Marco Polo (1982)

The great thing about the story of Marco Polo's adventures in Asia is that no one knows what really happened, so telling the story can be as fanciful as the imagination allows.  Marco Polo himself had a little trouble with the truth, often altering events, or making them up, in order to make his writing more attractive.  Biographers in the many centuries since his escapades have had only minor success in discovering more about the man since they tend to base their writings on his.

What is undeniably true is that Marco Polo was one of the very first "Westerners" to travel across the vast open spaces of Asia, and one of the first to commit his journey to paper.  He gets credit for opening up trade between East and West, even though in his own book he's not the first to do so (his father and uncle had already been there and back before taking him along).  What is also undeniably true is that Marco Polo had color and flair, writing so vividly that the reader, even centuries later, cannot help but be captivated.  What better medium than the miniseries to tell this thrilling tale of adventure and discovery?  It has a bigger story than even "Shogun," which is saying a lot, and it doesn't need to stick to any actual facts since the subject himself didn't, meaning we can bring on the gorgeous sets and costumes and not worry at all about historical accuracy. 

There are umpteen version of Marco Polo's story, but only one is an Emmy Winner, for "Best Limited Series" as the miniseries category was still called in 1982.  This is primarily an Italian production with a primarily (sometimes comically) American cast, so it's hokey at times, for sure, but no expense is spared, that's for sure.  It's a riot of color and noise and imagination at its best, talky and a bit giddy in deciding that all men in the Thirteenth Century were created equal (even if they were, no one believed it then) at its worst.

Let's collectively go back to the thirteen century, about as far back as a miniseries is willing to go if Jesus isn't involved.  As we would expect, the miniseries starts after the events so we can learn them in flashback.  It's 1282 and Marco Polo is an aging Venetian fighting in a long war against Genoa.  A better traveler and writer than warrior, Marco (Ken Marshall) is captured during a battle and languishes in prison.  We pick the story back up in 1298 (a year before his release).  I issue a warning: the first part of the miniseries is very slow, but give it time. 

Marco's cell mate is Rustichello (David Warner), who has committed Marco's adventures to paper, angering the church, because everything back then angered the church.  Priests are accusing Rustichello of "corrupting the minds of the young and innocent" with the stories written.  Rustichello, who fancies himself a writer and wishes the priests would read his other works, defends Marco's stories as true, even if they are about pagan cultures that so infuriate the church. They force Rustichello to tell repeat everything, not able to make much of his rambling writings.  Periodically, the miniseries will remember that Rustichello exists and return to him and the inquisitive priests for a few moments, none at all necessary.

Rustichello starts with Marco's birth and early years.  His father and uncle have been gone since before he was born and young Marco waits by the wharf in Venice for any news of his father.  Mom (Anne Bancroft) is dying, so he is taken care of mostly by Aunt Flora (Sada Thompson).  "You're like your father. A house is too small for you," Brooklyn-ish Italian matron Mama Polo says, clinging to an out-dated version of her long-gone husband, promising he'll return and take care of the young lad.  A compulsive crier, Mama Polo has heard nothing of her husband for years.  In the middle of a heaving sobfest, she dies.

"She didn't leave a penny for any of us," practical Aunt Flora notes as she and her husband take over Marco's house.  She's not thrilled with the situation, but she gets a nice big bedroom out of the deal now that Mama Polo is gone.  She even goes after Marco's absent father, saying he never sent any money home, "only these, pagan objects that shouldn't be kept in a Christian home" (referring to some bric-a-brac from Asia).  Believing the objects have not only killed Marco's mother, but also put a hex on the home, she tosses them into the water outside the bedroom window and delivers a glowering speech about how Marco's father has cursed them all by consorting with any number of horrible people.  Marco runs off in tears, and Aunt Flora shouts, "Marco, what's wrong with you?"  Hmm, could it be that you just denigrated both of his parents, one absent his whole life and the other a fresh corpse?

By 1269, our Marco has grown into a strapping lad, waiting every day for his father's return.  One morning, a "ghost ship" is spotted and Marco hurries over to it, told to stay away because they are in quarantine.  Alas, his father and uncle are not on that ship.  "There's a whole world out there, beyond the lagoon, vast as the sky," Marco tells all those around him, still believing in the fanciful notions he's hobbled together from sailors and others who have traveled outside of Venice.  In fact, Marco is a dreamer so bad that his uncle snarls at him, "where is your head?  I'll have to nail it back to your shoulders" after Marco gives the fish he's bought on behalf of his uncle to a pretty young girl he's just met. 

The girl would be Caterina (Georgia Slowe), a wealthier Venetian who may be pretty, but is way too lofty to be at all interesting.  She patiently listens to Marco's desires and he gives her the only figuring he still has left from his father, made of jade, which she describes as "rock made of water and grass."  At least she's an island of sweetness in Marco's drab life (even if her mother is the town's most notorious courtesan, as Marco finds out later).  When Marco isn't at the docks hearing that his uncle and father were probably killed in the nastiest ways by Mongols, Aunt Flora is shouting at him such charming lines as  "this isn't a tavern!  Dinner was ready for you three hours ago like it was for everyone else," or "working your fingers to the bone for a lazy dreamer, that's what life is...what else can I expect from my brother's son, a man who leaves his family, disappears, wanders off God knows where, is lost out there."  She's a completely charmless woman, Aunt Flora.  Even more dour at the priests who hound him for his wayward thinking, at the same time laying on guilt even thicker than Aunt Flora. 

Marco decides it's time to take his boat and Caterina to find his father.  It's not a particularly good idea since it's only a tiny boat, hardly capable of making out of Venice, let alone to somewhere beyond imagination.  Bad weather forces him back after just a night, and wouldn't you know, it's that VERY night that Marco's father and uncle return to Venice.  Uncle Matteo (Tony Vogel) and Papa Niccolo (Denholm Elliott) look more Asian than European when first seen, a tribute to the time spent abroad.  "I'm not one for writing letters," Niccolo tells Marco when the latter says that Mama Polo never stopped hoping for word from him. 

More than a little mysterious and unspecific about their travels Uncle Matteo and Papa Niccolo do show the family some gems they have smuggled back, but they did not return with a fortune.  Kublai Khan has seen to that.  He's kept it as assurance that they will return.  "You see, Marco," Niccolo says, "we're not exactly as we seem.  We left as merchants, but we've returned as ambassadors from the great Khan to the Doge of Venice."

That's a cue line if ever I've heard one.

In 1271, Niccolo and Matteo go to visit The Doge (John Gielgud, who else?) and the Patriarch of Aquileia (John Houseman, who else?).  "The days of Genghis Khan are long over, except it seems, in the imagination of Europe.  His successor, Kublai, is a man of peace, cultured and tolerant," Niccolo says, speaking of Kublai's desires for trade.  The Patriarch is deeply suspicious.  "Everyone knows that these mongrels are a race of bloodthirsty savages," he notes, but Niccolo doesn't let up, saying, "yet it was only when we reached 'civilization' that we were robbed."  That point is clear!  They present the Doge with a gold ticket, Kublai Khan's get-out-of-my-kingdom-with-your-life treat.  The Patriarch refuses to believe that trade on a scale the Polo brothers describe is possible, and that all of the non-Christians they have met have poisoned their minds.  They try to remind the Patriarch that the Mongol Empire is at least 10 times larger than Europe, with the underlying threat that if Venice disagrees with Kublai Khan, it could be disastrous.

Luckily, The Doge is a bit more realistic.  He's willing to trade, though he isn't sure how it could be done.  The Polos show him "paper money," a concept Europe had not yet grasped, and assure him (and the puffing Patriarch) that there is more than enough in the way of gold and jewels to back it up.  Unfortunately, Europe is in the so-called "Dark Ages" for reason, and one of the town father's holds a gold coin up to a candle, saying it is indestructible, followed by a piece of Mongol paper money, which goes up in flames.  "You have just burned the equivalent of 20 pounds of silver," Niccolo says dryly.  The Patriarch returns to the topic of religion.  Niccolo assures him that Kublai Khan is interested in all religions ("the sign of a true barbarian," the Patriarch sniffs) and asks The Pope to send 100 of the most learned men to him so they can make an argument for Christianity.  There are two problems with that, according to the Patriarch.  The first is that it sounds like a denigration to Christianity, according to the grumpy Patriarch and, oh yeah, there is no Pope.  There hasn't been one for three years because the Cardinals can't agree on anyone.

The Polos get a chance with The Doge alone.  He is more than willing to entertain a peace with Kublai Khan if it means great wealth for Venice.  "Return to your Khan and tell him that Venice is willing to shake the hand she extends to us," The Doge finally tells them, no matter what the Patriarch says.  He has to do what is best for Venice and not wait for a Pope to be elected.  Niccolo is a bit worried about Kublai Khan's reaction when they return without 100 men from Rome, but The Doge insists they go, eager to start trading, because there is no sign a Papal election will come any time soon.

Off go the Polo brothers, getting together a crew that includes Jacopo (F. Murray Abraham), but not Marco, who argues with his father until the latter is exhausted by fighting.  Uncle Matteo isn't much help, and Marco reminds them of their words that Venetians are born travelers (even in that one letter he has memorized).  Just as Niccolo is about to say yes, Aunt Flora interrupts to tell him that Caterina's father shows up to pressure the Polos.  He's convinced that Marco and Caterina had sex that one night at sea, so now she's "ruined."  It all comes down to money.  He takes money, but only for now.  "If it were me, I'd have his guts on a plate," the father says, but he gives them three days to come up with a more satisfactory amount.  Papa Niccolo refuses to let Marco marry the girl, since she's the daughter of a whore, so there is only way out of it: let Marco travel with them.  "Only as far as Acre," Niccolo says, but we know something will cause that to change.

Marco has one last conversation with Caterina.  He tries to convince her to join him, but she can't go.  She gets long winded, as usual, but has to stay, in order to marry a man of position in Venice as her parents have decided. 

With Caterina out of the way, off the Polos go on what will surely be the adventure of Marco's lifetime.  The first stop is indeed Palestine.  "Will we get to see the Crusaders?" Marco wants to know, like an eager child at the zoo.  This is really where the miniseries really starts.  In Acre, the Polos visit the Papal Legate (Burt Lancaster, not so who else?).  We have a repeat of The Doge and The Patriarch, arguing over whether they need to open up trade with those further east for religious or financial purposes?  The Papal Legate is more reasonable, hoping that the Italians had seen the lights (which they didn't) and that Kublai Khan is worthy of "friendly relations."  After all, there is the famous "Pax Mongolia," Kublai Khan's pan-religious tolerance and the chance for the Christians to stretch around the world. 

There's another reason for the stop in Palestine.  They need the Papal Legate's help to get some oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is under Muslim control, as per Kublai Khan's wishes.  It's the Papal Legate who insists Marco continue on the journey, giving the elder Polos one hell of a guilt trip that they can't refuse.  Given letters of safe conduct to Jerusalem, Marco sees his first Bedouins...and sees them harassed and slaughtered by Crusaders for no actual reason.  The miniseries manages to take both points of view so as not to offend anyone.  Uncle Matteo makes a lofty speech about the dedication of the Crusaders, but Marco keeps insisting the Bedouins were not warriors.  "If you want to survive in this world, you can't go around make rash judgements," Uncle Matteo says, before pointing out they are sitting in the Garden of Gethsemane.  That's awfully convenient!  I guess we know which side of the argument the creators actually picked, without having to say so.

At the church, the priest is awfully cranky about giving away any of the scarce oil, despite the Legate's orders, but a few coins change that.  "That's their right.  They need the money," Niccolo rationalizes.  Forgive the miniseries for going a bit daffy as Marco suddenly has an insane desire to be all hoity-toity religious, with the lighting on his face making him look like the Christ himself. 

Unfortunately, their journey on is delayed AGAIN because the Legate summons them back to Acre with some news.  He has been chosen Pope, "unworthy as I am," he says like a Jewish mother, arms outstretched like a proper Pope.  Haul out the incense, the candles and the bald priests, it's time to make a Pope!  He's now Pope Gregory X and Marco is there to witness it (this is nowhere in his book, as it does not match up historically).  That's forgivable, but Marco's impassioned speech to The Pope about what he's seen so far in Palestine actually resulting in The Pope saying he "has a lot to answer for."  A Christian Pope in the Thirteen Century?  Not likely.

Okay, so the Polos have the oil.  What about those 100 scholars to argue for Christianity at Kublai Khan's court?  The Pope has only two men to send, Brother Nicholas (Tony LoBianco) and Brother William (Hal Buckley).  Hey, maybe Kublai Khan will be having a bad day when they arrive and won't notice 98 missing learned men.  They are given full rights to Christianize anyone encountered in any way possible. 

The Polos wander through the desert, bypassing local wars, but encountering harsh climates and exhausting terrain.  At an oasis, they discover a dead Muslim with leprosy, so they can't drink the water.  Even more shocking is a battlefield they find, with only a few animals alive among hundreds of dead bodies.  At least there is water.  Brothers Nicholas and William start to rebel against the Polos, declaring themselves in charge and questioning the decisions of the experienced travelers.  Only Marco seems immune to the difficulties, taking copious notes in his diary.  There's a curious scene where the elder Polos wonder about Marco.  Niccolo knows nothing about his son (saying "he's so different than me"), but Uncle Matteo says the kid is strong and will be of use.  The travelers are taken to an enemy camp after an ambush.  These are the most unlucky travelers this side of an "Airport" disaster movie.

The leader of the Muslim camp is Ali Ben Youssouf (Ian McShane), who was born Italian but taken as a slave by Muslims until he learned the glory of Allah.  He serves as a mouthpiece for Islam, explaining all that is great about his religion and making note of what is lacking in Christianity.  Rather than killing them, he spares all of their lives because he was once saved by a Christian.  The wrinkle is that he wants them to return to Palestine, and they want to continue going east.  He won't stop them, but he warns them only death awaits them because it's so barren.  It's not because of Kublai Khan, because Ali Ben Youssouf has a prison full of Mongols, which gives him the false idea that the Mongols are conquerable. 

That last thought is not lost on Brother Nicholas, who believes what he's seen and heard, so he and Brother William decide to return to Palestine.  "Cowards!" Niccolo snaps. Even Jacopo, who talks as if he's playing a court jester, thinks going back is the right thing to do, but Niccolo draws his sword and says they are all pressing forward, "even if it means that I have to drag you by the ears or tie you to my saddle."  He puts Marco in charge of guarding the priests so they cannot escape, but Marco falls asleep, leaving a servant to do it, and of course they escape.  Niccolo is awfully angry at his son, but there will be plenty of time for them to hopefully work that out over their long journey.

It's decided the best route is through the Straights of Hormuz.  The first thing they encounter is a funeral, replete with wailing widows because plague has hit the down.  All of the boats are burned, causing Matteo to quip, "well, we won't be going by sea."  One of the servants dies and Marco gets very sick.  The upside of the latter is that "father and son found each other at last," Rustichello narrates, saying further that "Niccolo's love kept Marco alive."  That's a bit much, but luckily we've now moved beyond the father-son issues and can concentrate on the adventure. 

Marco fully recovers in Badakshan, in Afghanistan, which is referred to many times as "paradise."  Here his father teaches him song of the useful languages he will be needing.  One is allowed to laugh as Marco's name is called in the echoing mountains and he doesn't call back "Polo!"  They are forced to cross a very narrow bridge in frigid wind, and awfully hair-raising experience as the animals are dragged through the river's strong current below.  This brings them to the Pamir Range, bleak and full of miles and miles of snow.  The horses now become the problem, "afraid of the evil spirits of the mountains," according to Uncle Matteo, though Niccolo thinks this is nonsense.

The horses are right.  There's a spectacular avalanche at that very moment!  Marco wakes up in a room filled with scary-looking statues, which isn't even the oddest part.  What's with the man who levitates?  He is in a Buddhist lamasery, full of holy men.  It's these men who are responsible for saving Marco's life and he's enchanted by the peace and interesting thoughts to which he's exposed.  The movie certainly goes to great lengths to spotlight Buddhism's teachings of serenity over what catastrophic death-inducing Christianity and Islam we've so far seen.  The monks want him to stay with them and learn Buddhism, but Marco says, "I swore an oath to the Father of my church," and no one argues.  It is his destiny.  He hasn't received treatment this understanding since birth! 

Now they are officially on the Asian steppes, enormous wide open spaces controlled by the Mongols, who almost silently manage to surround them, but Niccolo produces the golden ticket and that is their safe passage.  By 1275, they have finally reached Gansu in Northern China.  That skips a huge amount of the story, but frankly, in Marco Polo's actual writing, this time period isn't particularly special.  He describes every sight and sound he encounters, but none of it is all that thrilling.  They travel under the protection of Bektor Khan (Hessen En), an elderly clan leader. 

Bektor's movable court is full of smiling people who treat the Polo party kindly.  Of course, Jacopo is never very happy, so he doesn't like the local alcohol (fermented mare's milk) and complains, "where is the good wine of Venice?"  He's really starting to become an irritant.  In the camp, Marco is delighted at the music and dance and displays or horsemanship performed, not to mention the giggling women Matteo tells him are Bektor's wives.  The harmony is almost too giddy, such as when the discussion of marriages arises.  Bektor asks Marco how many wives he has, shocked to hear he has none at age 21, when he had five already.  "Here we make sure every mare born is immediately given a rider," Bektor jokes, with the whole camp laughing along.  With waves of guffaws circling the gang, a wrestling match is put on for Marco's entertainment.  Bektor's son bests two wrestlers and then a very drunk Marco jumps into the fray, proving to be a worthy opponent. 

Caidu Khan (Shaokang Yu), Kublai's nephew, arrives to pick new horses, having a conversation with Marco about the worthiness of horses.  Marco has learned a great deal and is able to speak intelligently on the subject.  Caidu tests Marco's sense of fear (which Marco passes) and then goes into a rambling speech about how the Mongols should never be city-dwellers as Kublai Khan has become. 

By the summer of 1275, the Polos have reached the legendary Shang-Du, Kublai Khan's breathtaking summer retreat, the most spectacular city yet encountered (not that they have seen too many since Palestine, to be fair).  Marco learns about coal here.  "They'd never believe that in Venice, burning stone?" Marco says.  After bathing, it's time for their audience with the Mongol leader.

There is a rule for everything when it comes to being in Kublai Khan's presence, but luckily the elder Polos know them all and are welcomed back warmly by Kublai himself (Ruocheng Ying).  Kublai wants to know where the 100 learned men are, and is offended when Niccolo refers to the Pope as Kublai's "brother."  "Yours is the only religion that has turned an instrument of death into an object of beauty and a symbol of power," Kublai says as he regards the gift of a jewel-encrusted cross.  He is most excited to receive the oil from Jerusalem.  Kublai is thrilled that the Polos have returned as promised and he doubles all of their personal holdings, which have been kept in safekeeping for them.

Kublai sends Marco off with the oil to Empress Chabi (Beulah Quo) since Marco has been the one to carry it the entire way.  Marco explains that the oil has the power to heal for believers, and Empress Chabi seems awfully up on all things Christian.  She knows of the "palaces of gold" in Rome.  Marco, who has never been there, tells what he has heard of it, and Empress Chabi eats them up.  "Nothing in China can be compared with it, I'm sure," the Empress says, her eyes aglow in wonder, though Marco wisely says that the two places are very different and cannot be compared. 

The dancing and beauty of Bektor's movable court are nothing compared to what Marco sees in Shang-Du.  Sumptuous gowns, food beyond imagination and dancing girls all over the place.  Marco is astonished to see that the Chinese have printing presses (yet unknown in Europe) and the plethora of books, noting that everyone can learn in China, whereas in Venice, only the wealthy can do so.  However, Marco is also told by Prince Chinkin (Junichi Ishida) that all is not perfect in the Khan's dominions, as war is about to break out with the Song Dynasty in Southern China.  But, war is far off, so Kublai Khan puts on an astounding production number for the visitors that ends in a cascade of fireworks. 

"Anything that's new fascinates me," Marco says, more of a goon all the time, when shown a clock by Kublai Khan.  Furthermore, based on what he sees of Marco and what the Empress says, Kublai learns to rely on him, even granting him permission to sit or stand in his presence.  The sense of adventure comes to a screeching halt when Marco tells Kublai Khan what he's interested in: farming, caring for the elderly, asbestos, wild sheep and on and on.  Laying in on thick, aren't we?  Within about 18 seconds, Kublai Khan is so impressed by Marco's notes that he decides to reorganize his empire to some degree.  "The world may be conquered on horseback, but cannot be ruled from it," Kublai Khan decrees.  He then dispatches Marco to Phags-Pa (James Hong), the keeper of the information, who is no fan of the Westerners, and one of those villains who all but tugs at his beard with dripping nastiness (only because he doesn't have a beard).  Phags-Pa hates that Marco has dazzled the royal family and become a favorite.

At times, the dialogue sounds as if it were written by the UN.  When Marco tries to use a Mongol bow and arrow, he finds his strength no match for the special bow.  He asks his servant to show him, but the servant is aghast.  He's not allowed "because I am Chinese."  "And I am Venetian, what's the difference?" Marco says.  We all have to learn from each other, and so on and so forth.  To be fair, Marco Polo's writings allow for an astonishing amount of racial tolerance, especially for the Thirteenth Century (although, to be historically accurate, if he really did keep the diary he claims, it was always subject to the eyes of the Mongol court, so he no doubt went overboard in that era's version of political correctness), but he's never as sappy as the miniseries Marco.  Trotting out the words "peace" and "brotherhood" are way idealized, as is Marco's command to his servant to call him by his first name.

However, do not fear the saccharine too much, because there are always gloomy Niccolo and Matteo Polo to cut at Marco's happiness.  They chastise him for being "too familiar" with the royal family and to watch out for men like Phags-Pa.  Of course, in the same breath, they also say that they don't mind him being so chummy if it can help them personally.  "We have too much at stake," Niccolo notes as a final warning to Marco to tread lightly.   

During a hunting excursion with Prince Chinkin, the prince has an epileptic seizure, scaring off the servants, but Marco saves his life.  Kublai Khan explains to Marco that anyone who "witnesses these attacks must be put to death" because if word got out that the heir to the Mongol empire has a sickness, it would be devastating.  Kublai assumes that Marco is now appalled by Chinkin's ailment, giving Marco the chance to pontificate about both his deep friendship for Chinkin (his only other friend in the world died on the trip) and the fact that "the falling sickness" is a condition shared by many great men, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar among them.  "It didn't affect anything else in their lives," he chirps, which assuages Kublai Khan somewhat because even he's heard of their great exploits.  "In ancient times, it was considered a sign of greatness," Marco says, with violins playing underneath him.  "My son has the sign of greatness," Kublai Khan rhapsodizes, bestowing some extra honors on Marco for changing his mind in the span on a few minutes.  Great, now not only is the UN represented, but apparently also the AMA.  The only thing missing is a visit from Gandhi. 

Oh, Kublai Khan also gives him his belt since Marco had to use his to save the Prince's life.  Of course he does.

Phags-Pa spits nails at all of this attention lavished on Marco Polo, and he also feels Chinkin is "weak" and will never be able to lead the empire. 

Chinkin and Marco Polo head the entourage leaving the summer palace as Niccolo and Matteo watch proudly.  I would like to pause here to ask a question.  Had plastic been invented yet?  No?  I didn't think so.  How, then, can one explain the plastic window on the tents behind these two as they see their spawn go off in glory?  There is no mistaking the plastic.  It even reflects. 

Marco gets a tour of the Great Wall.  "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it," he says, still a sponge for knowledge, but a sponge you want to kick and shut up every now and then.  Prince Chinkin explains that it was built by the Chinese to keep out "the barbarians."  "The barbarians?" Marco asks, not bright enough to be a suck up, but that's the way Prince Chinkin takes it.  "Yes, the barbarians.  The Mongols...it's only a relic now," Chinkin replies, confident in his empire's complete domination.  Prince Chinkin gets in on the sympathy talking by telling Marco that the Chinese Emperor did not build the wall, but rather slaves who died by the thousands.  Their blood is in the stones.  If only Mao had been alive to hear that schpiel, he would have screened this movie about six thousand times a week all over China. 

"The only hope for the future is that one day we Mongols will no longer be thought of or think of ourselves as conquerors or proud invaders of a foreign land, but as sons of the same mother, China," Prince Chinkin says after promising Marco that when he is in charge of the empire, there will be some changes made (this is prompted by news of the execution of Marco's slave, who had seen the epileptic fit).  The only warm fuzzy we haven't heard yet is Coke's "I want to teach the world to sing..." ditty.  Can we PLEASE get back to the story and end all of this babble? 

The court returns to Khanbalic (modern-day Beijing) after the summer sojourn.  This permanent city is overflowing in majesty and teeming with loyal soldiers and courtiers.  Kublai Khan is welcome back by the regent Achmet (Leonard Nimoy, in the most egregious piece of casting by idiocy...what, there aren't any worthy Asian actors, so we had to use a Vulcan?).  Achmet has great news for Kublai Khan, bootlicker that he is, telling him that the Emperor of China has fled and Kublai Khan now rules all of China.  Achmet is the business mind of the empire, excited to hear of the Polos' contacts between Europe and Asia that will be beneficial to all.  He is also the first to mention that we have now embarked upon the Yuan Dynasty. 

Yet Marco is restless.  He whines to Chinkin that "my father and uncle are busy with projects," mapping routes between Venice and Khanbalic, but Chinkin assures Marco that "my father has plans for you too," which cheers Marco up a bit.  Like two naughty children, they leave the confines of the palace city because Marco is desperate to see what is out there.  Someone call the Chinese Board of Tourism, they are getting one hell of a plug, even centuries too late.  They go to the sanctuary of the astronomers to ask what the future has in store, if the Yuan Dynasty will have any peace.  The answer, only a tad clearer than The Oracle at Delphi, is basically no, though Marco doesn't understand and Chinkin doesn't want to hear the real truth. 

Non-traditional medical practitioners will be happy with Chinkin showing Marco the healing powers of acupuncture.  The local peasant children laugh a little at Marco, but no one else seems at all perplexed by his presence.  Chinkin and Marco observe a wedding ceremony.  This all may seem highly episodic, but Marco Polo's writings are like that.  He did love to report even the smallest details. 

With China all his, Kublai Khan shifts his attention to an invasion of Japan, which he's tried before without success. He amasses all of his most important vassals from all over the empire to discuss the matter and figure out the best method of invasion.  The Mongols, they point out, are horseback warriors and cannot handle an amphibious invasion.  But, Kublai Khan says the final decision is his.  Furthermore, a lot of the desert men, many of whom Marco has previously met, feel he's become too Chinese and lost touch with his Mongol roots.  Try not to laugh when, during a dinner with some of these guys, the Polos and Jacopo are introduced to pasta and how to eat it.  We all know pasta is a Chinese invention, but the scene is bad comedy. 

Marco decides he wants to learn about Japan (or, rather, the miniseries decides it needs to teach us), and he goes to a blind Japanese potter the Empress freed after the last attempt at war.  His memories of Japan are long winded and gloomy, but he's not wrong when he says no foreign empire will ever conquer it.  "The flags of Kublai will be swallowed by Japanese waves," he tells Marco as a warning.  "There is no more discussion," Kublai roars since the envoys he has sent to Japan have been beheaded.  Marco and Chinkin try the astrology route, but that only makes Kublai Khan angrier.  "Our answers to Japan is WAR! WAR! WAR!" he thunders in increasing close-up. 

Because Marco is seen as having too strong an influence of Chinkin, who loudly argues against the Japanese invasion, Achmet sends him to the South as a tax collector with Uncle Matteo.  "Use your natural gift, but avoid your excessive zeal," Achmet tells him, a polite way of saying "stop interfering!"  He also gives Marco two pieces of advice: "the empire's treasury is low" and "be careful" of almost everyone.  He's suddenly Polonius, apparently.  Uncle Matteo is excited for a typical Medieval European reason.  "I've heard they have men who can turn any metal into gold."  Ah, alchemy.  Without the desire to figure it out, there probably would be no Europe today.  A very frail Chinkin is sad to lose his friend, but is also full of idiotic warnings.  His tops them all when he tells Marco to remember everything is like a game of chess and he is a pawn in the game.  "The pawn is always the last to know" what is to happen to him.  Not only is that unoriginal, it's also not necessarily true.  This is the problem with Marco Polo's book and everything that stems from it: it's all about him.  I'm not saying that in a bad way, but his writings are of his journey and all that he knew.  The real Marco Polo merely relied on his own notions, with very little time spent doing anything but observing.  Suddenly, the entire Mongol Empire seems to revolve around him in this story.  With everyone having chimed in, Marco sets off in his new role as tax collector.

Things turn bad very quickly when unseen men shoot at Marco's polo with arrows, killing a few extras.  Marco gets into hand-to-hand combat with one of them after playing possum.  This is actually fun, a scene of daring and excitement after so much time spent at court.  Marco is best when traveling (and so is the movie). 

Marco arrives in Yanzhou in 1280, with the whole city already up on the assassination attempt. The town leaders blame it on "bandits," though they themselves seem less than thrilled to be under Mongol control in general.  Our bleeding heart hero is shocked to see the wealthiest people sucking harsh taxes from bedraggled peasants.  However, he also has time to enjoy local culture, discover new things and even take in a play.  The latter starts out charmingly, but turns into a diatribe against tax collection aimed squarely at Marco.  When Marco asks the man who spoke the lines why he did it, he blames someone else.  "I am only an actor," he says, blaming a hermit playwright.  How's that for continuity?  In the Twenty First Century, actors are still doing that. 

New friends take Marco to see "The Immortal," (Tad Horino) an aesthetic who lives in a cave high in the mountains.  No sooner does Marco arrives than the man starts spouting the sort of wise-though-confusing sentiments one would expect.  "Man must conquer himself before he can conquer nature," he opines, having just mentioned gold to keep everyone interested.  He then gives Marco a brief yoga lesson and cleansing diet tips.  I won't deny it's an eerie scene, very much in line with the 1970s fascination with yoga culture, though out of step with the rest of the movie.

One thing that has certainly been missing from the narrative is sex.  Hell, the only woman with lines since Venice has been Kublai Khan's wife.  Marco is in his twenties and has to be horny!  When Uncle Matteo disappears, a lovely woman named Monica (Kathryn Dowling) offers to help.  She never knew her father, and her mother died when she was young.  This tale of woe, and the fact that she's at least part European, stirs Marco's libido and he kisses her.  A chaste kiss, but a kiss nonetheless.  Her reaction?  "We should look for your uncle," she says, but with a smile.

It's not until Marco and Monica are trapped in a cave during a thunderstorm that Marco professes love for her...loudly.  She doesn't make the inevitable very easy.  He's ready, but she takes the time to point out, "your body is like a tree," while pointing to the corresponding parts "trunk, limbs are like branches and the crown, it catches the light and holds it."  Marco has some clunkers of his own.  He tells her, "in Venice, when someone shivers, we say an angel passes."  Save it for a couples retreat, you two!  They kiss and find lots of flowery ways to proclaim their love, but if they go any further, this floppo scene doesn't show us.

Uncle Matteo is found, but the three return to the city during a massive fire.  Useful for the first time, Jacopo is helping women and children escape the flames, but he is injured.  The town's big shots have orchestrated it all, basically to pluck young women for slavery.  Marco is outraged.  "You'll answer to the Khan for your loyalty...or treachery," he says heatedly. 

Marco knows it's time to get back to the Mongol court, but there's a hitch, of course.  Jacopo, seriously burned and disfigured, does not want to go home, not even to Venice.  Somehow, this movie's misfit has found home.  He likes the people and "they treat me with affection," he tells Marco.  I won't miss him, how about everyone else?

Back to Khanbalic.  His first stop is at the Japanese potter's home, where he learns that indeed the Mongols did attack Japan.  He leaves Monica there for safety and then goes to Achmet to find the girl stolen for slavery.  He doesn't find much sympathy.  Achmet refers to a typical woman as "just another mouth to feed."  Achmet agrees to sort of help, but tells Marco that it may be tough since Marco has so many enemies.  To make matter worse, Monica is kidnapped, but he doesn't know by whom.  "I heard of him speak of a convent of Buddhist nuns," is all the potter can tell him.  Then we discover Achmet to be a louse, since he finds the girl everyone is looking for and decides to use her himself.  "Will you touch me?" he asks her, with a dastardly leer.  Luckily, he gets his quickly, a victim of court intrigue.  Phags-pa is behind it and it all ends up with the slave girl dead and Monica and her adopted family executed. 

Phags-pa has his reasons for doing what he does, and turns out to be less hateful than once assumed.  He has Monica's sentence commuted to banishment and allows Marco to get a quick look at her one last time.

Kublai Khan is beset by troubles.  There are rebellions all over the place, religious questions to be dealt with and then the death of Prince Chinkin.  Marco tells Empress Chabi that he thinks Kublai Khan seems "too tired to hold the empire in his hands.:  Though nobody agrees with him, Kublai Khan decides to snuff out the rebellion, leading the army himself. 

There is an epic battle.  It's bloody and results in huge carnage and screaming.  Naturally Kublai Khan's army is victorious.  The trampling death of the rebel leader is particularly gruesome, but, "according to our laws," Kublai Khan says before it happens.

The Polos want to go home, but Kublai Khan will not hear of it.  They are too valuable to him and, as he points out, they have certain grown rich from him!  No one is as wise as them when it comes to gems, and Kublai Khan uses them to tell the real ones from the fakes, even giving them punitive power over anyone caught using the fakes.  But none of it is enough.  Niccolo wants to go back to Venice, "before I lose my will to live." 

Their ticket home comes from an unlikely source: Phags-pa, who seems mellow and almost nice.  "We could have been friends," he says wistfully to Marco now that there are no intrigues between them.  Phags-pa has convinced Kublai Khan to let the Polo escort a princess to Persia on a sea route.  They are the only men who can handle such a task.  Phags-pa himself is going to a monastery to leave the clutches of power behind.  He'll do well there, because he has the advice-giving-in-snippets down pat. 

Marco's parting from Kublai Khan is even more touching.  You expect the great and mighty warrior to hold onto Marco's leg begging him not to go with buckets of tears.  It doesn't happen that way, but almost.  Kublai Khan admits that he should have never tried to rule on anything but a horse's back, "but now I'm too old to climb into the saddle."  The Great Khan takes Marco's hand and reminds him that "when a Mongol takes your hand, some of his spirit passes over to you." 

The voyage home, a highlight of Marco Polo's story, is skipped entirely and we go right to 1299, back to Marco languishing in the Genoa prison.  I'll spare you the trial, because it contains no new information.  What is interesting about it is that it happened in the first place.  What we so prize about Marco Polo today, the travelogue that allows us to see new and different works with a fresh excited eye, is just what was condemning him at the time.  The Church did not approve of anything it did not understand, could not conceive of anything it did not help invent.   

Kane & Abel (1985)

Credit my mother for "Kane & Abel."  Okay, not the miniseries, not even the book upon which it's based.  But, we can credit her with my love of Jeffrey Archer novels.  The infamous British convict/MP wrote a series of books in the 70s and 80s that may not been as popular as those written by Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon, the acmes of male trash novel writers, but he was a saga writer extraordinaire.  My mother has always had discerning reading taste and I'm thrilled that she turned me onto Jeffrey Archer as a child instead of, say, Judith Krantz (Robbins and Sheldon were must-reads).  When the miniseries of "Kane & Abel" was aired in 1985, it was probably the most excited I had ever been for a miniseries because I had actually read the book.  I remember that excitement all these years later.  Unfortunately, Jeffrey Archer's output yielded precious little in the way of miniseries, whereas we couldn't get rid of Judith Krantz for over a decade!  But thanks Mom, for the recommendations.  She was all over "Schindler's List" and "Sophie's Choice" from the moment they hit stores, so this is a lady who knows her stuff.

Usually.

There was that Margaret Truman Daniels phase...

Anyway, rewatching "Kane & Abel" is somewhat disappointing.  It's lacking any claw-like sense of humor, mainly because the two leads are such dour actors, but the miniseries is almost too faithful to the book, which is actually Archer's fault.  Always more concerned with stories that favored financial deals, revenge and such, he lacks sex.  Sheldon and Robbins had sex a-plenty, and though it's the lowest way to grip one's attention, five hours without it can seem like an awfully long time.  There is only so much meat in watching two aging men battle over finances.  An hour chopped out of the proceedings wouldn't hurt the story, but would help the pacing, which has a tendency to turn glacial when it could be a lot merrier and even a little campy.

Since this is a saga, the logical place to start is the beginning of the 20th Century, where many a saga begins.  "Kane & Abel" starts in Poland in 1901.  A young boy is walking through the forest when he hears blood-curdling screams, only to come upon a woman giving birth...right there up against a tree.  I'm not sure where the kid learned to figure out how a person is dead, but he pulls up one of her eyelids to be sure while a live baby wails.

Halfway around the world on the same day in Boston, another woman is giving birth, but she's in a clean hospital, tended to by doctors and nurses. 

The Polish baby is taken home to his finder's family while the Boston baby goes home to a life of luxury, the Kane family, and a guaranteed spot at a top-notch private school.  Unfortunately for the Polish baby, it's discovered that he has only one nipple, which causes Polish Papa to vent that's "the child was given to its mother by a man with bad luck."  Those of you who want to get all Biblical can question why the baby not born to the Kane family is the one with the disfiguring mark, but on your own time. 

Both boys are baptized, the Boston baby in an opulent church in Boston and the Polish baby by the grace of Baron Christopher Cazenove, who looks rather upset to hear the baby, called "as ugly as a cabbage" by his adopted father, when he hears the baby has only one nipples.  Only minutes in, we can start putting pieces together.

Fast forward ten years.  Not you, the movie.  The Boston baby has grown into an educated son of wealthy Harry Groener, but the Polish baby is living in poverty.  However, since he's so smart, Baron Christopher wants to take him home to his castle to help his dimwit son.  The boy refuses to go without his adopted sister, and Baron Christopher is willing to take her on as part of the kitchen staff. 

So, the Polish kid ends up paired with a rather haughty Baron-in-training, walking through the castle looking at deceased relatives and deciding that "one day we will fight for Poland" (that's not a good thing, since the Polish army was way beyond its winning days by then), while the Boston kid chimes in with the equation for figuring out how much a cargo boat weighs during one of his father's banking meetings.  He's so smart that when he comes down with measles, he wants a second opinion.  Dangnabit, those pesky measles mean that the Boston kid cannot sail home with his father, who is going on the most luxurious boat ever to sail the water.  Do you need to take a guess which boat that would be?  Second decade of the Twentieth Century, big, fast, unsinkable boat?  Okay, fine, it's the Titanic.  "I don't expect they'd let you steer the Titanic on its maiden voyage anyway," Harry jokes with his son, who probably would have done a better job than Captain Smith and company.  A rather undue burden is put on the son when the ship goes down, as his mother asks him to be strong for her sake.  He's only 10 years old (11 in a few days)!  He may be obnoxiously precocious, but he's still just 10! 

Baron Christopher spends meals with boys drilling them in history, though only the adopted kid can answer the questions.  The Baron thinks that if the coming war everyone is talking about happens, he knows Poland will be "a battlefield, but this time, God willing, we will emerge from it an independent country once again," by fighting on the Russian side.  Tsar Nicholas II has promised Polish freedom if they help, but the adopted boy wonders aloud if the Tsar will keep his promise and Baron Christopher laughs.  History will prove that neither Baron Christopher nor Tsar Nicholas will have long to laugh.

World War I is on, but in Boston, it's all just talk because the Americans are a long way from entering it.  Harry has been dead for a few years, and it's about time the Kane matron, Lisa Banes, met a new man, David Dukes (who gets a lot further with Lisa than he does in 400 hours of the Wouk miniseries).  "He's the most eligible bachelor to come to Boston in years," a common friend tells them with introductions. 

Poland, of course, is very much in the war.  In fact, Baron Christopher is so worried that he's sending the boys off to safety, but they are taken by German soldiers and smacked by the butts of their guns.  Baron-no-longer-in-training is killed by the blow.  The adoptee has to tell Baron Christopher and his sister what happened, the only voice of reason telling them, with the best Polish accent in the movie, "we will survive.  We will survive!" 

As soon as Lisa falls in love with David, the problems start.  He's off to England to fight the war and her pissy little son resents his mere presence. 

By some very strange magic, it's still World War I, but the Polish adoptee has grown up completely to become Peter Strauss, playing yet another variation of "Rich Man, Poor Man."  It's not his fault that he enters the movie right as Baron Christopher, now in a big beard, is dying and croaking out a will leaving everything to his son, whom we knew was Peter all the way back from the nipple incident.  You can't compete with that sort of ham acting.  "No!  No!" is about all Peter can do, with an accent, no less.  Once Baron Christopher breathes his last, Peter, playing a teenager, but very wrinkled, is now in charge of the cadre of Polish survivors in the basement of the mansion.  The Germans allow him to bury Baron Christopher, with the sound of bombs going off around them.  The end is near for them. 

Just as surprising is the growth spurt in Boston, where our second hero has become Sam Neill, innocently playing ice hockey without a care in the world.  Oh, and even though he's only a "teenager," he gives financial advice to people that makes them rich and lends out his math notes.  "I'm sick, can't you see I'm sick," he tells his friend when asked why he's not at his mother's wedding (we're still at the hockey rink).  Apparently David is now a war hero, but Sam doesn't like him.  The moment his mother put him in charge of the family, her happiness with another man was doomed by her overly smart son.

"We will not die here!  That I promise you," Peter tells his fellow captives, his wig barely fitting his head, as the Germans ride out of the castle, the Russians right behind them in chase.  The Russians are not ideal new captors because their revolution causes them to hate aristocrats and technically Peter is now a Count.  When the Russians try to rape Peter's sister, he rushes them, but gets knocked out.  Since the two of them are unconscious, the Russians leave them and take everyone else as prisoners.  Since Peter has yet to experience any happiness in life, it makes sense that his sister dies right here.  The Russians hustle the Polish prisoners off to Siberia, and one of Peter's fellow prisoners notices the silver bracelet he wears, the only thing Count Christopher had to give up upon death.  On the train, while everyone sleeps, the other prisoner attempts to strangle Peter with what looks like dental floss in order to get the bracelet.  Not only does the Russian guard with a gun do nothing, but none of Peter's compatriots do either.  What is this, professional wrestling?  A fight ensues and Peter is forced to kill the man, stabbing him while everyone gapes.  As the guard finally raises his gun to shoot Peter, the latter comes up with this brilliant line: "Maybe you should ask your superiors how many slaves you are allowed to lose in one night."  It may sound stupid, but hell, it works!  Remember that the next time someone has a gun pointed at you. 

All is well in America.  Sam and his pal Reed Birney have to deal with Reed's father, who owns a large bank in New York City.  Reed is something of a playboy, but Sam has his head on straight.  He has a long-term plan to merge the Birney bank with his father's, to create "the biggest bank on the East Coast."  "That's quite a dream.  I hope you achieve it...I can't think of anything that would please me more," Reed's father says.  Yes, we get it.  Both of our heroes are fatherless, always searching for a father figure. 

It's now 1921 and Peter is trudging across ice in Siberia, real ice, not the kind Sam plays hockey on.  Any prisoner who falls on the ice gets shot.  That's hardly fair, considering they all have their arms tied behind their backs and bad shoes.  Also, there is a mean man in charge of them, spewing such morale-boosters as "anyone else want to die?  Do it now.  You will all die anyway."  He has his eyes on Peter, whom he tells "you'll be next" before knocking him to the ice.  What human misery has Peter NOT suffered? 

Sam is still worried about David.  His lawyer tells him that David has no claim to any of his money, but he does have access to Mom's $500K, which is about to come in handy as David has some scheme going that Sam doesn't like.  Up against Peter's life, this seems petty, but it also seems that David is cheating on his mother, who is pregnant.  When David professes his love to Lisa, she answers back, "do you?" since she's just read an anonymous letter discussing his infidelity.  He's smooth, pretending he doesn't care about "anything but us," including those papers she's signed giving him the cash.  He suggests opening a bottle of wine and relaxing.  Sure, given the pregnant gal some vino!  Before they even get there, his mistress calls, which doesn't thrill Lisa. 

Peter is down to his natural hair now and looking very handsome, if still way too old.  He's planned a big escape, but his partner is too afraid, so Peter has to do it alone (while maintaining an accent).  His friend gives him a coat with money and a map sewn inside that will get him to Turkey.  Peter tries to pay with his bracelet, but his friend notes, "I have no need for emblems of royalty here."  Can I use this moment to pause and ask how the hell Peter still has the trinket?  After all he's been through, living in a concentration camp, he still has a shiny silver bracelet?  If the Russians hadn't taken it from him, wouldn't a fellow prisoner have done it while he slept?  Does this not strike anyone else as odd?  The escape involves a kitchen truck, hiding under trains and generally avoiding all Russians with guns.  He manages to get on a train leaving Siberia, but he doesn't have a ticket.  He's also Polish on a train full of Russians, but this is a miniseries, so naturally everyone speaks Slavic-sounding English.  He meets a woman on the train who helps him out of the scrape.  Why does she help him?  "I had a nephew who was studying in the priesthood.  He died in one of the camps," so she sympathizes with the lonely Polish ragamuffin. 

Before you can say transfer in Moscow to Odessa and then to freedom, Peter is in Constantinople fondling an orange, but finds his Russia money is worthless in Turkey.  So, he simply steals the orange and runs.  About 12 merchants run after him, leaving their stalls open.  Couldn't they now be robbed worse?  Another one of those details apparently only I notice.  The punishment for stealing is getting a hand chopped off by a big fat man in a fez.  Peter's arm (the one with the bracelet) is tied to the chopping block, but a diplomat saves him and takes him to the Polish embassy.  The ambassador wants to send him to America, for reasons he doesn't really explain, though Peter wants to go back to Poland and fight.  For what?  "Funny thing about us Poles.  Over the centuries, the barbarians tried to destroy us, but we know where home is," the ambassador says, out of nowhere.  Peter vows to return to Poland someday, in that earnest way Peter Strauss does so well, and we know he means it.

In the boring plot, Sam, trying his best to maintain a Boston accent, has managed to make sure David can't enter into the business deal that would have milked his mother dry, though he's not yet 21 and has no direct control over any money.  He may look 40, but he's not 21 yet.  His father's business partner Richard Anderson is surprised at how well Sam can maneuver.  Lisa has done some checking up on her husband too, hiring a private detective to prove David is having an affair.  Lisa suffers an "episode" in the detective's office and is rushed to the hospital.  The doctor's face says it all: Lisa is dead.  "They've been trying to reach your stepfather, do you know where he is?" the doctor asks.  When David comes home, Sam is standing in the hallway with the grim news.  Sam is so angry he starts to strangle David, but he's stopped by Reed.  Sam decrees that David leave the house and never come back.  If he does, Sam will investigate his business dealings.  That leaves David no choice but to hit the road.  "I'll get even with you, little rich boy.  You just keep waiting and watching and see if I don't," David spits on the way out.  Sam doesn't react well, threatening to kill him if he even tries.  Something tells me we haven't seen the last of David. 

On the boat to America, Peter can't help but notice the pretty ladies crammed into third class with him.  His mate tells him to go after her, that there are five days left on the voyage and he intends to get himself some babes.  "What can you do with five women?" Peter asks.  Yup, he's a virgin.  Well, to be fair, he hasn't had time for women, what with being born in the forest, adopted by a Baron, hidden by Germans and then Russians.  Apparently, he bores the poor woman with his tales of woe and then won't dance with her, either because he doesn't know how or "because you're a Baron," she taunts.  He claims he made it all up to impress her, but she knows he's royalty.  How?  "Because I'm a little bit afraid of you."  I'm not sure I follow, but let's play along and see where this goes.  Peter  is so innocent he doesn't even understand when she's making a play for him, but a kiss sends them to one of the covered lifeboats.  "Are you ashamed?" she asks him after the deed is done.  What kind of question is that?  The scene gets weirder when she professes her love for him and he for her.  Huh?  They just boffed, that's all.  So far, said hussy doesn't even have a name!  And she's not going to get one either, because Peter's friend Vyto Ruginis has decreed that they all have to take American names.

At Harvard, Sam and his pals approach his car to find a policeman writing a ticket.  Sam tries to flash his name, but the officer is unimpressed.  Then Ron Silver jumps in as a lawyer named Thaddeus Cohen, who spews all sorts of gibberish to confuse the cop while praising his Irish roots.  The officer finds it amusing, and tells Ron, "Cohen, you say?  It should be CoHAN with that line of blarney," and lets Sam off without a ticket.  Ron and Sam don't know each other officially, but it was Ron's father who helped Sam get the dirt on David a few years back.  A lawyer and a friend are found, but still not a hint of an exciting plot.

Two years later, Peter is working as a restaurant manager at the Plaza Hotel.  One day he's serving imperious Fred Gwynne and his obnoxious gal pal Sheree Wilson, who is peeved to be sitting near the bathroom on top of having a room without a view.  Fred knows Peter by name, much to his gal pal's surprise, but Fred says, "you'd be surprised what I know."  Peter, laying on the accent thick, calls his broker every time he hears good business tips in the restaurant. 

Having just graduated from Harvard, Sam is celebrating at the Plaza with Reed, Reed's father and sister (Jill Eikenberry) and faithful bank trustee Richard Anderson.  Richard officially invites Sam to be a bank director, on the path to chairman.  As Sam is accepting, Peter spills a bit of coffee and Sam remarks, "I didn't know the Plaza required their waiters to wear manacles."  Jill coos, "wouldn't I like to have something like that!" since she's been after him for ages.  But, it doesn't work.

At the same lunch, Fred has been moved to a better table by Peter, who also has his suite moved.  Each knows about the other.  Fred has studied Peter's history and Peter has learned that Fred owns a bunch of hotels that are losing money because, as Peter sees it, Fred is never there.  The manager of his Chicago hotel "up and left on me without so much as a tootle-ooh!" Fred says, though Peter knows that already.  A shrewd negotiator, Peter rebuffs Fred's offer of a job and "$30 a week" with "$40 and 5% of the increase in profits after I've arrived."  Fred screams that none of his managers get paid like that.  "I won't tell them if you don't," Peter says, learning the American dream awfully fast.  Sheree quips, "I think you better take the Baron before his price goes up."  Peter tells Vyto of his new position and notes that American hotels are "castles."  He promises to send for Vyto when he's a "hotel magnate."  Oh, and the girl Peter did on the boat?  She happens to live in Chicago.

As Peter and Vyto are walking from the hotel, Sam and company are getting in their cars and the two tip their hats to each other.  Peter says he has no idea who Sam is, "but he's just been made director of some bank...I'd say both of us had a very big day."  Our heroes have intersected but once.  Where will they meet again? 

Fred pays a visit to his Chicago hotel to find the staff hates Peter.  The manager wants to fire Peter, but Fred says, "I can clean up my own mess."  Peter tells Fred what has been going on at the hotel, the amount of theft is staggering.  "Just what the blue blazes do you expect me to do about this?" Fred asks Peter, who says the top management should be fired.  Fred refuses to fire the pilfering manager because he's just made Peter Head Manager and he can do it. 

At Sam's bank during the late 20s, Sam is suggesting the bank move its money around because something isn't right.  They argue, but a big client needs to see Sam immediately.  Not the dowager widow he was expecting, it's Veronica Hamel, having bewitched Sam very easily with her intelligence and knowledge, not to mention their obvious attraction. 

Peter is running Fred's hotel better than before, so efficient and "something of a miracle," according to a lawyer, who suggests that Peter buy the stock of a family member who wants to unload it. The price is $100K and Peter is $70K short, which he asks the bank for.  This financial transaction makes Peter a partner.  He chooses to celebrate with Sheree and ends up getting her into bed with candle light and all the trappings.  But, after it's over, she laughs at him, not believing the Baron crap and bemoaning his lack of experience.  Fred is not dismayed.  "Son, we're going places," he tells Peter.

But the places aren't what anyone was expecting.  Panic hits Wall Street.  Sam had the sense to pull out of stocks, seeing what was about to happen and thus saves his fortune, and most of the family bank,  from ruin.  Things are worse for Fred, who has sold his hotels and other holdings for stock, which is now worthless.  "They are only good for hotel toilet paper," Fred quips.  The banks that owns Fred's empire is Sam's bank.  Fred says that if he ever gets back on top, he'll destroy Sam.  Now we're finally starting to get some actual plotting!  Our heroes are on opposite sides of a situation, thinking the other is very much in the wrong.  Peter tries to head off the foreclosure of the hotels by appealing to Sam directly, but Sam refuses, saying he'll only talk to Fred.  That won't be an option since Fred has jumped from a window and killed himself.  Peter now owns 75% of the hotel chain, for what that's worth. 

Peter makes it his life's work to find the bankers who caused Fred to jump. 

Sam and Veronica have fallen in love.  Nothing brings two people together like a banker chasing a mortgagee.  Sam and Peter meet again.  Sam sees the bracelet and thinks they had met somewhere, but doesn't know where.  Peter is there to beg for investments for the hotels rather than foreclosure.  The two are at loggerheads, but Peter needs a chance to prove he can turn around the hotels, but that would take someone wilth a few million dollars to support, but not Sam's bank.  Peter storms out of the room telling him to "think about me because as long as I'm alive, I'm going to see that you and your stinking bank pay for that.  You go to hell!" 

Chicago, 1930.  Peter's hotel is on fire.  Who should be there with the insurance company looking to stick it to the bank that holds the mortgage?  David Dukes, of course!  The assessment reveals "a total loss," and a man has confessed to torching the place because he had been fired.  David reveals who he is to Peter, though of course blaming Sam for "killing my wife and baby," an interesting twist on the truth.  We have a partnership!  Since the bank won't give Peter the money to rebuild, he takes a wacky risk, asking his main competitor (Paul Harding) for the money.  Paul laughs at that one, but Peter has a plan, saying "let your competition make money for you; better than letting me steal business at your expense."  Peter has it all worked out, and though "the sheer audacity of your suggestion" interests Paul, he doesn't actually say whether he's going to help or not.  No matter, because on the way out, Peter bumps into his de-virginizer from the boat to America (Alberta Watson), working into Paul's hotel.  She has a first name now and she's very happy to see the Baron.  "So many times I forgot to call you, even in New York," Paul says, thinking he's being smooth.  "But you didn't," she chides. 

The two discuss their history since seeing each other in their broken English (rather than speaking in perfect Polish).  Alberta has had it rough, having worked up to waitress while Peter is establishing an empire.  Proving the adage that you never forget the first, Peter is re-hooked on her.  Speaking of, Jill is still pining for Sam, who has eyes only for Veronica.

The money problem in Chicago is solved, but anonymously.  The deal is fantastic for Peter, who can't lose no matter what happens, but the one caveat is that anonymity must be maintained, due to a potential "conflict of interest," the very phrase that came up during Peter's meeting with rival hotel owner Paul.  Naturally, Peter assumes it's Paul, but if Peter tries to even search for the donor, the deal is off.  Peter has his Big Speech, and boy does he go for it.  Yelling and screaming in excitement and then almost crying when he thinks of Fred not being there, it's the kind of thing he does very well.  He then calls Sam to rub it in his face, with David sitting in on the conversation.

We hit a pure cheese lowlight when Sam takes Veronica on vacation to England.  Lazing under the trees in the countryside, all Sam can talk about is business, though Veronica tries to focus him on her by literally uttering every sentence in a sarcastic tone or turning the answer to a question into a pun.  The two have zilch in the way of chemistry.  Anyway, the bright warm sun turns to rain in an instant (this is England) and the two are forced to seek refuge under a blanket next to the car.  "We've been in England for two weeks and this is the first time we've been under the same blanket," vixen Veronica says. 

At lunch, Peter shows Alberta his plans for the new hotel, but they are interrupted by the always-cheeky Sheree, who drawls that Peter should come down to Dallas and see the family home, but he declines, saying he doesn't think his soon-to-be wife Alberta would like that (since he hasn't proposed, that comes as a surprise to everyone there).  He also decides to chuck the old company name and call it "Baron Hotels."  I'm sure Barron Hilton wasn't on anyone's mind thinking that up!  Then he has to actually propose marriage to Alberta, "since we traded our virginities on the boat," but he pushes his business acumen over actual love in trying to convince her. 

In England, Sam and Veronica have to get married because their car has broken down and there is only one room left at the local inn.  Even Veronica and her caustic sentence delivery find that one a bit much, and she also reminds unromantic Sam that "the Episcopal Church requires all sorts of documents and a waiting period," but Sam "bets his entire banking career" that donating money for a new church roof will result in a "special dispensation."  Good, now they can sleep in the same room. 

"You will always be at home at a Baron Hotel and when you check in, tell them you were here on the day it all began and that you are a friend of...the Baron himself," Peter says to an adoring crowd upon opening his Chicago hotel, praising David for a possible Congressional run and announcing his wife's pregnancy.  In that order, mind you.  For a romance miniseries, the men are complete duds when it comes to the women in their lives! 

Peter has a daughter, whom he names for his sister and Sam loses the Chairman position at the bank.  The reason he lost is not because of anything he did, but because Reed has become such a drunk and a fool that he's a liability.  There is no treatment because alcoholism is only a cover for Hodgkin's Disease and only three months to live.  He has told no one, not his father or even Sam.  I didn't see that one coming.  I thought he was finally going to come out, since his performance has been getting gayer by the scene, but sadly, the truth is worse.  Sit down for some pathos, people, because Reed has it ready: "You're lucky if you have one friend.  I have two," he says to Sam and Veronica.  Something tells me his death is going to be very painful...for us!

By 1938, Peter is going to build a hotel in honor of his daughter in NYC, taking her, but leaving fur-clad Alberta to worry that, "I have a big rival for his affection."  Vyto assumes it's the daughter, but Alberta says, "it's the hotels" and walks off glumly.  "Oh, hell," Vyto moans.  Yes, I agree.  Here we go again, with a dumb plot about a wife ignored for a job considered more important.  Zzzzzzz

Sam and lawyer Ron Silver see that Peter and David have become friendly.  "The Congressman might be guilty of tax evasion," Ron hints, and Sam is thrilled that he can nail David.  Veronica wants him to let it all go, and then the more immediate problem of dead Reed's dying father.  Through heavy gasping breaths, he tells Sam he wants him to be chairman of the bank.  Sam tries to comfort Jill, who refuses any true tenderness, still angry at him for not marrying her.  Get over it!  Frankly, his life seems boring as hell, so you dodged a bullet. 

Boring Wife Syndrome has certainly hit Alberta, who is forced to say some of the worst dialogue in the movie.  Saying they should separate, she has expected clunkers like, "how long since we have made love?" and "you are married to your hotels."  She feels that she is "always failing" trying to play the glamorous wife of such an important man.  Peter plays the scene annoyed, but then again, he's had to play this scene for a decade, going all the way back to Susan Blakely's drunk-from-boredom scenes in "Rich Man, Poor Man."  Alberta has made her mind up, and off Peter goes.  Neither of them seem that upset.  Peter could easily turn around and go back inside to Alberta, but he doesn't. 

Boring Banking Syndrome is now hitting me.  Sam makes a play to take over Reed's father's bank, just as the dying man wished, but the current Chairman isn't giving up so easily, not to mention other board members who are sneaky New York bankers.  Sam has an emergency meeting called in order to nab the big seat on the board.  The main competitors each give a dull speech about why he should head the bank (not that banking is exciting, but the script makes it seem even less so).  The vote goes to Sam, as expected, since the other guy is so clearly a smarmy twit.  He has to move the family to...oh, right, we haven't known until this very moments that Sam and Veronica have two kids, nice to meet you, kids...to New York City, where both kids are initially unhappy.  Sam trots out that old war horse line of "at least we'll be together," and it seems to work.  This, from a man even more dedicated to his job than Peter? 

Peter's New York hotel is a gigantic success in 1941, where he's holding a benefit for Poland, trounced two years and three weeks previously.  David interrupts the affair to make sure Peter knows the merger of his banks will be approved by the government, and Peter is eager to grab some stock in order to blunt Sam's plans.  David also asks for $30K to make some illegal payments to keep the hotels running smoothly.  Peter isn't thrilled, but David will never change.

Pearl Harbor happens and then World War II ends.  Literally, that quickly.  I swear.  There is not even a small scene tucked between the raid in Hawaii and the Times Square announcement!  This is an interesting twist for a miniseries, isn't it?  We're skipping World War II entirely!  Peter doesn't fly to Poland to become a grunt in the army just to protect his beloved homeland from being squashed by the Nazis.  Sam doesn't make special trips to the White House to fund the governments war machine.  Those are things the miniseries movement has taught us to expect about beloved World War II, one of its favorite topics (to be fair, "Kane & Abel" also lacks a slumming Hollywood legend, so it's not always predictable). 

They pulled a fast one on us!  Both Sam and Peter come home war heroes, but without any fuss or any explanation of what they did in the war.  Apparently it's enough to know they participated (they would have been 40 when America entered the war, so we can assume they weren't belly down in a ditch).

Thank the Gods of Television for Jill Eikenberry.  She can always be counted on to add her special brand of campy finesse to any project.  This time around, she comes to tell Sam that she is selling her stock in the bank.  But, she's a mess.  Pining for Sam has upset her, though she says she’s over it, and the stress of losing Sam to Veronica, her brother to disease and her father to death has her feeling like "I don't give a damn about the bank anymore.  So, I sold my stock."  "To whom?" Sam wants to know.  "What does it matter?  I had suitors lined up to buy it.  You should have called," she replies.  Bravo, Jill, you just helped pull us out of quicksand with your little plot-twisting eye-bugging, hand-wringing scene.  Ron finds out for Sam that Peter has bought it and only 2% more stock will get him a seat on the board.  There is only one outside investor left, and we know it's going to be a battle between Sam and Peter somewhere down the road.  For now, Peter is just trying to sabotage bank dealings whenever he can. 

In the middle of one particularly hair-raising financial game, the bank suggests Sam play nice with Peter, who has his own problems.  David is bleeding him try and skimming lots of money from Peter, and he's losing his patience.  Sam calls Peter to grovel, but Peter holds firm in his desire to "get enough of your bank's stock so I can walk in there and throw you out myself!  Not today, not tomorrow.  I want you to have time to worry about what I'm going to do," he says, accusing him of killing Fred Gwynne and Sam's own mother.  "You want to talk?  Here is my answer," Peter bellows and hangs up the phone.  No wonder we couldn't show the men in World War II.  Their battle is going to be bigger!  Sam sends Ron on a mission to find out any dirt on Peter and David while Peter sends a scared flunky to Chicago to cover any tracks they may have left in their ascent. 

By 1953, Peter is opening a hotel in Warsaw, a longtime dream of his, though he tells a reporter that the happiness of his daughter is always his most important project.  Really?  We've seen her less than five times since she was born (now she's a grown woman, Kate McNeil).  Kate has a very good business sense.  She suggests that Peter take over the retail outlets in the hotels and brand them, which sounds good to Peter.  "Incidentally, what about men?" Peter asks on the trip to Poland.  "I like them," Kate replies.  Papa Peter worries that, "they are a fast crowd, those Harvard men."  A young woman of a new generation, she informs her father without hesitation that she's still a virgin.  No doubt that's only because there are no lifeboats around like her parents had. 

The proceedings are interrupted by a "touring Paris" montage for Peter and Kate, complete with a French chanson.  The sights, the shopping, the food, it's all here.  However, it's more than a lot creepy because they look like lovers rather than father and daughter.  He even gives her jewelry in a bouquet of flowers standing outside Notre Dame.

As for Sam's son (Thomas Byrd), he clearly does not want to follow in his father's footsteps.  "My fondest hope has always been that someday you'll take over here," Sam says to Thomas as a command rather than a wistful dream, especially since Thomas is not at all interested in banking. 

In Poland, Peter keeps promising Kate "the most beautiful castle in the world," but when they get to his childhood home, they find only a ruin.  It typically takes centuries for a place to get this ruined, but I guess two world wars and such have done it faster.  The graves of the Baron and his son are still there, even the ramshackle wooden crosses Peter made.  However, his sister's cross has fallen apart and he searches frantically for the pieces. 

Dejected from what he's seen, Peter himself seems a shell, until a phone call comes that cheers him up amazingly: there's been a plane crash and 17 people are dead!  That gets the old guy going again.  It's the airline that Sam's bank has been propping up and Peter owns a huge amount of stock in it.  So, he tells Vyto to sell the stock, which will make it worthless.  The run will give Sam "his own personal crash!" Peter triumphantly tells Vyto to end the second episode.

The final portion begins in 1953, only days after we last left the movie.  Peter has caused the panic at the bank he hoped, and once the bank has lost millions (and Sam personally) to prop it up, Peter starts to buy it back again, "making a killing."  Thankfully, Ron is on hand to remind everyone that this is fraud, and they can't wait to whack Peter over the head with it at an SEC hearing. 

At the hearing, Peter blames Sam and the bank directly, not exactly admitting that he did it for revenge, but Ron certainly knows he did it.  Peter's excuse to the SEC was to buy back the stock because he felt bad for the other investors.  "So, I used my own money, through Whitewood, that is a very small personal investment company, because I did not want to use Baron Hotels, because I did not want to endanger them any further," he pleads, "and therefore, we were able to save Atlantic International from destruction." 

"He won, case closed," Ron tells Sam after the proceedings.  Ron advises Sam to "call of the vendetta," but Sam can't.  "An eye for an eye," he says to Ron, who finishes the sentence with, "until you both end up blind." 

By 1955, Thomas is still wishy-washy about what he wants to do.  He admits feeling sorry for his father.  "It's almost as though he never had a choice.  Do not stop at jail, go directly to bank," he says, which is an amusing line, but whitewashes his father's backstory, considering the man focused his energies on the bank even as a child!  Mother Veronica's answer is "maybe you need the strong hand of a good woman...I'll start looking."  Just who do you think that will be?

That who is a new graduate of Radcliffe going to work at Bloomingdale's rather than taking a job with Peter immediately.  "I need to know what it's like working on the floor dealing with customers," she says, knowing that she will have that job dealing with the hotel retail chain when she's ready.  Kate does get an apartment, though.  She's not totally without her father's influence.  David calls Peter, begging from a seedy hotel room for $10K, one last time.  "You were an embarrassment...even the party hacks couldn't stomach you any longer," Peter chides him, saying one more time that he's way outlived his usefulness.  However, David isn't quite finished yet, as he threatens Peter with a "three inch" book of all the deals they have made over the year.  "You have a book, donate it to library," Peter snaps, since he knows David is too much of a coward to go down with him. 

Kate is working at the glove counter at Bloomingdale's under a fake name.  Thomas has come every day to the counter, but not for the hussy who runs it, rather for Kate.  He's bought gloves for more women than he knows in the hopes of asking her out.  To get rid of him when the manager needs her, she agrees to meet him at The Blue Angel, an awfully peppy mixed-race club for 1955.  Chatterbox Thomas doesn't stop talking long enough to realize that when he mentions his last name, Kate visibly shudders.  But, since he doesn't want to be part of the family business, giving her the worst lines about how he's a pirate planning a mutiny against going into the family business.  These two are so vapid that the late-in-the-game love plot creaks.  "There's another man?" Thomas asks when Kate doesn't invite him into the fake apartment she's had the cab drop them off at so he doesn't know she's really rich.  "Kind of," she says with irony he doesn't question.  He goes to kiss her, and she allows it, though "no hands" are allowed.  She's into him, of course, but there is that pesky family vendetta. 

Thomas tries to nab Kate at work, but having just left, he follows her in a cab to her real apartment.  He's angry that she's lied to him for weeks about where she lives, so she has to confess her real name.  She gives him the "it just didn't seem important" speech because she's fallen in love with him and that's all that really matters.  Coincidentally, that very night, he was planning on proposing and she was planning on telling him the truth.  Those twin admissions seem to right everything, and a kiss seals the deal. 

Eating ice cream in bed later, they joke about how they will break the news to their fathers.  Thomas naively suggests that perhaps when the fathers see how in love the kiddies are, they won't care.  "What astonishes me most is that you don't see the unsuitability of this," is Sam's response.  Veronica plays witness to their fight because "I don't want to clean up the blood later."  Sam, though awfully calm, tells Thomas that if he marries Kate, he's out of the family, out of the money.  "You don't know what a relief that is to me, Dad," Thomas chirps, determined to do what he wants.  He kisses Veronica goodbye and exits. 

Then we have to do the same thing again, but with Kate and Peter.  Kate says she's getting married first, to lower that boom, without telling Peter who the man actually is.  When she finally does get around to the guy's name, Peter explodes.  This is a much better scene than the previous one because Peter goes for some fun overacting where Sam insisted on underplaying it.  "I want you to use your common sense," Peter says, trying to sweet-talk his daughter, but then it turns violent when she admits to having slept with Thomas.  He slaps her and disowns her.  "I never want to see your face again," he hisses.  "I love you, Papa," Kate says before beating a retreat.  "Without her, what the hell is it all for?" Vyto asks Peter, not really needing an answer. 

With an umbrella, two suitcases and a bit of money, the lovers go off to San Francisco. 

The feud goes on, with Sam convinced that Peter is still trying to get a seat on his board and that the way to thwart it is to prove his connection to David's shady deals. 

In all of television history, I think "Kane & Abel" wins the award for the worst "I'm pregnant" line.  Kate and Thomas are standing in front of a building she wants to buy, but which they can't afford, but she's not worried.  "That's your department," she says.  "It's just you and me, baby," Thomas says delightedly.  "Oh, I forgot to mention..." Kate replies in a sing-song voice.  Are you kidding?  Playing it coy is one thing, but that's just downright stupid. 

The lovers are dire, but there is still the vendetta going, which isn't all that interesting either.  Ron has located David and Sam intends to extort the secrets from David, ironic considering he was Sam's first enemy.  But, as he tells Ron, as if it's a surprise this late in the story, "I'm in a fight for my life!" 
 
Kate's dress shop is a huge success, even drawing her mother-in-law.  They actually get along.  She's there on a peacemaking mission, but it seems neither father is willing to accept the marriage.  "You must never blame yourselves or each other," Veronica says.  Neither kid has the brain power to be that deep!  The scene ends with someone off-camera calling, "Mrs. Kane" and Veronica turns around.  "No, I think she means me," Kate says and Veronica gives one of the most insincere smiles of the decade.  I watched it a few times.  It's priceless.

The years are very slowly ticking by.  We're up to 1958 in some out-of-the-way dive with "Never on Sunday" playing in the background (who picked that of all songs?).  It's here Ron tracks down gray-haired mess David.  David may be far gone, but he's a negotiator still, turning down the initial $10K from Ron. 

Then it's suddenly 1960 and Peter is talking about Senator Kennedy, how the Irish and the Polish are very similar.  He's angling for an Ambassador post.  In the middle of the conversation, Vyto flashes a picture of Peter's grandson.  "Sometimes you are too smart for your own good," he says, to which Vyto responds, "better than being too dumb."  Good point!  He won't see the kids and when Veronica tells Sam their son is in town, he talks only about his books.  He does ask about the baby.  "Can I tell them you'd like to see them?" Veronica asks him.  "I can't," he says. 

Thomas and Kate are arguing in their second store in Beverly Hills, which is just starting.  Kate has a plan to open up stores all over the world, but Thomas is worried she is "trying to compete with" her father.  They are each jealous of each other, but still very much in love and full of annoyingly playful dialogue. 

On a plane, a toothy Senator congratulates Peter on his upcoming Ambassadorship, which is not yet official, and asks an interesting question: when Peter is off in Warsaw, who will run his empire?  "I'm not sure," he says honestly, but there will be no Ambassadorship.  Right off the plane, reporters are there with all of David's information.  Seventeen counts of bribery in seventeen states.  David has made an immunity deal and Vyto finds out that Ron's law firm was behind the deal.  Peter isn't afraid yet, because he has two options.  The first is to get to David and tell him that the information he sold went to Sam, which David doesn't know.  The other is to find a way to get 2% more of the bank stock so "I can throw him the hell out of there," meaning Sam.  Peter also wants to know if Vyto has told Kate, and he says no, that Peter should be the one to do that. 

Speaking of Kate, and I hate to do that, because whenever we go to her and company, they are so sleep-inducing.  While at lunch with her hubby and son, Thomas gives her a present of gloves (the cute way they met) with the key to their new NYC store in it.  A reporter interrupts their lunch to tell her of her father's troubles, and she wants to run to him, but Thomas stops her.  "I don't care what your father's done...but if he needs you, he's got to call and ask you," he insists.  Wow, playing hard to get is so hot, Thomas.  And, like a good 60s wife, she actually listens.

Peter's lawyer is dispatched to David in prison, where David still thinks Ron was acting on behalf of Peter.  He's defiant, but the lawyer tells him the truth, that Ron was acting on Sam's behalf.  It's a great speech the lawyer gets, and David all but has a stroke hearing it, even lurching at the lawyer in horror.  Just as the trial against Peter is beginning, word comes that David has hung himself, so Peter ends up with probation and a fine. 

Sam is listening to the television report when he gets a call...from Peter!  He's calling to gloat that "I know own 8% of the bank's stock!"  This gets him a seat on the board, "unless I hear that you have resigned.  You stole an Ambassadorship from me...I intend to take your bank!"  Peter is delivers this channeling any episode of "Dynasty" where Joan Collins raided any property of John Forsythe's. 

The shareholders have a meeting at the bank, where Sam tells the board of Peter's threat.  Sam thinks he still has control of the room, but everyone's body language says otherwise.  He's then told by one of the younger board members that it's "not your bank, Mr. Chairman" and that they are tired of supporting the ridiculous vendetta (a gold star goes to anyone who can remember what the hell started the vendetta by this late in the movie).  Basically, Sam is out, forced into retirement instead of facing the humiliation of a vote, which he would not win.  He signs the paper and walks from the room very slowly. 

That can probably be attributed to the heart attack he's in the middle of suffering.  He manages, clutching his chest, to walk all the way through the office until his secretary goes hysterical finding his crumpled body.  Her wild ranting get help and the doctor comes with pills.  Looking like death, he Veronica to get his son.  Peter's only reaction is to tell the bank that he will sell them back their stock.  He does inquire about Sam's heart, but without much excitement.

Though Sam looks terrible, he's really only in his early 60s, because it's now only 1962.  Kate is opening a new store in New York City and Vyto is on his way, but stops to invite Peter.  Vyto reels off a bitter speech, about the 14th he's said with the same information.  However, Sam has agreed to see his son and daughter-in-law.  Being an invalid doesn't give him much choice, and it also subjects him to a long scene with Veronica where they discuss their history.  Actually, Veronica is one of the better things about the miniseries, so she manages to make it work.

Veronica dashes off to Kate's store, where "Mack the Knife" is being played at the gala opening.  Without Veronica knowing, Sam has slipped out of bed and taken a cab to the store, watching with pride across the street.  Guess who also had the same idea?  They finally spot each other, only feet away and look at each other.  Peter tips his hat and walks away.  That's it?  For five hours, we've watched the two of them wage war, but when they meet for the last time, it's just a hat tip? 

Kate and Timothy close down the party to go see Sam.  Timothy introduces them without realizing what Kate knew the minute she walked in the room: Sam is dead.  He's in his suit in a chair, so Veronica probably realizes what he did, but she keeps silent and then does that thing that only happens on TV: she closes his eyelids. 

Sam's death comes with a shock for Peter.  After all these years, he's sent a letter telling him that the original $2M he received to start what would become his empire did not come from his competitor, but from Sam himself.  We all knew that, but after all these years, Peter had apparently never figured it out.  "He considered me a good investment," the letter says, which has Peter laughing, "he's a banker to the end!"  Of course then he breaks into sobs.  "We could even have been friends," Peter says, though he's still alive and still with a great head of hair. 

At Sam's huge church funeral, Sam and Vyto are there, sitting in the back, as we would expect by now.  As the family exits the church, Kate sees her father and calls to him, though he turns away...for a second!  Come on you didn't think he was going to get away without a reconciliation scene.  An American miniseries would never allow it.  Remember, Sam WANTED to, but died.  Peter HAS to, if for no other reason than to wrap his grandson in his arms as the music swells.

That leaves only one detail for 1966: the opening of a hotel in Poland.  Peter is now dead, so Kate has to do it, with her son, who sports his grandfather's bracelet.  Now, I give the movie credit for using stock footage of what looks to be a very Communist crowd, but the situation does seem off, no?  A big Western capitalist hotel chain in Warsaw? 

Historial reality is the least of "Kane & Abel's" problems.  What reads in paper as a pulse-racing tear through 50 years of two bitter but lavishly successful men is very two-dimensional on television.  Peter Strauss gives it all he has, but his role is the more exciting of the two anyway.  Sam Neill, usually a highlight of anything he does, falls into the background so much that the central vendetta of the story seems completely forgettable.  Toss in a bunch of supporting characters even more transparent and we are left with very little. 

However, as I said, "Kane & Abel" got my beloved Jeffrey Archer to television, and for that, it will always retain a place in my heart.  A small one.  And if I watch it again, probably an even smaller one.

People vs. Jean Harris (1981)

At the onset of "People vs. Jean Harris," you might think you have wandered into Erica Kane's latest murder trial.  Tape is used instead of film, giving it simultaneously the look of a soap opera and 1970s British miniseries.  Even weirder is a narrator who pops in every now and then. 

Oddest of all is that the entire movie takes place in the courtroom of the trial, with a script that is really no more than actual testimony.  Sounds like a recipe for a dud, right?

Wrong.  Whoever made the brave decision to limit the movie to just the courtroom testimony was a genius.  What was so captivating about Jean Harris' trial was the question of why she killed Hy Tarnower.  Unlike other sensational crimes of the 20th Century, the Jean Harris crime is fairly tame.  This is not Stanford White being killed by Harry Thaw over love for entertainer Evelyn Nesbitt.  This is not Charles Manson having freakish mental powers of commune members.  This is not O.J. Simpson cramming his celebrity into a glove that didn't fit.  No William Kennedy Smith rape accusations.  Just a middle-aged woman who killed her middle-aged lover.  Jean Harris was no Betty Broderick.  Jean Harris was a private school headmistress, a prim and proper woman where Betty Broderick, by all accounts, was a loon trying to hold onto a golden life that was fast being ripped from her insane hands. 

So, instead of making the crime the actual centerpiece of the movie, the trial is the star, showing the cleverness of the lawyers and witness.  It's an absolutely fascinating look at the justice system through the lens of a notorious case.  I warn you that this is not a miniseries for those who love shocking courtroom theatrics.  For that, go back to Betty Broderick.  For an intelligent rendering of a famous trial, as portrayed by first-rate actors, stick with "People vs. Jean Harris."

Judge Russell Leggett (Richard Dysart) gives advice to the jury.  He seems amiable enough and a nicely mixed jury follows along.  Then Assistant District Attorney George Bolen (Peter Coyote), "a formidable and relentless stickler for detail," gives his opening statement.  Then defense attorney Joel Arnou (Martin Balsam), less polished, but more experienced, has also sparred with the judge in the past, we're told.  He's one of those lawyers who talks to the jury like they are friends.  Telling them it's not a tabloid-type case, he notes that if they want that, "I think that at 10 o'clock you can find out who shot J.R." 

The first witness to testify about the events of March 10, 1980 is summoned and Arnou immediately calls for a sidebar because he objects to the large cross the witness is wearing, feeling it's prejudicial, but Judge Leggett says no and Suzanne van der Vreken (Sarah Marshall) can start her testimony.  She and her husband were hired in 1964 as servants at the home of Dr. Herman Tarnower.  She testifies that she was in her room "painted and watching television" when she heard the buzzer go off twice.  She called the doctor and heard arguing followed by a shot.  "Then I never heard Dr. Tarnower again," she says, going to wake up her husband.  "It was so much yelling through the phone, I knew something was wrong" she tells the jury.  Her husband called the police because "they didn't understand my accent."  Her husband saw "Mrs. Harris' car leaving." 

Going into Dr. Tarnower's room, Suzanne says she saw him bleeding, but still alive and then she called the police, but got no answer.  After a few minutes of pinning down exactly where she and her husband were at all times, Suzanne gives testimony that she saw Mrs. Harris coming "up the stairs, up the front stairs," with a police officer behind her.

Next to testify is the police officer who found Mrs. Harris.  She approached him and said "something like, 'hurry up, he's been shot, hurry up!'"  Then it's Dr. Roth's turn (Milton Selzer), district medical examiner, who arrived to find Dr. Tarnower alive, though barely.  His pulse and breathing stopped in the ambulance and "11:58 that evening, he was dead." 

Dr. Roth is the first witness cross-examined by Arnou.  He has Dr. Roth testify that indeed the injuries to and bullet holes in Dr. Tarnower "could have occurred during a struggle." 

It must have been mighty painful to be in that courtroom for over a month by the time the star witness, the one everyone came to see, finally takes the stand: Mrs. Jean Harris (Ellen Burstyn).  "Just relax," the judge tells her before she starts.

Arnou starts her off early, with where she was born, grew up, was schooled, etc.  She married soon after college graduation and had two children.  In 1965, she and her husband divorced, with Jean retaining custody of the boys.  In 1966, she met Dr. Herbert Tarnower at party and "we talked all evening, in fact."  A week after that meeting, he sent her the book "Masada," telling her "it's time you learned something about the Jews."  By chance, they were both going to be in New York City for different meetings and got together.  They went for dinner and dancing, where Jean says, he was a "lovely dancer.  I got to be a better dancer after years with him," to a smile from the judge.  "He wrote and he sent lots of roses," she testifies, though the relationship was completely chaste.  It wasn't until the middle of 1967, with her son present, that Dr. Tarnower asked her to marry him.  Behind giant sunglasses, Jean describes the beautiful ring. 

There came a point where Jean pressed Dr. Tarnower to set a date for the wedding because she needed to make plans, and she testifies that he said, "'Jean, I just don't think I can go through with it.'"  She calmly recounts that she was understanding about his inability to actually get married.  She sent the ring back, but he brought it to her again.  "I think it upset him more than it upset me," Jean testifies.  "I was very much in love with him by that point and it was too late," she says as part of a rambling talk on how she loved him, smartly cut off by Bolen, who reminds the judge no actual question has been asked of her.  The judge agrees, but in the most sympathetic way to Jean, not like the clip judges we're used to seeing on TV.

Though Jean and Hy were not married, they stayed together.  Jean moved to Connecticut to become the headmistress of a small school.  As to her relationship with HiTarnower, "it was a very close one."  They spent weekends together, took trips together and seemed to enjoy a very rewarding few years together.  When she left the school in 1975, she was worried about exhaustion and was taking pills prescribed to her by Dr. Tarnower.  She took a less stressful job and then went on a tour of Iron Curtain countries before finishing off the trip in Paris together.  At the hotel in Paris, "there was a letter from another woman sitting on the floor."  She makes a bit of a joke about the letter, which Bolen doesn't appreciate, but they continue.  She describes how she took off all of her jewelry and left them with his cuff links.  As for the cuff links, she said, "they came from a grateful patient," but then saw an engraving on them from a woman professing her love, dated during the time of her own relationship with Hi Tarnower. 

In 1977, Jean testifies that she was offered a job as the headmistress at the Madeira School.  "My feeling when I went there was that I should spend the first year observing and not try to change anything too fast," she notes, even though she saw a lot wrong.  Her tenure there was difficult.  At one point, in 1979, the school brought in a "consultant," though Jean cannot remember what the word for the document he produced is.  "The word just leaves me right now," she says, becoming a bit flustered.  Essentially, the consultant asked contributors to the school their opinions on how the school was run, which Jean didn't like.  "She was the most controversial" headmistress the school ever had, one survey noted, though Jeans says, "I wasn't controversial at all.  You couldn't say that now," she jokes, with nervous twitters of laughter from the courtroom.  She strongly defends her record, though the recommendation of the report was that she should be fired.  Jean testifies that it caused her a great deal of "emotional stress...it was depressing and upsetting."

Arthur Siciliano (Al Ruscio) takes the stand after Jean.  He is the detective who arrived at the crime scene.  He testifies Jean Harris admitted she killed Hy Tarnower as soon as he entered the house.  He placed her under arrest and read her the usual rights, though she said she didn't need them.  She told them the gun was in the car and Detective Siciliano found it exactly where she said it was.  Turning back to Jean, he asked if she was injured and found her lip bloody and swelling. 

After roughly 30 minutes of rather dry and completely expected testimony, Siciliano suddenly gives us the first clue as to why this case became so notable.  "She told me she had driven up from Virginia to the Tarnower home with the hope of being killed by Dr. Tarnower.  She said, 'he wanted to live and I wanted to die,'" is is testimony.  He continues that Jean told him she was tired of his countless affairs, and the camera shows Jean whispering to her lawyer, but maintaining her cool.  Specific to the crime at hand, Siciliano says that Jean told him she and Tarnower struggled for the gun and he told her to leave, "you're crazy."  "They started to fight again and the gun went off several times," Siciliano relays before Jean asks to see Hi!  He claims to have denied her request, but just then, the body, head exposed, was brought by her and she fainted.  To this, Jean pays rapt attention. 

Siciliano continues his testimony.  He went up to the bedroom to see signs of a struggle blood.  "I noticed a bullet hole in one of the sliding doors about 13" above the floor.  I noticed a television set resting in the stand.  I guess that was it," he says succinctly.  It's interesting to note that in the span of one sentence, he notices a bullet hole and completely undisturbed television set. 

When Arnou cross-examines Siciliano, he first makes sure that the jury hears they have had past associations, but never any unpleasantness.  But, this encounter immediately gets heated when Arnou gets Siciliano to confess that it wasn't until a week after the incident that he photographed the crime scene.  Arnou suggests evidence could have been compromised by then, and Bolen's objection is sustained.  Siciliano did not do any tests to figure out who held the weapon, claiming over and over, "it wasn't necessary, so I didn't do it."  In fact, he did not tests at all on the night of the crime, none at all.  "You were the detective assigned to the case?" Arnou asks.  "I'm not sure," a nervous Siciliano replies.  Arnou jumps all over that one, causing only more confusion from Siciliano and more admissions that there was some mighty sloppy police work.  Most of it focuses on the issue of who actually touched the gun that night. 

Bolen has another shot at Siciliano and wastes not time.  "Did the defendant appear to be acting," he asks?  Without hesitation, Siciliano says yes and Jean starts to look angry.

Medical examiner Dr. Roh (Alvin Ing) takes the stand.  The entire point of his short testimony is to ascertain whether there are defensive wounds on the dead body.  Medical experts continue with Dr. Ryan (Alan Manson).  Brought from Maine to look at the evidence, he is a witness for the defense to claim that "I would prefer to give the probability to a struggle."  A succession of medical testimony so dry that the narrator quickly explains it all rather than have us listen to it is paraded by.

And then Jean takes the stand again.  This time, it's not about her history, but the actual night of the crime.  She's very specific in explaining how she took flowers, where they were positioned and such, and does not hesitate when asked where the gun was.  "It was in the pocket book," she says matter-of-factly.  She testifies about going into a dark house, sitting on the bed and turning on the light just as Hi was waking up, but gets in a little dig among the facts, noting that, "he was not enthralled to see me."  Her testimony is very calculated and subtly paints Dr. Tarnower as rather a cold fish, not interested in talking to her, despite the fact that she traveled from Virginia specifically to talk to him (as per her testimony).  Since he's not there to defend himself, she can get away with a whopper like "I was sure he would say something like, 'you're a nut for driving five hours in the middle of the night just to talk'" when she kept insisting to the slumbering Hi that she wanted a conversation (with flowers). 

A bit of a more aggressive Jean comes out when she next describes going into the bathroom she typically used and finding a "blue-green negligee."  Believing it to belong to a woman who had taken some of her own items...objections from Bolen.  Before the judge can rule, Jean insists that it was because this other woman had taken things of hers that she touched the negligee, but the judge sustains the objection because the possible other woman and her maybe/maybe not taking of Jean's items is not relevant.  "By this time, I felt hurt and frustrated because the script wasn't working out the way I expected it to.  I had looked forward to a few more quiet minutes with Hi.  I guess I wanted to feel safe one more time.  I thought it was a reasonable request, but it wasn't happening," she says. 

After throwing a "box of curlers" at a window and breaking it, Jean says she walked out of the bathroom, only to be slapped by Hi.  Arnou asks if he had ever done that before and Jean replies, "no, indeed he never had, but then I had never come to his house and thrown something before." 

That brings Arnou to one of the main points, namely did Jean go to Dr. Tarnower's to have him kill her.  "I'm glad I finally have the chance to say it," Jean says, telling the court she would never have gone to him for such a reason, especially since he "spent his life saving people."  She claims she "had no intention of ever letting him see I had the gun or anything about how desperate I was that night." 

Angry at being slapped, she throws a box around the bathroom and Hi slapped her again.  "I made him very angry," she testifies.  Arnou returns her to the fact that keep saying she wanted a client last night with Hy.  Why?  "I planned to leave and go down near the pond and shoot myself," she says.  Arnou asks her to continue and she sure does, saying, "I didn't have the desire to throw any more things.  It hadn't turned out the way I hoped it would.  I just wanted to get dying over with."  She's more upset that her fantasy of a quiet talk before suicide isn't happening, and that's when her mood that night apparently really turned.

She testifies that she told Hi to hit her once more, "hard enough to kill," but before even taking a breath, knows enough to say that mentioning that to the policeman "started that who stupid story that I had gone to Westchester to ask Hi to kill me.  That was the farthest thing from my mind."  She's exceedingly restrained during testimony, but that this woman is capable of fury is evident.  Without thinking, she reached for her pocketbook, felt the gun, pulled it out and said, "never mind, I'll do it myself," which causes a wince from Arnou.  That could be interpreted two ways.  One, that, as the policeman testified, she did go to there to have Hi kill her or two, that she was merely following the thread of asking Hy to slap her to death. 

She claims she put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger at the very same instant that Hi pulled the gun from her, causing a shot that went through his hand.  "We both just stood there and looked at it," she says.  Arnou asks if Jean intended to shoot Tarnower and she adamantly says no, that she didn't even realize he was so close.  She claims she's most upset at her own reaction: that she didn't do anything to help him.  After all, she's been so motherly toward him that she claims "I got upset if he had a headache and didn't take a pill."  But, at the same time, she also says she realized she could race to the gun and shoot herself with it.  Unfortunately, she couldn't find the gun for a while, until finding it under a bed, but as she was reaching for it, Hy "reached for my left hand...and it hurt and it made me drop the gun."  Jean is able to recount the details with a minimum of emotion, only bringing it on when she's correcting someone else's testimony.  She's very controlled as she notes Hi went to his bed and buzzed for the staff, with the gun in his right hand "because he buzzed with the left," she says specifically upon Arnou's question of where the gun was. 

Next, she claims that she begged Hi to either kill her or give her the gun so she could do it herself.  He called her crazy and told her to leave.  She was able to reach for the gun and fell backwards, with Hy lunging after her and "felt the muzzle of the gun in my stomach...well, I thought it was the muzzle and I...pulled the trigger."  The woman with the stupendous memory claims, she remembers thinking, "that didn't hurt, I should have done it a long time ago."  She claims she then ran away from him to shoot herself, which seems a bit odd considering she thought she had already shot herself in the stomach.  With Hi on his knees between the beds, Jean claims, "I put the gun to my head, I pulled the trigger and the gun clicked."  It did not fire.  So, sure she filled the chamber with six bullets, she fired again, but the shot went into a piece of furniture.  She then tried again at her head, "and I shot and I shot and I shot and I shot and it just clicked."  Bolen isn't buying a word of it as she continues that she wanted to be dead before the servants arrived, so she went for the extra bullets in her coat.  She has so much time that she "banged the gun on the tub" over and over to dislodge the casings in order to reload, but the banging caused the gun to break.  She even tried to fix the gun and "finally I walked back into the room and say Hi dropping the phone," but she took the phone from him, not hearing an outside line, hung it up and said, "Hi it's broken.  I think it's gone dead and he said, 'you're probably right.'  That was the only civil thing he said to me all night and that was the last thing I heard him say."  She helped him up onto the bed.  "He looked exhausted, but he didn't look...fine," she says, tears welling up and having to stop to control herself.  "I looked at his face and he looked at me and, uh, I guess we were both in a state of shock," wondering how something like this could happen "between to people who never argued, except over the use of the subjunctive," a detail that sounds more than a bit rehearsed.  Quietly, she finishes up by describing how she left the house and went to find a phone.

Switching gears, Arnou shows Jean a will she had written, had it executed and wrote some letters.  Now she's crying fully.  She arranges her papers for her sons, sounding like someone planning a suicide.  "I couldn't cope anymore," she testifies.  Arnou asks her to explain a line from the will where she wrote, "I was a person that no one ever knew."  "I felt that for many years," Jean says, with Arnou asking her to explain.  Slowly and through the tears, she chalks it up to "being a woman."  She liked being a woman when she was on Hy's arm at social functions, but not when she was at school as a woman with responsibilities.  "I intended...to...kill...myself," she says, barely able to get out the words, "because I couldn't function as a useful person anymore." 

Still carefully demonizing Dr. Tarnower, Jean testifies that she called him the night of the killing, begging to talk to him and he told her no, to come the next day.  She insisted on seeing him that night and he merely said, "suit yourself."  It's then she claims "I stopped thinking of dying as a decision.  It became a physical necessity."  Arnou asks why she hadn't tried to kill herself before, and Bolen objects furiously.  Even Jean is surprised, saying, "I didn't think you would be the one to ask that." 

Then Bolen has four days to cross-examine Jean.  He starts with the engagement, the proposal and the breaking of it.  Sympathetic Jean is replaced by a more caustic one.  She blithely admits that she didn't mind Hy breaking the engagement, or his reasons for it.  "I was always happy to be with him.  I didn't sit around for 14 years waiting for him to marry me me, Mr. Bolen.  I was looking for the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval," she spits out to laughs from the gallery.  Openly hostile to Bolen she he tries to paint her as bitter at not being invited to a dinner honoring Dr. Tarnower or being able to sit at the head table, she snaps that she would have liked to have been there to honor him, but "I have no strong feelings about sitting at head tables, Mr. Bolen.  I've sat at a lot of them, and it doesn't cut any ice with me at all." 

Bolen skips her ahead to the weekend before the killing, asking about a letter she wrote to Dr. Tarnower that took over two days to write, asking her every possible detail one can ask about writing a letter, including mailing the certified letter.  There is a biting back-and-forth between the two that ends up with the judge having to mediate.  On the day of the killing, she did call him, mainly to tell him to throw away the letter if he had received it because "complaining was not my style."  The conversation then went to normal discourse, making plans for an upcoming weekend.  "What tone of voice did you use during the call?" Bolen asks.  "It was probably a very trouble one, Mr. Bolen, because I was a very troubled woman that day, and long before that," she retorts. 

Up to now, Bolen has been baiting Jean, but then he goes for the kill, to make her seem completely unhinged.  He brings up the subject of the "other woman," and Jean claims that she was not upset at the woman herself, only "being touched by the other woman" emotionally.  They start to yell at each other when it is suggested that the very long letter to Hi be read.  Jean claims she doesn't want it read, but isn't afraid of having it read.  "It is a very private letter, Mr. Bolen, as you know, but if you are going to play cat-and-mouse with it, I would rather have the whole thing on the table," Jean rails.  Knowing that opened the door for him, Bolen asks Arnou for the letter.

After a break, Jean is questioned by Arnou again.  He intends to swing things back to sympathy for Jean by asking questions about job stress.  Apparently there was a marijuana epidemic at the Madeira School and Jean says she had found "a basket of bongs."  "Bongs?  How do you spell that?" Bolen interrupts.  "Bong.  B...O...N...G.  If you ever ran a school, you would know that," Jean acidly answers, getting another laugh from the gallery.  Also, she had been on medication prescribed by Dr. Tarnower, but ran out on March 6 and never took any again.  Asked how she felt without the medication, Jean responds, "just the same as I always had, very tired."  On top of being a creep, it sounds like Hi wasn't a great doctor either!  This is backed up by a physician who says that what Jean was on was an amphetamine and that sudden withdrawal from it would cause "fatigue, anxiety and depression, although such reactions vary from person to person."

Back to Jean.  During a Christmas 1979, Jean and Hi went to Florida with friends, and Jean knew that he was seeing other women, but wasn't too upset about it.  She even wrote a poem, giving to Hi and the friends where she makes light of his women.  Bolen asks for a voire dire and with Jean in a mood to smack him around a bit, gets off another joke that has everyone laughing, much to Bolen's dismay.  Arnou reads the poem, a spoof on "'twas the Night Before Christmas" where Jean lacerates Hi for his other women, though very amusingly.  One can question her state of mind: is it playful, as Jean suggests, or mean-spirited, as Bolen wants the jury to believe? 

Jean testifies that she saw an ad in The New York Times from one of Hi's other lovers to him, and claims she told Hy, "why don't you tell her to use the Goodyear blimp next year.  I think it's available," again, in a spirit of fun she wants to convey, rather than bitterness. 

Bolen gets his turn to ask questions about the night of the killing.  Jean has to defend her intention to kill herself.  Bolen asks if Jean was angry over the fact that Hi has so many women, but in getting her to answer a particular question, phrases it so she can only answer "yes" or "no."  The judge and Arnou even get in on the act, but the end result is that Jean has to answer as Bolen dictates, though not without getting frustrated and angry.  Bolen hammers Jean about where she wanted her death to take place, the pond or the bedroom.  Over and over he asks the question in different ways, trying to get Jean to change her testimony, but Arnou keeps popping up with "asked and answered!"  However, Judge Leggett sides with Bolen, chastising Arnou for "making a speech" while objecting.  Bolen tries to get Jean to admit that she was thinking about killing Hi, but she remains resolute.  "I was thinking about dying, Mr. Bolen, and I was thinking frantically about it," she hisses. 

Bolen gets to the business about the phone, whether she tried to call for help, which she insists she did, and goads Bolen with, "I wish you had taken some fingerprints of the phone that night" because it would be proof of her claim.  We know already that the police had been rather inept in their forensic work, and she knows it too.  However, Bolen challenges her that she had used the phone many times, so of course her fingerprints would be on there.  But, she counters that even Hi's fingerprints were not found on the phone and he touched it "with bloody hands."  This turns out to be something of a mistake on her part.  Jean wanders through a harangue at the police and everyone else by testifying that all she was trying to do with the phone was get help because she was "no longer consumed with myself."  She admits she used the phone to call the servants, but Bolen has a counterattack for that, asking her why she didn't take Hi to the hospital herself.  "I didn't know he needed a hospital, really," she says angrily. 

Further looking to bait Jean, Bolen asks her if Dr. Tarnower had told her he proposed to one of his other girlfriends.  She says no, going further to ask of Bolen, "did he tell you that Mr. Bolen, because I don't think that ever happened" while Arnou begs for an objection to shut her up.  Unfortunately, Judge Leggett again sides with Bolen.  There is much discussion of the March 10 daytime phone call, which ends up with Bolen asking Jean if she knew she was "going to inherit $240,000?"  Arnou rises to demand a mistrial and an angry Judge Leggett refuses, but demands that Dr. Bolen has a "good faith" reason for asking the question.  Bolen pushes further, asking if Dr. Tarnower told Jean to go away, and as Arnou objects again, Jean begs of the judge, "how long are we going to go on like this, forever?"  Bolen hits Jean hard in asking, "is it not a fact that on March 10, 1980, you intended to kill Dr. Tarnower and then kill yourself because if you couldn't have Dr. Tarnower, no one would, yes or no?"  Jean's eyebrows go up, she places her head on her hand and pauses, only to caustically reply, "no, Mr. Bolen," looking awfully angry.  "I have no further questions," Bolen says.  "Well that's good," Jean notes, getting the last word.

There's a surprise witness in the form of Juanita Edwards (Priscilla Morrill).  She was the 10:00 patient in Dr. Tarnower's office.  Her testimony is that the doctor had taken her pulse when the phone interrupted the appointment.  "Dr. Tarnower left the room...and I remained seated on the examining table and I did not leave it," she says, though apparently Dr. Tarnower had not hung up the phone in that room completely.  "Very loud and very angry," is the way Mrs. Edwards describes Dr. Tarnower's voice on the phone, though Arnou objects and the judge has "angry" stricken.  She says she heard clearly that Dr. Tarnower told Jean to leave him and also that she was going to inherit that mysterious $240,000 before coming back in and finishing her examination.  When Arnou gets his chance, he's forced to push at Mrs. Edwards, noting that she didn't bother to hang up the phone and wondering how she heard everything so clearly. Arnou doesn't score much off of Mrs. Edwards, other than that Dr. Tarnower's other lover, who worked for him, was in the building at the time of the phone conversation.

Then it's back to the business of the letter Jean wrote and mailed to Dr. Tarnower.  The narrator skips us through a minefield of potential boring legal wrangling by simply stating the facts: Dr. Tarnower never picked up the letter and after he died, the Post Office ruled the letter be returned to Jean.  The prosecution asked the letter to be put into evidence, but the defense objected, so there was a separate case about the letter, where Judge Leggett allowed it.  Arnou appealed and lost, so the letter was entered into evidence.

That's not good for Jean, because in the letter, she refers to Dr. Tarnower's other woman Lynn as "dishonest," "adulteress," and even "whore."  Or, rather, "your whore," as Bolen corrects.  In fact, she wrote "psychotic" because, according to Jean, "that's how Suzanne always referred to her."  "What did Suzanne say about you?" Bolen asks.  "I hate to think," Jean says bitterly.  As Bolen goes through the letter word by word, Jean gets furious, insisting the judge stop it, but Judge Leggett cautions her, saying that only Arnou can object, which she bitterly remarks, "he's not doing anything!"  Jean claims she was angry about Lynn, though not because of anything Lynn was or did, just her existence. 

Arnou doesn't object to Bolen reading the letter in its entirety.  The entire letter is quotable, and it's a corker.  It refers to Lynn in unsavory terms over and over, accusing her of even smearing feces on a dress of hers.  She says she has become poor chasing after him, while Lynn has made money.  Worst of all, he has scratched out her name on his will and put hers in.  She lacerates him, but also begs for any minute of time with him she can get.  It's alternately mean and pained, but it shows a woman desperate and very much clinging to sanity, obsessed with a man who, according to her, was tossing her out for a younger model.

All that's left are closing arguments.  Arnou is up first, calling it "a tragic accident" that can "never bring back Dr. Tarnower."  That's expected.  His take on the letter is that it was not a threat, especially the end of the letter, that tells him to give Lynn the money, but her the time.  He debunks the letter and debunks Mrs. Edwards.  "This is a story of love.  Love gone wrong, love from a woman to a man who could not accept or did not know how to handle."  The tragedy, according to Arnou, is that this is a "tragedy" because Dr. Tarnower couldn't handle "the great gift a woman has to give," her love. 

When Bolen gets his turn, he keeps the jury thinking only of Jean's "state of mind."  He crawls over every bit of evidence, showing how it added up to Jean intending to kill Dr. Tarnower.  Arnou objects a few times at Bolen stuffing a bit of theatricality and license into the closing argument, but Judge Leggett always sides with Bolen.  He concentrates mainly on the night of the killing, analyzing every one of Jean's movements and decisions, making them all look suspect.  Bolen's is by far the more believable of the two conclusions. 

The jury returned a verdict after only a week, a unanimous one no less, and it's that Jean Harris is guilty.  As Jean is being led out of the courtroom, she is asked for her home address by the court reporter.  "I don't have any.  I live in jail, I guess," she snaps. 

At sentencing, the defense chooses not to speak, but the prosecution does, painting Dr. Tarnower as something of a saint, which was apparently not true in reality, not, of course, that he deserved to die.  His plea is a but much.  Jean also askes to be heard.  She claims she did not "intend to murder Dr. Tarnower" and that she loved him.  She says it's a "travesty of justice," that she will be in prison for the rest of her life.  She also defiantly says that there is no proof of her intent to murder, that the jurors who have spoken out publicly have noted that she did nothing to convince them of her innocence, which is not the same sd guilt being proven.  Her speech is greeted by applause from the courtroom. 

When Judge Leggett passes sentence, he does it in a very curious way.  First, he regrets that he has to pass sentence on a woman, but he does it as "mandated by law."  However, it's what he says after that is truly telling.  He asks the prison system to use Jean Harris for the good of other prisoners because he finds her so intelligent and worthy.  "Anything that can be done with respect to giving her the opportunity to help her fellow women that are in that prison, I would like it to be done.  I think she has so much to offer the women that are there would be to deprive society and the other inmates in there of a very great advantage," he says.  That's a rather remarkable action from a judge who has just sentenced a woman to prison for murder!  But, it's a summation of the trial.  Jean Harris did kill Dr. Tarnower in one way or another, whether intentionally or accidentally, but that doesn't take away her personal achievements or better qualities.  That's why someone like Ellen Burstyn has to be cast in this role, for she is capable of being that Jean Harris. 

Really, this should be so dry!  A one-set miniseries with only a handful of actors reciting court testimony?  That sounds like something that should be done on stage, not on television!  But, a chance was taken and it paid off!  The courtroom testimony turns out to be thrilling because there are very clearly two Jean Harrises.  One is the defense Jean Harris: polite, efficient, crisp, though sad.  The other is the prosecution Jean Harris: angry, bitter, desperate and lying.  That's to be expected in any case, but unlike most courtroom dramas, this one is not based on high-flying theatrics.  It's very subdued.  Even when Jean and Bolen spar, it's reserved, hardly as flashy as the great climax courtroom scenes of other miniseries (we could go back to Betty Broderick, but she was just plain nuts, whereas Jean is not only more complex, but also a lady at all times). 

Above all, there is the acting.  Cutting the testimony down from months to only a few hours is a chore in itself, but the highlights obviously stood out to writer George Lefferts.  But, how does one act this?  Most of the time, everyone gets giddy with acting fever, knowing this is the stuff of awards.  Richard Dysart chooses to maintain the folksy, almost humorous demeanor of Judge Leggett, a man who knows what he's doing, but never pretends he's God.  Peter Coyote, with the difficult part of a young prosecutor who has to make Jean Harris seem like a fanatic, stands his ground among the vets.  When the character realizes he's about to trap Jean, Peter registers it in his whole body, almost unable to control himself.  Just the opposite is Martin Balsam, who maintains a lack of emotion the whole time, knowing that the more arguments and outbursts that arise, the less the jury will sympathize.

But, of course, the piece belongs to Ellen Burstyn, as does pretty much every movie with her in it.  In an HBO movie version of the same story, one which showed everything rather than staying in the courtroom, Annette Bening gave a spectacular performance as Jean Harris, but she has so much more to work with (Burstyn is also in that movie, playing one of Hi Turnower's other women).  Ellen has only the trial testimony, and that delicate line of balancing defense Jean and prosecuted Jean.  She remains dignified even in moments of anger, and her Jean never lets on a hint of craziness.  When she says she intended to kill herself, I believed her, because Ellen Burstyn is so damn convincing.  Perhaps if Jean Harris had taken some acting lessons from Ellen Burstyn before testifying, she wouldn't have spent over a decade in prison (until pardoned in 1992).  The question of Jean's guilt or innocence is not really the subject of the movie since it presents both sides very fairly and the verdict was already known when it aired.  Watching it unfold is the fun.  Many a more shocking court case has been dramatized, but the decision to do the Jean Harris story within the confines of the court testimony, allowing for little in the way of theatrics forced the best from the writers and actors, and they all rise to the challenge. 

Also, note that this aired in May 1981, only a few weeks after the trial ended, so this whole movie was put together very quickly, yet another stunning coup for the writers and actors.