. "There is no Princess here. I'm a rancher now and those are my subjects," she says, pointing to her cattle. He tells her of the rape, and she's not moved. He tells her the girl's mother is Jane Alexander. "Give up, you lose," she says. He appeals to her position as a Princess and bluntly asks for the bail money. She explains why she's gone into seclusion, horrified at what has happened to her people. "The missionaries' sons have turned these islands into one big work force," she tells him. However, she does ultimately give him the money.
Kris questions William, who gets huffy as hell when Kris claims to be there to ask "routine questions." Kris has him very defensive, making it worse by asking, "how about sex problems?" William denies any, of course. Kris next turns up at the gym in Pearl Harbor to question Matt. He lies, saying he did not hear Madeleine ask to go out for air. Kris knows the whole conversation is false, and it ends when William shows up to chase him off. "Now it's getting insulting," he tells Kris. "That's what I do. Insult people. Keeps the world safe," the grizzly detective remarks as he walks off. Then Kris visits Richard Dysart, on whose plantation the four men worked. "It's an open and shut case, leave it like that," Richard threatens.
The cover up at the hospital is astounding. Dr. George Coe calls in the very emergency room doctor, Henry Bal who treated Madeleine to give her an abortion because he's a Cardiologist and can't do the surgery. Henry says he can tell she's three months pregnant, which means she was that way before the supposed rape and he doesn't want to be a part of a cover up. But, George promises him "the next staff position" to open up and he agrees.
What keeps "Blood & Orchids" so vivid is that it's written like a 1930s gumshoe mystery. Kris is right out of Raymond Chandler or one of his contemporaries. That means it's not all business all the time like most true crime stories. That's where Susan Blakely comes in, as the girl who pines for the always-unavailable cop. He only sees her when he has time, and that's not enough for her, so she gives him the kiss-off, speaking like every tough dame in a 1930s movie (more like the 1940s, but close enough). She tells him not to come into the restaurant anymore because it would be too hard to see him. "There was never a time I saw ya, I didn't want to undress ya," she says ruefully. Her scenes are not really important to the plot, just to give Kris some added color and keep this from becoming just another tale of justice, rich-and-famous style.
The trial is stalled in jury selection because both sides are refusing all of the candidates. The prosecution wants no one native on the panel. When a Hawaiian name is called, the prosecutor refuses without even looking up. "Your honor, he doesn't want a jury, he wants a cheering section," James barks. He actually wins the argument, especially by playing to the reporters. Both sides have to give in, so the jury ends up with a mix of natives and whites.
Big bad Jane has a secret meeting with Matt to tell him "I'm your safety" and she wants him in court "every day, all day." He has no choice but to agree.
Kris is first to testify, but nothing emerges from his testimony. As he leaves the bench, he is told by another detective that Matt lied about his whereabouts that night. Then Dr. Henry is sworn in, but before any questions can be asked, in sweeps the Princess. She builds some sympathy for the Hawaiians, all of whom stand up when she enters. So does the judge, but he reminds her, "your authority does not extend to this courtroom." "With all due respect, your honor, my authority does not extend to the end of my nose," she says to laughter from all. Then it's back to the doctor. He admits to performing a "therapeutic abortion" at Madeleine's family's request. James gets him to admit he never actually spoke to Madeleine at any point, that she never said she had been raped. His reward for doing well in court is a moonlight stroll down the beach with Dorothy, who knows thinks he's wonderful.
Navy grunt and card-carrying redneck Merritt Butrick has been an avid supporter of William's since the whole episode began. He comes to the house to deliver William's laundry and opines that "those four monkeys wouldn't be sitting there in court where I come from. They wouldn't be around anymore, sir, they wouldn't be around." That's just creepy. William goes upstairs and loads his gun.
Madeleine is ready for her day in the witness box dressed in red. Jane is mortified. "What hell of a masquerade party do you think you're dressed for?" she demands to know, but Madeleine, claiming she's a a murderer of her own baby and an unfaithful wife, is "the scarlet woman." Mother wins the day, appearing in appropriate black, up to the neck, with a simple stand of pearls. She points to the four natives as the ones who raped and beat her. Under James' cross examination, she is hesitant, but ultimately sticks to her mother's story. He asks her to describe the incident, and the prosecution's objection is over-ruled. James' questions have her all at sea, but she squirms out of the trap. So, he changes tactics and brings into evidence her clothing, which has "not a drop of blood" anywhere on it.
As Madeleine is about to break, William jumps up, in slow motion and shoots Robert. The whole court watches it unravel in slow motion and the episode ends there. This is American TV know-how at its best! The trial had been building and building and then this totally unexpected twist occurred, leaving the viewers with an incredibly cliffhanger. I can't imagine not wanting to return to see the rest. There is nothing campy or artificial about the way this is handled, just pure writing ingenuity.
"On the mainland, they considered [William] a hero. Their only complaint is that he did not kill the other three boys. Here in Hawaii, people know only fear, fear of what could happen next," the Princess makes sure everyone knows. The second portion starts with Robert's funeral, where Dorothy eulogizes him as a man who could never pass a person in trouble and that's what got him killed. That turns into a teary tirade against the whites. "Deep down, they believe they own us," she says. Kris, leaving the funeral, insists the remaining three be guarded. "Wherever those three go, a cop goes, including the toilet!"
Admiral Sandy McPeak has moved Jane to the army compound for her safety, but she's not happy. "Did you come to see the prisoner?" she nastily asks Richard Dysart when he pays a visit. He's brought the news that the "best criminal lawyer alive" is William's only chance, and that would be Jose Ferrer (playing a character based on Clarence Darrow).
William summons Merritt to the brig to spit more insults about the "monkeys." Kris follows up with Matt to tell him he knows he lied, that he disappeared about the time Madeleine did. "I think you're laying again, partner," Kris tells him. He asks point blank if Matt and Madeleine were having an affair. Matt hits the punching bag as Kris is leaving. "You're pretty handy with those things. Every try using them on something that can hit back?" Kris cracks as he leaves.
Madeleine calls James, I suppose to make a confession, but Jane, acting all Louise-Fletcher-Flowers-in-the-Attic, barges into her room, pulls the phone out of the socket and leaves. Don't mess with Mother!
William is taken to Pearl Harbor instead of the county jail, putting him out of Kris' reach, who is also informed that the protection detail has been taken off the other three suspects. His superior makes life even worse, telling him to be Jose's shadow when he arrives the next day. To feel better, he goes to visit Susan, still slinging hash, but she's still not biting.
So, Kris has to what he's been told and goes to the boat to fetch Jose and his wife, Sean Young, quite a bit younger than the old geezer. She certainly dotes on her husband, who says he took the case so he could bring her to an exciting locale instead of hotel rooms.
With all the attention now on William, being defended by legendary legal eagle Jose Ferrer, the three innocent Hawaiian lads are in legal limbo. James begs David Clennon, his opposing counsel, for a trial date, but the other case is too important and he's tossed aside. The whole nation is following William's case, and most of them want him freed.
Jose, busy busy, sends Sean off to have lunch by herself, but since Kris is waiting for them as ordered, they can have lunch together. He introduces her to the Mai Tai and she delights in all the orchids around her. "They are so...ethereal," she says. Sean Young playing a smart proper lawyer's wife, who says "dine" instead of "eat" and such, is terrible casting. But, even the best miniseries have their weaknesses. But, she has him smiling, and not even Susan Blakely could do that.
Dr. Henry is furious because Dr. George did not fulfill his promise to get Dr. Henry the next free position, and Henry threatens to tell all, but George says he'll "run you off this island" if he does, so it's a stalemate.
Merritt has formed a posse to go after the remaining three accused men and wait outside their homes for just the right moment. They kidnap one to lead them to the others. The three are strung up and Merritt wants them to sign a confession, but they opt for a brutal whipping that Merritt the sadist loves, though his cronies aren't quite as into it. Having beaten them unconscious, Merritt allows the three to be cut loose.
Jose finds himself being taken on a tour of Richard's farm and realizes just how much he produces. "You must be the most powerful man between San Francisco and Hong Kong," he says with the hint of a sneer. "I wouldn't say that." "Oh, what would you say?" Jose replies, definitely learning what's going on in Hawaii. Jose wants his money and offers up his back as a desk. "You're not defending me," Richard angrily says. "I'm not so sure."
Unfortunately, following that scene, we have another goofy game of puns and bad acting from Sean and Kris, who obviously isn't as excited by this part of the plot as he is by playing a detective, but since the case has shifted, it would mean he would have to disappear completely without this flirting nonsense. This scene has their first kiss. It's interrupted by a call to go to the hospital, where the three boys have been brought.
Jane decides to be sweet and motherly with Madeleine, as the two have not spoken since the phone call. She asks her daughter to confide in her and Madeleine is upset because Matt hasn't called. Wow, she's as deluded as her mother! "He can't, not until this calamity has ended," Jane reassures her. At the same time, Jose finally meets William, to discuss strategy. He won't be acquitted, since everyone saw him do it, but if Jose plays (illegally) on the jury's sympathy for a husband protecting his wife, he can pull it off. Oh, and William must always be in his naval uniform. "I wanted you dressed as if you're getting a medal for bravery," the cunning lawyer instructs him.
After a very slow and unnecessary sex scene with Sean, Kris goes to visit the three boys in the hospital. With some prodding, he gets details out of them, like the make of the car, Merritt's tattoo and the word "bilge" bandied about by their attackers. In no time, the clues pour in and Kris knows it was naval men. They catch one of the naval men responsible, and Kris is too good a cop not to have the guy singing like a canary out of fear. Kris hustles to the base and tries to arrest the other tree, but he's stonewalled. "I'm tired of your stinking rules. Pearl Harbor isn't a foreign country," he says, arrest warrants in hand. The Admiral calls Richard to find what to do, and Richard says, "turn them over." "You were supposed to neutralize [Kris]," the Admiral tells Richard, who promises to do so. But, Kris does leave with the three men he came for, despite all sorts of threats.
And yet Kris still has time for Sean, who coos lines like, "you make me feel new, as if you invented me," once again threatening to pull down this whole enterprise with stupid dialogue and even worse acting.
It's time for another trial, but this time William is at the defense table and the Hawaiians are on the other side of the aisle, the Princess included. Jose wants to postpone his opening statement until "after the prosecution has finished its case," which perplexes the judge. So, in a sidebar, he tells the judge he wants to "save what juice I have" and not run the risk of repeating himself during questioning. The judge calls a recess and Jose turns to Jane, ordering her to produce her daughter in court "all day, every day, looking tragic and wounded." Jane says it won't happen and he says, "if she's not present at 2pm, I will not be present." Finally, a match has been found for Jane!
Madeleine is there when the court reconvenes. Jose does not have any questions for the prosecutions witnesses, the police and experts and such. The prosecution rests and they are in recess until the next day. That was nice and easy. The prosecution proved that everyone did indeed see William kill the kid. Jose then goes to Kris to tell him, "leave my wife alone!" He's found a handkerchief belonging to Kris, and as he's ranting, Jose passes out into a diabetic coma and has a stroke, but will apparently be okay to work the next day.
Next to yank Kris' chain is Richard, who shows up at his tiny apartment to push him off the case, not subtle this time, but Kris refuses. "You're headed for more trouble than you ever imagined," Richard threatens. "One of us is," Kris tartly replies.
Suddenly it's time for Jose's closing statement. Having already played Cyrano, you would think he wouldn't need to sink his teeth into this speech with such obvious delight, but he does. It's one of those courtroom speeches that does not actually say anything pertinent, but sounds so full of ideals and certainties that everyone is expected to get up and clap. Madeleine tries to get up and leave, but Jane stops her. The prosecution finally objects to hearing information not introduced during questioning, and the judge somehow sides with Jose. Madeleine finally stands up to declare the boys are innocent, so Jane hustles her out of the courtroom. Matt looks like he's going to explode and Kris is watching him the whole time.
The Princess pays a dramatic visit to the hospital to see the three boys and to give them the news that William has been found guilty of manslaughter, sentenced to 10 years in prison. "I want you to make something of yourselves," she tells them. She goads James and Dorothy about marriage and gives Dorothy a strand of pearls, promising rings when she comes back for the wedding.
Kris, ace detective, cons Dr. Henry into confessing about the abortion and implicates Dr. George, as "I was just following orders." That has an eerie ring to it, no? The police and prosecutors next stop at Jane's mansion, where she is redecorating. She's at her high-and-mighty best, and Jane tries to throw them out, but Kris isn't backing down. "You can't kill people and you can't whip them and you can't treat them like they aren't human, which is what you've been doing since you stole this island from the people who founded it. Just because your grandfather came off a ship here 80 years ago doesn't make you God. That's all finished, and so are you," he tells her, stealing some of that Jose Ferrer thunder. He tells her the doctors told the truth, that the boys did not rape Madeleine, and that's when David steps in with all of the charges against her and Madeleine. The latter is convinced to tell the truth, finally.
He leaves the women and eventually Matt, to arrest everyone so he can hustle to the departing ship to see Sean one last time. As he's on his way, the maid discovers Madeleine has killed herself and Jane reels seeing her body, the first emotion other than anger she's shown during the entire story. Kris and Sean stare at each other as the boat slips out of the harbor, not the best ending, I admit.
Okay, so "Blood & Orchids" is textbook American miniseries. It has all of the elements (noted above) and it even has the stuff, the cheesy love plot that only an American miniseries would find necessary as a time filler. This story doesn't need it. It's utterly fascinating without it. Rich people manipulating the law, we love that kind of stuff! It's the top-notch performances that give it extra sheen. Kris Kristofferson has never been a favorite of mine, but he's superb here, half Jack Nicholson, half Humphrey Bogart. And of course Jane Alexander shows us how it's done. She manages to play a horrible character and still be the most watchable person.
Their night is not nearly as formal as the one spent by naval officers and their fancily dressed girls. Seemingly perfect couple William Russ and Sean Madeleine Stowe are dancing until she decides she needs some air. The drunk cane field workers go skinny dipping. Madeleine isn't really getting air, but rather about to have sex with her husband's best friend before the announcement that she's pregnant blunts that moment. Boyfriend Matt Salinger, up for a naval promotion, tells her to have an abortion, but she won't hear of it. She threatens to tell everyone, so he slaps her silly. Trying to get help, she drips blood on the free-growing orchids (we have our title).
It's left to the four cane workers to discover her, still alive, but beaten up and naked. Only one of them wants to take her to the hospital, and when he drops her off, he runs away with the others. Since they are natives and she is white, they fear what will be assumed. And they are right. A police officer sees them running, finds the car and the alcohol. Madeleine asks for the doctors to call her mother, Jane Alexander, and they react immediately, as mama is a big deal in the Territory.
"Blood & Orchids" captivates from the onset, not wasting any time in getting to the meat of this story: white girl is battered and left for dead, so it's assumed the natives had to have done it. Throw in the navy and a very wealthy mother, and you have all of the elements needed for a gripping American miniseries, a fictionalized account of a real-life 1932 case. There is local color, overwrought performances that are supposed to be that way, stars galore, trials, police, the whole deal. It's a soap opera crammed into a few hours and a damn good one.
The policeman who will ultimately be involved is Kris Kristofferson, clean-shaven and almost unrecognizably youthful, who chats with his gal pal, waitress Susan Blakely (miniseries royalty all the way back to "Rich Man, Poor Man"), in an unflattering dark wig. Their "where-do-we-stand" conversation is interrupted by Kris being summoned to take the new case, but Kris leaves Susan his key on the way out so they can meet later.
The racial undertones that will be so important are not whitewashed. Jane Alexander is giving a dinner party for some high-toned men in white tuxedos and blames questionable maid service on the fact that "she's new, gentleman," which means essentially, she's native and not used to my stuffy ways. The topic of statehood comes up, and there is some argument. "What about the Orientals? What do we do about them?" one asks. "Follow my lead, don't say anything," Richard Dysart cracks and everyone laughs. "There will be no statehood. The democratic process would raise holy hell around here," he continues. Queenly Jane agrees, saying, "we govern here by divine right, chosen by God to lead these people. Controlling three million acres of sugar cane fields as the four of us do, I should think the natives should be grateful for the jobs we provide them." If the sentiment is heavy and patronizing, it's not historically inaccurate. Big companies did dominate Hawaiian history once the Americans got there and they did essentially rule the islands from their well-appointed mansions.
When Kris comes to tell Jane her daughter is in the hospital, she reacts with elegant sang froid, excuses herself from her guests and goes with him to the hospital still decked out in her finest. Kris opens the front door for her, but she elects to sit in the back. Even under the circumstances, she'll follow every rule of decorum invented by the snob class.
At the hospital, Jane's first concern when Madeleine opens her eyes is "who did this?" Madeleine is very clear that it's not the four native men who brought. "They saved me, they are innocent!" She also clears her husband, but Jane keeps pushing. "I'm responsible because I'm the pregnant one!" Madeleine blurts out. Jane raises herself up to her full height, now angry that her daughter is pregnant by a man clearly not her husband, desperate to know who the father is. Madeleine begs with all of her strength to make Jane go, but that's not going to happen, as she tells her daughter, "I'm going to wait right here until we get our stories straight. You are not going to destroy me. I created an empire from your father's estate and I have a position here. No one's higher. You will not drag me down in disgrace." That is one ice-cold bitch. As protective of position of Claudette Colbert's Alice Grenville, as blind to truth as Lee Remick's Frances Schreuder in "Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder" and as nutso as Meredith Baxter's Betty Broderick, who at least did the dirty work herself, Jane Alexander's character may indeed give her the title of Meanest Miniseries Mother, but she's just getting warmed up! Wait until you see her in full battle armor.
William rushes to the hospital where Jane stops him at the door to his wife's room. "I'm her husband," he insists when she won't let him in. "Yes you are her husband. Can't she sleep?" she tells more than asks. She then turns to Kris and informs him that "those four men raped her, they beat her, they almost killed her." Wow, in only a few minutes, she's come up with a whole brand new truth to cover up the whole sordid affair, just fine with sending four innocent men to some sort of doom. With that, the four men are arrested and booked.
Kris starts his questioning with Robert Andre, the one who first spotted Madeleine and insisted on getting her to the hospital, despite the fears of his friends. Kris is actually friendly to him, until he drops the rape bombshell, which Robert denies. "Maybe it was your three friends who had the hot pants tonight," Kris attacks, then going back to good cop to get him to rat out his pals.
Lawyer James Saito arrives, roused out of bed by Robert's sister, Dorothy Roberts, since he's the only lawyer Robert knows. His friends are not pleased that he's Hawaiian as well. "Up against them? Why don't we just confess!" The men scream and threaten each other, and soft-spoken James is unable to answer any questions, instilling no faith. Driving James home, Dorothy launches into him for being "like a lump" and not helpful. "How many cases have you had? How many times have you been in court? How many lives have you saved?" she wants to know. He meekly answers, "I'm just starting out." Robert and he only know each other because James was Robert's math teacher in high school.
The next morning, Honolulu wakes up to news of the ghastly affair and Kris starts his detective work in earnest, yielding some clues very quickly. He finds Madeleine's clothing just outside the restaurant where she and her husband had gone dancing. Dr. George Coe declares Madeleine will heal perfectly, but Jane asks him to lunch to discuss "another matter." Then it's Kris' turn with Madeleine and Jane insists she identify the four men as her assailants. No, she wants to tell the truth. "Very well, what is the truth?" Jane asks. When she hears it, she's furious and tells Madeleine she will make sure William finds out the truth. "I hate you, you're evil!" Madeleine cries. "I'm not evil. I'm a survivor," Jane insists. With her mother holding onto her neck and her husband now in the room, Madeleine tells Kris the four men, who are brought into her hospital room, are the ones who attacked her.
At the bail hearing, James' inexperience shows, but he does prove that he understands the law. The prosecution wants the men held without bail and he not only gets the judge to agree to bail, but to knock it down from $10,000 to $2,500, not that the families can even afford that. He assures the men he will get the money, for which Dorothy attacks him. "You filled them with false hope. I hate you for that," she says, as prickly as she was the night before.
James goes to the only native Hawaiian he can think of who might have the money, Princess Huanani Minn, who is not happy he ignored her "absolutely no visitors" sign. "There is no Princess here. I'm a rancher now and those are my subjects," she says, pointing to her cattle. He tells her of the rape, and she's not moved. He tells her the girl's mother is Jane Alexander. "Give up, you lose," she says. He appeals to her position as a Princess and bluntly asks for the bail money. She explains why she's gone into seclusion, horrified at what has happened to her people. "The missionaries' sons have turned these islands into one big work force," she tells him. However, she does ultimately give him the money.
Kris questions William, who gets huffy as hell when Kris claims to be there to ask "routine questions." Kris has him very defensive, making it worse by asking, "how about sex problems?" William denies any, of course. Kris next turns up at the gym in Pearl Harbor to question Matt. He lies, saying he did not hear Madeleine ask to go out for air. Kris knows the whole conversation is false, and it ends when William shows up to chase him off. "Now it's getting insulting," he tells Kris. "That's what I do. Insult people. Keeps the world safe," the grizzly detective remarks as he walks off. Then Kris visits Richard Dysart, on whose plantation the four men worked. "It's an open and shut case, leave it like that," Richard threatens.
The cover up at the hospital is astounding. Dr. George Coe calls in the very emergency room doctor, Henry Bal who treated Madeleine to give her an abortion because he's a Cardiologist and can't do the surgery. Henry says he can tell she's three months pregnant, which means she was that way before the supposed rape and he doesn't want to be a part of a cover up. But, George promises him "the next staff position" to open up and he agrees.
What keeps "Blood & Orchids" so vivid is that it's written like a 1930s gumshoe mystery. Kris is right out of Raymond Chandler or one of his contemporaries. That means it's not all business all the time like most true crime stories. That's where Susan Blakely comes in, as the girl who pines for the always-unavailable cop. He only sees her when he has time, and that's not enough for her, so she gives him the kiss-off, speaking like every tough dame in a 1930s movie (more like the 1940s, but close enough). She tells him not to come into the restaurant anymore because it would be too hard to see him. "There was never a time I saw ya, I didn't want to undress ya," she says ruefully. Her scenes are not really important to the plot, just to give Kris some added color and keep this from becoming just another tale of justice, rich-and-famous style.
The trial is stalled in jury selection because both sides are refusing all of the candidates. The prosecution wants no one native on the panel. When a Hawaiian name is called, the prosecutor refuses without even looking up. "Your honor, he doesn't want a jury, he wants a cheering section," James barks. He actually wins the argument, especially by playing to the reporters. Both sides have to give in, so the jury ends up with a mix of natives and whites.
Big bad Jane has a secret meeting with Matt to tell him "I'm your safety" and she wants him in court "every day, all day." He has no choice but to agree.
Kris is first to testify, but nothing emerges from his testimony. As he leaves the bench, he is told by another detective that Matt lied about his whereabouts that night. Then Dr. Henry is sworn in, but before any questions can be asked, in sweeps the Princess. She builds some sympathy for the Hawaiians, all of whom stand up when she enters. So does the judge, but he reminds her, "your authority does not extend to this courtroom." "With all due respect, your honor, my authority does not extend to the end of my nose," she says to laughter from all. Then it's back to the doctor. He admits to performing a "therapeutic abortion" at Madeleine's family's request. James gets him to admit he never actually spoke to Madeleine at any point, that she never said she had been raped. His reward for doing well in court is a moonlight stroll down the beach with Dorothy, who knows thinks he's wonderful.
Navy grunt and card-carrying redneck Merritt Butrick has been an avid supporter of William's since the whole episode began. He comes to the house to deliver William's laundry and opines that "those four monkeys wouldn't be sitting there in court where I come from. They wouldn't be around anymore, sir, they wouldn't be around." That's just creepy. William goes upstairs and loads his gun.
Madeleine is ready for her day in the witness box dressed in red. Jane is mortified. "What hell of a masquerade party do you think you're dressed for?" she demands to know, but Madeleine, claiming she's a a murderer of her own baby and an unfaithful wife, is "the scarlet woman." Mother wins the day, appearing in appropriate black, up to the neck, with a simple stand of pearls. She points to the four natives as the ones who raped and beat her. Under James' cross examination, she is hesitant, but ultimately sticks to her mother's story. He asks her to describe the incident, and the prosecution's objection is over-ruled. James' questions have her all at sea, but she squirms out of the trap. So, he changes tactics and brings into evidence her clothing, which has "not a drop of blood" anywhere on it.
As Madeleine is about to break, William jumps up, in slow motion and shoots Robert. The whole court watches it unravel in slow motion and the episode ends there. This is American TV know-how at its best! The trial had been building and building and then this totally unexpected twist occurred, leaving the viewers with an incredibly cliffhanger. I can't imagine not wanting to return to see the rest. There is nothing campy or artificial about the way this is handled, just pure writing ingenuity.
"On the mainland, they considered [William] a hero. Their only complaint is that he did not kill the other three boys. Here in Hawaii, people know only fear, fear of what could happen next," the Princess makes sure everyone knows. The second portion starts with Robert's funeral, where Dorothy eulogizes him as a man who could never pass a person in trouble and that's what got him killed. That turns into a teary tirade against the whites. "Deep down, they believe they own us," she says. Kris, leaving the funeral, insists the remaining three be guarded. "Wherever those three go, a cop goes, including the toilet!"
Admiral Sandy McPeak has moved Jane to the army compound for her safety, but she's not happy. "Did you come to see the prisoner?" she nastily asks Richard Dysart when he pays a visit. He's brought the news that the "best criminal lawyer alive" is William's only chance, and that would be Jose Ferrer (playing a character based on Clarence Darrow).
William summons Merritt to the brig to spit more insults about the "monkeys." Kris follows up with Matt to tell him he knows he lied, that he disappeared about the time Madeleine did. "I think you're laying again, partner," Kris tells him. He asks point blank if Matt and Madeleine were having an affair. Matt hits the punching bag as Kris is leaving. "You're pretty handy with those things. Every try using them on something that can hit back?" Kris cracks as he leaves.
Madeleine calls James, I suppose to make a confession, but Jane, acting all Louise-Fletcher-Flowers-in-the-Attic, barges into her room, pulls the phone out of the socket and leaves. Don't mess with Mother!
William is taken to Pearl Harbor instead of the county jail, putting him out of Kris' reach, who is also informed that the protection detail has been taken off the other three suspects. His superior makes life even worse, telling him to be Jose's shadow when he arrives the next day. To feel better, he goes to visit Susan, still slinging hash, but she's still not biting.
So, Kris has to what he's been told and goes to the boat to fetch Jose and his wife, Sean Young, quite a bit younger than the old geezer. She certainly dotes on her husband, who says he took the case so he could bring her to an exciting locale instead of hotel rooms.
With all the attention now on William, being defended by legendary legal eagle Jose Ferrer, the three innocent Hawaiian lads are in legal limbo. James begs David Clennon, his opposing counsel, for a trial date, but the other case is too important and he's tossed aside. The whole nation is following William's case, and most of them want him freed.
Jose, busy busy, sends Sean off to have lunch by herself, but since Kris is waiting for them as ordered, they can have lunch together. He introduces her to the Mai Tai and she delights in all the orchids around her. "They are so...ethereal," she says. Sean Young playing a smart proper lawyer's wife, who says "dine" instead of "eat" and such, is terrible casting. But, even the best miniseries have their weaknesses. But, she has him smiling, and not even Susan Blakely could do that.
Dr. Henry is furious because Dr. George did not fulfill his promise to get Dr. Henry the next free position, and Henry threatens to tell all, but George says he'll "run you off this island" if he does, so it's a stalemate.
Merritt has formed a posse to go after the remaining three accused men and wait outside their homes for just the right moment. They kidnap one to lead them to the others. The three are strung up and Merritt wants them to sign a confession, but they opt for a brutal whipping that Merritt the sadist loves, though his cronies aren't quite as into it. Having beaten them unconscious, Merritt allows the three to be cut loose.
Jose finds himself being taken on a tour of Richard's farm and realizes just how much he produces. "You must be the most powerful man between San Francisco and Hong Kong," he says with the hint of a sneer. "I wouldn't say that." "Oh, what would you say?" Jose replies, definitely learning what's going on in Hawaii. Jose wants his money and offers up his back as a desk. "You're not defending me," Richard angrily says. "I'm not so sure."
Unfortunately, following that scene, we have another goofy game of puns and bad acting from Sean and Kris, who obviously isn't as excited by this part of the plot as he is by playing a detective, but since the case has shifted, it would mean he would have to disappear completely without this flirting nonsense. This scene has their first kiss. It's interrupted by a call to go to the hospital, where the three boys have been brought.
Jane decides to be sweet and motherly with Madeleine, as the two have not spoken since the phone call. She asks her daughter to confide in her and Madeleine is upset because Matt hasn't called. Wow, she's as deluded as her mother! "He can't, not until this calamity has ended," Jane reassures her. At the same time, Jose finally meets William, to discuss strategy. He won't be acquitted, since everyone saw him do it, but if Jose plays (illegally) on the jury's sympathy for a husband protecting his wife, he can pull it off. Oh, and William must always be in his naval uniform. "I wanted you dressed as if you're getting a medal for bravery," the cunning lawyer instructs him.
After a very slow and unnecessary sex scene with Sean, Kris goes to visit the three boys in the hospital. With some prodding, he gets details out of them, like the make of the car, Merritt's tattoo and the word "bilge" bandied about by their attackers. In no time, the clues pour in and Kris knows it was naval men. They catch one of the naval men responsible, and Kris is too good a cop not to have the guy singing like a canary out of fear. Kris hustles to the base and tries to arrest the other tree, but he's stonewalled. "I'm tired of your stinking rules. Pearl Harbor isn't a foreign country," he says, arrest warrants in hand. The Admiral calls Richard to find what to do, and Richard says, "turn them over." "You were supposed to neutralize [Kris]," the Admiral tells Richard, who promises to do so. But, Kris does leave with the three men he came for, despite all sorts of threats.
And yet Kris still has time for Sean, who coos lines like, "you make me feel new, as if you invented me," once again threatening to pull down this whole enterprise with stupid dialogue and even worse acting.
It's time for another trial, but this time William is at the defense table and the Hawaiians are on the other side of the aisle, the Princess included. Jose wants to postpone his opening statement until "after the prosecution has finished its case," which perplexes the judge. So, in a sidebar, he tells the judge he wants to "save what juice I have" and not run the risk of repeating himself during questioning. The judge calls a recess and Jose turns to Jane, ordering her to produce her daughter in court "all day, every day, looking tragic and wounded." Jane says it won't happen and he says, "if she's not present at 2pm, I will not be present." Finally, a match has been found for Jane!
Madeleine is there when the court reconvenes. Jose does not have any questions for the prosecutions witnesses, the police and experts and such. The prosecution rests and they are in recess until the next day. That was nice and easy. The prosecution proved that everyone did indeed see William kill the kid. Jose then goes to Kris to tell him, "leave my wife alone!" He's found a handkerchief belonging to Kris, and as he's ranting, Jose passes out into a diabetic coma and has a stroke, but will apparently be okay to work the next day.
Next to yank Kris' chain is Richard, who shows up at his tiny apartment to push him off the case, not subtle this time, but Kris refuses. "You're headed for more trouble than you ever imagined," Richard threatens. "One of us is," Kris tartly replies.
Suddenly it's time for Jose's closing statement. Having already played Cyrano, you would think he wouldn't need to sink his teeth into this speech with such obvious delight, but he does. It's one of those courtroom speeches that does not actually say anything pertinent, but sounds so full of ideals and certainties that everyone is expected to get up and clap. Madeleine tries to get up and leave, but Jane stops her. The prosecution finally objects to hearing information not introduced during questioning, and the judge somehow sides with Jose. Madeleine finally stands up to declare the boys are innocent, so Jane hustles her out of the courtroom. Matt looks like he's going to explode and Kris is watching him the whole time.
The Princess pays a dramatic visit to the hospital to see the three boys and to give them the news that William has been found guilty of manslaughter, sentenced to 10 years in prison. "I want you to make something of yourselves," she tells them. She goads James and Dorothy about marriage and gives Dorothy a strand of pearls, promising rings when she comes back for the wedding.
Kris, ace detective, cons Dr. Henry into confessing about the abortion and implicates Dr. George, as "I was just following orders." That has an eerie ring to it, no? The police and prosecutors next stop at Jane's mansion, where she is redecorating. She's at her high-and-mighty best, and Jane tries to throw them out, but Kris isn't backing down. "You can't kill people and you can't whip them and you can't treat them like they aren't human, which is what you've been doing since you stole this island from the people who founded it. Just because your grandfather came off a ship here 80 years ago doesn't make you God. That's all finished, and so are you," he tells her, stealing some of that Jose Ferrer thunder. He tells her the doctors told the truth, that the boys did not rape Madeleine, and that's when David steps in with all of the charges against her and Madeleine. The latter is convinced to tell the truth, finally.
He leaves the women and eventually Matt, to arrest everyone so he can hustle to the departing ship to see Sean one last time. As he's on his way, the maid discovers Madeleine has killed herself and Jane reels seeing her body, the first emotion other than anger she's shown during the entire story. Kris and Sean stare at each other as the boat slips out of the harbor, not the best ending, I admit.
Okay, so "Blood & Orchids" is textbook American miniseries. It has all of the elements (noted above) and it even has the stuff, the cheesy love plot that only an American miniseries would find necessary as a time filler. This story doesn't need it. It's utterly fascinating without it. Rich people manipulating the law, we love that kind of stuff! It's the top-notch performances that give it extra sheen. Kris Kristofferson has never been a favorite of mine, but he's superb here, half Jack Nicholson, half Humphrey Bogart. And of course Jane Alexander shows us how it's done. She manages to play a horrible character and still be the most watchable person.
Friday, June 10, 2011
The Phantom of the Opera (1990)
Jackie Collins aside, it's been a while since we looked at a chopped-up-and-re-designed classic book turned into a miniseries. Hmmm, which one shall we pick? Dickens? No, too frantic. Austen? No, outside of our domain, as the Brits always get there first and best. The Bible? No, mercy me, I don't have the strength right now.
In 1990, "The Phantom of the Opera" mania was high. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical had been running in both London and New York for a few years and was touring all over the place. However, at the same time, there was another musical version of the Gaston Leroux's novel by noted playwright Arthur Kopit and infinitely-more-talented-than-Sir-Andrew composer/lyricist Maury Yeston. It's the Kopit-Yeston version of the novel that became a miniseries in 1990, but without any of Yeston's music (having the music certainly didn't help the film version of the mega-musical over a decade later, so it might as well be chopped here too, though admittedly, Yeston's "Phantom" score is fairly wan).
Frankly, I'm not quite sure what is being filmed here since it bears only the slightest resemblance to the book and its themes, and the casting is a hoot, which is a word I never thought I would in describing this dark story. It's directed by no less than Tony Richardson, though it certainly bears no trace of his genius. But, it seems that if we can't have a fresh version of "Phantom" in one form or another every few years (lest we forget the 1989 big screen dud with Freddy Kruger), the man lurking beneath the Le Theatre de l'Opera will, I suppose, wreak havoc on us all. You know, worse havoc than everyone putting together these sham versions of "The Phantom of the Opera."
Ooooh, one detail I did find out is that this is the only English-language version of "The Phantom of the Opera" to be at all filmed in Paris. There are about 147 others using fake Paris, and most of them better than this one, so verisimilitude ain't the key.
(I'm using character names here due to the familiarity of the story, or at least some of them are as the rest are brand new.)
Guttersnipe Christine Daae (Teri Polo, so young looking before her turns as Mrs. Focker) wanders around the magnificent opera house and then takes off her shoes and smiles. Inside the venerable building, Gerard Carriere (Burt Lancaster, SERIOUSLY slumming) has been dismissed from his position as manager. Don't remember him? Don't worry, he's new to the story, an amalgamation of characters (including some new ones). The company is most upset at his dismissal. Sent by the Comte de Chagny to meet the just-fired Carriere is Christine, who not only had an appointment to meet him, but is in serious need of even a slight European accent, ANY European accent. The ladies of the opera, who are tarted up to look like hookers on a day off, laugh at her because they have all been recruited by the Comte and all have the lockets to prove it.
Diva Carlotta (Andrea Ferreol), tarted up to look like...geez, I'm not really sure, wants to know "exactly what it is we are inheriting," as she is the wife of the new manager Choleti (Ian Richardson). So, she scares someone into going down into the bowels of the theater to find sets, costumes and anything else usable. There's a whole lot of crap down there and a man wearing a skeleton mask who scares the poor fool so badly, the latter dies. Choleti, looking like nasty version of Hercule Poirot, and his wife are introduced to the underwhelmed company, but as Choleti starts to speak, a note from the Phantom wafts down into Carriere's hand. He tells Choleti of the ghost, who is fine as long as "the rule is obeyed...all you need to know is don't go down below." Neglect the rule and you meet the fate of the sniveling dresser. Reacting to this news and a few little special effects put on by the Phantom, Choleti roars into overdrive overacting and asserts that "these are tricks" designed to frighten him and his wife. "I don't believe in ghosts," he says as a statue falls near him. Stay in your seats. The camp festival has only just begun.
Erik (Charles Dance), aka The Phantom, lures Carriere down to his lair where he reveals that he also needs some sort of European dialect. "Why did you let him go down there?" he whines to Carriere, not knowing that Carriere has been fired. "What am I going to do?" the spoiled lurker wonders. They have a special relationship, old ham and new ham (no cured hams here, trust me), but Erik reacts to Carlotta's voice like a dog to a whistle. "She can't sing," he says with a Paul Lynde lilt to his voice. "I know what to do about it, I'll kill them both," Erik jokes, revising it to kill only Carlotta. He decides to leave with Carriere, but oops, he can't. "Sometimes I forget that I'm only fit for these gloomy vaults...like blackness itself, for I am blackness itself," he carps, sounding more like Paul Lynde with every line.
Choleti agrees to see Christine, who has been waiting this whole time (not that as a guttersnipe she has anything better to do) because he is told the Comte de Chagny who sent her is "one of our biggest contributors." However, when he shows her to Carlotta, she goes wild, knowing instantly the girl cannot sing. "Where did you grow up? On a farm? The world of opera has nothing to do with farm life," she says dramatically, but when whispered to about the patron, she suddenly gets friendly. "My dear, I'm going to do a great favor for you. I'm going to let you work for me, in the costume department," replacing the poor dead guy. Since Christine is homeless, the doorman lets her stay in...you got it...the basement, though warning her "not to wander around." The fussy Phantom, who happens to be wearing a shiny gold mask over his usual white one and who likes to powder his chin, is enchanted by the voice doing Christine's singing (it sure as hell ain't Teri Polo's voice) as she does just what she was told not to do and wanders around. He follows it all the way up to the stage, where she's naturally found her way and is just warbling for the emptiness.
This is the hokiest company this side of the Bath Touring Light Opera. Choleti spends his time telling Carlotta how young she looks, and if you can make it through his "you look like spring" declaration without laughing, you aren't drunk enough. The director tells the male star at a "Faust" rehearsal, "this is poison, not soup...not happy! Take it from la, la, la." The girls are actually bitchier than the boys, but no one is bitchier than the roaming Phantom, who has a whole gaggle of expensive custom-made masks, usually wearing two, the spiffy one over the normal one, for reasons not explained. One is enough when no one is seeing you anyway. Two is just, well, overkill since no one gets to see your fashion show.
Finally, Erik the Phantom speaks to Christine, from the orchestra pit once everyone else has magically cleared the stage. He loves her voice, "though it is obviously untrained," and he offers to help her "attain the heights for which it was destined." She can't tell anyone about their lessons, because others will want the lessons too and he obviously has standards.
Choleti receives letters from the Phantom trashing Carlotta for the next month. "From a ghost? Since when do ghosts know how to write?" he demands to know. I guess he doesn't know many ghosts, but to be fair, the Phantom can be awfully stinging (like Paul Lynde after a few too many), like when he says he loves everything about the new production of "Norma" except Carlotta's presence in it. He's also demanding, insisting on having Box Five at every performance, which Choleti refuses. The ladies of the chorus aren't any nicer, talking of Christine, saying "she's been here over a month and all she does it hum." "She's getting better at it too." "I can't stand it." Wait, one can improve in humming? Are there great hum teachers out there like great voice teachers?
Opening night finally arrives, with tout la creme de Paris in attendance, and a very unlucky quartet placed in Box Five. The foursome is told by a voice, "this box is mine...I would appreciate if you left!" and they hustle out. At the same time, Erik temporarily steals Carlotta's wig to make her more nervous. Carlotta makes her entrance as Norma, apparently unaware it's not a comedy, and then her wig starts to itch. Watching her find ways to scratch it has the audience roaring. "Can't say I didn't warn you," the voice of the Phantom tells Carlotta and her husband. Inspector Ledoux (Jean-Pierre Cassel, about the only one here who plays this for understandable laughs) is still chuckling over the debut and the reviews to be of much help to the Choletis.
Meanwhile, Erik is coaching Christine, telling her she'll be singing for the audience in no time and "you are music itself," though with the emotion of a dead sea monkey and that annoying monotonous voice (which loses his bitchiness only when talking to Christine). He tells Christine not to put any faith in the Comte because "he comes to the opera for the wrong reasons. He comes for the beauty of faces rather than the beauty of music." Two snaps!
At another opening of another opera, the Phantom has made sure that Carlotta's props misbehave and the audience can't contain their laughter. Once again, Inspector Ledoux is a master of the obvious, telling her that he knows why the glasses did not come off the tray: glue. It takes a real Parisian detective to be that smart, in what I assume is an homage to Inspector Clouseau. Choleti sees a dead body (and hits something like an A flat yelling for Ledoux), but when Ledoux comes, the body is gone.
With Carlotta's nerves fraying and Choleti seeing dead people, Erik tells Christine she is finished with her lessons (after about four of them) because she is perfect. She asks him where he lives. "When you sing, in heaven. When you do not, down below," he says, as if he's using his best line on the last girl around before closing time.
There is something of a romantic hero in all of this, the Comte de Chagny (Adam Storke), though for some reason he's given the name Philippe rather than Raoul (both are in the book, but Philippe is not the one involved in the plot). He makes his first appearance sporting the best hairdo in the whole movie and the most make-up. He declares to the doorman that he actually does love Christine, that she's not just another token. He's not happy to hear she's languishing in the costume department. When the girls find out he's arrived, they descend up on him, all touching his luxurious locks, but he sees Christine with a cart of costumes. "You have a wonderful voice. I know about these things. I come to the opera all the time," he tells her in earnest, to the laughter of the gang. So, he puts them off his trail by announcing, "I'm throwing a party tonight for the whole company. At the bistro!" He doesn't say which bistro, but there are only 38 million in Paris, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
"The bistro is what we've been waiting for. Everyone sings at the bistro," the Phantom tells Christine, all excited. It's sounding more like a gay piano bar each time it's mentioned. I fully expect someone to launch into a Garland medley (or at least Piaf), but alas, everyone sticks to bawdy French ditties. The Phantom gives Christine a ravishing dress and does her hair so she's ultra-glam, though late. That means she misses another of Carlotta's tantrums. Carlotta has refused to perform for the past month, but grosses are up, so Choleti has to break the news to her that he's gone and added more pieces to the repertoire without her. Philippe is better in the charm department, asking her to teach Christine (though he neglects to mention her name) and he'll "cover the operating deficits for the next three years." Without bothering to think about the fact that he assumed there will be nothing but deficits, she agrees.
And then Christine walks in, looking like youth personified and Carlotta is not pleased, but jokes because she expects the girl to be so bad she won't have to go make good on her promise. Christine finally launches into her song and Carlotta chirps that her voice "is a little thin," so Choleti begs her to duet with Christine. When she starts, the Phantom, outside in a very smart fedora, chuckles. He knows that when it's time for Christine to hit the big notes, she'll wipe out Carlotta. And so it happens. Carlotta, all bug eyes and gestures, seethes while innocent Christine outsings her. Any note Carlotta sings, Christine can sing better, so Carlotta bounces back to her seat in a huff. The crowd at the bistro goes wild for her. Carriere, specially invited by Philippe, weeps and Choleti announces, "that girl doesn't need singing lessons, I'm signing her up!" "Only for the chorus," Carlotta sniffs. Carriere tells her she sings like a particular legend and Christine stares at him blankly. "I don't suppose you've ever heard of her," he says before sending her off with Philippe. It's a very weird moment to leave in the movie. Just to make sure the scene glows with extra stupidity, they send on Offenbach and the can-can girls for a rump-heavy production number.
Philippe takes Christine for a midnight boat ride while Erik and Carlotta each wait in their separate rooms for her return, neither at all pleased. Carlotta only wants to know who is teaching her. "No one can sing bel canto without lessons, God doesn't allow it!" she fumes, to no reaction from her husband. I had to rewind and listen to that corker about 10 times to make sure I heard it right and he doesn't blink? There is no dialogue worth quoting no the boat ride because Christine and Philippe are boring as hell, but there is a flashback where Christine reminds Philippe that she was his servant when he was a kid. That's why he recognized her voice, because she had the same one, fully mature by the way, as a pre-pubescent girl. In the flashback, the two become the best of friends, which makes it a wee bit strange that he has completely blanked on who she is until being reminded. He's obviously spent all of his time since looking only in the mirror that he forgot what other girls...I mean, what other people looked like.
Just as Philippe and Christine start very kissing, chaste pecs, she announces she has to go, a la Cinderella. "Is it someone else?" he asks. "It's not what you think," she replies, leaving him with that half answer instead of something that won't make him suspicious. Erik has not waited up for her, so Christine sobs over the piano and strokes the keys. Carlotta, though, has waited, finding Christine's lodgings and oozing false adoration in her quest to find out the identity of Christine's teacher. Carlotta, as expected, has another diva fit, which such gems as "this is how you repay my generosity!" (for her job washing costumes), "letting you stay in these magnificent quarters" (the gloomy basement) "against all regulations, rent free" (oh, now she's a landlord?). Nimrod Christine decides she can trust Carlotta, but she doesn't know the man's name. "I've never seen his face...he wears a mask," she tells Carlotta, whose bug eyes hit their biggest size yet.
"She is my costume girl," Margo cries, referring to Eve. Oh, wait, this isn't that story.
"She is my costume girl," Carlotta cries, referring to Christine, whom her husband has given the lead role in "Faust." "Exactly! Think of the publicity," he says, not at all comforting his stormy spouse. Christine lies to Erik and tells him Choleti offered her the role at the bistro and that she was out celebrating with Carlotta, which he knows to be a lie. That's okay, because she's a terrible liar, instantly changing her story to the truth. "I thought you would be upset and I didn't want to hurt you. And because none of this would have happened without you," she sighs. He buys it.
Choleti them goes to Inspector Ledoux and they have a mime scene of plotting, like eager villains. Thank you, Director Richardson, for acting like a four-year-old who knows something we don't know.
Christine makes her big debut with giant signs announcing it (although they spell Daae incorrectly, which is just the cherry on the top of this movie's sundae of mistakes). Philippe presents her with one rose for the big event. Yes, just one. Ledoux watches Philippe and Carriere in their box while they watch the performance. Carlotta spits on Christine's door before barging in to offer her insincere good wishes. "Opera is my life, and you, my dear, have the greatest voice I've ever heard," she says. Shouldn't Christine know better than to believe that? Not this dimwit. Carlotta offers Christine a glass of "herbs" to cure nervousness like the Evil Queen in Snow White and Christine eagerly downs it.
It's time for "Faust." Christine enters, dressed as a cross between Joan of Arc and Heidi, via a Hugh Hefner fantasy. And suddenly she can't sing. Of course not, not drugged as she was. This audience should be used to opening night mishaps, but only Carlotta cackles with glee at the unfortunate turn of events. The Phantom is furious and Ledoux spots him as the crowd heckles Christine. So, he rushes back stage and pulls out a dagger hidden in his sleeve to cut the ropes to the chandelier. This is the climactic end to the first half.
For those familiar with the story, you are not losing your minds. In this scene in every other version, it's Carlotta who loses her voice due to the Phantom's trickery. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, you are probably lost anyway.
There is pandemonium in the theater. Well-dressed people are running hither and yon, the ones who don't play injured like they were limping around the Burning of Atlanta, and the police grab one of the actors who was clearly onstage thinking he is the culprit (Inspector Ledoux) fixes that quickly. The Phantom spirits Christine to safety and takes her to his subterranean lair. The doorman tries to tell Carriere this, but he says, "nonsense, he never lets anyone below!"
The Phantom's digs don't have the best lighting, but they are impressive. There is a lake and all sorts of candles, although stick to the Lloyd Webber stage version for the best interpretation of his home. Erik puts Christine in his big canopy bed and hum syncs her to sleep.
Inspector Ledoux leads a parade of policeman down the stairs to the bowels, the only one to hear "some sort of music." But, there are "too many places to look" and Inspector Ledoux orders everyone back upstairs until they can return with more men. Unfortunately, two of the men don't hear the command and one dies rather comically.
Just as Carriere goes down a secret staircase to meet Erik, the latter is in Christine's dressing room finding the poisoned glass from Carlotta. So, he goes to her dressing room (what's she dressing for, everyone is gone for the night?) and pours a suitcase of rats on her. "Rats for a rat," he sniffs, as if that's a good comeback line? Paul Lynde wouldn't stand for such blather!
The rats cause Carlotta to go crazy. She sees rats where they do not exist and puts flowers in her hair, the international symbol of craziness ever since Ophelia made it all the rage.
Meanwhile, Christine puts on a beautiful gown she finds in Erik's bedroom and then snoops around further to find a very old doll in a bassinet, whose head falls off. And all of these paintings that look like her. Carriere sees Christine jumping around below and warns Erik that there may be trouble from above. He replies that he's been waiting for such an opportunity. "I'll just show off my defenses and prepare a counterattack," now apparently Frederick the Great. There is no arguing with a pissed-off Phantom. Ordering Carriere to go away, he shows off his stockpile is gunpowder. "A few of these and the opera season is gone forever," he barks. "I was born so she could save me. That's what she's done. She's the reason I was born. I love her, Gerard. I believe in time she will come to love me," Erik says, insisting that Carriere never return as "she is all I need."
Carriere doesn't heed Erik's dire predictions and warns Christine to get to safety. "Monsieur Carriere, I remember. You said my voice reminded you of a certain singer," coos a suddenly puffed-up Christine, who milks a compliment for all its worth. She's therefore joined the ranks of true artists. Carriere informs her that she's in danger because Erik intends to keep her there, madly in love with her because...for those of you who have not guessed...the singer whose voice Christine reminds him and Erik of belonged to Erik's mother. The woman in the paintings. While Carriere slowly tells the story, Erik is busy preparing the catacombs for the big kaboom. However, Christine gets another shock when she asks who took care of Erik after his mother did. "I did, I'm his father," Carriere tells her (and now we've gone so far away from the book's plot, I think Dominique Devereaux is going to pop in and reveal she's Blake Carrington's half sister). Christine responds with one of those uncomprehending stares she's so good at delivering and Carriere launches us into a flashback that includes a nude scene in the grass. After the romp in the field, Erik's mother reveals a hidden talent for singing that young Carriere finds bewitching, but she tells him it has to be their secret because "singing is something very private for me."
"Does that make any sense to you?" Carriere asks. No, absolutely not. I'm completely lost. But, Christine answers yes, allowing him to continue. Young Carriere pushes Christine to reveal her talent at an audition and "she became the toast of Paris, but the acclaim did not interest her She thought only of me." Most men would like that. Unfortunately, he's already married, but he doesn't tell her that to avoid hurting her, because leaving her with no excuse is so thrilling. Indeed, she walks right into the Seine and tries to kill herself (and her unborn child) she's so thrilled. He saves her, but "she disappeared for months" and he finally found her months later buying an abortion tonic from a gypsy. As she drinks it, he smashes it out of her hand and she goes into labor. "We had nowhere to go. I brought her back to the opera house where we could hide in the stalls we used for the animals," he continues. Wait, in all of Paris that's the only place he could take her? And right there, in the hay like the Virgin Mary, she gives birth to little Erik and doesn't seem to notice that her baby is hideously deformed. "To her, he was beauty itself. To him, so was she."
Three years later, Mom dies of fever and Carriere expected Erik to die as well, "which would be a mercy to all of us." All of who? Carriere is the only person alive who knows his son even exists. It was the boy's cries echoing through the opera house that bore the legend of the ghost and Carriere "allowed the legend to grow." Erik does not know Carriere is his father, for no particularly good reason, but admits that "for the past 30 years, he's been the real director of this opera house, not I. If we were a great company, and we were, it was because of him. Every decision, from the repertoire to the small prop, was his," Papa admits, which is more than a little strange because if he's been letting the boy make decisions since the age of three, that must have been one wacked out opera company!
At the end of the tale, he urges Christine to leave with him, not to fill Erik with "false hope," but our angelic dopey leading lady says "he deserves better than that" and wants to say her goodbyes in person. "I will go when I'm ready to, after I've talked with him," she says, but Carriere insists that she's making a terrible mistake. "Now I know his heart," she says. "So do I. Unfortunately, there's more to him than that," Carriere grumbles before heading off. "Get out while you can." Burt Lancaster made tons of terrible movies in his long career, and many a camp delight, but that doesn't mean the fossil deserves this claptrap right at the end. But, he read the script (presumably), so he's as much to blame as writer Arthur Kopit for delivering it.
Back upstairs, Inspector Ledoux corners Carriere, saying "you help me, I'll help you." More cloak-and-dagger nonsense.
When Christine finds the Phantom, he's awfully chipper. "Good morning, did you sleep well? I've always like that bed," he says, hurriedly putting on his mask. "Well? What should we do to. I have an idea, what about a picnic?" He puts on a straw hat, takes a cane and a basket and offers his arm. He takes her to a part of the catacombs where he's created an outdoor world, complete with trees and "squirrels, foxes and rabbits all playing harmoniously. Like magic. You are magic too. Oh, yes, I know. Magic is my friend," he rattles on, which should be scaring the hell out of her, but she's merely perplexed. This is the strangest picnic outside of Wonderland, but Alice was only a little girl, so it's understandable she believed what she saw. Christine sees all the dead stuffed animals and doesn't even seem a bit weirded out by his attempts at taxidermy.
He asks her to sing as he lays out the food, and she says she will, but only if he grants a favor. Nope. She has to sing because she loves it, but he'll grant her the favor anyway. She wants to see his face. "You have asked, I'm afraid, the only thing in my power that I cannot grant," he replies. "Please don't ask it again." She pushes and pushes. "Only if you say you do not love me will I stop," is her non-sequiter answer to that. "I know your face can be looked at by someone who loves you." Where did she learn schmaltz like that?
He finally agrees, removes his mask and she faints dead away (we don't see his face, as I can only guess there was no money left in the budget after the stuffed deer and Carlotta's wigs). "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" he shouts through the catacombs.
Ledoux pushes Carriere to give him information, but Carriere remains tight-lipped. He warns the old man that if he doesn't help, he'll be forced to send his men back into the basement and Carriere finally agrees, though it's obvious he doesn't really mean it.
Christine wakes up to find Erik throwing a Hades-size fit, bigger than anything Carlotta could ever dream of. He's trashing the whole underground. He throws her in a cell, yelling that "no one who has ever seen my face is allowed to leave. I thought everyone knew that." I didn't see that written in the opera house rule book, what's he talking about?
Carriere runs into Philippe puttering around the theater and says he has to go get her. Philippe wants to go too, but Carriere says, "no, I need you up here," but telling him that the Phantom lives below, expecting him NOT to follow him. Christine escapes from her cell and runs off, hiding behind a post where Erik can't find her (hey, it's dark, so Hide and Go Seek is a bit easier in the underworld). Philippe, who doesn't want to muss his hair or get involved in physical activity, agrees to do what Carriere says, but only because he loves her so much. That means taking Christine away from Paris and the clutches of the Phantom. Just then, Christine escapes and trembles in fear all the way into Philippe's coach. "I saw his face," she tells Carriere, who, uninvited, travels with them!
At the Comte's estate, Christine has an even bigger bed, but she's miserable nonetheless, her bubble of self-esteem popped by Erik's hideous face. Teri Polo is given a bed-bound monologue of confusion that, sorry to say, is beyond her skills. She's full of guilt for upsetting Philippe (who goes after the Phantom with his hair following at top speed), for not responding better to Erik's face and, if given the time, she could throw in global warming and teenage prostitution. As for Erik, he puts on a Pierrot mask and pets his wig (I'm not kidding).
Christine sees a vision and decides she has to go save Erik, and persuades the equally idiotic Philippe to take her. They stop at the Choletis, to cue them into Christine's big plan, where Carlotta is still mad, darting around tossing off bits of arias. They literally have a conversation as Carlotta dancing among them. Carriere beats them to the underground lair, while upstairs, Christine reveals her plan, to sing on the stage in that night's opera so the Phantom can hear her sing once more. She has to remind Philippe that she loves them both, but "it's not the same kind of love at all."
Erik is dying. Of what? I'm not sure. He's coughing, so let's go with consumption. Or a broken heart. That was still possible before transplants and such. Erik gets a little sentimental with Carriere, but admits he has one regret, not killing Philippe, who doesn't love music and thus can't possibly love Christine. "He loves her," says Carriere with the exasperation only a father could have for a petulant child. He offers to show Carriere his face, but he, of course has seen it, so decides to make the moment worse and remind Erik of the first time he saw his own reflection. That's bound to cheer him up. "Father, I'm sorry for what I put you through," Erik starts, and then it becomes a game of "I'm sorry," "no, I'm sorry, "no, let me be sorry," "okay, we're both sorry." It would be touching if it weren't so badly written. Carriere leaves, promising to bury his son. "Make it deep," said son commands. "Tell her that I'm sorry I frightened her."
The crowd gathers, the maestro takes the baton and "Faust" starts again. Amazingly, there is an audience willing to see it after the last disastrous attempt. Naturally, Christine is flawless this time. Her voice awakens the dying Phantom. Choleti is nervous because no one has appeared in Box Five as per the plan, but Ledoux takes a typical French attitude, "if he doesn't come, he doesn't come." What, does another chandelier have to crash before he does anything?
The Phantom wheezes his way up from below, roused by her voice (though, there is far more singing by the men during his looooooong climb), and she finally sees him make it to Box Five. Erik starts singing the male part, which upsets the tenor, but finally proves that the Phantom exists (and can lip sync as well as everyone else). Amazingly, not only do the other performers continue as if nothing weird is happening, so does the full orchestra...and the audience! They finish the duet to thunderous applause, which must be especially gratifying for the Phantom, who could barely talk, let alone sing, only moments ago. Ledoux's men screw it up when they fire at Erik, so he jumps to the stage and snatches Christine. Carriere stops them from firing more and then goes into the office to get a hidden pistol. Erik and Christine go for the roof, knocking over Choleti in the process, but the police move at a snail's pace. Even Philippe is faster, begging for her safety. "She sang for me tonight!" he crows, and Christine insists that Philippe "means you no harm." That's not entirely true and they tussle, with Philippe almost going over the edge. Christine has to beg for her pretty boy's life and Erik actually helps him back up. Ledoux wants him alive, but Erik appeals to his father to end it, so Carriere shoots him and then cradles his dying son with Christine. She removes his mask and kisses him (we still don't see his face) before he dies.
You know what would be REALLY cool? If the Phantom didn't die and was taken in secret to Coney Island, where he opened an amusement park devoted to Christine, lured her there to sing under false pretenses and revealed to him that they actually have a son, because she's miserable in her marriage to her alcoholic pretty boy?
Far-fetched? Check out "Love Never Dies," Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera," currently running in cities around the world. That's exactly what happens.
But, it's no stupider than this miniseries version of "The Phantom of the Opera," which is a barrel of laughs, most of them unintentional. It's hard to believe that the slapstick antics of Choleti and Carlotta were not mean for the gigglers and I would like to believe they were in on the joke (heaven knows, Ian Richardson is a superb enough actor to know the difference). Burt Lancaster certainly never understood comedy, so he plays it like he played everything else, which unfortunately leaves poor Charles Dance and the thoroughly miscast Teri Polo to handle the weight of the nonsense. They are not up to the task, but who would be? Kopit's script alternates between quicksand and pie-in-the-face, and Tony Richardson is no help, apparently at the point in his career where he just cared that it looked pretty.
Mind you, it's not the worst film "Phantom," but it's the funniest and it's not supposed to be a comedy!
Question? Comments? Extra laughs? I would love to hear from you. Email me at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
In 1990, "The Phantom of the Opera" mania was high. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical had been running in both London and New York for a few years and was touring all over the place. However, at the same time, there was another musical version of the Gaston Leroux's novel by noted playwright Arthur Kopit and infinitely-more-talented-than-Sir-Andrew composer/lyricist Maury Yeston. It's the Kopit-Yeston version of the novel that became a miniseries in 1990, but without any of Yeston's music (having the music certainly didn't help the film version of the mega-musical over a decade later, so it might as well be chopped here too, though admittedly, Yeston's "Phantom" score is fairly wan).
Frankly, I'm not quite sure what is being filmed here since it bears only the slightest resemblance to the book and its themes, and the casting is a hoot, which is a word I never thought I would in describing this dark story. It's directed by no less than Tony Richardson, though it certainly bears no trace of his genius. But, it seems that if we can't have a fresh version of "Phantom" in one form or another every few years (lest we forget the 1989 big screen dud with Freddy Kruger), the man lurking beneath the Le Theatre de l'Opera will, I suppose, wreak havoc on us all. You know, worse havoc than everyone putting together these sham versions of "The Phantom of the Opera."
Ooooh, one detail I did find out is that this is the only English-language version of "The Phantom of the Opera" to be at all filmed in Paris. There are about 147 others using fake Paris, and most of them better than this one, so verisimilitude ain't the key.
(I'm using character names here due to the familiarity of the story, or at least some of them are as the rest are brand new.)
Guttersnipe Christine Daae (Teri Polo, so young looking before her turns as Mrs. Focker) wanders around the magnificent opera house and then takes off her shoes and smiles. Inside the venerable building, Gerard Carriere (Burt Lancaster, SERIOUSLY slumming) has been dismissed from his position as manager. Don't remember him? Don't worry, he's new to the story, an amalgamation of characters (including some new ones). The company is most upset at his dismissal. Sent by the Comte de Chagny to meet the just-fired Carriere is Christine, who not only had an appointment to meet him, but is in serious need of even a slight European accent, ANY European accent. The ladies of the opera, who are tarted up to look like hookers on a day off, laugh at her because they have all been recruited by the Comte and all have the lockets to prove it.
Diva Carlotta (Andrea Ferreol), tarted up to look like...geez, I'm not really sure, wants to know "exactly what it is we are inheriting," as she is the wife of the new manager Choleti (Ian Richardson). So, she scares someone into going down into the bowels of the theater to find sets, costumes and anything else usable. There's a whole lot of crap down there and a man wearing a skeleton mask who scares the poor fool so badly, the latter dies. Choleti, looking like nasty version of Hercule Poirot, and his wife are introduced to the underwhelmed company, but as Choleti starts to speak, a note from the Phantom wafts down into Carriere's hand. He tells Choleti of the ghost, who is fine as long as "the rule is obeyed...all you need to know is don't go down below." Neglect the rule and you meet the fate of the sniveling dresser. Reacting to this news and a few little special effects put on by the Phantom, Choleti roars into overdrive overacting and asserts that "these are tricks" designed to frighten him and his wife. "I don't believe in ghosts," he says as a statue falls near him. Stay in your seats. The camp festival has only just begun.
Erik (Charles Dance), aka The Phantom, lures Carriere down to his lair where he reveals that he also needs some sort of European dialect. "Why did you let him go down there?" he whines to Carriere, not knowing that Carriere has been fired. "What am I going to do?" the spoiled lurker wonders. They have a special relationship, old ham and new ham (no cured hams here, trust me), but Erik reacts to Carlotta's voice like a dog to a whistle. "She can't sing," he says with a Paul Lynde lilt to his voice. "I know what to do about it, I'll kill them both," Erik jokes, revising it to kill only Carlotta. He decides to leave with Carriere, but oops, he can't. "Sometimes I forget that I'm only fit for these gloomy vaults...like blackness itself, for I am blackness itself," he carps, sounding more like Paul Lynde with every line.
Choleti agrees to see Christine, who has been waiting this whole time (not that as a guttersnipe she has anything better to do) because he is told the Comte de Chagny who sent her is "one of our biggest contributors." However, when he shows her to Carlotta, she goes wild, knowing instantly the girl cannot sing. "Where did you grow up? On a farm? The world of opera has nothing to do with farm life," she says dramatically, but when whispered to about the patron, she suddenly gets friendly. "My dear, I'm going to do a great favor for you. I'm going to let you work for me, in the costume department," replacing the poor dead guy. Since Christine is homeless, the doorman lets her stay in...you got it...the basement, though warning her "not to wander around." The fussy Phantom, who happens to be wearing a shiny gold mask over his usual white one and who likes to powder his chin, is enchanted by the voice doing Christine's singing (it sure as hell ain't Teri Polo's voice) as she does just what she was told not to do and wanders around. He follows it all the way up to the stage, where she's naturally found her way and is just warbling for the emptiness.
This is the hokiest company this side of the Bath Touring Light Opera. Choleti spends his time telling Carlotta how young she looks, and if you can make it through his "you look like spring" declaration without laughing, you aren't drunk enough. The director tells the male star at a "Faust" rehearsal, "this is poison, not soup...not happy! Take it from la, la, la." The girls are actually bitchier than the boys, but no one is bitchier than the roaming Phantom, who has a whole gaggle of expensive custom-made masks, usually wearing two, the spiffy one over the normal one, for reasons not explained. One is enough when no one is seeing you anyway. Two is just, well, overkill since no one gets to see your fashion show.
Finally, Erik the Phantom speaks to Christine, from the orchestra pit once everyone else has magically cleared the stage. He loves her voice, "though it is obviously untrained," and he offers to help her "attain the heights for which it was destined." She can't tell anyone about their lessons, because others will want the lessons too and he obviously has standards.
Choleti receives letters from the Phantom trashing Carlotta for the next month. "From a ghost? Since when do ghosts know how to write?" he demands to know. I guess he doesn't know many ghosts, but to be fair, the Phantom can be awfully stinging (like Paul Lynde after a few too many), like when he says he loves everything about the new production of "Norma" except Carlotta's presence in it. He's also demanding, insisting on having Box Five at every performance, which Choleti refuses. The ladies of the chorus aren't any nicer, talking of Christine, saying "she's been here over a month and all she does it hum." "She's getting better at it too." "I can't stand it." Wait, one can improve in humming? Are there great hum teachers out there like great voice teachers?
Opening night finally arrives, with tout la creme de Paris in attendance, and a very unlucky quartet placed in Box Five. The foursome is told by a voice, "this box is mine...I would appreciate if you left!" and they hustle out. At the same time, Erik temporarily steals Carlotta's wig to make her more nervous. Carlotta makes her entrance as Norma, apparently unaware it's not a comedy, and then her wig starts to itch. Watching her find ways to scratch it has the audience roaring. "Can't say I didn't warn you," the voice of the Phantom tells Carlotta and her husband. Inspector Ledoux (Jean-Pierre Cassel, about the only one here who plays this for understandable laughs) is still chuckling over the debut and the reviews to be of much help to the Choletis.
Meanwhile, Erik is coaching Christine, telling her she'll be singing for the audience in no time and "you are music itself," though with the emotion of a dead sea monkey and that annoying monotonous voice (which loses his bitchiness only when talking to Christine). He tells Christine not to put any faith in the Comte because "he comes to the opera for the wrong reasons. He comes for the beauty of faces rather than the beauty of music." Two snaps!
At another opening of another opera, the Phantom has made sure that Carlotta's props misbehave and the audience can't contain their laughter. Once again, Inspector Ledoux is a master of the obvious, telling her that he knows why the glasses did not come off the tray: glue. It takes a real Parisian detective to be that smart, in what I assume is an homage to Inspector Clouseau. Choleti sees a dead body (and hits something like an A flat yelling for Ledoux), but when Ledoux comes, the body is gone.
With Carlotta's nerves fraying and Choleti seeing dead people, Erik tells Christine she is finished with her lessons (after about four of them) because she is perfect. She asks him where he lives. "When you sing, in heaven. When you do not, down below," he says, as if he's using his best line on the last girl around before closing time.
There is something of a romantic hero in all of this, the Comte de Chagny (Adam Storke), though for some reason he's given the name Philippe rather than Raoul (both are in the book, but Philippe is not the one involved in the plot). He makes his first appearance sporting the best hairdo in the whole movie and the most make-up. He declares to the doorman that he actually does love Christine, that she's not just another token. He's not happy to hear she's languishing in the costume department. When the girls find out he's arrived, they descend up on him, all touching his luxurious locks, but he sees Christine with a cart of costumes. "You have a wonderful voice. I know about these things. I come to the opera all the time," he tells her in earnest, to the laughter of the gang. So, he puts them off his trail by announcing, "I'm throwing a party tonight for the whole company. At the bistro!" He doesn't say which bistro, but there are only 38 million in Paris, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
"The bistro is what we've been waiting for. Everyone sings at the bistro," the Phantom tells Christine, all excited. It's sounding more like a gay piano bar each time it's mentioned. I fully expect someone to launch into a Garland medley (or at least Piaf), but alas, everyone sticks to bawdy French ditties. The Phantom gives Christine a ravishing dress and does her hair so she's ultra-glam, though late. That means she misses another of Carlotta's tantrums. Carlotta has refused to perform for the past month, but grosses are up, so Choleti has to break the news to her that he's gone and added more pieces to the repertoire without her. Philippe is better in the charm department, asking her to teach Christine (though he neglects to mention her name) and he'll "cover the operating deficits for the next three years." Without bothering to think about the fact that he assumed there will be nothing but deficits, she agrees.
And then Christine walks in, looking like youth personified and Carlotta is not pleased, but jokes because she expects the girl to be so bad she won't have to go make good on her promise. Christine finally launches into her song and Carlotta chirps that her voice "is a little thin," so Choleti begs her to duet with Christine. When she starts, the Phantom, outside in a very smart fedora, chuckles. He knows that when it's time for Christine to hit the big notes, she'll wipe out Carlotta. And so it happens. Carlotta, all bug eyes and gestures, seethes while innocent Christine outsings her. Any note Carlotta sings, Christine can sing better, so Carlotta bounces back to her seat in a huff. The crowd at the bistro goes wild for her. Carriere, specially invited by Philippe, weeps and Choleti announces, "that girl doesn't need singing lessons, I'm signing her up!" "Only for the chorus," Carlotta sniffs. Carriere tells her she sings like a particular legend and Christine stares at him blankly. "I don't suppose you've ever heard of her," he says before sending her off with Philippe. It's a very weird moment to leave in the movie. Just to make sure the scene glows with extra stupidity, they send on Offenbach and the can-can girls for a rump-heavy production number.
Philippe takes Christine for a midnight boat ride while Erik and Carlotta each wait in their separate rooms for her return, neither at all pleased. Carlotta only wants to know who is teaching her. "No one can sing bel canto without lessons, God doesn't allow it!" she fumes, to no reaction from her husband. I had to rewind and listen to that corker about 10 times to make sure I heard it right and he doesn't blink? There is no dialogue worth quoting no the boat ride because Christine and Philippe are boring as hell, but there is a flashback where Christine reminds Philippe that she was his servant when he was a kid. That's why he recognized her voice, because she had the same one, fully mature by the way, as a pre-pubescent girl. In the flashback, the two become the best of friends, which makes it a wee bit strange that he has completely blanked on who she is until being reminded. He's obviously spent all of his time since looking only in the mirror that he forgot what other girls...I mean, what other people looked like.
Just as Philippe and Christine start very kissing, chaste pecs, she announces she has to go, a la Cinderella. "Is it someone else?" he asks. "It's not what you think," she replies, leaving him with that half answer instead of something that won't make him suspicious. Erik has not waited up for her, so Christine sobs over the piano and strokes the keys. Carlotta, though, has waited, finding Christine's lodgings and oozing false adoration in her quest to find out the identity of Christine's teacher. Carlotta, as expected, has another diva fit, which such gems as "this is how you repay my generosity!" (for her job washing costumes), "letting you stay in these magnificent quarters" (the gloomy basement) "against all regulations, rent free" (oh, now she's a landlord?). Nimrod Christine decides she can trust Carlotta, but she doesn't know the man's name. "I've never seen his face...he wears a mask," she tells Carlotta, whose bug eyes hit their biggest size yet.
"She is my costume girl," Margo cries, referring to Eve. Oh, wait, this isn't that story.
"She is my costume girl," Carlotta cries, referring to Christine, whom her husband has given the lead role in "Faust." "Exactly! Think of the publicity," he says, not at all comforting his stormy spouse. Christine lies to Erik and tells him Choleti offered her the role at the bistro and that she was out celebrating with Carlotta, which he knows to be a lie. That's okay, because she's a terrible liar, instantly changing her story to the truth. "I thought you would be upset and I didn't want to hurt you. And because none of this would have happened without you," she sighs. He buys it.
Choleti them goes to Inspector Ledoux and they have a mime scene of plotting, like eager villains. Thank you, Director Richardson, for acting like a four-year-old who knows something we don't know.
Christine makes her big debut with giant signs announcing it (although they spell Daae incorrectly, which is just the cherry on the top of this movie's sundae of mistakes). Philippe presents her with one rose for the big event. Yes, just one. Ledoux watches Philippe and Carriere in their box while they watch the performance. Carlotta spits on Christine's door before barging in to offer her insincere good wishes. "Opera is my life, and you, my dear, have the greatest voice I've ever heard," she says. Shouldn't Christine know better than to believe that? Not this dimwit. Carlotta offers Christine a glass of "herbs" to cure nervousness like the Evil Queen in Snow White and Christine eagerly downs it.
It's time for "Faust." Christine enters, dressed as a cross between Joan of Arc and Heidi, via a Hugh Hefner fantasy. And suddenly she can't sing. Of course not, not drugged as she was. This audience should be used to opening night mishaps, but only Carlotta cackles with glee at the unfortunate turn of events. The Phantom is furious and Ledoux spots him as the crowd heckles Christine. So, he rushes back stage and pulls out a dagger hidden in his sleeve to cut the ropes to the chandelier. This is the climactic end to the first half.
For those familiar with the story, you are not losing your minds. In this scene in every other version, it's Carlotta who loses her voice due to the Phantom's trickery. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, you are probably lost anyway.
There is pandemonium in the theater. Well-dressed people are running hither and yon, the ones who don't play injured like they were limping around the Burning of Atlanta, and the police grab one of the actors who was clearly onstage thinking he is the culprit (Inspector Ledoux) fixes that quickly. The Phantom spirits Christine to safety and takes her to his subterranean lair. The doorman tries to tell Carriere this, but he says, "nonsense, he never lets anyone below!"
The Phantom's digs don't have the best lighting, but they are impressive. There is a lake and all sorts of candles, although stick to the Lloyd Webber stage version for the best interpretation of his home. Erik puts Christine in his big canopy bed and hum syncs her to sleep.
Inspector Ledoux leads a parade of policeman down the stairs to the bowels, the only one to hear "some sort of music." But, there are "too many places to look" and Inspector Ledoux orders everyone back upstairs until they can return with more men. Unfortunately, two of the men don't hear the command and one dies rather comically.
Just as Carriere goes down a secret staircase to meet Erik, the latter is in Christine's dressing room finding the poisoned glass from Carlotta. So, he goes to her dressing room (what's she dressing for, everyone is gone for the night?) and pours a suitcase of rats on her. "Rats for a rat," he sniffs, as if that's a good comeback line? Paul Lynde wouldn't stand for such blather!
The rats cause Carlotta to go crazy. She sees rats where they do not exist and puts flowers in her hair, the international symbol of craziness ever since Ophelia made it all the rage.
Meanwhile, Christine puts on a beautiful gown she finds in Erik's bedroom and then snoops around further to find a very old doll in a bassinet, whose head falls off. And all of these paintings that look like her. Carriere sees Christine jumping around below and warns Erik that there may be trouble from above. He replies that he's been waiting for such an opportunity. "I'll just show off my defenses and prepare a counterattack," now apparently Frederick the Great. There is no arguing with a pissed-off Phantom. Ordering Carriere to go away, he shows off his stockpile is gunpowder. "A few of these and the opera season is gone forever," he barks. "I was born so she could save me. That's what she's done. She's the reason I was born. I love her, Gerard. I believe in time she will come to love me," Erik says, insisting that Carriere never return as "she is all I need."
Carriere doesn't heed Erik's dire predictions and warns Christine to get to safety. "Monsieur Carriere, I remember. You said my voice reminded you of a certain singer," coos a suddenly puffed-up Christine, who milks a compliment for all its worth. She's therefore joined the ranks of true artists. Carriere informs her that she's in danger because Erik intends to keep her there, madly in love with her because...for those of you who have not guessed...the singer whose voice Christine reminds him and Erik of belonged to Erik's mother. The woman in the paintings. While Carriere slowly tells the story, Erik is busy preparing the catacombs for the big kaboom. However, Christine gets another shock when she asks who took care of Erik after his mother did. "I did, I'm his father," Carriere tells her (and now we've gone so far away from the book's plot, I think Dominique Devereaux is going to pop in and reveal she's Blake Carrington's half sister). Christine responds with one of those uncomprehending stares she's so good at delivering and Carriere launches us into a flashback that includes a nude scene in the grass. After the romp in the field, Erik's mother reveals a hidden talent for singing that young Carriere finds bewitching, but she tells him it has to be their secret because "singing is something very private for me."
"Does that make any sense to you?" Carriere asks. No, absolutely not. I'm completely lost. But, Christine answers yes, allowing him to continue. Young Carriere pushes Christine to reveal her talent at an audition and "she became the toast of Paris, but the acclaim did not interest her She thought only of me." Most men would like that. Unfortunately, he's already married, but he doesn't tell her that to avoid hurting her, because leaving her with no excuse is so thrilling. Indeed, she walks right into the Seine and tries to kill herself (and her unborn child) she's so thrilled. He saves her, but "she disappeared for months" and he finally found her months later buying an abortion tonic from a gypsy. As she drinks it, he smashes it out of her hand and she goes into labor. "We had nowhere to go. I brought her back to the opera house where we could hide in the stalls we used for the animals," he continues. Wait, in all of Paris that's the only place he could take her? And right there, in the hay like the Virgin Mary, she gives birth to little Erik and doesn't seem to notice that her baby is hideously deformed. "To her, he was beauty itself. To him, so was she."
Three years later, Mom dies of fever and Carriere expected Erik to die as well, "which would be a mercy to all of us." All of who? Carriere is the only person alive who knows his son even exists. It was the boy's cries echoing through the opera house that bore the legend of the ghost and Carriere "allowed the legend to grow." Erik does not know Carriere is his father, for no particularly good reason, but admits that "for the past 30 years, he's been the real director of this opera house, not I. If we were a great company, and we were, it was because of him. Every decision, from the repertoire to the small prop, was his," Papa admits, which is more than a little strange because if he's been letting the boy make decisions since the age of three, that must have been one wacked out opera company!
At the end of the tale, he urges Christine to leave with him, not to fill Erik with "false hope," but our angelic dopey leading lady says "he deserves better than that" and wants to say her goodbyes in person. "I will go when I'm ready to, after I've talked with him," she says, but Carriere insists that she's making a terrible mistake. "Now I know his heart," she says. "So do I. Unfortunately, there's more to him than that," Carriere grumbles before heading off. "Get out while you can." Burt Lancaster made tons of terrible movies in his long career, and many a camp delight, but that doesn't mean the fossil deserves this claptrap right at the end. But, he read the script (presumably), so he's as much to blame as writer Arthur Kopit for delivering it.
Back upstairs, Inspector Ledoux corners Carriere, saying "you help me, I'll help you." More cloak-and-dagger nonsense.
When Christine finds the Phantom, he's awfully chipper. "Good morning, did you sleep well? I've always like that bed," he says, hurriedly putting on his mask. "Well? What should we do to. I have an idea, what about a picnic?" He puts on a straw hat, takes a cane and a basket and offers his arm. He takes her to a part of the catacombs where he's created an outdoor world, complete with trees and "squirrels, foxes and rabbits all playing harmoniously. Like magic. You are magic too. Oh, yes, I know. Magic is my friend," he rattles on, which should be scaring the hell out of her, but she's merely perplexed. This is the strangest picnic outside of Wonderland, but Alice was only a little girl, so it's understandable she believed what she saw. Christine sees all the dead stuffed animals and doesn't even seem a bit weirded out by his attempts at taxidermy.
He asks her to sing as he lays out the food, and she says she will, but only if he grants a favor. Nope. She has to sing because she loves it, but he'll grant her the favor anyway. She wants to see his face. "You have asked, I'm afraid, the only thing in my power that I cannot grant," he replies. "Please don't ask it again." She pushes and pushes. "Only if you say you do not love me will I stop," is her non-sequiter answer to that. "I know your face can be looked at by someone who loves you." Where did she learn schmaltz like that?
He finally agrees, removes his mask and she faints dead away (we don't see his face, as I can only guess there was no money left in the budget after the stuffed deer and Carlotta's wigs). "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" he shouts through the catacombs.
Ledoux pushes Carriere to give him information, but Carriere remains tight-lipped. He warns the old man that if he doesn't help, he'll be forced to send his men back into the basement and Carriere finally agrees, though it's obvious he doesn't really mean it.
Christine wakes up to find Erik throwing a Hades-size fit, bigger than anything Carlotta could ever dream of. He's trashing the whole underground. He throws her in a cell, yelling that "no one who has ever seen my face is allowed to leave. I thought everyone knew that." I didn't see that written in the opera house rule book, what's he talking about?
Carriere runs into Philippe puttering around the theater and says he has to go get her. Philippe wants to go too, but Carriere says, "no, I need you up here," but telling him that the Phantom lives below, expecting him NOT to follow him. Christine escapes from her cell and runs off, hiding behind a post where Erik can't find her (hey, it's dark, so Hide and Go Seek is a bit easier in the underworld). Philippe, who doesn't want to muss his hair or get involved in physical activity, agrees to do what Carriere says, but only because he loves her so much. That means taking Christine away from Paris and the clutches of the Phantom. Just then, Christine escapes and trembles in fear all the way into Philippe's coach. "I saw his face," she tells Carriere, who, uninvited, travels with them!
At the Comte's estate, Christine has an even bigger bed, but she's miserable nonetheless, her bubble of self-esteem popped by Erik's hideous face. Teri Polo is given a bed-bound monologue of confusion that, sorry to say, is beyond her skills. She's full of guilt for upsetting Philippe (who goes after the Phantom with his hair following at top speed), for not responding better to Erik's face and, if given the time, she could throw in global warming and teenage prostitution. As for Erik, he puts on a Pierrot mask and pets his wig (I'm not kidding).
Christine sees a vision and decides she has to go save Erik, and persuades the equally idiotic Philippe to take her. They stop at the Choletis, to cue them into Christine's big plan, where Carlotta is still mad, darting around tossing off bits of arias. They literally have a conversation as Carlotta dancing among them. Carriere beats them to the underground lair, while upstairs, Christine reveals her plan, to sing on the stage in that night's opera so the Phantom can hear her sing once more. She has to remind Philippe that she loves them both, but "it's not the same kind of love at all."
Erik is dying. Of what? I'm not sure. He's coughing, so let's go with consumption. Or a broken heart. That was still possible before transplants and such. Erik gets a little sentimental with Carriere, but admits he has one regret, not killing Philippe, who doesn't love music and thus can't possibly love Christine. "He loves her," says Carriere with the exasperation only a father could have for a petulant child. He offers to show Carriere his face, but he, of course has seen it, so decides to make the moment worse and remind Erik of the first time he saw his own reflection. That's bound to cheer him up. "Father, I'm sorry for what I put you through," Erik starts, and then it becomes a game of "I'm sorry," "no, I'm sorry, "no, let me be sorry," "okay, we're both sorry." It would be touching if it weren't so badly written. Carriere leaves, promising to bury his son. "Make it deep," said son commands. "Tell her that I'm sorry I frightened her."
The crowd gathers, the maestro takes the baton and "Faust" starts again. Amazingly, there is an audience willing to see it after the last disastrous attempt. Naturally, Christine is flawless this time. Her voice awakens the dying Phantom. Choleti is nervous because no one has appeared in Box Five as per the plan, but Ledoux takes a typical French attitude, "if he doesn't come, he doesn't come." What, does another chandelier have to crash before he does anything?
The Phantom wheezes his way up from below, roused by her voice (though, there is far more singing by the men during his looooooong climb), and she finally sees him make it to Box Five. Erik starts singing the male part, which upsets the tenor, but finally proves that the Phantom exists (and can lip sync as well as everyone else). Amazingly, not only do the other performers continue as if nothing weird is happening, so does the full orchestra...and the audience! They finish the duet to thunderous applause, which must be especially gratifying for the Phantom, who could barely talk, let alone sing, only moments ago. Ledoux's men screw it up when they fire at Erik, so he jumps to the stage and snatches Christine. Carriere stops them from firing more and then goes into the office to get a hidden pistol. Erik and Christine go for the roof, knocking over Choleti in the process, but the police move at a snail's pace. Even Philippe is faster, begging for her safety. "She sang for me tonight!" he crows, and Christine insists that Philippe "means you no harm." That's not entirely true and they tussle, with Philippe almost going over the edge. Christine has to beg for her pretty boy's life and Erik actually helps him back up. Ledoux wants him alive, but Erik appeals to his father to end it, so Carriere shoots him and then cradles his dying son with Christine. She removes his mask and kisses him (we still don't see his face) before he dies.
You know what would be REALLY cool? If the Phantom didn't die and was taken in secret to Coney Island, where he opened an amusement park devoted to Christine, lured her there to sing under false pretenses and revealed to him that they actually have a son, because she's miserable in her marriage to her alcoholic pretty boy?
Far-fetched? Check out "Love Never Dies," Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera," currently running in cities around the world. That's exactly what happens.
But, it's no stupider than this miniseries version of "The Phantom of the Opera," which is a barrel of laughs, most of them unintentional. It's hard to believe that the slapstick antics of Choleti and Carlotta were not mean for the gigglers and I would like to believe they were in on the joke (heaven knows, Ian Richardson is a superb enough actor to know the difference). Burt Lancaster certainly never understood comedy, so he plays it like he played everything else, which unfortunately leaves poor Charles Dance and the thoroughly miscast Teri Polo to handle the weight of the nonsense. They are not up to the task, but who would be? Kopit's script alternates between quicksand and pie-in-the-face, and Tony Richardson is no help, apparently at the point in his career where he just cared that it looked pretty.
Mind you, it's not the worst film "Phantom," but it's the funniest and it's not supposed to be a comedy!
Question? Comments? Extra laughs? I would love to hear from you. Email me at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
WHAT IS THE REST OF THE WORLD UP TO?: A Town Like Alice (1981)
Technically, "A Town Like Alice" disqualifies from our discussion because it was not produced in the United States and was actually shown on PBS rather than network television when aired in the US. But, at a time when the American miniseries was dominant world-wide, even an British/Australian miniseries was starting to act almost American in its output. "A Town Like Alice" is far from the stagey one-set British miniseries that dominated the 1970s until American miniseries broke those confines (the British helped, of course, as no one can deny how "Brideshead Revisited" altered the landscape of the miniseries worldwide) and it does take place during World War II, though from a very different perspective than most American miniseries.
Since this very international miniseries took such pains to behave like the sweeping historical narratives on US network television, though managing to strip the war down to just a handful of characters in a remote output let's include it. Plus, it's so damn good, it's well worth the sidebar.
"A Town Like Alice" certainly has pedigree, based on Nevil Shute's classic novel, and starring a man who would become famous the world over once "The Thorn Birds" aired, Bryan Brown. Enough exposition, we are jumping in.
The story starts in 1937. Gordon Jackson is summoned to alter a will. The old man has designated his sister as his heir, as she has a son. She also has a daughter, but the old man can't fathom leaving her the money, constrained "by her sex," he says with horror. If she's to inherit the money, he wants it in trust until she's 40 with Gordon as a trustee. "Perhaps you want my senior partner," Gordon says snidely, since the man is so old-fashioned.
It takes until 1948 for Gordon to find the family, down now to just the niece, Helen Morse. The war has made it difficult to get in touch with anyone. Helen's mother has been dead years and her brother died in the war, on "the railway," a Japanese construction project on which "one man died for every rail laid," she says. She herself has been in Malaya most of the time, but now works in London.
In explaining what has happened to her, she goes back to 1941 when she was living in Malaya with her brother, seemingly untouched as part of the British enclave there. The United States has just entered the war and Christmas is upon them. Worries do not extend further than the tennis court, though talk of war is part of ordinary conversation. "It would be quite impossible for the Japs to reach Kuala or Singapore," her brother John Howard says, like everyone else, believing the war to be far away. "If they do come, I want us to be together," she insists, telling him she will be quitting her job.
Unfortunately, Helen is instantly proven correct. "The Japanese have landed and they will be here in two hours," the collected British are told. Not everyone is able to escape initially, but there is promise of a boat coming to pick them up, but when the boat arrives, the Japanese are helming it. The remaining folks are told they will be taken to a prison camp, and "if you do bad things, you will be shot, so do good things." There is something very eerie in the Japanese tone when they are told, "the Japanese Imperial Army does not make war on womens and children" as the men are forced to part from the others.
The snobbiest of the English ladies insists on seeing the man in charge and demands beds and mosquito nets. She is refused because "all Japanese sleep on floor." Citing her "very bad thoughts," Captain Hatsuo Uda slaps her in front of all the others. It won't get any better. When food is delivered, there are no utensils and the toilet never gets cleaned. They are to be moved to Singapore once news comes that the Japanese have taken it. The women are to be marched to Kuala Lampur, some 50 or so miles from where they are. No trucks, no buses, just their feet. "Womans staying here will be beaten," they are told, and once again, "no bad thoughts."
The first part of the walk is not pleasant. The women and children are slow, not fed and start arguing almost immediately, with one spinster suggesting the ones without kids separate from the others. Bedraggled, they must continue on, though the Japanese soldiers show flashes of sympathy, like when they carry the children. Helen's friend Cecily Polson isn't sure she can make it, so she asks Helen to take the children if she doesn't. Matronly Pat Evison, the largest of the ladies, is also the first to die.
Okay, the writing isn't always sterling. Helen is one of the women elected to tell Sergeant Yuki Shimoda that they need another day off. He does not speak English, so Helen repeats what her friend says, but haltingly and loudly. "Tomorrow. No. Walk. Rest." But, he understands what she is saying and agrees to let them walk one day and rest the next, which will hopefully stop them from being so tired. When the Captain hears about the death and exhaustion, he relents and agrees to get them a truck.
At one stop, they have water enough for a bath. Helen's best chum Anna Volska notes, "who'd have ever have thought that having a bath would be enough to make us feel wonderful!" "Maybe we took those things for granted. I never will again," Helen replies. One of the soldiers plays with the kids and another even flirts with one of the women. Just as they are beginning to feel human again, the plans change. They have to get to Singapore another way because bridges have been bombed, and there is no truck to take them. "I don't think they know what to do with us," Helen wisely discerns, when all the others are calling the Captain a liar.
Helen speaks Malayan, so she's an asset to the Japanese and is able to make herself understood by the soldiers. They stop in a village where Helen makes friends with the locals and gets herself some more comfortable clothing, but one of the children is dying of malaria and the Japanese soldier in charge of the village wants them out, not caring if they have to walk "hundreds of miles" to a "good women's prisoner of war camp," the latter said almost cheerfully. They can stay until the child recovers, but Cecily's daughter dies. Cecily gives her baby to Helen and then dies herself (suicide, of course, but they don't say how). The next day, the battle ax of the group dies, also leaving behind a child.
An oasis shows up in the most unlikely of places. Leaving the jungle, the Sergeant and his followers see a truck. It's being fixed by...two Australians! Bryan Brown pops out from underneath the truck, unshaven and sweaty, but so handsome, and Helen tells Gordon in her remembrance that she was so happy to see a white man, the "first white man in six months, since the husbands."
Bryan informs Helen that there is no prison camp where they are going, "just a little barracks." A bit crass and rough, he then notes that "I never thought the first time I spoke to an English lady, she'd be looking like you." He volunteers to get them supplies and to break the truck even more so they have to spend the night with the women. He's taken a shine to Helen, though he thinks she's married and the baby is hers.
That night, Bryan brings the promised contraband and stays to chat a bit with Helen, telling her about his hometown near Alice Springs, dead center of Australia, where she thought there was only desert. He's a "stockman" and his father was from England. It's only after a description of the cattle station where he works that he even gets around to telling her his name. "I'm sorry I talked so much about the Outback," but he's lonely. He's also sensitive and has a great smile to flash. Unfortunately, when morning comes, he's unable to persuade the Japanese to let the women and children ride in the truck.
Contrary to what older crab Dorothy Alison thought, Bryan does actually get them the soap he promised to Helen. The women adore just the smell of it, four whole bars! In fact, Dorothy promises, "he'll turn up again, just like a bad penny" and laughs. Not only does he return, he returns with a whole pig that he caught.
The two have a private talk in the jungle and each learns about the other's hometowns and ways of life. He's clearly smitten, and she begs him not to risk constantly coming back to bring supplies to them, but there's no way he'll stop. Nothing is too good for Mrs. Boong, as he calls her (a Aussie term for native). He sends back a bunch of chickens, but Helen is vexed. They have to "work out a reasonable story and stick to it no matter what happens" before even starting to pluck them. She's more worried about the Japanese reaction than her cohorts. The kindly sergeant in charge doesn't ask questions since she gives him one (though he tries to bargain for two).
The local command realizes five chickens are missing and want the truth about the chickens, smacking the women around to get it out of them. Bryan arrives, hoping to save Helen, but the soldiers overcome him. They are taken to Captain Richard Narita, who says that she is unworthy because she lies. "Japanese women don't lie," he explains. She begs leniency for Bryan, but he is not to have it.
Instead, he is literally crucified as the women watch. Nails are driven through his hands, each thump of the hammer affecting everyone nearby. Then he's beaten severely. This is one of the most ghastly scenes ever in a miniseries, but it's handled so beautifully here that one can't turn away. Dorothy prays loudly, louder than the sounds of Bryan's beating. "They beat him to death," she tells Gordon.
Gordon finds himself very attracted to Helen and takes her to the opera and the National Gallery, though he has himself convinced it's really to make up for the time she spent as a prisoner missing such things as art. Of course, he also wants to hear her stories. His clumsy attempts at wooing her are quite charming. He tries to reconnect her to her past by taking her ice skating (when she returned from Malaya, she went to her local rink and it had been bombed), but he's terrible on skates. His law partner is a bit wary. "It's it strange no one has snatched her up?" he asks, citing her beauty and wealth as two reasons why someone should have (though, to be fair, she's only been wealthy a little while). Dancing one night, she says she wants to go back to Malaya and "build a well."
Back in the main plot, Captain Richard Narita tells them they are "bad people" and he doesn't want them. Typical of their entire journey, the Japanese do not want to be responsible for them at all. Having prisoners of war means having to treat them a certain way. So, the little gaggle sets out again with Dorothy now the one pushing them all. They make their way to the ocean, which gives them some very happy moments of refreshing fun. Dorothy catches dinner, more fish than anyone can eat. She also shares her theory that Bryan was very much like Jesus, bringing gifts without asking anything in return and then being crucified. She's very religious, but the other women don't all believe it. Helen tells Anna, "the man I knew was very human" and feels terrible guilt over the risks he took for her and the others.
The Sergeant suffers from heatstroke and though the women try to help him, he's stubborn and drags behind them as long as he can before collapsing. He's become a part of them, so they help him walk to the nearest village. The local village chief tells Helen, "we have no place where English ma'ams want to sleep." Helen replies, "we are no longer English ma'ams, we are prisoners" and that they have adapted to rudimentary living in the countryside. "All we ask is a floor to sleep on and a little fish and rice," she tells him. The Sergeant refuses to take medication, and Dorothy thinks he wants to die, that "he's packed it in." Something has changed since Bryan's death for him as well as the rest. He dies as well.
Rather poignantly, Helen suggests he be buried with Christian prayers. Dorothy is not happy initially, but she delivers a hell of a funeral. What do they do now? Most are happy to stay in the village, but Helen is practical. She worries that the Japanese will get in trouble for losing them, but they also can't stay and expect the village to feed them forever. Helen's idea is to go to the village leader and ask if they can work a rice field and earn their keep. If he is pleased with their work, she will go to the Japanese and report of their success, with the village leader reaping the potential benefits of being able to feed the Japanese soldiers. "I will think about it and I will talk to my brothers," he tells her. The council agrees.
The women work the fields for three years until the end of the war. The male prisoners are released and the baby's father comes to claim her. He offers to "make this arrangement permanent," but Helen refuses, despite her closeness to the child, who refers to her as her mother.
After spending three years in the Malayan village, Helen now wants to build them a well as thanks and to help them with their crops. Gordon warns it's a long expensive trip, but Helen is determined. She even jokes that if she can't get transportation, "I can always walk!" Gordon has filled her state room on the boat to Singapore with "English flowers" to remind her "not to stay away too long." She promises to return, as "there is nothing to keep me in Malaya once I've built the well."
"I had a premonition even then that she was never coming back," Gordon says as he waves goodbye to her.
Helen first pays a visit to Sally, who has stayed in Malaya with her husband and children. She then makes the long journey to the village and offers to build the well. The village leader is leery, once again, though he knows how badly the women want it, so he calls on his brothers again. A well Helen will get. While the well is being built, Helen tells that Captain Richard is dead, a suicide once the English returned. But, the news she gets is even more shocking: Bryan lived! Here's what happened. The Captain asked Bryan for his last wish, and the cheeky Aussie asked for a black chicken and a beer. Since there was none, the Captain couldn't let him die or he would "lose face" for not being able to grant the last wish. Could he still be alive? We shall have to watch the second part to find out.
The well works! With her work done, she leaves the village, though the leader tells her that she is always welcome there, even if he is dead when she returns. Helen writes to Gordon that she's made a decision to go to Australia and find out what happened to Bryan. The moment Gordon hangs up with Helen, Bryan walks into his office. He's very much alive. With wounds on his hands and everything. He's there to find Helen, having gone to great trouble to do so. Gordon isn't forthcoming with details, as he knows it will mean the end of any possibility he has for a life with Helen. "She's traveling in the East," is all he's willing to say.
Helen arrives in Alice Springs, but no one seems to know Bryan there. Back in England, Bryan explains how he made it to England. He won the lottery! He's come to England to see where his father was born and to see Helen. Bryan is unimpressed when Gordon mentions how wealthy Helen now is. He suggests that Bryan write Helen a letter, bring it to him and he will send it to her to see what she wants to do.
Meanwhile, Helen is able to get some information on Bryan. She remembers he returned, but then left three years ago to become a station manager, but she doesn't know where. Gordon's secretary tells his business partner that Bryan was there, but that Gordon "did everything necessary to protect his client's interest." She secretary is a big gossip and hopes "roughneck" Bryan "doesn't cause any violence." Sadly, Bryan does not show. No doubt he sensed Gordon's tentative feelings on the subject of Helen's whereabouts and knew he wouldn't get far meeting him again.
Instead, Bryan is in a bar doing what the British think Australians do best, starting a bar fight. As for Helen, she travels around town going from bar to bar hoping to find out something about Bryan. In town, Helen meats Lorna Lesley, who already knows why Helen is in town, so she's friendly. Her handyman was also a friend of Bryan's and tells her he's managing a station in Willstown. She manages to sneak in a question about whether or not he's married, just to find out. "We better go look Willstown up on the map," Lorna jokes, but actually has to.
Feeling guilty, Gordon tracks Bryan down and bails him out of jail. Now it's time to get his side of the war story. Like Helen, he happens to hear by chance of Helen in a bar, finding out she was never married. When he heard this news, he withdrew all of his lottery money and went to find her. Why didn't he write first? "I never thought about it," he says, rash as always, but so sweet! The reason he didn't return to Gordon's office is that once he heard about the money, he knew Helen would never go to the Outback. As Gordon is convincing Bryan to take a cheap slow boat back to Australia, Helen flies from Alice Springs to Willstown, though it takes a lot of connecting mini planes to get her there. I know, I know, it's all way too contrived, with Gordon keeping secrets while Bryan pours out his heart and Helen hops from one small Australian town to another. However, where other movies might lag here, "A Town Like Alice" is so well-written that this patch of time actually ends up with a huge amount of tension rather than slack.
Arriving in Willstown, Helen hears that Bryan is in England and won't be back for a while. "Not much point in my staying if he's not here. I guess I'll go home...to England," she says. After that, Gordon puts Bryan on the boat and notes that he's "sure" Helen will be upset at having missed him. "Yeah, well, it's all for the best," Bryan says, with the same flat attitude he's had the whole time. Gordon then feels the sting of guilt again, rambling to his partner about how the whole thought of the two getting together is ridiculous. Bryan is to coarse for England and a lady like Helen could never live in the Australian Outback (meaning, away from him).
There is only one room to be had in Willstown, and the woman who manages the hotel (which just caters to cowboys) is not happy to have her. She tells her to prop her luggage up against the door so no one can get in and, oh, make sure to tell her if she hears any noises coming from the waitress' room. She's even less thrilled to hear Helen will stay a week, which is when the next plan out arrives. It's a rustic living, where breakfast is only steak and eggs (sans steak is not allowed), the waitress can't read and the only women who ever come to town are nurses. That would be helpful to the waitress (Arkie Whiteley), who is pregnant and wants to get rid of the baby. She can't marry the father because she doesn't know who it is, and the poor thing is only 16 years old, but, as she explains, there isn't much else to do in town. The local men approach her with a bit of fear and tell her there used to be 30,000 people in town when it was a "gold town," but now there are only 150 people. There are also only two "bachelor girls" in Willstown.
Finally, Gordon relents and cables Helen that Bryan was in London and is now on his way back to Australia. While waiting, one of the local men brings her crocodile skin, and coincidentally, she used to work in a factory that made accessories from crocodile skins, so she tries to make shoes out of this skin because no one has ever seen what happens to the skins once they are sent from town.
Helen writes Bryan a letter hoping they can meet in one of the towns on the way to Willstown, but "don't lets talk about Malaya...let's try to forget about it." How veddy English of her. I'm sure he never thinks about it as he looks at his hands! She spots him coming off the plane and runs to him, but this is not a couple who knows of romance, so there is no climactic hug or kiss, just an awkward reunion. Both remain quite reserved, especially Bryan, who seems almost angry. They confess that they went across the world for each other, but as Helen had earlier said to someone, they were really just two people who bonded in extreme circumstances and never got to know each other. There is a little crack in the armor when Bryan invites her to see the Great Barrier Reef, though she insists "we go Dutch." There's proof of that when Helen asks, "have I really changed that much?" "It's hard to say," he replies, as he never completely knew her during the war.
On their secluded holiday, Helen sees the lash marks on Bryan's back, which throws her off kilter, and the tension continues. Bryan asks if Helen will go back to live in her English suburb and she doesn't know. There is "no funny business," as Bryan had made that a condition of the trip, but Helen suggests a nighttime walk and puts on a sarong. "Is this better?" she asks and they finally fall into each other's arms kissing. There is indeed "funny business." "I've been thinking about this for six years," he confesses with a smile afterward. "Was it worth the wait?" she asks. "What do you think?" he says, though she's turned a bit shy. They do agree that they want to get married and now that all of the awkwardness is gone, they are free to really get to know each other.
He volunteers to give up ranching because it's not for married men, though he really feels "a bloke doesn't have a right to make an English girl" live in Willstown. "Then we shall have to change Willstown," she chirps, actually excited at the fact of living in the Outback. The only person upset is Gordon, naturally, who informs his partner that she wants money to start a business. Gordon hems and haws, but he sends her the money. Helen is brimming over with plans to reconstruct the whole town, but she has yet to see Bryan's ranch.
They rectify that on a Sunday, all smiles as he tells her that when the rainy season comes, he won't be able to drive to town, but that he will find a way to be with her. She finds the ranch "awful," mainly because it looks like it's never had a woman's touch, or been cleaned for that matter. Helen gets very frustrated with the slow pace of Willstown and lets the bank manager have it when he isn't as helpful as he could be. She throws a royal temper tantrum that seems to have come from nowhere.
The waitress is canned by nasty hotel owner Maggie Dence, flippantly doing it because Helen told her she was expecting another woman from England, not to mention that the girl is pregnant. Helen confronts her in the pub, where women are not allowed, and Maggie nastily snarls, "you ain't running this town yet!" as they go toe to toe.
Instead of defending her, Bryan lectures her and tells her to be polite. "This must be the most close-minded narrow fly-ridden place on Earth!" she rails, upset at him for not taking her side. "We don't need someone fresh out of England to tell us how to feel," he yells and she says, "I wouldn't dream of marrying you." "Suits me," he tells her and drives off. Naturally, the town knows instantly what happened, but sweet Maurie Fields comforts her, telling her that Maggie is just afraid of the effect of Helen's plans on her establishment. Helen pours out her heart in a letter to Gordon, which he reads as taxi knocks him down.
Anne Haddy, an old friend of Helen's, arrives to help, but she's doubtful when she sees the dusty town. She will help Helen get the crocodile shoe factory going, with a few local girls to man the machines.
As a piece offering, Bryan cleans the ranch and invites Helen to see the improvement. They both apologize, but there is news of trouble, as a rancher's horse has come back without the man. She's left alone, so she does some washing and putters around as a thunderstorm brews. One of the workers returns to fetch the rancher who was supposed to be back already and since no one else can drive the truck, Helen has to go with the medical supplies. She's no pro with a truck and stalls out after crossing a river. Bryan is his usual frosty self when Helen shows up in the truck. The trip back across the river kills the car, but does give us a shirtless scene for Bryan, who was in his absolute prime back in 1981. He started his career at roughly the same time as Mel Gibson and frankly, I would have had trouble choosing a winner in that sweepstakes.
Helen has to ride to the ranch to get word to the plane so it will wait and take the injured man to the hospital. Bryan is nervous packing her off ("keep your legs closed, didn't your mother ever tell you that?" he asks the novice horsewoman), but Helen is as cocky as ever.
However, she does complete a successful mission, able to get word to the proper people before collapsing and ending up in the hospital as a heroine. Bryan eventually makes his way to the hospital, where Helen tells him of course she'll stay and asks for a kiss, whether the nun on duty likes it or not. When she is healed, Helen is fussed over by all the women and children in town. Maurie and the men stay away and Maurie has to leave to meet the plane, which bears Gordon, now well enough to make the long journey to Australia to visit his pet client. Bryan is shocked to see Gordon. Maggie gets all flirty, introducing herself as "a widow" while fixing her hair. Helen is thrilled at Gordon's sudden appearance and he's lost no adoration for her. She assures him that she is happy, despite her letters sounding otherwise, and she asks him to give her away at her wedding. She asks for his approval of her plans and her decision to stay in Australia and puts aside his personal feelings to give her that approval.
All that's left is to get married. The whole town turns out and hears a truly heartfelt speech by Gordon wishing them a happy life. Telegrams are sent from England and Australia, even Malaya, from the village chief. Gordon watches the first dance with some sadness, but the newlyweds are smiling and that's what matters. One would never know their journey had taken them from the jungles of Malaya to the Australian Outback, from war to peace, from unknown love to the blossoming of it.
It's hard to think of a sweeter miniseries than "A Town Like Alice," like so many things Australian gritty and tough on the outside but tender on the inside. The relationship between Helen Morse, who is not exactly an ugly duckling, but is certainly no swan, and handsome could-get-anyone-he-wants Bryan Brown is very interesting. Shute's characters fall in love without realizing it, in only a few days of knowing each other, and only because of extreme circumstances. This is not a novel concept. In fact, many war stories have unlikely relationships born out of stressful times. But these two do not even know they are in love for a long time. They meet after six years of thinking about each other, but neither understands why. And then when they finally do get together, it's not a smooth time. They do not rush into each other's arms and live happily ever after.
Even more odd, and less likely to make a successful miniseries, is how small the story is. There are only a handful of characters and for a war story, there is no talk of politics or Allies, just a few Japanese soldiers trying to plunder their way through Asia. Its heartiness comes from the will of the leads, their internal passions. That shouldn't be enough to fill five hours, but it is. Fine performances and a lovingly soft touch by the director and writers does not blow it up to proportions beyond its confines. Had "A Town Like Alice" been made in 1981 in the United States, there would have been at least one battle scene inserted, a big cattle ranching scene, stars who were glamorous rather than realistic and heaven only knows what else. But the creators here were true to the story, true to the local color (in Malaya and Australia) and true to the characters, and produced a beautiful intimate miniseries. Intimate miniseries sounds oxymoronic, but "A Town Like Alice" proves it was possible.
For crying out loud, except for one huge exception, the miniseries is even nice to the Japanese soldiers! Try finding any sympathy for the Japanese in Herman Wouk.
Questions? Comments? Warm-up-by-the-fire sweet stories? I would love to hear at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
Since this very international miniseries took such pains to behave like the sweeping historical narratives on US network television, though managing to strip the war down to just a handful of characters in a remote output let's include it. Plus, it's so damn good, it's well worth the sidebar.
"A Town Like Alice" certainly has pedigree, based on Nevil Shute's classic novel, and starring a man who would become famous the world over once "The Thorn Birds" aired, Bryan Brown. Enough exposition, we are jumping in.
The story starts in 1937. Gordon Jackson is summoned to alter a will. The old man has designated his sister as his heir, as she has a son. She also has a daughter, but the old man can't fathom leaving her the money, constrained "by her sex," he says with horror. If she's to inherit the money, he wants it in trust until she's 40 with Gordon as a trustee. "Perhaps you want my senior partner," Gordon says snidely, since the man is so old-fashioned.
It takes until 1948 for Gordon to find the family, down now to just the niece, Helen Morse. The war has made it difficult to get in touch with anyone. Helen's mother has been dead years and her brother died in the war, on "the railway," a Japanese construction project on which "one man died for every rail laid," she says. She herself has been in Malaya most of the time, but now works in London.
In explaining what has happened to her, she goes back to 1941 when she was living in Malaya with her brother, seemingly untouched as part of the British enclave there. The United States has just entered the war and Christmas is upon them. Worries do not extend further than the tennis court, though talk of war is part of ordinary conversation. "It would be quite impossible for the Japs to reach Kuala or Singapore," her brother John Howard says, like everyone else, believing the war to be far away. "If they do come, I want us to be together," she insists, telling him she will be quitting her job.
Unfortunately, Helen is instantly proven correct. "The Japanese have landed and they will be here in two hours," the collected British are told. Not everyone is able to escape initially, but there is promise of a boat coming to pick them up, but when the boat arrives, the Japanese are helming it. The remaining folks are told they will be taken to a prison camp, and "if you do bad things, you will be shot, so do good things." There is something very eerie in the Japanese tone when they are told, "the Japanese Imperial Army does not make war on womens and children" as the men are forced to part from the others.
The snobbiest of the English ladies insists on seeing the man in charge and demands beds and mosquito nets. She is refused because "all Japanese sleep on floor." Citing her "very bad thoughts," Captain Hatsuo Uda slaps her in front of all the others. It won't get any better. When food is delivered, there are no utensils and the toilet never gets cleaned. They are to be moved to Singapore once news comes that the Japanese have taken it. The women are to be marched to Kuala Lampur, some 50 or so miles from where they are. No trucks, no buses, just their feet. "Womans staying here will be beaten," they are told, and once again, "no bad thoughts."
The first part of the walk is not pleasant. The women and children are slow, not fed and start arguing almost immediately, with one spinster suggesting the ones without kids separate from the others. Bedraggled, they must continue on, though the Japanese soldiers show flashes of sympathy, like when they carry the children. Helen's friend Cecily Polson isn't sure she can make it, so she asks Helen to take the children if she doesn't. Matronly Pat Evison, the largest of the ladies, is also the first to die.
Okay, the writing isn't always sterling. Helen is one of the women elected to tell Sergeant Yuki Shimoda that they need another day off. He does not speak English, so Helen repeats what her friend says, but haltingly and loudly. "Tomorrow. No. Walk. Rest." But, he understands what she is saying and agrees to let them walk one day and rest the next, which will hopefully stop them from being so tired. When the Captain hears about the death and exhaustion, he relents and agrees to get them a truck.
At one stop, they have water enough for a bath. Helen's best chum Anna Volska notes, "who'd have ever have thought that having a bath would be enough to make us feel wonderful!" "Maybe we took those things for granted. I never will again," Helen replies. One of the soldiers plays with the kids and another even flirts with one of the women. Just as they are beginning to feel human again, the plans change. They have to get to Singapore another way because bridges have been bombed, and there is no truck to take them. "I don't think they know what to do with us," Helen wisely discerns, when all the others are calling the Captain a liar.
Helen speaks Malayan, so she's an asset to the Japanese and is able to make herself understood by the soldiers. They stop in a village where Helen makes friends with the locals and gets herself some more comfortable clothing, but one of the children is dying of malaria and the Japanese soldier in charge of the village wants them out, not caring if they have to walk "hundreds of miles" to a "good women's prisoner of war camp," the latter said almost cheerfully. They can stay until the child recovers, but Cecily's daughter dies. Cecily gives her baby to Helen and then dies herself (suicide, of course, but they don't say how). The next day, the battle ax of the group dies, also leaving behind a child.
An oasis shows up in the most unlikely of places. Leaving the jungle, the Sergeant and his followers see a truck. It's being fixed by...two Australians! Bryan Brown pops out from underneath the truck, unshaven and sweaty, but so handsome, and Helen tells Gordon in her remembrance that she was so happy to see a white man, the "first white man in six months, since the husbands."
Bryan informs Helen that there is no prison camp where they are going, "just a little barracks." A bit crass and rough, he then notes that "I never thought the first time I spoke to an English lady, she'd be looking like you." He volunteers to get them supplies and to break the truck even more so they have to spend the night with the women. He's taken a shine to Helen, though he thinks she's married and the baby is hers.
That night, Bryan brings the promised contraband and stays to chat a bit with Helen, telling her about his hometown near Alice Springs, dead center of Australia, where she thought there was only desert. He's a "stockman" and his father was from England. It's only after a description of the cattle station where he works that he even gets around to telling her his name. "I'm sorry I talked so much about the Outback," but he's lonely. He's also sensitive and has a great smile to flash. Unfortunately, when morning comes, he's unable to persuade the Japanese to let the women and children ride in the truck.
Contrary to what older crab Dorothy Alison thought, Bryan does actually get them the soap he promised to Helen. The women adore just the smell of it, four whole bars! In fact, Dorothy promises, "he'll turn up again, just like a bad penny" and laughs. Not only does he return, he returns with a whole pig that he caught.
The two have a private talk in the jungle and each learns about the other's hometowns and ways of life. He's clearly smitten, and she begs him not to risk constantly coming back to bring supplies to them, but there's no way he'll stop. Nothing is too good for Mrs. Boong, as he calls her (a Aussie term for native). He sends back a bunch of chickens, but Helen is vexed. They have to "work out a reasonable story and stick to it no matter what happens" before even starting to pluck them. She's more worried about the Japanese reaction than her cohorts. The kindly sergeant in charge doesn't ask questions since she gives him one (though he tries to bargain for two).
The local command realizes five chickens are missing and want the truth about the chickens, smacking the women around to get it out of them. Bryan arrives, hoping to save Helen, but the soldiers overcome him. They are taken to Captain Richard Narita, who says that she is unworthy because she lies. "Japanese women don't lie," he explains. She begs leniency for Bryan, but he is not to have it.
Instead, he is literally crucified as the women watch. Nails are driven through his hands, each thump of the hammer affecting everyone nearby. Then he's beaten severely. This is one of the most ghastly scenes ever in a miniseries, but it's handled so beautifully here that one can't turn away. Dorothy prays loudly, louder than the sounds of Bryan's beating. "They beat him to death," she tells Gordon.
Gordon finds himself very attracted to Helen and takes her to the opera and the National Gallery, though he has himself convinced it's really to make up for the time she spent as a prisoner missing such things as art. Of course, he also wants to hear her stories. His clumsy attempts at wooing her are quite charming. He tries to reconnect her to her past by taking her ice skating (when she returned from Malaya, she went to her local rink and it had been bombed), but he's terrible on skates. His law partner is a bit wary. "It's it strange no one has snatched her up?" he asks, citing her beauty and wealth as two reasons why someone should have (though, to be fair, she's only been wealthy a little while). Dancing one night, she says she wants to go back to Malaya and "build a well."
Back in the main plot, Captain Richard Narita tells them they are "bad people" and he doesn't want them. Typical of their entire journey, the Japanese do not want to be responsible for them at all. Having prisoners of war means having to treat them a certain way. So, the little gaggle sets out again with Dorothy now the one pushing them all. They make their way to the ocean, which gives them some very happy moments of refreshing fun. Dorothy catches dinner, more fish than anyone can eat. She also shares her theory that Bryan was very much like Jesus, bringing gifts without asking anything in return and then being crucified. She's very religious, but the other women don't all believe it. Helen tells Anna, "the man I knew was very human" and feels terrible guilt over the risks he took for her and the others.
The Sergeant suffers from heatstroke and though the women try to help him, he's stubborn and drags behind them as long as he can before collapsing. He's become a part of them, so they help him walk to the nearest village. The local village chief tells Helen, "we have no place where English ma'ams want to sleep." Helen replies, "we are no longer English ma'ams, we are prisoners" and that they have adapted to rudimentary living in the countryside. "All we ask is a floor to sleep on and a little fish and rice," she tells him. The Sergeant refuses to take medication, and Dorothy thinks he wants to die, that "he's packed it in." Something has changed since Bryan's death for him as well as the rest. He dies as well.
Rather poignantly, Helen suggests he be buried with Christian prayers. Dorothy is not happy initially, but she delivers a hell of a funeral. What do they do now? Most are happy to stay in the village, but Helen is practical. She worries that the Japanese will get in trouble for losing them, but they also can't stay and expect the village to feed them forever. Helen's idea is to go to the village leader and ask if they can work a rice field and earn their keep. If he is pleased with their work, she will go to the Japanese and report of their success, with the village leader reaping the potential benefits of being able to feed the Japanese soldiers. "I will think about it and I will talk to my brothers," he tells her. The council agrees.
The women work the fields for three years until the end of the war. The male prisoners are released and the baby's father comes to claim her. He offers to "make this arrangement permanent," but Helen refuses, despite her closeness to the child, who refers to her as her mother.
After spending three years in the Malayan village, Helen now wants to build them a well as thanks and to help them with their crops. Gordon warns it's a long expensive trip, but Helen is determined. She even jokes that if she can't get transportation, "I can always walk!" Gordon has filled her state room on the boat to Singapore with "English flowers" to remind her "not to stay away too long." She promises to return, as "there is nothing to keep me in Malaya once I've built the well."
"I had a premonition even then that she was never coming back," Gordon says as he waves goodbye to her.
Helen first pays a visit to Sally, who has stayed in Malaya with her husband and children. She then makes the long journey to the village and offers to build the well. The village leader is leery, once again, though he knows how badly the women want it, so he calls on his brothers again. A well Helen will get. While the well is being built, Helen tells that Captain Richard is dead, a suicide once the English returned. But, the news she gets is even more shocking: Bryan lived! Here's what happened. The Captain asked Bryan for his last wish, and the cheeky Aussie asked for a black chicken and a beer. Since there was none, the Captain couldn't let him die or he would "lose face" for not being able to grant the last wish. Could he still be alive? We shall have to watch the second part to find out.
The well works! With her work done, she leaves the village, though the leader tells her that she is always welcome there, even if he is dead when she returns. Helen writes to Gordon that she's made a decision to go to Australia and find out what happened to Bryan. The moment Gordon hangs up with Helen, Bryan walks into his office. He's very much alive. With wounds on his hands and everything. He's there to find Helen, having gone to great trouble to do so. Gordon isn't forthcoming with details, as he knows it will mean the end of any possibility he has for a life with Helen. "She's traveling in the East," is all he's willing to say.
Helen arrives in Alice Springs, but no one seems to know Bryan there. Back in England, Bryan explains how he made it to England. He won the lottery! He's come to England to see where his father was born and to see Helen. Bryan is unimpressed when Gordon mentions how wealthy Helen now is. He suggests that Bryan write Helen a letter, bring it to him and he will send it to her to see what she wants to do.
Meanwhile, Helen is able to get some information on Bryan. She remembers he returned, but then left three years ago to become a station manager, but she doesn't know where. Gordon's secretary tells his business partner that Bryan was there, but that Gordon "did everything necessary to protect his client's interest." She secretary is a big gossip and hopes "roughneck" Bryan "doesn't cause any violence." Sadly, Bryan does not show. No doubt he sensed Gordon's tentative feelings on the subject of Helen's whereabouts and knew he wouldn't get far meeting him again.
Instead, Bryan is in a bar doing what the British think Australians do best, starting a bar fight. As for Helen, she travels around town going from bar to bar hoping to find out something about Bryan. In town, Helen meats Lorna Lesley, who already knows why Helen is in town, so she's friendly. Her handyman was also a friend of Bryan's and tells her he's managing a station in Willstown. She manages to sneak in a question about whether or not he's married, just to find out. "We better go look Willstown up on the map," Lorna jokes, but actually has to.
Feeling guilty, Gordon tracks Bryan down and bails him out of jail. Now it's time to get his side of the war story. Like Helen, he happens to hear by chance of Helen in a bar, finding out she was never married. When he heard this news, he withdrew all of his lottery money and went to find her. Why didn't he write first? "I never thought about it," he says, rash as always, but so sweet! The reason he didn't return to Gordon's office is that once he heard about the money, he knew Helen would never go to the Outback. As Gordon is convincing Bryan to take a cheap slow boat back to Australia, Helen flies from Alice Springs to Willstown, though it takes a lot of connecting mini planes to get her there. I know, I know, it's all way too contrived, with Gordon keeping secrets while Bryan pours out his heart and Helen hops from one small Australian town to another. However, where other movies might lag here, "A Town Like Alice" is so well-written that this patch of time actually ends up with a huge amount of tension rather than slack.
Arriving in Willstown, Helen hears that Bryan is in England and won't be back for a while. "Not much point in my staying if he's not here. I guess I'll go home...to England," she says. After that, Gordon puts Bryan on the boat and notes that he's "sure" Helen will be upset at having missed him. "Yeah, well, it's all for the best," Bryan says, with the same flat attitude he's had the whole time. Gordon then feels the sting of guilt again, rambling to his partner about how the whole thought of the two getting together is ridiculous. Bryan is to coarse for England and a lady like Helen could never live in the Australian Outback (meaning, away from him).
There is only one room to be had in Willstown, and the woman who manages the hotel (which just caters to cowboys) is not happy to have her. She tells her to prop her luggage up against the door so no one can get in and, oh, make sure to tell her if she hears any noises coming from the waitress' room. She's even less thrilled to hear Helen will stay a week, which is when the next plan out arrives. It's a rustic living, where breakfast is only steak and eggs (sans steak is not allowed), the waitress can't read and the only women who ever come to town are nurses. That would be helpful to the waitress (Arkie Whiteley), who is pregnant and wants to get rid of the baby. She can't marry the father because she doesn't know who it is, and the poor thing is only 16 years old, but, as she explains, there isn't much else to do in town. The local men approach her with a bit of fear and tell her there used to be 30,000 people in town when it was a "gold town," but now there are only 150 people. There are also only two "bachelor girls" in Willstown.
Finally, Gordon relents and cables Helen that Bryan was in London and is now on his way back to Australia. While waiting, one of the local men brings her crocodile skin, and coincidentally, she used to work in a factory that made accessories from crocodile skins, so she tries to make shoes out of this skin because no one has ever seen what happens to the skins once they are sent from town.
Helen writes Bryan a letter hoping they can meet in one of the towns on the way to Willstown, but "don't lets talk about Malaya...let's try to forget about it." How veddy English of her. I'm sure he never thinks about it as he looks at his hands! She spots him coming off the plane and runs to him, but this is not a couple who knows of romance, so there is no climactic hug or kiss, just an awkward reunion. Both remain quite reserved, especially Bryan, who seems almost angry. They confess that they went across the world for each other, but as Helen had earlier said to someone, they were really just two people who bonded in extreme circumstances and never got to know each other. There is a little crack in the armor when Bryan invites her to see the Great Barrier Reef, though she insists "we go Dutch." There's proof of that when Helen asks, "have I really changed that much?" "It's hard to say," he replies, as he never completely knew her during the war.
On their secluded holiday, Helen sees the lash marks on Bryan's back, which throws her off kilter, and the tension continues. Bryan asks if Helen will go back to live in her English suburb and she doesn't know. There is "no funny business," as Bryan had made that a condition of the trip, but Helen suggests a nighttime walk and puts on a sarong. "Is this better?" she asks and they finally fall into each other's arms kissing. There is indeed "funny business." "I've been thinking about this for six years," he confesses with a smile afterward. "Was it worth the wait?" she asks. "What do you think?" he says, though she's turned a bit shy. They do agree that they want to get married and now that all of the awkwardness is gone, they are free to really get to know each other.
He volunteers to give up ranching because it's not for married men, though he really feels "a bloke doesn't have a right to make an English girl" live in Willstown. "Then we shall have to change Willstown," she chirps, actually excited at the fact of living in the Outback. The only person upset is Gordon, naturally, who informs his partner that she wants money to start a business. Gordon hems and haws, but he sends her the money. Helen is brimming over with plans to reconstruct the whole town, but she has yet to see Bryan's ranch.
They rectify that on a Sunday, all smiles as he tells her that when the rainy season comes, he won't be able to drive to town, but that he will find a way to be with her. She finds the ranch "awful," mainly because it looks like it's never had a woman's touch, or been cleaned for that matter. Helen gets very frustrated with the slow pace of Willstown and lets the bank manager have it when he isn't as helpful as he could be. She throws a royal temper tantrum that seems to have come from nowhere.
The waitress is canned by nasty hotel owner Maggie Dence, flippantly doing it because Helen told her she was expecting another woman from England, not to mention that the girl is pregnant. Helen confronts her in the pub, where women are not allowed, and Maggie nastily snarls, "you ain't running this town yet!" as they go toe to toe.
Instead of defending her, Bryan lectures her and tells her to be polite. "This must be the most close-minded narrow fly-ridden place on Earth!" she rails, upset at him for not taking her side. "We don't need someone fresh out of England to tell us how to feel," he yells and she says, "I wouldn't dream of marrying you." "Suits me," he tells her and drives off. Naturally, the town knows instantly what happened, but sweet Maurie Fields comforts her, telling her that Maggie is just afraid of the effect of Helen's plans on her establishment. Helen pours out her heart in a letter to Gordon, which he reads as taxi knocks him down.
Anne Haddy, an old friend of Helen's, arrives to help, but she's doubtful when she sees the dusty town. She will help Helen get the crocodile shoe factory going, with a few local girls to man the machines.
As a piece offering, Bryan cleans the ranch and invites Helen to see the improvement. They both apologize, but there is news of trouble, as a rancher's horse has come back without the man. She's left alone, so she does some washing and putters around as a thunderstorm brews. One of the workers returns to fetch the rancher who was supposed to be back already and since no one else can drive the truck, Helen has to go with the medical supplies. She's no pro with a truck and stalls out after crossing a river. Bryan is his usual frosty self when Helen shows up in the truck. The trip back across the river kills the car, but does give us a shirtless scene for Bryan, who was in his absolute prime back in 1981. He started his career at roughly the same time as Mel Gibson and frankly, I would have had trouble choosing a winner in that sweepstakes.
Helen has to ride to the ranch to get word to the plane so it will wait and take the injured man to the hospital. Bryan is nervous packing her off ("keep your legs closed, didn't your mother ever tell you that?" he asks the novice horsewoman), but Helen is as cocky as ever.
However, she does complete a successful mission, able to get word to the proper people before collapsing and ending up in the hospital as a heroine. Bryan eventually makes his way to the hospital, where Helen tells him of course she'll stay and asks for a kiss, whether the nun on duty likes it or not. When she is healed, Helen is fussed over by all the women and children in town. Maurie and the men stay away and Maurie has to leave to meet the plane, which bears Gordon, now well enough to make the long journey to Australia to visit his pet client. Bryan is shocked to see Gordon. Maggie gets all flirty, introducing herself as "a widow" while fixing her hair. Helen is thrilled at Gordon's sudden appearance and he's lost no adoration for her. She assures him that she is happy, despite her letters sounding otherwise, and she asks him to give her away at her wedding. She asks for his approval of her plans and her decision to stay in Australia and puts aside his personal feelings to give her that approval.
All that's left is to get married. The whole town turns out and hears a truly heartfelt speech by Gordon wishing them a happy life. Telegrams are sent from England and Australia, even Malaya, from the village chief. Gordon watches the first dance with some sadness, but the newlyweds are smiling and that's what matters. One would never know their journey had taken them from the jungles of Malaya to the Australian Outback, from war to peace, from unknown love to the blossoming of it.
It's hard to think of a sweeter miniseries than "A Town Like Alice," like so many things Australian gritty and tough on the outside but tender on the inside. The relationship between Helen Morse, who is not exactly an ugly duckling, but is certainly no swan, and handsome could-get-anyone-he-wants Bryan Brown is very interesting. Shute's characters fall in love without realizing it, in only a few days of knowing each other, and only because of extreme circumstances. This is not a novel concept. In fact, many war stories have unlikely relationships born out of stressful times. But these two do not even know they are in love for a long time. They meet after six years of thinking about each other, but neither understands why. And then when they finally do get together, it's not a smooth time. They do not rush into each other's arms and live happily ever after.
Even more odd, and less likely to make a successful miniseries, is how small the story is. There are only a handful of characters and for a war story, there is no talk of politics or Allies, just a few Japanese soldiers trying to plunder their way through Asia. Its heartiness comes from the will of the leads, their internal passions. That shouldn't be enough to fill five hours, but it is. Fine performances and a lovingly soft touch by the director and writers does not blow it up to proportions beyond its confines. Had "A Town Like Alice" been made in 1981 in the United States, there would have been at least one battle scene inserted, a big cattle ranching scene, stars who were glamorous rather than realistic and heaven only knows what else. But the creators here were true to the story, true to the local color (in Malaya and Australia) and true to the characters, and produced a beautiful intimate miniseries. Intimate miniseries sounds oxymoronic, but "A Town Like Alice" proves it was possible.
For crying out loud, except for one huge exception, the miniseries is even nice to the Japanese soldiers! Try finding any sympathy for the Japanese in Herman Wouk.
Questions? Comments? Warm-up-by-the-fire sweet stories? I would love to hear at hpmaraka@gmail.com.
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