Evergreen (1985)

I must admit I'm biased when it comes to "Evergreen" because I watched it three times when it originally aired.  A ban on watching television during the week in my household did not include taping programs and watching them on the weekends or holidays.  And thus, for some reason, I really connected to "Evergreen."

However, that doesn't mean it's a perfect miniseries.  It just means it grabbed me at the time, but of course, I was a lot younger then.  Let's see how I feel as an adult.

The biggest asset in "Evergreen" is, of course, its leading lady, Lesley Ann Warren.  She had already survived both "Beulah Land" and "Pearl," two incredibly stupid miniseries, though through no fault of her own.  In fact, she's the highlight of the latter, the only one who bothered to act.  It's also three years after her greatest performance, that of Norma in the film "Victor/Victoria."  Indomitable and believable, Lesley Ann Warren can survive anything with class and finesse, as proven through six hours of "Evergreen."

Here is an interesting case of a miniseries that had the option to go full-on romance or mix it with a lot of history.  The novel on which it's based hedges a great deal, but the miniseries opts for simple fluff.  Unfortunately, with three nights of air time, that's not always enough.  Lesley and co-star Armand Assante are fantastic, but as the hours wear on, they become less and less important; the other generations simply are not interesting (think Jane Seymour in "East of Eden"--once she disappears from being in nearly every scene, the Bottoms brothers aren't quite up to her level of contribution).  

This saga (based on the Belva Plain novel) begins in 1909, where a baffled Lesley has just arrived in America from Poland, plopped onto the Lower East Side by a woman who tries to steal her purse and is then crammed into a relative's apartment.  She practices her English at her sewing machine in a factory and her cousin wants to marry her off a year after her arrival.  All of this happens in the first five minutes or so without much exposition because, as miniseries fans, we have of course been down this road many times.  Immigrant stories, poor like this one or rich like "Zoya" always follow the same course, so let's be thankful the creators here gave us a break and raced through this part.  Stereotyping hits us over the head here like a cement block, but we had to expect that.

Not the first man I would pick to play a poor Jew is Armand Assante, having survived "Rage of Angels" (the actor, not his character, who met a grisly death there).  Lesley's cousin has set them up on a date but didn't tell Lesley, who is shy.  "I almost didn't show," he says, "they try to marry me off to every girl who gets off a boat."  Jeez, that's a lot of women and I can't imagine they all look like Lesley, so be thankful, both of you!  "Evergreen" employs only the direst looking extras, so pairing up the only two pretty people we've met yet is a big deal!  

It's here that Lesley finally admits her reason for not wanting to be married, and though it's a lovely speech, it comes down to this: vanity.  She doesn't want to age prematurely because she's caring for a family and working herself into middle age at 30 or so like her haggard cousin.  "Come, let me introduce you to the other America," Armand says, finding out she's never seen any of the city but the Lower East Side (not that the rest of Manhattan in 1909 was at all indicative of America, but point taken).

They get awfully personal very quickly.  Somehow a discussion of his job comes up and suddenly he's doing an ad for American patriotism, saying, "I have faith in America, I have faith in God…" Is he the first Jewish televangelist?  They walk all the way to Central Park, which is quite a hike from the Lower East Side, but they are both so very interested in each other.  Armand promises Lesley "one day I will take you to dinner" at the Plaza and they merrily pass the mansions of the super wealthy.

CHARACTER FLAW ALERT: Armand seems like a very nice man and he's liking Lesley, but he promises one day he'll be as rich as the people who own the mansions, though there's a wrinkle in that he's Jewish.  As we all know, once a character show base ambition for something like money, there's trouble a-brewin'.

Lesley is more practical and decides to apply for a job at the mansions doing menial work.  When she's hired, Lesley can't believe that she's living in a room with electric lights and a bathtub.  The Jewish owner of the manse is Ian McShane, who is awfully kind to Lesley, at least partly because he's a horn dog.

He strikes up a conversation with her over breakfast and tells her to cancel a date with Armand because he wants to take her out.  As expected, he picks the most glamorous establishment and Lesley, in the same outfit she's worn the whole time, is dazzled and doesn't know how to behave.  While licking everything she can from the fork, she tells Ian that her parents and sisters are all dead.  As for Ian, "everything has been done for me," explaining his silver spoon syndrome.  Ian lays it on thicker than tar, not only in the restaurant, but back at home when he shows Lesley a painting he claims his mother says looks like Lesley.

And up swell the violins, the whole damn string section, in fact, so Ian can plant a very chaste kiss on her.  She likes it, but knows she can't go further.  This makes her time with Armand a bit stilted.  Then again, he brings news of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, a surefire mood killer.  Lesley winces for a moment, but then goes off into a fantasy about seeing Italy, because she's read about it in Ian's book.  Armand is livid when he hears this since he's permanently chip-on-shoulderish when it comes to the rich.  But, a scene later, any romantic notions Lesley possesses about Ian are shattered when it's announced he's about to be married.

This means that Lesley has to marry Armand.  Well, it's doesn't exactly mean that, but the vagaries of romance novels and epics teach us it does.  You never saw a less enthusiastic bride than Lesley, who stares blankly beyond Armand, who is unsettled to see this look in her eyes.  Armand may have the beginnings of a capitalist prick, but he clearly adores his wife and she claims to be happy with him.  We then go right to Lesley feeling her baby kick to the kid being five.

Armand has a money making scheme and wants Lesley to ask her former employers for a loan.  She refuses, not explaining why, but he insists.  When she gets there, Ian is the only one around since the rest, servants and all, are in the country.  She wants only to ask Ian's mother, but Ian insists on doing the lending.  "It would give me pleasure to do something for you," Ian notes and Lesley, suddenly a banking expert, explains the terms of the loan and Ian writes out a check.  He confesses his longtime love for her, claiming to think about her every day.  Romantic that she is, Lesley dashes across the room, the string section even busier than before, to kiss him.  They have sex and Lesley feels terribly guilty.

For someone who used to be so anti-money, Armand is awfully excited to have some to start a real estate venture, but he's also confused as to why Ian wrote out of the check and not his mother.  He questions why Ian would simply write out a check, though he doesn't pursue it because the check isn't rubber.

Cue pregnancy.  Oh, come on, you aren't really surprised, are you?  This happens in every similar tale.  She tells the doctor it wasn't planned.  "Some people call that an accident," he says, as if she's 11 years old, "I call it a miracle."  Pro-life before such a thing existed, the doctor reminds her that "every child brings its own good fortune."  As she walks home gloomily, Armand honks at her from his brand new car!  "That's a baby and a motorcar on the same day!" Armand exclaims in delight when Lesley coyly tells him of her pregnancy (thank goodness Maury Povich and his incessant DNA tests are 100 or so years in the future).  Hopefully, the excitement is in that order.

By 1928, things are booming for Lesley and Armand.  They have bought an enormous house, Lesley wears a fox stole, the kids are enrolled in private school and they even have a cook!  There is a supremely awkward moment at the daughter's birthday party where Lesley's cousin says, "you don't look like your mother, you don't look like your father, whose child are you?"  Thankfully, everyone else is chattering and no one hears.  AWKWARD!  But, if she notices, it shouldn't be too long before others notice too.  To make it even worse, at least for the viewers since we know the truth, Armand delivers a lengthy speech about the bond between fathers and daughters.  DOUBLE AWKWARD!

After gooey sweetness like that, it's about time for some angst, wouldn't you say?  Right on cue, the son  decides he's bored with synagogue and doesn't want to go one particular Saturday so he can play with his friends.  "None of my other friend have to go to shul," he whines.  "None of your other friends are my son," Armand rages in return.  Are you absolutely sure?  After all, you're not really your daughter's father, but that's a plot point for way down the road.

Lesley and her daughter bump into Ian and his mother, the latter chirping to the daughter, "you don't look like your mother, you must look like your father" and then Ian joins them, staring at the girl.

A real corker of a scene follows.  While the bratty daughter is practicing piano (badly), Armand sees in the paper that Ian's mother has died, but Lesley refuses to go to the funeral.  Armand thinks it's because she's "risen too far in the world" and reminds her what that family did for them.  True, but of course we know there's far more to it than that!  Incidentally, so does her daughter, though not exactly what.  "You wish I'd never been born!" she snaps as Lesley brushes her hair.  "I'm not pretty, I'm plain," the girl says, ending the scene with a dippy non-sequiter.

As if this night can't get any sadder, Lesley's cousin's husband, Ron Rifkin, comes to borrow money and Armand refuses him, not willing to "put my family in danger."  So, Ron does what a lot of people did after the bottom fell out of the stock market, he jumps.  Armand is guilt-stricken big and bad when he gets the call.  Also ruined is Armand's business partner, Brian Dennehey and, in fact Armand's whole real estate business.  Bad news comes in threes, so when Armand gets home, he's greeted by the news that Ron had no life insurance.

To cut down on the pathos for a bit, Ian shows up to see Lesley, but is greeted instead by the surly daughter.  He leaves a big box, which happens to contain the painting from his house his mother always swore reminded her of Lesley.  Dour daughter suggests selling the painting, but Lesley mandates, "nobody is selling this painting."  Ian pays another visit, this time to make sure the daughter is his and Lesley is forced to admit it.  He then decides to take Lesley and the daughter away so they can all be together.  Oh, yeah, that's going to go over well with Armand!  She admits she loves Ian, but can't leave her husband.  He begs her to consider his proposal, giving her until 4pm the next day to deliver an answer.  Lesley does her best thinking in a negligee that evening, and goes to the rendezvous spot at 4pm the next day.  "I cannot leave him," she tells a crestfallen Ian.

The first of "Evergreen's" three parts ends here (with more cascading violins).  In roughly two hours, we have wedged in everything but the slumming vet (and WWI which slipped by unnoticed).  Torn between two lovers, paternity questions, humble beginnings, death, bratty children and a brave heroine to tie it all together.

Part Two begins on a high note.  Lesley's grown son, Tony Soper, has gotten into Yale and his little sister (who hasn't aged, even though there's a new actor playing the son) has knitted him a big sweater.  Even more, Armand and Brian have gotten a big loan to expand their business.  When the son makes a toast, he lays on the schmaltz.  "To my mother, who is a goddess.  To my growing-up sister, who is not a little devil, who is an angel, and to my father, who gives me a lot of trouble sometimes, but who is truly a king among men."

At Yale, the new freshman meets WASP drunk Boyd Gaines (giving an over-ripe performance that would not anticipate his 147 Tony Awards).  The matriarch of the family is Betty Buckley (bingo, now we have the slumming vet, who actually had a Tony by this point).  The problem is that Boyd's family hates Jews, well, except daughter Kate Burton, who falls in love with him.  Romeo and Juliet have arrived, as they always do in a romance miniseries.  "It won't be easy for me, being in love with a Jew," Kate chirps.  "Don't worry, I love a good challenge," Tony laughs.  Boyd is not in a joking mood when he warns Tony to stay away from his sister.  Not only is Armand displeased, he throws the persecution of Jews in Germany into the conversation!  "I won't change," Tony promises.  "Cut off my right arm," is the reply to that, before Armand decrees that they will get over their supposed love and find people of similar religions to marry.  "Don't bring the unthinkable to pass," Armand says as he hugs his son, sounding more like John Gotti than a Jewish real estate mogul.

With Armand and Lesley upset over Tony's decision, their daughter grows up to be Joan Allen, who can't get her parents' attention, and growls at them because of it.  She is told her brother "will not be sitting here again."  He married secretly the day before and both families have cut them off.

If Tony and Kate are Romeo and Juliet, Lesley, who hasn't been around much, is Lady Macbeth, mopping a perfectly clean floor at 3am.  She gets one of those yowling explosions that every actress in a miniseries has (Lesley's experience in a musical version of "Gone With the Wind" about a decade earlier must have helped greatly), beating her husband and then crumpling into his arms.  It only lasts a few moments so we can return to Tony and Kate getting smashed on a bottle of wine because he's gotten a job selling kids shoes.  Zzzzzzzzzzz. This is the downside of generational sagas.  Not all of the generations are interesting.  Take this moment: Tony comes home and Kate is knitting.  We know what that means immediately, but it takes what seems like an hour for Kate to tell Tony.  Paint by numbers, this whole section of the miniseries is without any surprises.  "Little babies don't cost that much," Kate says.  That's a humdinger of a line, a scene-ender, no less!

Joan defies her father and visits her brother, though Armand says he wants to hear no mention of it.  When Joan returns, Lesley is thrilled to hear she'll be a grandmother, news they decide to lay on Armand.  "This is not my grandchild, because my grandchild is a Jew.  [Tony's] child is nothing.  He's a nothing," is all he cares to say on the matter.

Let's see how the other family reacts?  Kate goes to see her folks.  Betty is in the garden, gardening gloves on and holding a cigarette while the gardener does the actual work.  "I don't think your father is going to be very happy to hear this news," Betty says, stifling a smile because she's actually thrilled.  Papa is Robert Vaughn, wheelchair bound and crabby as all hell.  "You're a fool," he chastises her, but it's obvious he wants to crack and get his daughter back.

That went better than expected, so Lesley is the next to crumble, going to see Tony at the shoe store.  From there, she goes to Armand and Brian's office.  Brian takes the news of a male grandchild to be of great importance, but Armand sticks to his policy.  "When did you become unforgiving?" Brian snarls and Armand tells Lesley she can have the family over for dinner.  "Don't expect me to say a word the whole night.  I can't get involved," Armand adds, though not very believably.  In fact, Tony and Kate get invites from both families.

Check your rulebooks.  You know when people achieve sublime happiness in a miniseries, not only the rug, but the whole floor is about to pulled from under them.  Joan answers the phone call from Boyd saying Tony and Kate have been killed in a car accident, but the baby is alive.  Armand is there and then they have to tell Lesley.  All she needs to do is see their faces to know.

It's time for a trial.  You knew one had to pop up eventually.  Which grandparents should have custody of the baby?  Well, Brian actually has an interesting take, grumbling that "the Catholics and the Jews should write the laws.  No one else understands about family."  That's not particularly helpful, but it's said with conviction.  We are actually spared court theatrics, just told that the judge granted custody to Kate's parents.  Armand feels guilty.  "I killed him," he says, referring to both Ron, the jumper, and Tony, hit by a truck.  "I cannot help.  I am empty," Lesley says, unable to give him the sympathy or forgiveness he needs.

In case you care, and I'm absolutely positive I don't, Ian is still around.  He and Lesley meet for lunch at the very same restaurant they went to all those years ago (which has the same decor and all).  After lunch, they go up to a cozy lodge in the mountains, swim, dance and talk about Joan before, well, we have to guess as the darkness overtakes everything.  

By 1946, the grandkid is wheeling around Robert Vaughn, giving him a lesson in civics, telling the kid it's wrong for Jews to be moving into the neighborhood.  "Colored with coloreds, Americans with Americans," Robert says.  "David Freidman thinks he's an American," the kid replies.  "Well, he's misinformed."  Egad, that's awfully strong dialogue for marshmallow stickiness like "Evergreen!"  It seems that Robert and Betty haven't told the kid the truth about half his family.  Armand and Lesley are moving out to the suburbs to a big house of their own.

Into their lives comes Jan Triska, a Plastic Surgeon who outran the Nazis and managed to get to America.  Everyone wants to set him up with Joan.  As he tickles the ivories, they have a very deep conversation, perhaps the deepest so far, but it's way too late and far too stilted to pull in yet another mysterious new character.  His proposal is rather clumsy, but she accepts anyway.  Lesley and Armand are happy in bed knowing their daughter's future is secure.

Uh huh, until it's not.

And that brings the second portion to a close, and a rather happy one.

And just for that, the final portion of the miniseries starts as sadly as possible.  We're told that Robert Vaughn has already died (after less than six minutes of screen time total) and Betty Buckley is sporting bad make-up, so when she tells her little grandson, "I'm going to die soon," he shouldn't really be surprised.  Understandably, the kid wonders where he's to go, and though Boyd says he wants him, Betty feels it would be best if this little blond kid went with "your father's people."  The kid definitely isn't pleased to hear the new people are Jewish and trots out Robert's ethnic slurs before cozying up to the Jewish kid in school.  That doesn't go well.

The day of the hand-off arrives and, true to form, Lesley has more food than twenty people could eat, living up to at least one stereotype.  The whole episode is very awkward, with only Lesley able to manage a chipper demeanor.  Armand is scared and the kid is just petulant, though he softens a bit when seeing a picture of his father.  Even more bizarre is the conversation between Lesley and Boyd, who removes enough luggage from the car to clothe 12 kids.  Lesley says she personally knows what it's like to be "uprooted" at a young age and they talk about how Tom and Boyd met.  "A young man falls off his bike and so many lives are changed," opines Lesley.

The kid runs away and is brought back by the police, and Lesley begs Armand to stay out of this particular conversation.  She's rewarded with his loyalty.

With that settled, Lesley turns her attention to Joan, who speaks in riddles about her marriage.  "Sometimes I think I love him too much," is one such line.  What does it mean?  Beats me.

For his birthday, the kid wants to join the local club, but they don't allow Jews.  Armand has matured in his thinking somewhat and tells him he can be Jewish, Christian, whatever he wants, and if he wants to join the club, to do it.  This means the kid has some thinking to do.

At a fancy banquet for a building Armand and Brian have created, Ian shows up to be introduced around and Armand reminds everyone that it was Ian who gave him the first seed money they ever received.  A round of picture taking leaves Ian alone at the table with Joan and her husband.  "Are you a father…you seem like someone who should have children," Joan notes, with Ian fumbling and lying that he's not.  Then Ian and Lesley get some time together to catch up on 18 years.  Ian invites her to dance and Lesley smiles, saying, "I suppose there is no harm in two people dancing."  Not in real life, no, but this is a miniseries, where worlds are changed by a look or a mistaken gesture.

There's an inside joke on the dance floor that I had to stop and share with you.  Ian wants to meet Lesley the next day, but she says no, she's going to a matinee of "The King and I."  The dance ends and Lesley's son-in-law asks her to dance, leaving Ian and Joan to wait uncomfortably until deciding to dance together.  Once they start, the take over the floor, the music swells and everyone else stops.  The inside joke, of course, is that it very much resembles the climactic moment in "Shall We Dance?" in "The King and I."  Do with that information what you please.

Ian shows up at the theater when it lets out, spotted by Armand, who sees the two of them together (neither the theater nor the marquee are correct, FYI).  The car ride home is uncomfortable for both, though it's not until they get home that Armand tears into Lesley.  Armand upends a table, but Lesley plays it well, sticking to the truth, though of course holding back the historical details surrounding it.  Just when it seems she's calmed him, he slaps her hard across the face.

Let's jump ahead to 1959 (and pray lesley has no desire to see "The Sound of Music").  The kid is now grown up Mark Keyloun.  He has been approached by Uncle Boyd to work in the oil business in the Middle East, which he claims makes Armand's building business seem "dull."  Aunt Joan gives him some good advice and to do what he wants, not what Grandpa or Uncle Boyd wants.  That leads him to worry about going to anti-Semetic Iran with Boyd.

Unexpectedly, we veer from the main characters long enough to dispense with Brian Dennehey, who develops an ulcer and decides to move to New Mexico.  Just so you know.

Before starting work, Mark decides he wants to see Israel, which of course thrills his grandparents.  A kindly bus driver, who use to drive a cab in Brooklyn, tells Mark that one must "walk into Jerusalem" the first time one goes, so as the faux Jewish music goes into overdrive, Mark rushes to see the Holy City.

With her cousin in the hospital, Lesley is already tired and worn out, but Joan finds out Jan is having an affair and needs her mother's sympathy.  After all, Lesley is still the glue of the family.  Lesley's advice is to "do nothing," and Joan can't understand why, but accepts it.

Enter Cecile Callan, a perky Dutch girl who works on a Kibbutz after having come to Israel simply for "SCUBA diving and boogying," but stayed to volunteer, even though she's not Jewish.  Ah, how "history repeats itself" of them!  The ominous music starts when we move over to Syria, where naturally the bad guys reside, spying on Cecile's Kibbutz and attempting to blow up a tractor.  The Kibbutz residents are ready, having plans ready for such occurrences.  This would be the exact moment Mark picks to arrive looking for Cecile.  Mark takes to Kibbutz work like an old pro, skipping around and generally spreading mirth.  He ten gets a shower scene during a Hebrew lesson.  That's the first attempt at ANY sexuality in this entire miniseries.  A scene later it gets even more hubba-hubba when Mark and Cecile go skinny dipping.

Mark also befriends a, well, friendless kid, a tough little boy who keeps watch in an abandoned water tower with a broom for a gun.  They are both orphans, always a convenient bonding device.  The three make a nice insta-family.

Armand gets a letter saying Mark is getting married, so he and Lesley rush off to Israel to try to get him to return.  They do not want him staying in scary Israel.  Neither looks excited when Armand says, "Israel…homeland" on the plane (where Lesley has a super-comfy middle seat, and of course does not dream of complaining).

This time, the Syrians hit the tractor and kill a man.  That sends the Israelis into war mode (and the movie into a ton of repeat footage).  Mark's lithe pal takes up his spot in the old water tower while kooky supporting characters get mowed down.  Mark saves him just before the tower is blown up, but the next bomb hits them.

Armand and Lesley are waiting at the hotel for Mark's arrival, having no idea what has happened.  It's left to Cecile to deliver the bad news.  The kid survived, protected by Mark's body.  Joan is worried about Armand, who has remained totally silent, but Lesley sends them all home.  The pain kills Armand, whose funeral is next.

The only good news is Cecile calling, saying she wants to see Lesley, and of course we know something is up before Lesley does.  Cecile, alas, is not pregnant, but only because she's already given birth to Mark's daughter.

And there you have it, everything is neatly wrapped up and ti…oh, wait, no it's not.  There's another character we forgot (no, not Joan, who has gotten short shrift since birth).  Yup, Ian.  He comes for lunch, but arrives hours early to see the love of his life.  He announces he's moving to Italy, and naturally, that has been a connection of theirs for what, 800 years?  Now the whole damn orchestra booms its last and the miniseries ends.

I must admit, "Evergreen" isn't quite as spectacular as I remembered, but I was younger then.  I don't think it was ever a great piece, but it's not terrible either.  With Lesley Ann Warren at the helm, that would be utterly impossible.  She's the heart of the movie and she does it beautifully.  It's only a shame she can't be in every scene.  Able assist comes from Armand Assante, who knows his way around these pieces as well as she does, but his character is created as the heavy, so he doesn't have as much chance to delight as Lesley, who glows being the loving wonderful centerpiece.

Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995)

In the years leading up to her death in 2011, Elizabeth Taylor said over and over she hated the idea of a movie being made of her life.  As ideal as a movie of the world's greatest movie star (notice I didn't say actress, even Liz wouldn't have claimed that) would be, given the marriages, the money, the scandals, the drugs, the weight, the friendships, the years in the limelight and, of course, Larry Fortensky, Elizabeth Taylor refused to allow it.

The only problem is that she seems to have forgotten there already had been a movie made of her life. That would be "Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story."  No, to be honest, the miniseries is fairly forgettable, and Elizabeth Taylor probably did't give it ten minutes of thought even in 1995, but it exists and now I've waited a respectable amount of time since her death to dive into it.

Actually, if you want the truth, this was at the top of my pile when Elizabeth Taylor died and I thought it in bad taste to exploit the coincidence.  I didn't feel that the great Elizabeth Taylor deserved to be remembered through the rather questionable merits and demerits of "Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story" at that moment in history.  Her own bad movies were being noted endlessly (and there are so many of them!) and even she giggled about them.

In 1995, Elizabeth Taylor was going through a very good time in her life: substance free, healthy, devoted to her AIDS charities and minting money from her fragrances.  Thus, the miniseries is highly sympathetic, to the point of gooey. It's declawed and toothless, which is why the real Elizabeth Taylor probably feared what would happen if a bunch of talented people with the real story got together and filmed her life, proverbial warts and all.  Even at Liz's basest moments here, she's still a goddess.

As a little girl, Elizabeth is caught between two squabbling parents, her pushy mother and her silent father.  Mother Sara (Christine Healy) wants to whip the young British lass off to Hollywood to make a star out of her.  When asked if she wants to be one, an uncommonly mature Elizabeth has this to say about not being a movie star: "I want to be an actress.  Actresses make people believe anything."  Sara clamps down on that one.  "Yes, well, actress go hungry.  I saw enough of them when I tried for a career in the theater…but movie starts have everything!"

And that sets up the entire movie right there.  Elizabeth wanted more than to be the most beautiful woman in the world, the consummate "movie star," someone with talent.  Well, she had her moments on film, some great ones, but as great actress, only in fits and spurts.

Wearing a signature gigantic hat, Hedda Hopper (Katherine Helmond) doesn't seem much potential in Elizabeth while she's singing a ditty (something she wouldn't do again until the film version of "A Little Night Music" in the 1970s and that one had the ears of Sondheim fans bleeding), but when Elizabeth talks to Hedda's dog, Hedda sees something worthwhile in the child.  Hedda sweeps Elizabeth Taylor off to the audition for "Lassie Come Home," where she uses a broom to step in for a the dog (in three scenes, we've had three dogs already) and BAM, Elizabeth gets the role.

Hedda and Sara disagree with Elizabeth's desire to do "National Velvet," because she's too young, so we get a montage of Elizabeth aging while balancing books on her head to pass the time until she is old enough (they held the filming just for her?).  She takes a huge fall during one scene and insists they continue, with a speech to her mother about loving being a movie star that sounds like idiotic poetry.

At age 17, Sherilyn Fenn steps into play Elizabeth Taylor as she does the first of one of her most famous famous photo shoots.  Uncomfortable with her body (that wouldn't last long), she is told by the photographer, "you have bosoms, so stick them out!"  Ready to burst her bubble is Montgomery Clift (William McNamara), who tells her, "this is Hollywood, even the ugly people are beautiful."  The two have an instant rapport, based on studio-provide drugs, Elizabeth's mothering instincts and Monty's insecurities, but this friendship would last until the day he died.  They film "A Place in the Sun," where Elizabeth was at her most ravishing and only then realizes he's gay (the presence of another man doesn't hurt), and she's wonderfully supportive, "telling him "Mama will always be here for you."  To be fair to Elizabeth Taylor, her lifelong support of homosexual friends and the community at large was real.

Out at a nightclub with pal Debbie Reynolds (Judith Jones), exhorting her to act like the teenage she still is and have fun, Elizabeth sees Nicky Hilton (Eric Gustavson).  Upon hearing herself called "Liz Taylor," she says "I hate that name," to which he replies, "Liz? Or Taylor?  I can change one of them." Wow, if Nicky Hilton is given a clunker like that, I can't wait to see how John Warner will romance her!

After securing Monty's blessing, Elizabeth marries Nicky in 1950.  Things are sour from the start, as Nicky has no sense of romance, a hot temper and is downright rude.  He punches her on their honeymoon and she files for divorce.  One down.

In 1951, filming "Ivanhoe" in London, Elizabeth is not having a good time of it, until she's introduced to suave Michael Wilding (Nigel Havers).  He's witty, intelligent and speaks like he's reading from a dictionary of quotes, all of which appeals to her.  She returns to MGM, demanding he be put under contract and she gets pregnant, ultimately having two kids with Michael.  Things unravel when Michael can't stand the scripts he's being sent.  "Dignity doesn't pay the bills," she reminds him of a Hollywood truth, "I do, as in four dreadful films back-to-back."  She wants him to participate.

Then comes "Giant," which gets a hoot of a set-up.  Liz arrives to greet Rock Hudson (Daniel McVicar), who gives us all straight-man wooden, and James Dean, who can't be bothered to speak to anyone.  Old friend and director George Stevens (Eugene Roche) tells her, "until you get rid of that phony MGM veneer, you'll never be an actress," so she storms into her trailer.  She emerges dressed down and without any veneer, charming the cast and crew with a water pistol and immediately everyone's favorite.  Drunk and enjoying themselves, Elizabeth and Rock bond, but it's then that Michael shows up, poodle under each arm.  He assumes there's something going on between the two (and their was, a great friendship), hurls the poodles at her and his end rapidly approaches.

Actually, Monty sympathizes with Michael's plight, at least until the fateful accident.  Leaving Elizabeth's home drunk, Clift lost control of his car.  By all accounts, including this one, LIz rushed to the scene of the accident, pulled his teeth from his throat and saved his life.  He would continue on for a number of years in Hollywood, his face scarred and his spirit broken.  "I've missed you, you sweet old disaster," Elizabeth coos to Monty in the hospital.  Without even bothering to ask him how he is, she rhapsodizes over meeting MIchael Todd.  Goodbye Michael Wilding.

Mike Todd (Ray Wide) is everything Elizabeth is not.  He's not at all cultured or sophisticated, direct and crass.  He invites her to a meeting at the studio, where he's late, and then launches into a ramble about his assets, ending with his promise to marry her.  She's turned off by his bulldog ways, but when she returns to film "Raintree Country" with a broken Monty, Mike Todd shows up with flowers.  "Roses, how perfectly ordinary," Liz snaps, then producing a ring, playing to her lifelong adoration of jewels.  "You've been married to a kid and an old man.  Time you took a mate…sure, I roar, you roar back!" he tells her and she's in love again, even converting to Judaism to marry him, with old pal Debbie and her husband Eddie Fisher (Corey Parker) in attendance.  Mike does big weddings, with an insane fireworks display over Acapulco.

Theirs is a comically volatile relationship.  Having dinner with the Fishers, they launch into a gigantic physical scrape, but when Debbie tries to stop them, she's called "square" as the Todds as "is there dessert?"  They even manage time for a baby.

The two are supposed to fly to New York City where Mike is getting an award, but Elizabeth has a fever and cannot fly with him.  When Mike doesn't call at a designated time, Elizabeth worries, and of course her premonitions are correct.  The next morning, Debbie brings the bad news.  Debbie is a rock of support.  Eddie, a rock of a different sort.  Carrie Fisher describes that hullabaloo best, certainly better than this stodgy movie, where she falls for him out of loneliness, saying "I feel like half a pair of scissors without him."  Not the most romantic metaphor, but Eddie was pretty dim, so he doesn't comment.  "I think Mike would want you to get on with your life," Eddie replies.  Resistant to going back to work, she (and her manipulative director) decides going back to work will be the tonic she needs.

Eddie invites Liz to his Vegas opening, where Debbie is sure not to be.  Eddie confesses to Liz that he's fallen in love with her and in 1958, they are together, thus starting the most enduring scandal of Elizabeth Taylor's life.  Gossip-hounding Hedda interviews Debbie and then Elizabeth, bringing different hats to each interview.  Hedda warns Elizabeth against the negative publicity.  "Mike's dead!  I'm alive.  What do you expect me to do, sleep alone?" Elizabeth snaps, in one of her less well-planned outbursts.

Dr. Feelgood Max Jacobson has prescribed medication for Eddie, which Liz finds horrifying.  "My medications are prescribed by a real doctor," she snaps.  When the folks making "Cleopatra" call, she jokingly demands $1 million against the gross of the first dollar and they accept!  However, she has to do "Butterfield 8" before "Cleopatra" and she refuses.  MGM stands its ground and could kill her career if she'd doesn't do it.  "You can make me do it, but you can't make me act it," she rails, and history (though not the Academy) would prove that right!  Oh, and she insists that Eddie play the male lead, which he does, incredibly badly (and if you believe this version, even coaching from Monty Clift doesn't help, though something tells me Monty wouldn't have bothered with a no-talent like Eddie).

This movie is not exactly subtle and one can see the end of a Liz Taylor marriage when the currently husband is asked to hold the dogs.  By 1961, Eddie is holding the dogs.  Liz is doing pills and weak-willing Eddie complains about his dying career.  "Every man I've ever know has either died or abandoned me," Liz says at what is clearly the least inappropriate time for such a speech, followed as it is by Liz's bronchial trouble that landed her in the hospital with the first of her truly major near-death experiences.  "Everyone loves you," Eddie now gets to say, the tide having finally turned in her favor.  The marriage troubles aren't helped by Liz rasping to her mother that she saw Mike Todd when she "died" and he's waiting for her.

Believe history or believe gossip, Elizabeth Taylor wins her first Oscar for "Butterfield 8," giving the performance of a lifetime in her acceptance speech.  It's at the Oscars she learns that Richard Burton will be playing Antony in Cleopatra.  "Who?" she asks.

Richard Burton (Angus MacFadyen) is everything studio-trained Elizabeth is not, as shown by the dramatic finale to the first part of the miniseries, where Richard is quoting Shakespeare and drinking, Elizabeth being made up in the infamous Cleopatra make-up, which would set the tone for an entire decade.

There are sparks from the onset, double entendres, nasty barbs, and lines like this from Burton on creating their characters: "people can't fall in love without actually falling in love a little."  "You'll notice I never marry my leading men," she retorts.  In actuality, it's Burton who is out of his element here.  Liz is the true movie star, with nearly two decades of filming experience under her belt, while Burton is exceedingly nervous and drunk.

Elizabeth's solution to marriage problems and an unsettling life is to adopt a baby, one with a malformed hip.  "I told you, she'd need me," Liz tells Eddie, having done it for all the wrong reasons.  The on-set barbs with Burton get wittier (or stupider, if you ask me), a surefire way to prove they are falling in love.  Then character kissing goes on too long.  The director and producer carp that at least he gets her to the set on time and she likes him because she adores bad boys.  With Sybil Burton and Eddie Fisher looking on helplessly and unhappily, the Burton-Taylor romance builds in full public view.  Elizabeth seems charmed by Richard's insane desire to speak every line with wild overacting, even off the set.  When they escape to a private Italian villa, Elizabeth launches into her age-old boo-hoo on never being able to find love because she's been too busy (Liz always considered her love for Todd very real, before, during and after Burton, so it's merely bad dialogue.

What is real is the outrageous banter flung between them, the romance lived publicly and loudly, and the delays that caused on "Cleopatra."  The only person not encouraging the Burton-Taylor romance (which has been good publicity), is poor dumb Eddie, who tries his best to escape.  "Sybil and Elizabeth are both my girls," drunken Richard exclaims, showing up comically drunk at a party.  "Come here and kiss me," he tells her, which she does, as a dinner party of extras and, most importantly, Eddie, look on.  Elizabeth believes in their romance, but Richard refuses to leave his family, causing more drinking and drugging by Liz, accompanied by another trip to the hospital.  But, on the bright side, Liz is denounced by the Vatican.  Not everyone can claim that.  "Can you sue the Pope?" she wonders aloud.

With "Cleopatra" finally filmed, Elizabeth asks where they go now, leading to the worst line of the entire movie.  Burton replies, "someplace terrifying, like reality."  Liz is not in the mood for wit, as the end of every movie brings up her abandonment issues (which, according to the movie don't technically exist as her father is still around, he ditched three out of four husbands and only one died on her).

Richard turns up at Elizabeth's Swiss chalet with the script to "The VIPs," the most satisfying of their movies because it's the goofiest and cheesiest.  Unfortunately, since the movie wants the Burton-Taylor romance to be the center of the movie, we have to suffer through more unbearable dialogue that makes up more unbearable scenes, such as when Liz offers to be Richard's mistress, publicly.  If he would stop speaking in quotes, it might be less annoying.  Endlessly, he's drunk, they fight, they make up, he gives her jewelry, he drinks, he drinks, he drinks…

And then comes this exchange, after Richard was supposed to inform his wife he proposed to Elizabeth:
"You can have a wife and a mistress, but you cannot have a wife and a fiancee."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm the fiancee."

Now that's snappy!  Unfortunately, that's the only snap in over two hours of canned dialogue.

After his Broadway triumph in "Hamlet," it's off to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," where Liz starts to live the harridan role a bit too much (including porking up), though Richard drinks just like George would.  The arguments turn funny, at least to observe.  Even Fenn and MacFayden don't deserve to utter such crap.  "I hate our games," Elizabeth says after one particularly awful row.  But they don't stop.  There are still a ton of movies to make.  It's turing "Taming of the Shrew" that Montgomery Clift dies and Elizabeth is inconsolable, though Richard has little sympathy for "the broken heart."  How did he die?  "A life overdose," Liz says.

Elizabeth wins an Oscar, but she's upset because Richard doesn't.  After 13 days of sobriety, Richard gets so drunk we have to skip ahead to 1972 since nothing happened in the meantime except more of the same.  He does buy her the Krupp Diamond, quipping to a dowager, "that's the way we like it, diamonds on the front page, bad reviews on the back."

The marriage unravels, and we know that because Richard has started hauling around the dogs.  Since she's the heroine, we skip over her drinking, and suddenly Richard is just a sad aging creature dragging them down.  She breaks up with him by sending the press a note.  But, they do get married again.  And then quickly divorced.  Exit Burton (for now).

In 1976, Liz is in Washington, DC, attending a gala with Senator John Warner (Charles Frank), the further thing from a Hollywood leading man Liz has known since, well, ever.  She's there to celebrate the Bicentennial with the Virginia politician, whose farm and love of animals delights her.  "This is my childhood. I feel like I'm back in England," she says, though that would be somewhat of a lie.  Worse is a bizarre piece of incorrect dialogue when she tells Warner, "I've had five husbands and five divorces." Well, not quite.  She's had six husbands by that point (including Burton twice) and the marriage to Todd ended in death.  I admit, getting this far in the film hasn't been easy, but even if you just started, you would know that line to be completely false.

She marries Warner basically because he's the opposite of anything she's ever known, and just in time to campaign for him as he runs for Senate.  She's a great asset, but Fenn has to do it in a fat suit because these were Elizabeth Taylor's chunky years.  Warner is against women in the military and the ERA, which brings him into public disagreement with Liz, a lifelong Democrat.  So, she continues to eat.

After he wins, she gets ridiculously plump, not to mention bored.  And the Warner marriages bites the dust, though he's spared the indignity of having to carry any dogs.

It's back to Burton for an ill-conceived Broadway revival of "Private Lives" (her triumphant Broadway debut in "The Little Foxes" is ignored), where Burton is noticeably ailing.  She's thinner, but now addicted to pills.  The movie also fails to note that the show was a bomb, barely eking out its Broadway run and giving up its tour prematurely.

When Liz ends up in the hospital, her family stages an intervention and Liz helps put the Betty Ford Clinic on the map, mopping floors in her high heels.  She makes it through recovery (this time), but Burton dies, alcohol crystals scraped from his spine, but has to go to his grave alone at the family's request.

"I'm a survivor, it's in the genes," she tells a very sick Rock Hudson when finding him withering away from AIDS, sympathetic and loving, as she would be for the rest of her life to everyone affected by the epidemic.  A stately (and thin) Liz becomes the face of AIDS awareness, possibly giving up acting for the cause, though early on, it wasn't easy for Elizabeth to enlist famous friends for the cause.

Unfortunately, she ends up back in rehab.  This time, she meets Larry Fortensky (Michael McGrady), who helps remind her of who she is and what she has accomplished.  In less than 10 seconds, she also decides to start a perfume empire (and name it).

The make-up artists go all out as Liz turns 60, when she was so thin, her head threatened to topple her body.  Sitting with her mother by the pool, she says, "I've known great love."  "And you've given great love," Sara says, without a trace of irony.  There, surrounded by her family, the movie ends.

Frankly, Elizabeth Taylor deserves a better retelling of her life.  This one is so white-washed, and it needn't have been.  Especially after her stints in rehab, Elizabeth Taylor was the first one to laugh at herself, right up until the end.  She would joke about her past, joke about her status as an actress and her many loves, the only topic off limits to even her saucy sense of humor being her work for AIDS.  She lived grandly and loved it.  According to this movie, she lived a bit recklessly and didn't have a whole lot of fun.  Since Elizabeth Taylor said she did not want a movie made of her life (having forgotten this one), I suppose inevitably that means someone will ignore the request, so let's hope they dive into it with the same élan Elizabeth displayed her entire life.






















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Baby M (1988)

Those who remember the 80s almost have to remember Baby M.  Granted, there were a lot of babies to get through.  There was Baby Jessica, who fell down a well and was there for what seemed like days while we held our collective breaths.  There was poor tragic Baby Faye who was given no chance to live upon birth and was implanted with the heart of a baboon, which unfortunately still did not save her.

There were others, but Baby M is understandably the most famous because of what she represented.  The Baby M case actually led to court rulings on parental surrogacy.  A fascinating story with a great many twists and turns, it is juicy fodder for a miniseries and this one is literally "ripped from the headlines."  The  case was only being settled in 1988, when Baby M was just two years old.

As a miniseries, "Baby M" does not exactly fit neatly into any of our big three categories of romance, miniseries or history, at least not at the time it first aired.  In hindsight, of course it's historical, but at the time it was capitalization on a gigantic news story, one that went on and on, though at the time no one knew just how historic the court decisions regarding the case would be.

There are only two ways to do something like this circa 1988, as trash (Betty Broderick) or as documentary.  Luckily, "Baby M" plays it fair and turns out to be a very sensitive retelling of a heart wrenching and difficult story.  Granted, not all of the true life people handled the situation sensitively, which gives the miniseries its sweeping emotional moments (none as cheap as Betty Broderick, mind you), but it's true to the story and very fair.  And naturally, what beats a courtroom showdown on TV?

In 1979, a brief scene at a doctor's office shows that something is wrong physically with Elizabeth Stern (Robin Strasser), given support by her loyal husband Bill (John Shea).

Three years later, Marybeth Whitehead (JoBeth Williams) is watching TV and hears about surrogacy for the first time.

In 1983, Bill's mother dies, leaving him the last person in his family.  "I never wanted to be the end of my family.  I wanted to be the beginning," he says to his wife.  "I wish I could give you one," she replies.  Both of them want children.  "We'll find a way to have a family," she promises.  At the same time, Marybeth informs her friends that she offered to be a surrogate for some friends, but they decided against it.

By 1984, Marybeth has seen an ad in the paper looking for a surrogate, but her husband Rick (Bruce Weitz) is against Marybeth doing it.  "You're always going off and doing something for somebody else," he rather caustically tells her.  The offer comes with $10K, which is attractive, though Rick is worried he won't get laid for nine months!  Some sweet talk overcomes that hurdle and then Marybeth goes through physical and psychological tests to make sure she's "surrogate material."  The psychologist can't make the final decision, but she tells Marybeth, "let's just say summer is coming, but I wouldn't be buying bikinis if I were you."

Okay, that sounds like a really awful groaner, but it's important to remember just how casual this whole situation was at the time.  The issue of surrogacy was not a typical occurrence and even the medical profession wasn't fully prepared.  The psychologist notes in her tape recorder that she has some reservations about Marybeth, who has a tendency to "hide feelings" who could have attachment issues, but recommends her anyway.

Bill and Betsy Stern go to an infertility clinic, agree to all the terms and the fees while Marybeth is having trouble getting pregnant for another couple, as it's been over a decade since her last pregnancy.  The Sterns review every file the clinic has over the course of three months and pick three candidates.  None turn out to be right, but coincidentally, Marybeth's application has just arrived as the couple she was helping had a low sperm count.

In January 1985, the Sterns and the Whiteheads finally meet for dinner in New Jersey.  The initial meeting is up and down.  Marybeth is thrilled to hear that Betsy is a Pediatrician, but disappointed to know that after only a few weeks of maternity leave, she would be going back to work.  "If you think we're going to come knocking at your doorstep after that baby is born, you can stop worrying," Marybeth blithely says after asking the Sterns what they would tell the child about his or her history, where they note at age 18, they would allow the child to know the full story.  "All I'd want is a year photograph and a letter, something like that," Marybeth adds before asking the Sterns, "do you want me?"  They do.

Bill and Marybeth go to the clinic together to donate their sperm and eggs for the first time in February, but it doesn't take the first time.  Marybeth is so comfortable with the process that she involves her daughter (and her daughter's Cabbage Patch Kid) and invites the Sterns to be a part of the Whiteheads lives, which everyone does eagerly.  Betsy is a bit uncomfortable with Marybeth's friskiness and some of the Whitehead family dynamics, but all of that disappears by August when Marybeth finally becomes pregnant.

There are some awkward moments that could have been telling.  For instance, when Marybeth tells the Sterns, "it's a shame you don't live closer, maybe I could babysit once in a while," the color drains from Bill's face.  Betsy, being a doctor, had certain conditions written into the contract, like an amnio, but Marybeth is not thrilled to be doing it.  Marybeth and her doctor are both annoyed with Betsy's constant calling to check in.  "Did you ever hear of doctor-patient confidentiality?" Marybeth snaps. "We're not in court," Betsy replies, "we're just two people who want the same thing."  It gets even worse as Marybeth nears delivery, and her demands are worrisome, such as not allowing Betsy in the delivery room and not handing over the baby in the hospital.  Plus, Rick has delayed signing an affidavit of paternity, which says Bill is the father and this leads to an argument where a drunken Rick and Marybeth are at each other's throats.

Baby M is born on March 27, 1986.  The hospital does not know about the surrogacy and treat Marybeth and Rick like they were any normal new parents.  "I love her so much," Marybeth cries, "I don't think I can go through with it," and Rick agrees.  Betsy and Bill are besides themselves with excitement.

March 30 is supposed to be the handover date, but it's clear the Whiteheads, including their children, are already deeply attached to the baby.  "You knew this was going to be hard, Marybeth," Rick says as he, Marybeth and even their daughter are crying.  Betsy says they have decided to name her Melissa Elizabeth, with the middle name representing both Betsy and Marybeth.  "I don't feel like living anymore," Marybeth whines, and the Sterns have to walk a fine line with a very depressed Marybeth, who wants visitation, vacations and such.

All Marybeth can think of is getting the baby back.  "She's my flesh and blood, she's part of us, she's my baby!" Marybeth wails until Rick finally says, "then go get her."  Meanwhile, the Sterns are rapturously happy with their baby…until Marybeth pays a visit.  Once she picks up the baby, it looks like she's never going to put her down.  Betsy and everyone chalk it up to hormonal changes, or even "mourning" as her sister calls it.  A desperate Marybeth begs to have the baby for one week "and I'll be out of your lives forever."  Bill suggests Marybeth stay with them for a week, but Marybeth demands to have the baby for a week.  Unfortunately, Bill feels bad for Marybeth and agrees, the worst thing possible.  "Please reconsider," he asks as she's leaving the house with the baby.

Marybeth decides to take the baby to visit her family in Florida and even Rick can see that's not a great idea.  "I'm her mother, do you think I'm gonna let anything happen to her?" she notes.  "What about the Sterns?" he asks.  "I don't know…I only know I'm never giving the baby away again.  It's my baby."

Bill calls the infertility clinic looking for Marybeth's psychological profile and reads that the doctor warned of this situation.  The clinic had misplaced this report when they saw her file, but refuse to take any responsibility, even going so far as to offer another surrogacy and "I'd waive the $7500 fee," the head of the place tells Bill.  Ouch!

Marybeth delays and delays and since the Sterns don't know she's in Florida, they can't exactly go get the baby.  When she returns and the Sterns visit, they still defy logic and let Marybeth keep her, always worried about Marybeth's suicidal threats.  With the baby in her arms, Marybeth announces she will not give the baby back.  Legally, she's in breech of contract, but Betsy warns of what a court fight will cost, financially and emotionally.  When Marybeth threatens to call the police, the Sterns finally have to go.  "You knew you were taking a risk and you lost," Marybeth tells them after faking a fainting spell.

The Whiteheads get a new birth certificate to call the baby Sara and Marybeth isn't afraid to spew venom about the Sterns.  The Sterns hire lawyer Gary Skoloff, who by the first week in May has the case in front of a judge.  The judge orders the baby be given to the Sterns and they show up at the Whiteheads with the police.  Rick produces their birth certificate, saying they know no baby Melissa Stern, only Sara Whitehead.  As the police dither, Rick sneaks the baby away.

Even Marybeth's parents think she's wrong.  While they hide out in Florida, the judge (Dakin Matthews) orders the Whitehead assets frozen.  "They want to destroy us, all because I changed my mind, because I don't want to play God.  What right do they have?" Marybeth rails.  The Sterns track down the Whiteheads, so the Whiteheads leave their kids in Florida and "drive…just anywhere."  The miniseries jumps the tracks a little with a very 80s montage of the exhausted Whiteheads driving endlessly and the Sterns wait out the weeks, all while the popular tune "Sara" plays.

Nine weeks of this has Rick on edge.  After Marybeth insists they baptize the baby, he demands to know what her plan is.  She doesn't know.  Finally, she calls Bill, who records the call.  Bill tries to be rational, but Marybeth is irrational, blaming Bill for her loss of her house, her kids, her car, even her dogs, "just because I changed my mind."  Bill reminds her that the judge is the one who made all of that happen so as not to antagonize her further.  "What do we do, cut her in half?" Marybeth asks, trying to get him to agree to somehow share the baby with her.  "Why do you have to be so selfish?" she asks during the hysterical phone call (which, incidentally for those of us with eagle eyes, has a big problem--notice that Marybeth walks around the house with the phone, the cord of which isn't attached to anything).  "Just forget that you have a daughter, because I would rather see me and her dead before you get her," Marybeth threatens to the ever-sympathetic Bill, who has bent over backwards for her sanity.  Of course there's the inevitable, "I gave her life, I can take her life away" part of the speech.  The conversation goes on endlessly as Marybeth switches emotions ferociously but ends with the killing business (which of course she never intended to carry out).

It's increasingly difficult to have any sympathy for Marybeth Whitehead, but the miniseries does not completely rule her out.  In fact, by spending most of the time on her (and JoBeth Williams' terrific performance), the Sterns are made to seem a bit distant, not as emotionally connected.  Certainly Marybeth was in the wrong for not only violating the agreement, but spiriting the baby around from hiding place to hiding place, but without actually saying so, the miniseries does show the degree to which a mother will go for her flesh and blood, no matter what documents may say.  There's something powerful about that, even if it's legally, morally and ethically wrong.

Marybeth calls Bill back another day, this time downright angry because no lawyer will touch her side of the case since there are "no laws on surrogacy."  "I will be making history, do you understand?" she asks with a far less demented tone.

But, that soon changes with the moment where the facts are too strong against Marybeth to keep dangling much sympathy for her.  She tells Bill her daughter is ready to testify that Bill sexually abused her in the car.  Bill hangs up, now fully intent on fighting Marybeth rather than appeasing her.

The strain lands Marybeth in the hospital with a blood infection that nearly kills her.  It was proceeded by a fit where Marybeth thought her kids had been taken.  Rick's bizarre reaction to it is that anyone who saw her crazed that much for her kids would never taken one away and Marybeth once again asserts that no one is laying a hand on any of her babies.

Famous last words.  The sheriff sneaks into Marybeth's mother's house where they are staying with a court order to take the baby.  With Mom, the kids and Rick all screaming, the sheriff takes the baby and brings her to the Sterns.  "I will never ever ever let you go again," Bill says to the baby.  Marybeth counters with a press conference from her hospital bed.

A pretrial hearing denies the Whiteheads custody of the baby.  "We'll win this one in the court of public opinion," Marybeth's lawyer says as Marybeth and her daughter turn into consummate actresses, able to turn on the waterworks just when the press are snapping pictures.  While the Sterns refuse to talk to the press, Marybeth is only too happy to indulge them, spinning yarns like "they were only looking to see what stock I came from, like they were buying a side of beef" and saying that the the Sterns are unemotional and don't actually care.

The court assigns a lawyer just to the baby, Lorraine Abraham (Anne Jackson) and the judge agrees that Baby M will stay with the Sterns during the legal proceedings.  Marybeth gets visitation rights for a few hours a week, but the judge advises that he's only doing what's best for the baby "not for the adults."  Naturally, Marybeth spins that quite differently to the press, where not only does Marybeth say that Bill is no more than "sperm donor" (she's always agreed that he was the father), but that Betsy purposely delayed having children, so it's her fault!  The thinking there is that if Betsy really is not infertile, somehow it invalidates the surrogacy, because "Marybeth agreed to help an infertile couple."  That's awfully shaky logic, but it made sense to a lot of people at the time.

The trial finally starts in January of 1987.  The Whitehead lawyer is also on shaky ground in his opening argument, saying "the issue here is motherhood and whether money can buy everything."  No, money can't, but a signed contract can.  He goes from there to say his clients are not educated (noting Rick's time in Vietnam while "the Sterns were in college) and thus "the niceties of a contract were lost on them."  After the two sides go at it, Lorraine makes the most impassioned and logical speech on behalf of the baby (of course, picking a great actress like Anne Jackson helps things along).  Her opinion is that a contract is binding.  "The terms of this contract are clear," she says, adding "while performance is painful, it is not impossible."

Bill is first to testify and we finally find out what the condition is that made Betsy incapable of carrying a child: multiple sclerosis.  Though this did not make her technically infertile, the risk that came with childbirth was very high and Bill says this is how it was explained to Marybeth.  Then it's Betsy's turn, who remains calm and great with facts, reminding everyone how willing the Whiteheads were to give up the baby upon agreement and manages to trounce the Whitehead lawyer with her professionalism.

When Rick testifies, the Stern lawyer makes sure he admits that the money in the contract was a great inducement.  They rehash the surrender of the baby and the issue of two names, where Rick has to admit he knew the court order was for the baby, despite the birth certificate they had drawn up.

It's not that the Sterns and their lawyer can't use the press as well.  When asked if their money is the issue, Gary steps in to say that the Whiteheads have rolled out three times as many expert (paid) witnesses, right as they are arriving for court in a limousine, quite a stretch for the Whiteheads.

Of the four, last up is Marybeth to testify.  She claims she doesn't remember the specifics of the first meeting with the Sterns.  Her testimony rings false, resting solely on the detail of infertility.  Even she has to admit that nothing in the agreement lets her keep the baby.  On top of that, Gary brings up a $1 million federal suit against the infertility suit she filed, which doesn't help her.  Her credibility is pretty much shot.

Lorraine hires doctors to do evaluations and the show the Whiteheads put on is sheer desperation, dressing the kids up, buying large stuffed animals and such.  The Sterns don't seem to be acting as they are grilled by the pros.  Plus, Bill has the best answer of all when asked what he would want in terms of visitation if the Whiteheads got her.  He says nothing, so as not to confuse her.

The first part of the court case, the contract phase, ends, and then comes the custody phase, which gives everyone the chance to testify again, this time with tears.  The Sterns both testify that they would not allow Marybeth any visitation rights if they won because of the way she has handled the press, her own children and the case by lying.  The tape of Marybeth's threatening conversation to kill herself and the baby is played.  When she testifies, Marybeth claims she didn't mean what she said.  No one, even her own lawyer, can make the tape sound beneficial to her case.  Marybeth claims if she were awarded custody, she would give the Sterns visitation rights, which sounds as hollow a promise as it is.  Marybeth even defends her husband's love of drinking as having no effect on anyone in the family.  She has to admit to lying under oath in the deposition phase about a domestic incident at the house where the Whiteheads had "pushed" each other.  It was far more than that, in actuality a huge physical fight which reflects very badly on them.  The lies pile up and Marybeth is decimated not just by Gary's performance, but her own stupidity.  It just gets worse and worse for Marybeth.  Frankly, the court phase of the miniseries needs only the exact testimony to devastate the Whitehead claim.  It could be delivered by puppets and make her sound ridiculous.

Lorraine gets to question Marybeth as well and her questions are not even intended to dismantle Marybeth, but Marybeth's lies and evasions continue to hurt her.  The experts testify as they are supposed to, saying exactly what everyone expects them to say, though not too many are on Marybeth's side completely.  Lorraine's surprising advice is to give the Sterns custody, but to give Marybeth visitation rights.

Ultimately, the court finds for the Sterns, validating the contract and then blasts Marybeth for her bad behaviors.  She is not in court when the verdict is announced, instead entertaining the press on her lawn.

In the aftermath (meaning after the movie was finished), Marybeth appealed and though the New Jersey Supreme Court had some harsh words for the trial judge, it upheld the verdict, though granting Marybeth visitation rights.  Marybeth and Rick divorced and Marybeth had a child by another man.

In the nearly 25 years since the Baby M case, it seems almost impossible that such a case could have existed.  A contract is a contract and it's unlikely that too much stock would be given to emotion, as was the case here.  However, none of that was clear at the time.  Surrogacy itself was entering the public conscience and it took an explosion like little Baby M to start the ball rolling on legislation.

However, none of that is the point of the movie either.  The movie is merely a retelling of the story, a very factual one at that, with initial sympathies divided.  By the trial phase, there is no doubt that Marybeth had been dishonest and shady, so the movie has no choice but to show that, but yet it ends with Marybeth questioning whether she will have visitation rights, so perhaps there was more to her than the disreputable character the court saw.

Haywire (1980)

It can be argued that Lee Remick never gave a bad performance.  We have already seen her in Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder, where she gave one of the greatest miniseries performances of all time in a true story.

That may have been Lee's best work, but wait until you see "Haywire," where Lee plays actress Margaret Sullavan, alongside Jason Robards as her husband Leland Hayward.  "Haywire," technically the name of a Hayward estate, is a metaphor for what this family went through.  This is a character so full of knotty quirks that she defies any simple description.  It takes an actress like Lee Remick to make that believable, and, more importantly for a television audience, likable.

"Haywire" is based on a book by daughter Brooke Hayward from 1977.  Stop!  I know what you're thinking.  Don't even put this in a category with "Mommie Dearest" because bashing mom is not the point of the story.  Brooke states up front in her book that she owes it to her siblings to have their full stories told and it's really more about them than her parents, but what has made "Haywire" endure as a book where "Mommie Dearest" is trashy fun, is Brooke's penetrating ability to dissect her family members with staggering objectivity, not turning them into ghouls, in order to understand the tragedy that befell nearly all of them.  Basically, her parents married and loved each other and producing three kids.  However, after they divorced and the kids got older, problems really started to appear.  Brooke's sister and brother were both sent to mental institutions, Margaret killed herself, as did Brooke's sister and her brother did as well, but in 2008, long after the book was written and the miniseries made.  Leland spent the last months of his life as a shell of a human being after a series of strokes.

What makes the book "Haywire" so compelling is how three kids coped with what went on around them, all so differently.  Leland was a father typical of the times, putting business first and admitting he didn't understand fatherhood.  Margaret all but retired once she had kids, which led to some peculiar rules and typical teenager-parent battles, but this is not "Mommie Dearest" or "Detour" or any celeb's kid trying to make bank off a crazy parent.  It is about the children and how they ended up the way they did.  Both parents were loving, but their brands of love could be frustrating.  There are no midnight rampages, no cutting down of shrubbery, no heavy drinking or drugs, no abuse (in fact, the book has a very touching moment where Leland is forced to spank Brooke and promises while he's doing it never to do so again, a promise he remembers giving on his deathbed).

Brooke Hayward's memoir would be interesting simply because of the tragedy of her family life, especially since she's the ultimate survivor (a fact that she seems uncomfortable noting, but which is amazingly true), and the movie version just as touching.  However, the story is rather esoteric.  This is not Joan Crawford, Lana Turner or Bette Davis.  This is Margaret Sullavan, who made only a handful of movies and by the book's 1977 appearance was pretty much forgotten (outside of a few lovely movies with Jimmy Stewart).  This is also Leland Hayward, who was an entertainment "super agent" before the term exists and a producer of both film and theater, but a behind-the-scenes man, the kind only remembered decades later by those with whom he worked, not the general public.

That puts a lot of pressure on a movie version (produced in part by Brooke's brother Bill), because it means the movie version cannot trade on celebrity name to be noticed, and certainly not on camp (like "Mommie Dearest") because the story has none.  It means that a movie version has to be excellent and stand on its own, and luckily, 30+ years after it first aired on television, "Haywire" is just that.  I encourage everyone to read "Haywire," but if you can't do that, at least see "Haywire," because it is truly that special.  The movie is so faithful to the book that the screenplay often seems to be a dramatic reading of the text, which is not at all problematic as Brooke's writing is magnificent on the page.  Considering the shredding we have seen of other books-to-miniseries affairs, this one is a marvel of tact, taste and dignity.

"This is a story of carelessness and guilt, of people who lived in extremes, a story of one family, my own.  A family that had everything, grace and joy, a fair share of beauty, privilege and power…They seemed to be the fulfillment of the American dream, but something went dreadfully wrong…What distinguishes this particular story is the extraordinary effect my parents had on their children.  They failed as they succeeded, on a massive scale.  How could it have happened to us?  Why?"

That, folks, is the opening narration of this movie!  Daring, wouldn't you say?

The movie actually opens the same was as the book, with tragedy.  As plucky Brooke (Deborah Raffin, before "Lace II" killed off her career) is on her way to the theater where she is performing in an off-Broadway play, New Year's Eve, 1960.  When she calls to wish her mother and stepfather a Happy New Year, she gets the grim news that her mother died, suicide.  As Brooke sits on the train, she remembers snippets of her life, almost cinematic, becoming angrier and angrier that "just as I need her most," Margaret (Lee Remick) could have done such a thing.  Things get worse when she arrives at the theater, where her father's secretary informs her he's had the performance canceled out of respect, which infuriates Brooke.

Papa Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) is making all the arrangements for an ex-wife (one of many) he had barely spoken to in over a decade.  Seeing her father reminds her of a time he took the family to an airstrip (Leland was a licensed pilot and one of his hobbies was flying) where Brooke watched a plane plummet and kill the pilot.  Margaret wants to take Brooke, Bridget and Bill home, but Leland says, "nope, we're going up," intending to fulfill a promise he made to his children and also building them up, as strange as it may seem, to be fearless.

"Haywire" is smart enough to follow Brooke's lead on how it's written, which is a purposeful garble of time periods.  The scene with the children flying is followed by Leland telling Brooke every detail of Margaret's suicide, not sparing her anything.  That might seem callous somewhere else, but it's been established in "Haywire" already (just about 10 minutes in), that it's playing by its own rules (or Brooke's rules).

Brooke's portrait of her family members is always honest and the movie follows that lead too.  Little Brooke is in her mother's dressing rule at one point when Margaret talks about how much she hates acting and would love nothing more than to just be a wife and mother.  "I'd much rather you knew me the way I am at home, or any place but here," she tells her sensitive six-year old daughter as she tries to talk her out of seeing the play.  Margaret continues her rant after the performance, though Brooke was enchanted, saying "actors do not make good mothers and fathers, I see it all the time."  That's an awfully chilling line and the ones that follow are no nicer to the profession.

In fact, Margaret apparently went to great pains to make sure her children had no idea what her job was.  There is a harrowing scene where Margaret takes the children to the park and is followed by an autograph seeker.  Not only does she deny she's Margaret Sullavan, she launches into a blistering tirade at the woman for assuming she can get "a little bit of a person" by having a signature put into a book, but apologizes to her kids for "thoroughly bad manners" in how she treated the woman.  That's a fair and balanced portrait.

Brooke, as a child, was enthralled by her mother.  The kids were not allowed to see her movies, but understood that she would simply disappear for a job and reappear "like a comet," claiming to be "just a working mother."

At the funeral, Brooke narrates that "the two people I loved most in the world were my sister Bridget (Dianne Hull) and my brother Bill (Hart Bochner), though they had not been particularly close in the years leading up to Margaret's death.  Brooke and Bridget had a complicated relationship.  While riding in the hearse, Brooke remembers a time her sister was sleeping and she took the opportunity to tell mom how much she hated her little sister, causing Bridget to pop up from fake sleep and curse at her.  The difference between the sisters, which will manifest itself in increasingly bizarre ways, is evident from the way the view their mother's suicide.  Brooke wonders how someone could be so selfish and not think of her family, but Bridget says, "it was her life, she did what she wanted" without any trace of bitterness.

In truth, Margaret did have a selfish streak, evident on a grand scale when she moved the family to Connecticut from California where Leland's work is.  Without consulting him, she saw a house and bought it, moving the gang 3000 miles away.  Leland tries to reason with her, about his business and the kids friends, but Margaret trumps even that by saying their closest friends, Jane and Peter Fonda, are moving East as well (Henry Fonda being one of Margaret's ex-husbands did not get in the way of the closeness of their children).

In Brooke's book, perhaps the most interesting scene, full of contradictory emotions, is when Margaret insists the kids watch chicken being killed.  "It's part of nature's law," she says.  Leland refuses to watch and they bicker in terms that would frighten any child.  "Don't look," Leland says to Brooke, turning them both around as Margaret explains that the chicken will continue to run around after its head is cut off.  Brooke has her head buried in her father, but the other two watch and cringe in horror.

Leland catches Margaret writing in her journal about an almost venal need to be the perfect mother to her kids, whom she feels are slipping away, yet then dashes off to London for six months to do a play.  Rather than simply being a megabitch, Margaret is a complex woman, confident and assured, yet about what, she herself never quite understands.  Not only does that make for fascinating characterization, but imagine what Brooke must have gone through trying to figure out her mother before, during and after writing her book.

Margaret's three kids are not brought closer by their mother's death.  Bridget notes that the only way she imagined she could end her "struggles with mother" was to "push her in the river…I'd jump in after her and drown."  Bridget s the darkest of the kids, the most like her mother, which made their relationship the most complex in the family.  During their myriad arguments, which go in circles of mutual frustration, Margaret always uses the trump card of sending her to live with Leland, though Bridget sees through that ruse for what it is, a ploy for attention and guilt.

As for brother Bill, he had issues with his mother, but worse ones with his disapproving and distant father.  In a psychiatry session where both are present because Bill was kicked out of school for bringing a loaded guy ("I collect guns" is his defense, and a perfectly natural one to him), even the shrink feels Bill is best left in an institution, where he spent many years.  Bridget also spent her share of time in "nut houses," as Bill calls them, both resenting what they feel is Brooke's normalcy.

When Margaret goes to London to do a play, things crack.  First, she decrees that the kids cannot make a scene or cry as she leaves.  Leland begs her not to go and she chides him, saying, "you're breaking a rule."  In Margaret's desire to maintain order and perfect motherhood, she has a tendency to undermine or belittle emotion, which will have frightening repercussions.  Leland, who indulges the kids rather than parenting them in her absence, stops a drive at one point to reveal that when his parents divorced, "it ruined my whole life…I never understood my mother, never forgave her, cut me in half."  That, as we can all guess, is foreshadowing (in the book, Leland's mother is shown to be a rather charming eccentric who dotes on Leland and the children).  He then tells the kids, "that's one thing you'll never have to go through."

Is it any wonder that Bill would have certain conflicting emotions concerning Leland, who joked with his children at a young age that none of the things they wanted to be when they grow up would net them enough money to support him?  Even as a joke, that sort of things screws with a young mind.

The summer Margaret spent in London is the turning point for everyone.  "Somehow, life was never as bright again," Brooke narrates.  Margaret's return brings on a "family conference," the news that she and Leland are separating.  "You can't let this happen, you made me a promise," Brooke protests to Leland, who can't deny he messed that one up.

Though not in a Crawford-esque way, there is something ghoulish about Brooke's thought pattern regarding what divorce will mean.  For instance, though Margaret is careful to tell Brooke Leland's new woman is attractive and will probably be wonderful to the kids, Brooke says, "if she were dead, then there wouldn't be a divorce."  Margaret doesn't exactly disavow the notion, rather launching into an overdone Southern drawl (she was from the South) for a discourse on pride.

Leland marries socialite Nan "Slim" Hawks (Linda Gray), while Margaret starts to date British Kenneth Wagg (Richard Johnson), and the kids decide their mother will be happiest married again, so they do all they can to help Kenneth win her hand.

As the kids grow up, Margaret's nastiness regarding Leland intensifies.  He is more fun of the two parents because he lavishes them with gifts and let's them be carefree while Margaret is refusing to acknowledge they are growing up and forming impressions of their own.  Margaret sees clothes as "expensive presents," while Leland says they are "necessities" and buys his girls only the best.

Brooke is strong enough to see her parents for what they are, but Bridget's psyche undergoes irreparable damage.  She feels herself constantly living in Brooke's shadow, which is not true.  It's her stepmother who tries to coax her from her shell and be a positive influence.  Nan tells her that when she goes to boarding school in Switzerland, it will be her "chance to fly" and the advice is dead on.  On her own in Switzerland, she becomes both happy and unique.

Brooke does well at boarding school in Virginia, but Bill is having the most trouble, with plummeting grades and mischievous behavior.  Unfortunately for Bridget, "who had discovered a taste for living" while apart from her mother's smothering, Margaret decides that she cannot spend the summer before her senior year in Switzerland, mainly because she's lonely (Kenneth, his sons and Brooke are off in Scotland).

Cleaning up Bridget's room, Margaret finds a trove of stolen items that give her a window in her daughter's blackening soul, but there is worse not so hidden in the room.  According to Brooke's account, Bridget very carefully left a letter to a friend where it could be found.  The letter says, "I don't like mother.  The truth is, I hate her."  Bridget doesn't actually deny any of it.  Margaret sees the stealing as taking "little bits of people you love," but Bridget snaps that, "it's more than I ever had from you."  This scene exists in every Hollywood child's memoir, the part where a child is told, "you have been given everything," but this story has a few twists.  First, it's actually true.  Smothering though she may be, Margaret very clearly loves her children.  They are not props to her.  Second, Bridget has a plan beyond simply goading her mother into an argument (there is no "why did you adopt me?" harangue here); she wants to go live with her father.  It's not self-pity so much as budding self-awareness.

However, Margaret, somewhat understandably, does lapse into dramatics snarling at Bill that she supposed he wants to go live with Leland too.  She writes a lengthy letter to Brooke in Scotland, so Brooke and Kenneth rush home as Kenneth figures Margaret has "gone off the deep end."  When they spot her at the airport, gaunt and lacking in sleep, Brooke whispers to Kenneth that "she looks terrible" and Margaret crumples into their arms, muttering "hold me, hold me."  Brooke does her best to support her mother, who is still baffled by what she sees as the ultimate betrayal of two of her kids.  "Maybe parents shouldn't be an example.  Maybe they should be a warning to their children," Margaret tells Brooke in another of the movie's most frightening moments.

Bill is as adamant about leaving as Bridget.  Brooke finds both of them "stubborn" and "selfish," but Bill has his reasons for leaving, mainly that Margaret is always miserable and "she doesn't want to let us grow up."  "You're deserting me too, you know," Brooke tells him.  "I just assumed you'd come with us," Bill replies, figuring the three siblings share the same feelings.  When Margaret interrupts the conversation to help Bill pack, her self-control is gone almost immediately and turns so pathetic begging Bill to stay that Brooke has to turn away from watching the crumbling woman at the center of the scene.  So out of her mind is Margaret that she chases the car before falling on the grass in a crumpled mess.  "It will never be all right again," Margaret sobs.

"Mother was right, nothing was ever the same again," Brooke narrates, describing how Margaret, Bridget and Bill all ended up in asylums as "goodbye was to become the most common word in our vocabulary."

Fast forward to 1971, where Brooke is two-times divorce with three kids.  Bill calls to urge her back to NYC as Leland has had a stroke and is in the hospital.  The once-vital Leland Hayward, who could manage movies, movie stars and more all at once, is now a "slave to technology," as Brooke sees her helpless father in the bed.

This reminds Brooke of a pact she had with her father.  When she and Bridget were very young, they were singing in their bedroom during a party their parents were hosting.  Margaret repeatedly warned them to stop and threatened spankings.  When they disobeyed one last time, Leland tried to step in, but Margaret snaps, "it is not a parent's job to be popular.  You don't have the guts for it" and forges ahead with the spankings.  Leland has no heart for it and promises her after attempting it once, that he would never do it again, keeping his word as already noted.

Back in the past is the only way we can keep Bridget's story going.  Brooke remembers when Bridget was released from the institution and went to live on her own.  Though seemingly better, lines like "you   can have the clock when I die," anger and worry Brooke.

One of the most shocking scenes in Brooke's book turns into one of the most shocking scenes in "Haywire," if only because it's so utterly ludicrous (and way ahead of its time).  Brooke and Bill want Leland unhooked from all of the medical equipment to die at home with dignity  The doctor is aghast that anyone would willing let someone go, no matter the quality of life.  "Think of him as a pet…a creature you're fond of, that you love, that needs you to look after him," the doctor tells them.  "You know, doc, you're loonier than I ever was," Bill says, for once the voice of reason since Brooke is too shocked to reply.

Back in the past, 11 years earlier to be exact, right after Bill and Bridget left home, Margaret descending into wild self-pity faster than into the bottle, decides to go back to work as an actress.  Playing a nun on a television broadcast.  A misplaced prop causes a huge argument between Margaret and the young director (Christopher Guest), ending only when she storms off the set and refuses to return, all within 24 hours of the broadcast.  She ends up at their old family house in Connecticut, lying in the dirt in a depressed semi-coma.  Brooke visits her, informing Margaret that she's taking acting classes, much to the latter's chagrin.

In 1971, Leland is begging his children to let him die at home.  "Get me out," he says in a rare moment of lucidity.  Back into the past we go, this time following one of Bill's escape attempts from his Midwestern institution.  He and his rather ditzy companion are captured the next day.  Brooke tries to get Leland to free him, but Leland is adamant that Bill stay incarcerated.  Ultimately, Leland caves and rescues his son from jail.  Though not before Jason Robards makes sure to snag a whopper speech for himself (Lee Remick has gotten all of the good tirades so far).  A hissing Leland threatens to cut Bill out of the will, though Bill gets the upper hand quickly when Leland admits he and Nan are kaput.  Bill seems awfully sane, raging that Leland had him committed without a trial or any defense.  Bill works some kind of charm on his father, who gets the institution to keep him only three more months and then free him.

Also back in the past is Bridget, who has gotten a summer internship at the Williamstown Theater Festival after being released from her confinement.  She may even have fallen in love, but rather than enjoy it, she picks a fight with Brooke, only to then turning sugary sweet to end it.  She is quickly quickly slipping into a terrible fight with depression and medication, not to mention alcohol.

In and out of the past with Leland, Brooke and Bill seem to make their peace with him.  After a military stint, Bill even went on to co-produce "Easy Rider."  That leaves only Bridget and the summation of her story.  Sometime in the 60s, around the time she was fighting with Brooke at Williamstown she discovered she had epilepsy, which was still then considered by many to be emotional and not physical.  Apparently, this has been going on since she was in school in Switzerland and declared legally dead at one point!

Bill asks Leland who the top 10 most beautiful women are and sickly Leland has answers ready.  Three he married (twice to Lola, once to Margaret, once to Nan, though his current wife Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman is not mentioned), Kate Hepburn, Garbo, Fay Wray, a shock to all of them, Dietrich, Isak Deniesen, Justine Johnson and Esme O'Brian.  The last two are completely unknown to the kids, but when an attendant comes in to unhook him to take him home, where everyone has agreed he should be when he dies, he asks where Bridget is, a sign of certain confusion, though Brooke lets it pass without correcting him.

It's at this moment, very near the end of the movie, that the miniseries veers from the book, and really only for dramatic purposes.  What happens in the next few scenes with Brooke are actually part of the opening of the book.  There is no judgment to be made here.  The book had a very specific structure that used the past to explain the present, where the movie does have to make sure it keeps the drama going at regular intervals.  The outcome is the same and faithful to Brooke's interpretation.

That causes Brooke to flash back to a night about a decade before when a chipper Bridget called in the middle of the night to tell Brooke she was pregnant and that the next morning, she would cook her big sister a great breakfast.  It's an odd conversation, no matter how you look at it, unless you are Brooke.  From the outside, it's clear Bridget is suffering a manic episode, extreme happiness that slowly mutates into something darker, even if just barely.  Bridget herself even recognizes all is to well and brings up examples from the past to illustrate it.  However, Brooke, though puzzled, just chalks it up to a bit of sisterly strangeness.

Brooke shows up the next morning as planned and as she pounds on the door yelling Bridget's name, it's intercut with Kenneth doing the same to Margaret back in 1960.  Without having to say a word, it's clear what has happened to Bridget.  However, Brooke does have have the door burst down, because she had, in her own words, and "intense" desire to maintain Bridget's beloved privacy.  It's not until after a day of errands that Brooke arrives home to hear the news of her sister's death.

At a memorial service for Bridget, a friend tells Brooke that yes, she had the worst genetics a family can concoct, so "you either go over to that window and jump or you go on."  Back in the present, Leland asks her what is the one time in her life to which she would most eagerly return.  She declines an immediate answer.  He is taken home to die and soon Brooke is summoned to his home, but by the time she arrives, Leland has died.  She insists on seeing him, saying "there's something I have to tell him, I promised."  The theme of promises kept and broken is remaining potent and integral through the final moments.

The moment Brooke wants back?  A time Leland decided to drive to see Margaret, long after the divorce, to discuss Bridget's problems.  After a 12-year separation, Margaret is very nervous, but manages a calmness once she actually shows.  The tension is quickly broken and perhaps some wounds are healed.  In the present, Brooke becomes a mess of tears as she realizes her parents always loved each other, no matter the time spent apart and that was the moment that made it clear to her.  This she relays to her father's corpse.

"I wept for my family, all of us.  For excesses, our delusions, our inconsistencies.  Not that we cared too much or too little, but that we had been careless with the best of our resources, each other.  It's as if we had taken for granted, like our talents and interests and riches, another chance, another summer, another Maggie, another Leland, another Brooke or Bridget or Bill," Brooke narrates to close the miniseries.

What a perfect ending!  Why?  Because nowhere in that sentence is there even a scrap of Hollywood self-pity.  If it hasn't been obvious since the beginning, what makes "Haywire" so interesting is that it's about a typical family.  It may not seems so since there are famous names involved, but the celebrity aspect of these character is rarely even a plot point.  Compare that with most star or child of star autobiographies.  No, "Haywire" is almost a mental health primer for coping with the ups and downs of its various forms.  Most of the time, this family of five got it wrong and the consequences were sadly permanent.  However, that does not make them special as this story is endlessly repeated by hundreds, thousands, of families who lose control to such debilitating conditions.

So "Haywire" exists sui generis as a miniseries.  It's neither romance, history nor adventure.  It's the story of a family full of unique individuals who were like molecules bouncing a million times a minute, trying to get away from each other, when the reasons they were doing so were just what should have been keeping them together: it's the inside of the American dream, what goes on behind the picket fences and manicured lawns, behind the frozen smiles and apple pies.  It's the truths of the Hayward family, unpleasant, forlorn, depressing, yet accessible and understandable.

ESSENTIAL TELEMOVIES: The Count of Monte-Cristo (975)

There are a lot of filmed versions of Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo," which is one of the world's greatest novels, for my money, perhaps the best French novel (no offense to Proust or Balzac, but this one is, a mon avis, so absolutely perfect that even translations of it keep it fully intact as opposed to a loss of power that comes with translations of Sarte, Camus and especially Proust).  Dumas hits his zenith here and his ability to construct and control a plot is nothing short of breathtaking.

Many of the filmed versions are excellent, but most people will know only of the 2002 version, which is downright dreadful.  Compared to that, this one seems like complete heaven

The downside of this version is its brevity, clocking in at just over 90 minutes.  To film the whole novel, it would take longer than a Wouk miniseries, and that was simply never going to happen, not on a non-American piece that wasn't about a war or our history.  If it were going to happen, it also would not have happened by 1975, just when the miniseries was getting its start.

Because of the abbreviated run time, gigantic sections of the novel are omitted and what's left is very changed.  However, if one puts aside Dumas' novel and regards this just as as television movie, the impact is terrific.  Richard Chamberlain is ideally cast as the swashbuckling and complex Dantes.

All of that is great and wonderful, but why add this one to the list of "Essential Telemovies?"  Because it behaves like a miniseries and anticipates what the miniseries would very shortly be doing.  As noted it's unlikely Dumas would ever be considered for miniseries treatment because he's French.  The miniseries glorified American novelists, and when it did, it wasn't afraid of length: Haley, Wouk, Shaw, Jakes, Michener, even dear Alexandra Ripley.

In 1975, there was no way of knowing that the greatest of miniseries, or at least the most opulently filmed, would be under some sort of strict code of Americana, so Dumas squeaks in as a lesson in how to film a great book, how to handle the adventure, the sweep, the romance.  It's packed with slumming vets, it look like a zillion dollars went into it and it stars Richard Chamberlain.  Sounds very much like a miniseries to me!  I, for one, would have thrilled to see what someone would have done with the full novel circa 1983 or so.

FYI, I'm not sure who decided it had to be so, but this version puts a hyphen in the title.  Why?  Beats me.

FYI, though the novel is so well known I probably should use character names instead of those of the actors, since so many of the novels characters have been ingloriously dumped, I'll go with actor names (How can you do "Count of Monte Cristo" without Luigi Vampa?  It's possible, but I'm not thrilled!).

There is much excitement on the wharf in Marseilles, where Richard Chamberlain has arrived safely after a long journey, bringing a great haul of merchandise.  His love Kate Nelligan is there, as is Tony Curtis (the movie's biggest casting misstep), made up to look like Napoleon with a ridiculous wig, his rival for Kate's hand.  Also stirring up trouble is Donald Pleasence, on the boat with Richard, who can't wait to tell anyone with ears that Richard took over as captain of the ship the very second the actual captain breathed his last.  Alessio Orano is arrested for theft on the boat, another unhappy man who would be thrilled if Richard got some comeuppance.  "You must stop being so generous to the world, Monsieur Dantes, God will get jealous," Alessio quips when Richard orders him freed.

Speaking of Napoleon, the ship's dead captain had forced the ship to stop at Elba, though no one knows why.  Richard has a note to deliver from the captain, but he hasn't read it.

"Another member of the club," Alessio cracks when Tony joins him and Donald at a pub.  "What club?" Donald wants to know.  "A club for the destruction of Edmund Dantes," Alessio says.  Okay, it's not as subtle as Dumas, but remember, we've agreed to put aside the novel and just focus on the movie.  Donald tells the other two they "take advantage" of the fact that Richard has the note from Elba.

As the villains plot, Richard (who spies them together), is reveling in happiness with his father and Kate, even enjoying a wedding rehearsal.  Miniseries rules will tell us a man enjoying this much happiness is going to get kicked in the gut very quickly.  Indeed, he's arrested as soon as they leave the church, leaving Kate to shout herself hoarse.

The prosecutor is Louis Jourdan.  Richard is stunned to hear he has any political connections with Napoleon, as all he cares about are his job, his father and his fiancee.  Louis demands to see the note Richard carries from the captain, which Louis pronounces to be proof of his innocence, because what the note contains is so inflammatory, Richard would have denied knowing of it or having it if he had read it.  However, just as Louis is letting Richard go, he finds out the name of the letter's intended recipient, and decides to detain him.  He warns Richard not to speak to anyone of the letter and not to answer any questions as he burns the letter.  Louis is awfully upset by the name of the recipient, who happens to be his father.

Rather than spending an innocent night at the Palais du Justice as Louis has promised him, Richard is rowed to the infamous Chateau d'If, an island prison from which there is no hope of escape.  He is baffled, wondering "what have I done?  What is my crime?"  Richard melodramatically reaches his hand through the bars of a small window for his beloved Kate.

Years pass, a beard grows, and Richard has no contact with the world except to get his daily rations, until one day he hears a tapping at one of the walls.  The voice on the other side of the wall informs him Richard has been incarcerated for 10 years and when they can dislodge a stone, into his cell comes the ghost-like Trevor Howard.  The two are overjoyed to see another human being.

Trevor has been digging at the wall for over three years.  He thought he was digging to freedom, but his calculations were incorrect and his magnificent tunnel let to Richard's room instead.  Trevor takes him to his cell, where he concocted an arsenal of tools and supplies out of the meager offerings of the guards.  Richard agrees to help Trevor dig to the sea, which will take a few years, if Trevor will teach him all he knows.  There is mathematics, philosophy, languages, everything, and even enough deductive reasoning to figure out who may be behind the plot to destroy him.

This part of the movie goes by fairly quickly, proof that the run time hacks away rather oddly at the story and Richard's jump to vengeance comes way too fast, though Trevor tries to stop him from pursuing it.  But, it's understandable as no movie wants to be trapped in a prison when what comes next is far more exciting.  As Trevor is dying, he gives Richard a map of the island of Monte Cristo, where "one of the great treasures of the world" has been buried for close to 400 years.  "Do great charitable deeds with it," he insists.

When Trevor dies, his body is sewn up in burlap and left in his cell until the tide is ready to accept dead bodies.  Richard moves Trevor's body to his own cell and places himself in the burlap.  Thus, it is his body thrown into the sea with a weighty rock.  He manages to free himself from the burlap.  All he can do now is swim and swim (he had been building up his strength with exercises in his cell).  He is rescued by a Corsican smugglers who figure out he's escaped from the Chateau d'If.

In Marseilles, the Corsicans find out for Richard that Kate is married to Tony and his father has died "of starvation."  Revenge is all he can consider.  Fully trusting his new friends, he eventually takes them to Monte Cristo and the possibility of finding the buried treasure.  It is there, just as promised, and he swears to uphold Trevor's desire to see it used for good deeds, also promising himself revenge.

In five years, the legend of the Count of Monte Cristo is born, a man with unlimited money who spends recklessly.  The first of his would-be victims he visits is Donald, who doesn't recognize the white-haired imposing Richard as his former shipmate.  Donald, now a banker, is overjoyed when the Count wants to invest millions in his bank.  Donald takes him to Louis' house under the guise of needing protection for his new mansion in Paris.  Richard is charmed with Louis' daughter, Taryn Power, who takes him to see her grandfather, who cannot speak and communicates by blinking his eyes.  Richard is cursing him and revealing his plan when Taryn returns to the room with Mercedes' son by her husband, Tony Curtis.

The next visit is to Tony, now a famous general, and Kate, his long-lost love.  I her quizzical look recognition?

Using common thief Carlo Puri to pose as a fake Italian count to woo Taryn, Richard has everything in place to unfurl his wild revenge scheme, honed to perfection after so many years of consideration.

He aims to ruin Donald financially, relieving him of his money and his clients in one swoop.  It's a terrific scheme and Donald falls easily into the trap.

Alessio is next.  He has been imprisoned and blames it on Carlo, so Richard arranges for them to meet.  When they do, a giant courtyard fight ensues, which Richard watches with pleasure from above. Carlo mortally wounds Alessio and Richard has Carlo carted off to the police.  "One," Richard says.

The hurt to Alessio is only tangential.  The real prize is Louis.  When Louis finds out Carlo is a phony to whom he almost wed his daughter, Louis decides to prosecute him himself.  Richard has other ideas during the trial, having coached him to reveal himself as Louis' son in open court.  The story Carlo is told to tell is a whopper, one that will ruin Louis.  "Two."

Immediately after, the plan for Donald comes to fruition, charged with embezzlement and facing utter financial ruin.  He kills himself.  "Three."

Mercedes' son, Dominic Guard, challenges Richard to a duel for besmirching his father's name in the paper that Richard owns.  As Richard practices his shooting, Kate arrives, announcing, rather than asking, that "you will not kill my son."  Dressed like Mrs. Claus, Kate admits that it's not Tony's fault, that she married out of loneliness.  However, Richard shows her the original letter that Tony helped put him in prison and informs her it's not because he stole Richard's fiancee, but because he was responsible for Richard's father's death.  Kate gets to give one hell of an impassioned speech and since she can actually act, it comes off well.

Before the duel, Kate apparently tells her son the whole story and he ends up apologizing to Richard, who takes a moment to admit to himself, "I am the emissary of God.  I have been spared to carry out his will."

The revenge plot against Tony is more complicated, dealing with the wife and daughter of the Ali Pasha, whom he met in battle.  He had promised to care of the wife and daughter, but claims they are dead.  Not so, as the daughter has been Richard's lover for a long time in the hopes of joining him in revenge.  She shows up at the military tribunal to accuse Tony (who doesn't attempt anything further than his own Brooklyn accent) of selling her and her mother into slavery and killing Ali Pasha himself. Richard shows up and reveals himself as Dantes.  "Before you kick this dog to death," Tony tells Richard, "he barks," replies Richard.  "Bites!" insists Tony and they engage in a sword fight in front of the tribunal.  Richard does not kill him, but losing Tony is instead arrested.  "Four," Richard notes proudly.

Richard is free to pursue Kate, whom he finds has gone to Marseilles, headed for Africa to be near her son, having joined the army to erase the sting of his father's conviction.  Kate does not fall into his arms as expected.  His role as "avenging angel may not ask for forgiveness," she says.  Has a life lived for revenge robbed him of the one thing he perhaps wanted more than anything?

Ah, there was a time when television was fun, and because of good scripts, acting and stories!