From most of the gang who brought us "Jesus of Nazareth" (discussed here back in December), now we have "A.D.," the less familiar story of the Apostles as they spread the gospel. This one is even more drenched in guest stars, more drenched in sets and costumes and more drenched in silliness, and I say that with all reverence. If you are looking for a religious message, stick with the Good Book. If you want pomp and pageantry in the world of ancient Rome, settle in for six hours of it!
Let's be honest: for good storytelling, you can't beat the Passion story. Other than sex, it really does have everything a truly great story should have. Before there ever was an official New Testament, the story of Jesus, with its heroes and villains, miracles, violence and redemption, and even perhaps the hint of a prostitute (with the biggest heart of gold of them all) is just the kind of thing with which to take around the Roman Empire and hope for conversion. Very few organized religions can match it.
However, the story loses steam after the resurrection. The next few hundred years couldn't hope to match the 33 Jesus spent on Earth (and most of his years are even missing--it's a very condensed story), and that is the main problem with "A.D." You can have all the trappings money can buy, but without a whiz-bang story, even the trappings look thin. Note here that most of the guest stars (slumming and otherwise) play Romans, who were far more exciting than the Apostles. Why be post-crucifixion Mary when you can be Agrippina?
(Note: the DVD prints of "A.D." cut out a lot, meaning the guest stars, so be prepared to do without Colleen Dewhurst, Ava Gardner's Agrippina and Jennifer O'Neill's Messalina, Fernando Rey's Seneca and of course Susan Sarandon's Livia, most mentioned, but not shown, though they certainly are in the original TV airing--the DVD is put out by a group more interested in religion than fun.)
So, keep that in mind as we slog through some of the slowest parts. The history of Christianity is fascinating, but most of the best stuff happened right up front and then not for a few centuries. The stuff in between, well, it means well, and it tries its hardest, but Christianity definitely had what the theater would call "second act trouble." Oh, sure, comic Roman Emperors and Paul's outrageous sense of self-worth are amusing, but watching it all happen convert by convert can become tiresome at times.
It's two days after the crucifixion. The scaffold is being dismantled, but otherwise, Jerusalem seems back to normal. Two too-late-for-Passover visitors are scampering away from the city, soon joined by an awfully serene man who wants to hear their story. "We got there in time for the bad news," one says, that they not only missed joining "the 12," but that Jesus is dead. So, they went to the tomb, "but the body wasn't there...nothing is left, not even his body." They are told not to be afraid, but to be "cheerful," because this has all been foretold. The serene man tries his best with the two frightened men, who bleat, "there is nothing in the scriptures about the power of Rome!" but when the serene man finally shows them his hands, with big holes through them, their attitudes change. He is, of course, Jesus (Michael Wilding Jr.).
Jesus can't stay for dessert, despite the prodding of his new converts, who seem to understand all once he is gone and have no more fears. This first sequence is extremely long and extremely pious, but a slow start isn't a miniseries first.
It's time to meet the Apostles, hiding in Jerusalem. One claims he has been renamed "Peter, the rock" (Dennis Quilley). In rush our two newly calm converts Cleopas (Todd Durham) and Zacchaeus (Anthony Pedley) with their story. Thomas (Davyd Harries), doubts that it's true (yes, that's a Doubting Thomas joke) because he hasn't seen him yet. Peter does not understand how he's supposed to move forward, but Jesus appears and says, "on your shoulders, strong enough to bear the weight of your mission" and now everyone sees him. No trap doors, no fog, no smoke and mirrors. Here he is folks, get your believing on! Jesus gets in a second Doubting Thomas reference, but only so Jesus can prove to the naysayer that he is there and make him believe. He tells them to stay in Jerusalem for a few days because soon enough will come the time to start spreading the word.
The Jews in Jerusalem are arguing. Luckily, they have the slow steady Gamaliel (John Houseman, who did everything slow and steady in the 80s) to guide them. He defends the action of turning in Jesus to keep the Romans placated. Stephen (Vincent Riotta), Samuel (Ralph Arliss) and Caleb (Cecil Humphreys) are all present to join in with witty barbs back and forth. Paul (Philip Sayer), isn't quite trusted by the rest because Rome has honored his family. Gamaliel tries to calm everyone by saying despite their differences, they are all one people, but Jesus and his teachings have stirred them up and they don't know what to think anymore. Paul is particularly vitriolic against the notion of "love" that Jesus had preached, but no one really knows if he was the Messiah or not. "We firmly reject any claim that Jesus was anything but a good man. We all need unity and heart. Let us pray for this now," Gamaliel says to bring the meeting to a close.
Freed from thinking, Stephen and Caleb wrestle in the street with everyone cheering them on. It's all done in friendliness, but the Romans break it up and arrest Caleb. Paul tries to save him, but the Roman soldiers merely sneer at him.
Remember Pontius Pilate (Anthony Zerbe)? He's still the head Roman in the area, and he has still has the problems of rebels in Judea. He is told they are stockpiling gems, but he's unconcerned. He knows the Romans will rout them in the end and tells his aides to simply rejoice in the majesty of Emperor Tiberius. That said, there is still the pesky problem of the new zealots. "They are like weeping willows," he tells his aides, "they bend until they snap back with more power." Everyone is thrilled with the expediency of the way he handled Jesus, but they need to set more examples. Regarding Jesus, "his case puzzled me; his death relieved me," Pilate says, but does not ask for Caleb immediately, preferring to wait two days until another Jewish celebration to pronounce sentence. "They shall have another solemn date on their calendar," he says, now just a nasty old man who loves his power. Oh, wait! It gets worse. With both eyebrows raised, he asks if Caleb has any relatives and told he has a mother and two young sisters, he has them sent to Rome as slaves to thank Sejanus for "his consideration."
I'll skip ahead more briskly than the movie, which delights in sweating the small stuff. One of Caleb's sisters, Ruth (Rebecca Saire) is betrothed to Samuel, who informs the family that Caleb is certain to be crucified. Samuel tries to tell Ruth to leave the house with him, sensing "it isn't safe," but she refuses. Meanwhile, Steven wants Paul to intervene because he's a Roman citizen, but it's too late for that. How about Uncle Matthias? He has money. Nope, he won't give any of it up because he believes in the teachings of Jesus. "Ugh," Paul says, with a roll of the eyes that can be seen miles away. "The Lord who is one will guide us," Paul says, stressing "one" to remind everyone it's still the Jewish God in whom they need to have faith. Roman guards take the sisters, and Samuel is understandably upset. He wants to strike at the Romans, but Steven says "violence breeds violence," stressing belief in God, who has "seen us through harder times." "He's deaf!" Samuel yells.
As the Apostles are delighting in baby stories from Mary (Millie Perkins), a wind kicks up, but only in their room. It's followed by a bright light that causes them to form a circle and dance in delight before leaving Mary alone in the secret room. Gathered outside are tons of people shouting "hallelujah" and waving palm branches. It's the celebration day Pilate had mentioned, and everyone gathers at the Temple in high spirits. Peter quiets them down to speak. It turns out he's quite the preacher. "That great and notable day is upon us. Jesus of Nazareth...God has raised up...let all know that God has made him both Lord and Messiah!" he tells all. He says all they have to do is be baptized and turn away from the Jewish priests who have gathered with hostile faces, including Paul.
Meanwhile, Caleb is saved in a brave attack as he's on his way to be crucified, but Samuel is killed in the melee. Stephen begs Caleb not to take revenge and seek out some Jewish aesthetics who are are big into water wells and "obsessed with cleanliness" but otherwise live cut off from the world. They are definitely not followers of any new religious ideas. Caleb gets to argue a bit with them and then we visit his sisters on the boat to Rome, where Ruth is depressed, but remembering Uncle Matthias, who is a follower of Jesus' teachings, so we get a little gospel before she's killed.
Peter, thinking he's Jesus because he's seen a crippled man with a cross-shaped stick, touches him and tells him to rise, and it actually works! This is seen by the Jewish priests and everyone gathered at the Temple. No one is more surprised than Peter that it worked. "I'm nobody, I'm nothing. It's the power of our Lord," he says. However, he does have a bit of ego going, so he goes a-baptizin'. Stephen shows up to take the waters.
The action moves to Rome. Let's face it, as nasty as Pilate is, Judea is a backwater and the story is only going to pick up steam when we transplant at least some of heroes to the sinful capital city. We arrive in the Senate where Sejanus (Ian McShane) is making a speech, having just survived an assassination attempt. A note from Emperor Tiberius makes him Consul. Valerius (Neil Dickson), son on a low-born successful soldier, has come to Rome as a spy for Sejanus because there is another plot against him, but when he falls in love with slave girl at first sight, he suddenly doesn't want to spy anymore. The slave girl belongs to Sejanus, who is pursuing her to beat her. "I thought I was serving Rome," he tells his mother, "but I suspect I'm serving an unscrupulous tyrant." We've only just met Valerius, but he's awfully dim-witted already. Oh, oops, did I mention the slave girl is Sarah (Amanda Pays), the sister of Ruth and Caleb? Yeah, but you figured that out already. It's good storytelling. Someone in her family deserves it. Caleb is banished to the desert and Ruth is dead.
Speaking of Caleb, he's in Samaria now. He's there working the locals into a lather to overthrow the local government. "You must all think in terms of national freedom," he tells everyone, as if that's a concept with ANY meaning to small-town people in the first century A.D. He explains how the Romans have ordered the military, down to the numbers in each garrison. Geez, don't piss off Caleb! Have him drag a cross halfway through Jerusalem and you've got an enemy on your hands!
Lo and behold, it works. He gets the local men to agree and they dispose one-by-one of the troops, stealing their armor as a way in. Well, as one can expect, this does not sit well with Tiberius (James Mason, having graduated to a flashier role since "Jesus of Nazareth"), who, historically, probably would never even have heard of rebellion in Samaria. "Have I not done more for these Jews than...than...than...than..." he sputters, having no idea what he's given then, only to get a saucy reply from Nerva (Jack Warden), who feels that this one revolt is a symptom of weakening leadership in Rome since Tiberius has gone into self-imposed exile on Capri.
We are jumping around very quickly, where the Apostles are facing the Jewish leadership. Gamaliel, and particularly our old pal Caiaphas (Harold Kasket) are annoyed by the gains of the "zealots," snapping at Peter, whom he deems "the son of a fisherman" with bile. Peter can give as good as he gets, accusing Caiaphas of putting Jesus to death, but Gamaliel urges everyone to "leave these men alone." If it is the work of man "it will collapse" and if it is the work of a higher power, "you cannot overthrow it." I think John Houseman had the same speech in "Winds of War," no? Alas, Caiaphas is in no better a mood than he was when Jesus was alive and he orders the whipped and to speak of Jesus no more. The man so far called Paul (to be fair, he hasn't settled on that yet, as he's referred to as both Paul and Saul) is livid at Gamaliel for his "lenient" attitude toward the Apostles and they have a really dry doctrinal argument, though Paul has one good point at the end: a divided Jewry is only good news for the Roman Empire.
Stephen takes that theory one step further, telling the Apostles that it's time to go empire-wide with their message. Peter's response? "We're not ready for THAT yet!" to a chorus of laughter. But, Stephen is all for pan-Judaism that stretches across the empire. He wants to go to Greece himself, but Peter says no, the work is in Jerusalem. "Me? I've had enough of water," says the fisherman. To be fair, not all the kinks of theocracy are worked out so that it's easy to swallow Christianity, but the believers are awfully good at hobbling it together on the fly. Stephen is preaching when Paul says nothing is higher "than the law of Moses," and Steven agrees that all of that is the foundation of what they are teaching, but that Jesus came with a new law, "the law of forgiveness, of love." Sounds pretty good, huh? Who wouldn't be at least interested in hearing a little about it? It's even starting to have an effect on Paul, though he claims otherwise over and over again. Stephen emerges as the best voice of the new religion, the most eloquent and the best with a ready argument.
But, when Stephen claims to see Jesus "at the right hand of God," Caiaphas can't take it anymore. Not being able to "see" God is one of the holiest tenets of Judaism. "Your blasphemy cannot be tolerated any longer!" Caiaphas roars, "Get out, Stephen...you have made it impossible for us!" The sentence is death by stoning. He dies asking for the Lord to take his soul. Paul wants more, to imprison the whole lot of the "Greek Jews," as they are now referred to, and let them be judged "according to justice," i.e. more stoning. Caiaphas agrees, so Paul gets to play hatchet man.
To make his point, he arrests an entire praying group, or at least just the men. Thus, the Apostles realize it's time to start spreading the word and send Philip (Gary Brown) abroad. He first goes to Samaria, where he meets Caleb, who learns that his sisters were sent to Rome and his mother died. Caleb also learns that for his role in losing Samaria, Pilate has been "recalled to Rome" and a replacement is being sent. Caleb wants to go to Rome "and strike at the heart." Philip tries to talk him out of it, but Caleb is resolute.
Back in Rome, Sarah and Valerius meet again in a rainstorm, both having tried to forget each other with no luck. Thank goodness for this sudsy plot. It's hackneyed and obvious, but at least it has some dramatic heft. Get this load of bunk as they try to deal with their differences:
He: "Suppose he [Sejanus] loved me. This would change him."
She: "How?"
He: "My freedom would be yours."
She: "You want me to belong to you?"
He: "The two of us should have a chance to find our own way."
She: "The Jewess and the Roman soldier."
He: "A woman and a man. Being a Roman or being a Jew, I know people may find being a difference that can't be reconciled. Me? It's just like this rain. Forgettable."
She: "I'll try to remember."
And then she leaves. Lovestruck male and sassy slave woman. That has possibilities!
The new Procurator in Judea is Marcellus (Roderick Horn), who has ordered Paul's spitefest to end because the Romans don't want bloodshed. "Thank God for that," Gamaliel says, though Caiaphas and the others are upset because "he was doing such good work," and decide to send him to do that work in Damascus with Seth (Bruce Winant). Gamaliel is still the only voice of reason, but the Jewish priests are determined to stamp out the growing Nazarene sect however they can.
On the way to Damascus, Paul is annoyed by the slowness of his men, so he sends three back and continues with just Seth. They are caught in a giant wind storm that scares off the horses. Paul opens his eyes, now blind as he burns with fever. He insists that they continue to Damascus. Paul finally confesses what he heard to Seth. "It was his voice, the Lord. He said, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? We are all by nature children of anger.' I shall persecute no more," he says. "I am to become one of them," he says and asks Seth to bring him Ananais (Barrie Houghton), who baptizes him officially as Paul, now a convert to the new religion and able to see again.
Having helped drive his uncle to insanity and death, Little Boots, known to history as Caligula (John McEnery), is teetering on the brink of madness himself. He orders a soldier to cut off the heads of all the statues of the gods on his property and put his head on them. But the female gods? "Just put more hair," he says matter-of-factly.
Paul is worried that he's not a teacher, with more zeal than knowledge, but the believers of Damascus tell him to simply tell his story of his revelation and people will understand. He has an uphill battle since everyone knows to hate him. "Cannot a man change?" he asks and then goes into the new teachings, but he meets resistance.
Caleb goes to Rome, awed by the city and looking to attend gladiator school, in the wacky notion that once he has a sword in hand, he can get to his sisters and avenge what he sees as his own cowardice for having run to the desert. Hasn't he already taken care of that by helping the Samaritans temporarily rise up. He's offered a good job making tents by Aquila (Tony Vogel) and his wife Priscilla (Angela Morant).
I say it again, thank goodness for the fictional plot going here, because it's ineptness gives us most of the laughs we need. Caleb does indeed go to gladiator school, where the teacher realizes he's Jewish the minute Caleb disrobes and then sends him off to fight some bad ass. They have a good fight and then the bad ass removes his helmet to reveal she's a woman! Caleb is upset, but turned on. Corrina (Diane Venora) is learning to fight so she can protect herself. She doesn't say from what, but Caleb doesn't ask either.
Peter and friends have made it to Samaria, where they show us what might be one of history's first exorcisms. It's witnessed by slimy Simon (John Steiner), who wants to pay to learn their "trickery." They refuse his money and tell him he doesn't understand that it's not magic. This is actually quite an interesting scene because it shows another side of what people must have thought, namely that the power of faith was mere quackery. However, since no one is making money from it (not yet, at least), it has to be honest.
Paul is almost killed and a high-ranking Ethiopian (Ben Vereen, in a ludicrous bit of scenery chewing) is baptized by Philip after taking all of five minutes to convert. Caligula is baffled by the Jews, not understanding their monotheism until he can turn it to himself, saying "There is one god. The Emperor is god," as he's having statues all over the empire made of himself, which is not sitting well with the Jews in Jerusalem.
Speaking of Paul, he goes back to Jerusalem, where his conversion is doubted (yes, by Thomas). He begs to be a minister, but Peter tells him to go back to Tarsus. When he refuses, Peter tries to get rid of him in another way. "You're young, you're strong. You're a traveling man," sending him on the road with the good word. Paul's conversion does not go down well in Tarsus, where his father says, "there's no room for you here. Disinherited and disowned." It gets worse! "A good Jew and a good Roman gets his reward and you will get yours someday. The headman's ax or the stones of the mob or the shame of the cross," his father predicts. "What shame? Don't talk of shame," Paul says, unmoved.
On the northern coast of Gaul, Caligula assembles his troops and gives them a rah-rah speech before they go off to conquer Britannia, but he has a request first. He wants them to pick up all the shells on the beach so they can be returned to Rome. Our old pal Valerius finds this humiliating, "the shame of it!" Even worse for morale, instead of the planned invasion, Caligula decides to send the ships back to Rome with the shells.
In Jaffa, Peter brings a woman back from the dead, much to his own surprise, and he's then besieged by requests from the town to heal and cure. "Go home, it's not me!" he says to them, trying to nap. He then he as a dream that a bunch of animals descended upon him, including some forbidden by law to eat, and he is told to dig into the buffet. "It means you're hungry," Thomas tells him. "It means we shall not be afraid to break bread with the Gentiles," Peter retorts. This is a giant moment in Christianity, the moment when the new religion stopped becoming merely a sect of Judaism. Peter is summoned by Centurion Cornelius (Paul Freeman) and he goes, now convinced that non-Jews can hear the message, though Thomas refuses to enter the "house of the uncircumcised." The Centurion wants to be baptized, the first Roman official in the story to do so.
Back in the fictional plot, Caleb and Corinna have fallen for each other and when he grabs her, she asks if he's "subjugating me or Rome" and he's too confused to make much sense. He certainly wants her, that he admits, but he has to keep his eye on the goal of of destroying Rome. They do get a big kiss as the scene quickly ends. Sarah and Valerius get a moment alone too, with Valerius talking of Caligula's madness. "How will it end?" Sarah wants to know. "With someone sticking a dagger in the divine Caligula," Valerius replies quite openly. He wants to buy her freedom, but he does not have the money. Aquila and Priscilla discuss the problem and then, out of the blue, Aquila tells his wife, "I've just come to accept that the secret of life is hope. That even death may not be the end. I was led by his crucified hand out of darkness." Wait, "just come to accept?" Isn't that a bit strong? However long it took, it works, because Aquila comes up with the money to buy Sarah at an auction. He then grants her freedom and they are married. It took nearly three and a half hours, but finally "A.D." has a happy moment! The only one not happy is Caleb, just told of the fate of his sisters. "Rome," he sneers sarcastically at Aquila, "tears our hearts apart and then fills them with love." Caleb refuses to see his sister until he kills Caligula (it was under the rule of Tiberius that the bad stuff happened, but one Caesar is as good as another).
The appearance of the statue of Caligula proves to be interesting philosophically, once again bringing up the subject of whether the new Christians are still Jews are not. The Jewish argument against the statue is first, with Caiaphas telling the local governor that the Jews will not allow it inside the Temple and will kill to make sure it is not placed there. The sympathetic governor offers to kill himself, but knows that won't make Caligula happy. Then it's Peter's turn. He and the Apostles argue about non-Jews joining them. Some think the Gentiles have to convert to Judaism first, but Peter is playing a numbers game. He wants converts any way he can take them. He even argues that he would take Caligula, should he want to convert. So, should this gang support the Jews against the statue or stay away? Peter says, "the Temple is in our hearts" and they should stay away. But, that will mean breaking definitively with the Jews.
As it appears that "A.D." is about to turn into an Agatha Christie mystery with everyone damning Caligula to death, Caleb and Sarah are re-united, but Caleb refuses to accept her husband. However, neither of them knows that her husband was one of the soldiers who pledged to kill Caligula. Sighs of relief on the part of the governor and Caiaphas greet the news that the deed is done and the hated statue has its head knocked off.
Rome has a new emperor, the timid and awkward Claudius (Richard Kiley), who gives a stuttering speech upon assuming his new role that "the Jews must leave Rome!" He beams with unexpected surprise to find that the Senate agrees with him.
Okay, now I'm getting a bit annoyed at the fictional plot because Caleb, though understandably in a permanent bad mood, really does give Valerius a hard time without getting to know him. For their first meeting, Valerius goes to the trouble of learning the Bible, for goodness sake! "I offer you my friendship, Caleb," he says, but Caleb replies, "I can give you only my hatred in return." On his way out, Valerius earnestly says, "I want to build peace with you," in English and in Hebrew, but Caleb remains unmoved. Due to Claudius' new policy, Valerius has to leave Rome unless his wife renounces her faith and he has to hold a trial with witnesses to prove it. Though Sarah refuses in front of witnesses, the witnesses report all is okay.
We've gotten so lost in our fictional plot that we've neglected our pal Paul, now in Antioch looking for converts, among both Jews and Gentiles. Faith may have to take a back seat to practicality, because a merchant in Antioch tells Paul, "you have an urgent business on your hands" and asks them to sell Antioch grain to Jerusalem, which will be out of supplies in a few months due to failed harvests and bad leadership in Rome. Or vice versa. Or whatever, just know that trade is somehow tempting. Before that, though, he is able to convert Luke (Gerrard McArthur).
Caleb is fired as a gladiator because he's a Jew (though boss Richard Roundtree swears if it were up to him, he would keep him), so he and Corrina have to leave Rome, and Aquila and Priscilla are on their way as well, back to Corinth and teetering close to conversion.
Uh oh. Peter is captured and thrown into jail, and upon finding out that James has been executed, wonders aloud to Jesus how he can be "the rock" if he's dead. Jesus has an answer for him, appearing to him in a burst of light that somehow opens Peter's cell door and allows him to escape. Okay, maybe it's not so much an answer as just a way out. When he hears that Peter has escape, newly-appointed Herod Antipas has an overacting fit that scare the birds right out of the trees and dies. Peter decides it's perfectly okay to convert the Gentiles, and though there is still resistance, "understanding" is more important than circumcision. As long as the converts don't fornicate or kill, they are okay, basically.
Guess who comes up with the idea of a the New Testament? According to "A.D." it's Priscilla. Yup. At dinner with Aquila and visiting Paul, she says that "these tales of the Lord's work must not be lost to the future," turning serious after ribbing him for some of the more outlandish stories being preached. Thank you, Priscilla! Wanna write it too? Is she Matthew? Mark? Where is the Gospel of Priscilla?
Co-opted by Luke, as it turns out. Paul tells them of his flair for the comic and how he's such a good writer. Plautus without a sense of humor, if you ask me, but hey, apparently Paul thinks he's quite the snazzy scribe and the one to put it all down on paper. "I'm to become a character in a Greek tale," Paul says, with Aquila comparing him to Odysseus and other Greek heroes. And Paul, never one to shirk some praise, doesn't argue. Are you kidding? He then preaches in the next scene, listing all the places he's been and all the good he's done, tossing in a bit of guilt and a bit of the fantastic. "When you say the man Paul has cured the sick...you say wrong. It is the power of God working THROUGH Paul," he tells them. It couldn't just be God, could it? Paul has to get his name in there whenever he can.
If Tiberius was a sick fool, Caligula overflowing with a god complex and Claudius a fraud, they don't compare to the man the latter leaves in charge of the Empire, perhaps as some huge joke: Nero. Granted, he allows the Jews back into Rome, where Aquila, Priscilla-the-Ignored, Sarah, Corinna and Caleb enjoy a dinner where they talk about Paul (if he can't be in the scene, at least he's discussed). Paul apparently told Aquila and Priscilla to wait for conversion, like a "slow, lingering" feeling rather than the flash of light he saw. Why? These two have been ready for conversion since the moment we met them! Of all people, we're making them wait?
Paul takes Luke to Jerusalem for Passover and there is immediately anger from the Jews that he may try to bring him into the Temple, which is forbidden. There's a big plaque, "in Green and in Latin," that anyone of another faith entering will be killed. Luke stays outside, but Paul enters to "perform the right of purification" and once he enters, he's mobbed, "as an agent of Rome" of all things. Well, he is still a Roman citizen. Therefore, the Romans in Jerusalem take the threat against his life seriously enough to investigate it.
In the fictional plot, Caleb and Valerius have become good friends and Caleb has his old job back as a gladiator. Valerius is being sent to Palestine with the new governor, but Caleb has softened toward Rome. "I'm married now," is his explanation for having given up his vengeance, which is really all he's had up until now. "Besides, Nero seems willing to make concessions," Caleb chirps ominously.
The new procurate in Palestine is Porcius Festus (David Hedison). His appearance is cheered by Caiaphas, who has thought Rome too lax lately. He wants Festus to judge Paul's case. Festus is furious, feeling that Caiaphas has no right to say there has even been a crime committed. "Did you have summary justice in mind? An accident on the road to Jerusalem, perhaps? I've heard of these tricks before!" he thunders. "We do not perform tricks, procurate. We are at one over our love of justice," Caiaphas says unctuously. Paul is in prison talking about love, getting a speech that goes on a very long time with loads of underscoring. It's a beautiful moment, theologically, but boy does it bring the action to a grinding halt. I mean no disrespect to the gospel of love, just its insertion right here after more than four hours of time gone by. "There are three things that truly last," he says in summary (we could have gone right to that), "faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love."
At Paul's trial, Festus proclaims, "this is an internal matter and does not concern Rome," completely bored until Paul says he's committed no crime against Rome. Festus doesn't care what he's done to anger the Jews, but Paul appeals his case to Caesar. "Okay, you've appealed to Caesar, and to Caesar you shall go," he decides. Phew! Paul is able to slither out of this political morass, avoiding Jewish judgment, which surely would never have gone his way. It's Valerius who has to take Paul to Rome. Discussing the internal struggles between Jews, Festus tells Valerius, "whatever it is, whatever it is, it's...it's...unclean, un-Roman, all too...Jewish." A better summation of the world's attitude at the time has not been spoken in this miniseries. Historically, what was going on in Palestine at the time, whether it concerned the Jews or the newer sect of zealots, none of it really mattered to Rome at large. It was a blip in the Empire, only made to seem historically important by later events and then magnified immensely. The miniseries is certainly on the side of Christianity, but it can't completely ignore historical truth, so it succinctly handles it in a short line like this.
Without going over the entire hysterical conversation, I want to catch up with Paul as he sails to Rome, slowly, with Valerius and Luke. They talk of the fictional characters, how they have changed, etc., and then Paul asks to stop at Sidon. "I persecuted the Jews and they went to Sidon and started a church. You could say I started that church," he says. Once again, there's nothing in the New Testament he won't take credit for, and Luke is there to make sure of it! He also gets off a few famous Biblical quotes during this voyage, tucked in there among the more self-righteous moments. Valerius is a willing convert, so the writers use his thirst for knowledge as a way to let Paul explain all the new tenets of the religion. Before reaching Rome, Valerius is baptized and converted.
In Rome, no one really cares about Paul, so he's allowed to go free, trailed by a Roman soldier whose only problem is "Jewish cooking," though Priscilla aims to change that. Valerius talks to lawyers who say that if Paul makes no fuss for a month, the case will be dropped. And so it is. He's worked wonders, but still hasn't changed Caleb's mind. "The new faith won't do. Not yet, not yet," Caleb says, suddenly a free-Judea radical again after so long as a content gladiator. Paul leaves Rome, but with uncharacteristic modesty. Luke, who is staying, says he will write of all Paul has done for future generations, but Paul demures, "not just Paul, but all the Apostles." Yeah, but does he mean it? After all, Luke doesn't know the others, so Paul's lip service to them may be just that. He then boards a boat out of Rome with his arms raised to the crowds.
What of the other Apostles? Peter is still around, now in Rome, gray and older, at the villa of Linus (David Rintoul), proclaiming Rome needs to be the new center of the religion, for he has had premonitions. It can't be Jerusalem anymore because Jews and Christians are like "siblings who can't live together anymore" and in order to spread the word, they have to do it free of their Jewish kinsman. "You will be a shepherd, a shepherd in the name of Jesus," Peter tells Linus because Linus is a true Roman who understands the faith.
The casting of miniseries favorite Anthony Andrews at Nero is genius. It gives him a chance to dig deep into his hammy bag of tricks and play Nero as an effeminate oddball with an Abe Lincoln beard. When first seen, he's begging the Senate for something unimportant, claiming "the people are ready for an increase in taxation after so long a period of fiscal clemency." It's his idea to allow Jews and Christians freedom of religion as long as they pay full taxes. Sounds reasonable to him, but the Senate would rather spend money to rebuild Pompeii or strengthen their holds in Spain, Gaul and Britain. That sets Nero off big time, and Andrews enjoys spitting out every syllable.
Whereas Paul gets to preach to huge crowds and important people, Peter is stuck with a kindergarten asking questions that have easy answers, history's first Sunday school with avuncular Peter a benign happy teacher. A Senator warns him to be careful. "Your words have different sounds to different ears," he says, before telling him, "I want to see you again," with a creepy look that makes him seem like a teenager asking for a second date.
The Great Fire of Rome is quite the spectacle. Of course Nero watches, quoting poetry, but, thankfully, not fiddling. It's left to our fictional characters to suffer on screen, but the viewer to suffer through Nero's idiotic ramblings while being fondled by a woman whose only contribution to the dialogue it to look at the burning city and call the new one Nero dreams of "Neropolis."
Peter puts Linus in charge, calling him the Father of the Church, therefore Pope Linus technically. He also reminds everyone that he sees a time when everyone will be "cruelly tested" before having everyone recite an "Our Father."
Nero and his friend Tigellinus (Jonathan Hyde) have cooked up a way to whip the Senate into a frenzy against the Christians in the wake of the Great Fire and decrees that not only will they be rooted out, but with extreme violence. Nero particularly loves the idea of public executions in the arenas, bloodbaths for the fun of it. Peter is arrested and we can cue the lions, or, in this case, leopards (the budget must have been shot by this point and lions don't work cheap). Peter is to face death on the Vatican hill by crucifixion, of which he claims he's not worthy. "Let me die seeing the world as the rest of sinning humanity sees it, twisted, inverted" he tells his jailer.
Most difficult to watch is when the Christian children are dresses as lambs (Caleb and Sarah's daughter among them) and set upon by angry drooling dogs. Even the spectators have trouble watching this display. Caleb and Corinna, with their gladiator training, rush into the arena, in slow motion, and kill the dogs, earning the respect of the crowd and Nero. Valerius goes into the arena to find his daughter and picks up a dead body, but it's not his daughter, who is safe, and angrily denies his past. "I am not a Roman soldier anymore. I will not serve a butcher and a pack of wolves. Rome is not this!...I renounce my rank. I renege my service," he yells at the top of his lungs, but a sympathetic soldier tells him to hide instead of turning him in.
Peter's upside-down crucifixion is no easier to watch, but it's kept short, mercifully. Then it's time for Paul to face the Romans. Expecting to be crucified like Peter, the arresting solder tells Paul that crucifixion is only for non-Roman citizens like "Peter or your...what's his name?" "Jesus," Paul replies. "Learn it. You may meet him someday."
Paul is saucy to Tigellinus in prison, unafraid of death, but Tigellinus is a smart cookie. He feeds Paul's ego. "You are the fish I wanted to catch. The rest are minnows. They will fall back to the right once you're gone," he says and Paul doesn't argue. In prison, he holds one last service, saying he has "run the good race." As he's being led past a line of crucified men, he says, "forgive them Lord, they know not what they do." He has to get all the Biblical lines in, because time is ticking, only Luke is nowhere to be found with his feather and parchment to record it all. Nero himself shows up for the beheading.
"The church is indeed stronger than the Empire that assails it," Linus tells the faithful, and history proved him right. He also has a chance to welcome Caleb and Corinna, saying, "I knew you'd come." He also gives them a recently-orphaned baby. Linus insists the the child be raised a Christian and Caleb says he can't, so Linus says the faith will come to the child, "just allow him to look for it." They are on their way back to Jerusalem anyway, since Caleb feels, "it's time for a son to return to his mother," metaphorically, of course.
There we have it. Early Christianity, with its questions, its bloodshed, it's misunderstandings and it's regal power. It's not the most engaging story, thus the fictional plot, but it does at least provide some answers and fill in some gaps. From here, not much miniseries-worthy happens until all of Rome is converted, but let's just stick where we are for now!
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
I Know My First Name is Steven (1989)
As we've seen, true crime stories tend to get awfully sensationalized by the American Miniseries, but "I Know My First Name is Steven" is an example of when it's done right. The true true story of Steven Stayner, a California boy kidnapped at age seven and kept for over seven years, the story certainly does work the tear ducts, especially the half that tells the story from the point of view of Steven's parents. However, the other half of the story is told from the point of view of Steven and that part is honest and beautifully written. It portrays so wonderfully how easily manipulated Steven was by a truly evil man, and how he came to believe the lies until finally committing a brave act on Steven's part brought the whole episode to a happy conclusion, happier certainly than the previous seven years.
"Christmas isn't for us anyway. Christmas is for the kids," says Kenneth Parnell (Arliss Howard) to his cohort Murphy (Pruitt Taylor Vince) as they pass out leaflets trying to remind Christmas shoppers what the holiday is really about. Parnell then tells Murphy that he always wanted a son, someone to "pull my boots off at night" and other assorted things that are not high on everyone's list of child-rearing. The thought of it spurs him on to buy a load of goods for kids in 1972 and tell Murphy, "I'm gonna get me a kid for Christmas."
That child will be Steven Stayner (Luke Edwards), one of five Stayner kids of the just-getting-by Stayners (John Ashton and Cindy Pickett). When Mom gets home from work and one of the little kids is making dinner, no one can find Steven. Luckily, he does make it home that night, and one of his sisters asks, "is Daddy gonna give him a whipping?" to which Mom cheerfully says yes to make sure Dad does it. "You gotta learn to respect and obey when grown-ups say something," Dad says, threatening the frightened child even more. "Don't ever make me sorry I didn't whip you here tonight," he tells Steven on his way out of his room.
Mom asks Steven what makes him so miserable and it's where they live. He likes the "house by the orchard by the ocean," but Mom reminds him they can't afford it.
"One day he's gonna thank me for making him my son," Parnell tells Murphy, as they have short scenes with a clearly unraveling Parnell talks about snatching a kid and the less mentally capable Murphy doesn't quite understand.
The Stayner household is not the happiest, but they do care. Despite the grandfather's claim that "at least when we had a litter of puppies we drowned the runts," referring to the fact that he feels his daugther has too many kids, Mom is worried about Steven at school without his muffler.
As soon as Parnell sees Steven, he nods to Murphy, who is standing on the street handling out more religious pamphlets. He takes Steven to "Reverend" Parnell and they get him in the car by offering to take him to his parents to learn about religion. Steven realizes they are passing his street and Parnell tells him, "don't worry about it...you afraid you're gonna get in trouble? Your father's never gonna hit you again. I promise you that." That's chilling, the way Parnell is immediately able to manipulate him already.
Back at home, Mom and Dad think it's just another day of Steven missing, and this time Dad swears he's going to belt him good. They can't believe how he would disobey orders the very next day! They search around and no one has seen him. Parnell tells Steven he has spoken to his mother and she has approved his spending the night. He then takes him 20 miles away to his trailer. If you think it's a dumb Hollywood twist that Grandpa (Ray Walston) lives only a few hundred feet away and actually sees Parnell and Murphy drive past him, it's not. In real life, he lives only that far away from his kidnapped grandson!
The Stayners alert the police to Steven's disappearance and though re-assured that "we will have the whole force looking out for him," neither parent is convinced. So, they go out on their own looking for him in just about any place a child can hide. As for Steven, he doesn't want to stay at Parnell's, but Parnell twists him. "You're Daddy's not to happy with you now, know why?" getting Steven to admit all of his supposed crimes, for which he's now being punished. When Steven refuses to eat green beans, Parnell explodes, and Steven is certainly aware of what anger means.
As Parnell is feeding Steven hot chocolate, Dad is only a bit away at Grandpa's looking for him. "Look at it this way, it's one less mouth to feed," the mean old man says. When he returns, the police are there asking the parents if they have beaten or killed Steven, since one of Steven's friends mentioned Steven was afraid of getting a beating. Dad offers to take a lie detector test to prove he didn't do it, but he also suggests the police request the same of his father-in-law, the one living near kidnapped Steven.
Steven begs Parnell to let him go, but he refuses, with Murphy powerless to do anything. Parnell does his best to act the doting parent, giving him all sorts of food and even a bit happy when Steven says he likes soda. Between sentences rhapsodizing the area and all the fun they can have, Parnell keeps reminding Steven that "your parents are having problems" and that's why he can't go home. "When the time comes to go, I'll take you home myself," Parnell chirps to Steven on his way out, leaving Murphy to watch the boy.
The police suggest a psychic, and though Dad says "we are churchgoing people," Mom insists. Anything to try and find her boy. The psychic leads them right to the area where Steven is actually captive, but since it also happens to be near his grandfather, it's discounted, though the psychic assures Mom that "he's very much alive and very afraid."
Steven is smart enough to try to get Murphy to make a call for him, even though the closest phone is at the store. Murphy is too afraid of Parnell ("he's crazy, scares the hell out of me") to actually do anything, and Parnell arrives mid-conversation with some hair dye for Steven and news that he plans to bilk money out of his mother and will not be back for a few hours. He returns with a dog named Queenie and this brightens Steven a bit, until he asks, "can I take her home with me?" Nope. Parnell tells him that a judge has awarded him custody and "you can start calling me Dad. I also got your name changed. Your new name is Dennis. Dennis Gregory Parnell." He lays on the "your parents don't want you anymore" routine thick, especially about money, which is information he learns from Steven. "Your parents can't afford so many kids," he says sympathetically, saying that he wanted to talk to Steven's parents himself, but they were so poor they had to move and he can't reach them. To a kid of seven, this is all confusing, but makes enough sense that he starts to believe it. Parnell keeps Murphy in line by threatening prison time for him too.
A week after the kidnapping, both Stayner parents and the grandfather are cleared by lie detector and Mom gives her father a picture of Steven to show around his neighborhood. Parnell sees it in the grocery store and walks by it quickly. He realizes they have to move Steven and violently keeps Murphy in line. As Parnell spirits Steven away, Steven's parents go through all the levels of grief: blaming themselves, crying and yelling.
In a motel, Parnell reminds Steven that "if you like the dog so much, you could say thanks" and then forces him to hug him for the present, which he feels pales in comparison to the attention Steven pays Queenie. Cutting and coloring Steven's hair, Parnell tells Steven he must "never ever tell" his story, his old name or their relationship. "What if I forget?" Steven asks. "Well, that'd be terrible. You'd be in big trouble. You'd get a bad whipping. You'd be locked up in a kid's shelter...they are just like prisons," Parnell responds, scaring the kid into submission. So confident is Parnell of Steven's frightened devotion that he lets his loose in town for 30 minutes with $2. Steven doesn't know how to use the pay phone or even his phone number. The operator gives him director assistance who tells him to call another director assistance, but by then he's spotted Parnell and instead takes the money to but Queenie a bone and Parnell a pack of cigarettes to keep him happy.
By this point, it's Christmas. "Life has got to go on," Mom tells Dad, "we have other kids and they need this one," saying that when Steven returns, they will have a second Christmas. Dad is too overwhelmed to celebrate joyously, but Mom tries to show some normalcy for her other four kids, assuring them that when Steven comes home, "we are really gonna celebrate." Meanwhile, Parnell is thrilled with the pack of cigarettes, especially when he hears that Steven convinced the saleswoman to let him buy them for "my dad."
Parnell enrolls Steven in a series of schools, and a few months shy of a year from the kidnapping, a guidance counselor calls Steven in because he seems "distracted." Steven tries to tell her the story, but the counselor believes the story Parnell has told them and almost guilts Steven into behaving better, "about the best thing you can do is forget your old life!" Another avenue blocked. He tries escaping with the dog at night, but a bunch of street kids scare him into returning because his father will beat him if he doesn't.
Steven wants to write a letter to his family, but Parnell tells him coldly that his real father had a heart attack and died. "He's up in heaven," he says, further adding that his mother moved East and the kids are "all over the place," just like you, while reading the newspaper at a restaurant. "You want another beer?" he asks the despondent kid.
Two years later, Steven is smoking when Parnell brings home Barbara (Brenda Hillhouse), a plump sexual plaything who beckons Steven "to bed with me and your Dad." Steven ignores it, bit Parnell jokes, "you heard your mother," and Steven stubs out his cigarette to join them.
Five years later, Mom is packing up Steven's belongings, much to Dad's dismay. Mom knows he's not dead, quieting her husband from worrying that he was never baptized and thus safe. She looks at every boy on the street, hoping she would recognize her son.
Steven (now Corky Nemec) is a confident teen on the football team who brings friends home to drink beer. "He lets you drink?" his friends ask. "Why not?" Steve replies, thinking it totally normal as he lights up a cigarette. Parnell is thrilled when he walks in, joining the boys in a beer and charming them, offering to take them on his motorcycle "one by one." Though the episode with Barbara calling Steven into bed is the only time the movie has hinted at the horrid molestation, Steven's friend tells him that his father "hit on me." Steven tells him, "he tries to do that with my friends sometimes...as long as he's doing it to them and not me..." Steven says wistfully, but Steven forces his friend to stay silent. Steven's friend asks why he doesn't turn Parnell in, and Parnell has Steven so brainwashed, that he says he'll end up in a shelter if Parnell goes to prison. True enough, for the very next conversation has Parnell telling Steven if he doesn't help him on Friday (when Steven wants to go to baseball try-outs), Parnell lays it all on over again, adding, "you can be replaced." The something is a threatened second kidnapping and Parnell laughs, "if I end up liking him more than you...," another creepy manipulation technique that seems to keep Steven in line.
Steven's friend actually tells his parents about the molestation, so the police show up. Parnell is not a master of trickery for nothing, so he spins a wild tale about how he, the Reverend, is keeping his son out of trouble since his mother was institutionalized for drink and drugs. So, he tries to keep the boys his son brings home on a religious path, which is misunderstood. The policeman buys the story and goes away. It's time to move.
By 1980, Parnell has decided on a new boy. With the help of a teenage Deke (Jason Presson), he decides to snatch Timmy (Jacob Gelman), a little kid with a lot more fight in him than Steven had when kidnapped. "Happy Valentine's Day. This is your new little brother," Parnell cheerfully tells Steven upon the latter's return.
Luckily, the police chief just happens to get a bulletin about Timmy when Steven's parents are visiting his office for a periodic check-in. Parnell tells Timmy the same stories he told Steven, but the difference is that Steven is older and wiser, having been through it all. He tells Timmy what has happened to him and that Parnell is lying. Parnell goes off to a new job offering the boys advice to always gain people's trust and always be on time. To keep them from running, he says, "I might have forgot something, so I might be back." But, Steven immediately puts a coat on Timmy, grabs a knife and goes to leave, promising to return for the dog.
As they try to flag down a car, Parnell passes them on the road, and Steven knows they have to get to safety quickly because Parnell will chase them when he finds them gone. That ends the first part of the harrowing tale.
Finally, a man comes along to offer them a ride and though Timmy is afraid of taking a ride from a stranger, Steven says, "it's okay, you're with me." Steven takes Timmy to his hometown, but Timmy can't remember exactly where he lived, and as they are looking, they see Parnell on duty at his job. Steve sends Timmy into the police station, but won't go with him because he actually believes that Parnell has legally adopted him and thus he'll be sent back to him. Timmy gets scared, but the police have seen him and are told to pick up the boys. The police recognize Timmy as the boy kidnapped just weeks previously. They frisk Steven and find his knife. "You might have a problem, son," Officer Warner (Barry Corbin) tells him.
Under interrogation, Steven is accused of kidnapping Timmy, but says he didn't. Who did? "My dad," he whispers. "He's not my father," he says, "and he did the same thing to me when I was a kid." From there, the whole story comes tumbling out. "I know my first name is Steven. I think my last name is Stayner," is all he can remember, but Officer Warner has enough to go on and finds the file on missing Steven. Steven is shocked to hear his real father is still alive, but he will not give up Parnell, not until he realizes the extent of his lies.
The police call the Stayner family and say Steven is on the way home, must to the excitement of the whole family. That's not entirely true. Timmy's parents come for him, but the police keep Steven until they arrest Parnell so he can identify him. Now it's time for Steven to be taken home, and Nemec's performance turns spectacular. He's a confused teenager whose reality has been completely undermined. He still can't even stop calling Parnell "my dad" when the media descends on him. Before going back to his real family, Steven returns to Parnell's house to pick up Queenie.
The media is waiting for Steven when he finally returns home, so thick that one police officer quips it's "like a Martian invasion." Adapting to life back at home is not so easy. Steven does not actually know one sister from the other, though the family gives him the Christmas present they have put "under the tree every year since you left," as per his uncomfortable father and some bad word choices. It's the very doll Steven had written to Santa asking before being kidnapped.
In jail, the police find that Parnell has a record of kidnapping and molesting stretching back 30 years.
Over his first dinner at home, Steven is peppered with questions by his family, but his parents want some alone time with him. "This guy, he treat you okay?" his father asks, until his older brother Cary (Todd Eric Andrews) bursts in, having been camping in Yosemite (where he would later kill four women and earn the nickname "The Yosemite Killer"). Steven volunteers to sleep in the couch, saying, "I've slept in a lot of worse places."
Mom tries to ask Steven questions, and he replies to them with obvious discomfort, but the conversation ends when he refuses to sleep without Queenie, saying he'll share the garage with her. He then gets a chance to go through the house while everyone is asleep, trying to remember the past. For breakfast, he wants bacon and eggs, strange for his family, but they will do anything to make him happy.
Remember Murphy? When he sees the news of Steven's return, he knows to expect a knock from the police and one comes.
Cary tells Steven that life changed once he was kidnapped. As for Dad, "he started crying when you left and he never stopped," becoming a softy. The parents never come into Cary's room, and don't even know how talented an artist he is.
The police have gone over Parnell's home a few times, but it takes a DA to find naked pictures of Steven, proof of the molestation that he has always denied. The police come to talk to Steven about it, warning his father to leave the room, but he stays. Apparently Parnell's bail is less than Murphy's, and only because they didn't know about the molestation. Papa Stayner refuses to believe the allegations, but the police have proof from other boys, as well as the pictures. "When did it start?" the policeman asks. "The first night he took me," he whispers, which causes his father to explode, "you let that guy..." "Let him? I was seven years old!" Steven yells. Steven and his father both want to keep it a secret, but the police have to use the evidence and "it will probably get into the papers" because they need to stop it from happening again. This causes great awkwardness in the home because it was still 1980 when attitudes toward molestation were very different than they would be over the next few decades.
"He thinks it's my fault," Steven says to his mother. She denies it, to which Steven replies, "then how come he can't even look at me?" The kids at school are ruthless. "Hey Stevie, you forget your purse," one teases. The world associates molestation with homosexuality, but Steven is too traumatized and confused to either fight back or accept the sympathy of those who want to be nice to him. And Dad simply doesn't understand, refusing to even look at his son. Mom forces an encounter, which takes place at the garage door where Steven had written his name and gotten in such trouble for doing so. Dad has kept it there ever since. Dad tentatively admits that "I understand...and I don't blame you," but Steven snaps, "yeah, that's why you can't even look me in the eye."
The showers at school are a breeding ground for jokes. One nasty kid is so awful that Steven punches him until the teacher pulls them apart. Cary half helps, but Steven is too angry to accept any assistance or, again, sympathy.
When it comes time to prosecuting Parnell, Steven has to testify to the abuse in order to get a conviction, or else Parnell will only serve time for second degree kidnapping of Timmy. What about the other boys? "The other boys are scared. We've lost them," the lawyer tells Steven. He reluctantly agrees.
Adjustment does not come easily. Cary's solution is that Steven needs a "W-O-M-A-N" and gives Steven the number of a girl. After all, he's famous and he'll be rich. He screws a girl three times in a car, but she wants to know about the abuse. "You still think there's something wrong with me after three times?" he asks, drinking heavily and passing out on the girl. Mom wants him disciplined for his behavior, but Dad won't. "I don't want to take the chance of losing him again," Dad says, but Mom reminds him he was kidnapped and goes for the tough love approach. "We can't keep treating him like he's not one of our kids," she yells.
Steven asks a girl out on a date, spending money he's won in court on a suit, a taxi and a fancy restaurant. "He just needs to celebrate, have a little fun," Dad says, but Cary snaps, "I was never in a taxi in my whole life." The fancy approach doesn't work, but Steven is able to open up to his date, confessing, "I try to do the right things, but I don't even know what the right things are...before it never mattered, I could never hurt anyone, never disappoint anyone." He says his parents are upset to have "lost their sweet little boy and got THIS instead. Who wouldn't be disappointed?" he says. "I wouldn't," she sweetly coos.
Trial time. Timmy testifies that he fought when abducted. Steven testifies about Timmy's abduction, but Parnell's lawyer has it spun so that Deke and his father did it. Parnell gets seven years in prison, much to the dismay of the Stayners.
As Steven turns 16, he wants a car, but his mother is worried that he drinks too much to drive safely. "I can take care of myself. I did it for seven years!" he roars at her. The school sees him as a problem child, getting in to fights and enduring slipping grades. He has also been absent too many days and will not graduate without an additional year of high school. "No offense sir, but I'd have to be crazy to repeat this year again," he tells the principal. Though he wants a fancy car, girlfriend Jodie (Amy O'Neill) convinces him to buy a safer Nova. However, she's soon in trouble with him because she wants to go to the trial and he won't allow it. "I don't want anyone I know to hear about those things he says.
The school bully, Birch (Harold Pruett), who has been hassling Steven, continues to do so, but Steven would rather exploit his celebrity and buy beer by telling the clerk who he is and draw on his sympathy. "I hope they nail the dirt bag," the clerk says as he lets Steven buy the beer. The truth behind it all is that he cannot cope with life the way everyone wants to live it. He even contemplates suicide.
Parnell's trial regarding Steven starts in December of 1981. He is forced to admit to the molestation, testifying it started on the first night of his capture. He describes how there was only one bed, it starting with some touching and then he tells of the rest in halting whispers. Steven is angry that Jodi came, though she says, "I tried not to" in the movie's absolute worst line. He takes her to the lake where he gets drunk and she confesses her love for him. He responds in kind, swearing he means it. "Sometimes I feel like you're all I have" he tells her before reaching over to kiss her. She wants to go home, but she ends up staying.
Things at home get worse, so bad that Mom is forced to admit "he never really came home," but it gets worse when Parnell is sentenced to only 20 months under California law. "That makes our laws crazier than that sick bastard," Dad tells the press. Parnell gives Steven a monstrous look when sentenced, so Steven takes Jodie on a fast and dangerous drive over a cliff, though both are fine. "You could have killed it," Jodie says, revealing she's pregnant.
As he threatened, Steven moves out, because he can't live under his parents' rules. He has blown through the money, and his mother reminds him he can always come home. With Queenie, he is gone again from the family home. "He'll be back," Dad says. "I don't think so," more rational Mom says. Dad still can't face the truth or paint over Steven's name on the garage. Steven moves into a trailer and tells his mother he wants to marry Jodie. "That's the right thing to do," she says and agrees to sign the papers since they are both minors. They have a heart-to-heart where he says he understands why his parents act the way they do, but that he's not a typical 16-year old. Steven won't allow anyone to love him. "Why do you hate yourself so much?" Mom asks. "I let him do it to me," Steven says. He still feels responsible, saying "there are times I could have killed him." It's the first time he's really opened up about it, even admitting that he told his friends to deny it, for which he feels terrible guilt. He also tells her that he expected them to "come and get me," and asks why they didn't. "We couldn't find you. We tried everything. We never stopped trying," she replies as he falls into her arms in the perfect TV ending. "You're home now. Things will be better now."
The very year "I Know My First Name is Steven" was released, Steven Stayner was killed in a motorcycle accident, survived by Jody (in the movie, it's spelled Jodie) and two children.
Corky Nemec, and to a large degree Luke Edwards, are what make this movie so gripping. Their confused complex performances are made to be the focus rather than the details, though none of them are left out. The movie is incredibly faithful to the true story, but yet it does not feel sensationalized to the point of triviality. While watching this story, all other stories of abduction are melted into it and the pain of the kids, as opposed to the parents, who are usually at the center of these stories, is felt so strongly.
"Christmas isn't for us anyway. Christmas is for the kids," says Kenneth Parnell (Arliss Howard) to his cohort Murphy (Pruitt Taylor Vince) as they pass out leaflets trying to remind Christmas shoppers what the holiday is really about. Parnell then tells Murphy that he always wanted a son, someone to "pull my boots off at night" and other assorted things that are not high on everyone's list of child-rearing. The thought of it spurs him on to buy a load of goods for kids in 1972 and tell Murphy, "I'm gonna get me a kid for Christmas."
That child will be Steven Stayner (Luke Edwards), one of five Stayner kids of the just-getting-by Stayners (John Ashton and Cindy Pickett). When Mom gets home from work and one of the little kids is making dinner, no one can find Steven. Luckily, he does make it home that night, and one of his sisters asks, "is Daddy gonna give him a whipping?" to which Mom cheerfully says yes to make sure Dad does it. "You gotta learn to respect and obey when grown-ups say something," Dad says, threatening the frightened child even more. "Don't ever make me sorry I didn't whip you here tonight," he tells Steven on his way out of his room.
Mom asks Steven what makes him so miserable and it's where they live. He likes the "house by the orchard by the ocean," but Mom reminds him they can't afford it.
"One day he's gonna thank me for making him my son," Parnell tells Murphy, as they have short scenes with a clearly unraveling Parnell talks about snatching a kid and the less mentally capable Murphy doesn't quite understand.
The Stayner household is not the happiest, but they do care. Despite the grandfather's claim that "at least when we had a litter of puppies we drowned the runts," referring to the fact that he feels his daugther has too many kids, Mom is worried about Steven at school without his muffler.
As soon as Parnell sees Steven, he nods to Murphy, who is standing on the street handling out more religious pamphlets. He takes Steven to "Reverend" Parnell and they get him in the car by offering to take him to his parents to learn about religion. Steven realizes they are passing his street and Parnell tells him, "don't worry about it...you afraid you're gonna get in trouble? Your father's never gonna hit you again. I promise you that." That's chilling, the way Parnell is immediately able to manipulate him already.
Back at home, Mom and Dad think it's just another day of Steven missing, and this time Dad swears he's going to belt him good. They can't believe how he would disobey orders the very next day! They search around and no one has seen him. Parnell tells Steven he has spoken to his mother and she has approved his spending the night. He then takes him 20 miles away to his trailer. If you think it's a dumb Hollywood twist that Grandpa (Ray Walston) lives only a few hundred feet away and actually sees Parnell and Murphy drive past him, it's not. In real life, he lives only that far away from his kidnapped grandson!
The Stayners alert the police to Steven's disappearance and though re-assured that "we will have the whole force looking out for him," neither parent is convinced. So, they go out on their own looking for him in just about any place a child can hide. As for Steven, he doesn't want to stay at Parnell's, but Parnell twists him. "You're Daddy's not to happy with you now, know why?" getting Steven to admit all of his supposed crimes, for which he's now being punished. When Steven refuses to eat green beans, Parnell explodes, and Steven is certainly aware of what anger means.
As Parnell is feeding Steven hot chocolate, Dad is only a bit away at Grandpa's looking for him. "Look at it this way, it's one less mouth to feed," the mean old man says. When he returns, the police are there asking the parents if they have beaten or killed Steven, since one of Steven's friends mentioned Steven was afraid of getting a beating. Dad offers to take a lie detector test to prove he didn't do it, but he also suggests the police request the same of his father-in-law, the one living near kidnapped Steven.
Steven begs Parnell to let him go, but he refuses, with Murphy powerless to do anything. Parnell does his best to act the doting parent, giving him all sorts of food and even a bit happy when Steven says he likes soda. Between sentences rhapsodizing the area and all the fun they can have, Parnell keeps reminding Steven that "your parents are having problems" and that's why he can't go home. "When the time comes to go, I'll take you home myself," Parnell chirps to Steven on his way out, leaving Murphy to watch the boy.
The police suggest a psychic, and though Dad says "we are churchgoing people," Mom insists. Anything to try and find her boy. The psychic leads them right to the area where Steven is actually captive, but since it also happens to be near his grandfather, it's discounted, though the psychic assures Mom that "he's very much alive and very afraid."
Steven is smart enough to try to get Murphy to make a call for him, even though the closest phone is at the store. Murphy is too afraid of Parnell ("he's crazy, scares the hell out of me") to actually do anything, and Parnell arrives mid-conversation with some hair dye for Steven and news that he plans to bilk money out of his mother and will not be back for a few hours. He returns with a dog named Queenie and this brightens Steven a bit, until he asks, "can I take her home with me?" Nope. Parnell tells him that a judge has awarded him custody and "you can start calling me Dad. I also got your name changed. Your new name is Dennis. Dennis Gregory Parnell." He lays on the "your parents don't want you anymore" routine thick, especially about money, which is information he learns from Steven. "Your parents can't afford so many kids," he says sympathetically, saying that he wanted to talk to Steven's parents himself, but they were so poor they had to move and he can't reach them. To a kid of seven, this is all confusing, but makes enough sense that he starts to believe it. Parnell keeps Murphy in line by threatening prison time for him too.
A week after the kidnapping, both Stayner parents and the grandfather are cleared by lie detector and Mom gives her father a picture of Steven to show around his neighborhood. Parnell sees it in the grocery store and walks by it quickly. He realizes they have to move Steven and violently keeps Murphy in line. As Parnell spirits Steven away, Steven's parents go through all the levels of grief: blaming themselves, crying and yelling.
In a motel, Parnell reminds Steven that "if you like the dog so much, you could say thanks" and then forces him to hug him for the present, which he feels pales in comparison to the attention Steven pays Queenie. Cutting and coloring Steven's hair, Parnell tells Steven he must "never ever tell" his story, his old name or their relationship. "What if I forget?" Steven asks. "Well, that'd be terrible. You'd be in big trouble. You'd get a bad whipping. You'd be locked up in a kid's shelter...they are just like prisons," Parnell responds, scaring the kid into submission. So confident is Parnell of Steven's frightened devotion that he lets his loose in town for 30 minutes with $2. Steven doesn't know how to use the pay phone or even his phone number. The operator gives him director assistance who tells him to call another director assistance, but by then he's spotted Parnell and instead takes the money to but Queenie a bone and Parnell a pack of cigarettes to keep him happy.
By this point, it's Christmas. "Life has got to go on," Mom tells Dad, "we have other kids and they need this one," saying that when Steven returns, they will have a second Christmas. Dad is too overwhelmed to celebrate joyously, but Mom tries to show some normalcy for her other four kids, assuring them that when Steven comes home, "we are really gonna celebrate." Meanwhile, Parnell is thrilled with the pack of cigarettes, especially when he hears that Steven convinced the saleswoman to let him buy them for "my dad."
Parnell enrolls Steven in a series of schools, and a few months shy of a year from the kidnapping, a guidance counselor calls Steven in because he seems "distracted." Steven tries to tell her the story, but the counselor believes the story Parnell has told them and almost guilts Steven into behaving better, "about the best thing you can do is forget your old life!" Another avenue blocked. He tries escaping with the dog at night, but a bunch of street kids scare him into returning because his father will beat him if he doesn't.
Steven wants to write a letter to his family, but Parnell tells him coldly that his real father had a heart attack and died. "He's up in heaven," he says, further adding that his mother moved East and the kids are "all over the place," just like you, while reading the newspaper at a restaurant. "You want another beer?" he asks the despondent kid.
Two years later, Steven is smoking when Parnell brings home Barbara (Brenda Hillhouse), a plump sexual plaything who beckons Steven "to bed with me and your Dad." Steven ignores it, bit Parnell jokes, "you heard your mother," and Steven stubs out his cigarette to join them.
Five years later, Mom is packing up Steven's belongings, much to Dad's dismay. Mom knows he's not dead, quieting her husband from worrying that he was never baptized and thus safe. She looks at every boy on the street, hoping she would recognize her son.
Steven (now Corky Nemec) is a confident teen on the football team who brings friends home to drink beer. "He lets you drink?" his friends ask. "Why not?" Steve replies, thinking it totally normal as he lights up a cigarette. Parnell is thrilled when he walks in, joining the boys in a beer and charming them, offering to take them on his motorcycle "one by one." Though the episode with Barbara calling Steven into bed is the only time the movie has hinted at the horrid molestation, Steven's friend tells him that his father "hit on me." Steven tells him, "he tries to do that with my friends sometimes...as long as he's doing it to them and not me..." Steven says wistfully, but Steven forces his friend to stay silent. Steven's friend asks why he doesn't turn Parnell in, and Parnell has Steven so brainwashed, that he says he'll end up in a shelter if Parnell goes to prison. True enough, for the very next conversation has Parnell telling Steven if he doesn't help him on Friday (when Steven wants to go to baseball try-outs), Parnell lays it all on over again, adding, "you can be replaced." The something is a threatened second kidnapping and Parnell laughs, "if I end up liking him more than you...," another creepy manipulation technique that seems to keep Steven in line.
Steven's friend actually tells his parents about the molestation, so the police show up. Parnell is not a master of trickery for nothing, so he spins a wild tale about how he, the Reverend, is keeping his son out of trouble since his mother was institutionalized for drink and drugs. So, he tries to keep the boys his son brings home on a religious path, which is misunderstood. The policeman buys the story and goes away. It's time to move.
By 1980, Parnell has decided on a new boy. With the help of a teenage Deke (Jason Presson), he decides to snatch Timmy (Jacob Gelman), a little kid with a lot more fight in him than Steven had when kidnapped. "Happy Valentine's Day. This is your new little brother," Parnell cheerfully tells Steven upon the latter's return.
Luckily, the police chief just happens to get a bulletin about Timmy when Steven's parents are visiting his office for a periodic check-in. Parnell tells Timmy the same stories he told Steven, but the difference is that Steven is older and wiser, having been through it all. He tells Timmy what has happened to him and that Parnell is lying. Parnell goes off to a new job offering the boys advice to always gain people's trust and always be on time. To keep them from running, he says, "I might have forgot something, so I might be back." But, Steven immediately puts a coat on Timmy, grabs a knife and goes to leave, promising to return for the dog.
As they try to flag down a car, Parnell passes them on the road, and Steven knows they have to get to safety quickly because Parnell will chase them when he finds them gone. That ends the first part of the harrowing tale.
Finally, a man comes along to offer them a ride and though Timmy is afraid of taking a ride from a stranger, Steven says, "it's okay, you're with me." Steven takes Timmy to his hometown, but Timmy can't remember exactly where he lived, and as they are looking, they see Parnell on duty at his job. Steve sends Timmy into the police station, but won't go with him because he actually believes that Parnell has legally adopted him and thus he'll be sent back to him. Timmy gets scared, but the police have seen him and are told to pick up the boys. The police recognize Timmy as the boy kidnapped just weeks previously. They frisk Steven and find his knife. "You might have a problem, son," Officer Warner (Barry Corbin) tells him.
Under interrogation, Steven is accused of kidnapping Timmy, but says he didn't. Who did? "My dad," he whispers. "He's not my father," he says, "and he did the same thing to me when I was a kid." From there, the whole story comes tumbling out. "I know my first name is Steven. I think my last name is Stayner," is all he can remember, but Officer Warner has enough to go on and finds the file on missing Steven. Steven is shocked to hear his real father is still alive, but he will not give up Parnell, not until he realizes the extent of his lies.
The police call the Stayner family and say Steven is on the way home, must to the excitement of the whole family. That's not entirely true. Timmy's parents come for him, but the police keep Steven until they arrest Parnell so he can identify him. Now it's time for Steven to be taken home, and Nemec's performance turns spectacular. He's a confused teenager whose reality has been completely undermined. He still can't even stop calling Parnell "my dad" when the media descends on him. Before going back to his real family, Steven returns to Parnell's house to pick up Queenie.
The media is waiting for Steven when he finally returns home, so thick that one police officer quips it's "like a Martian invasion." Adapting to life back at home is not so easy. Steven does not actually know one sister from the other, though the family gives him the Christmas present they have put "under the tree every year since you left," as per his uncomfortable father and some bad word choices. It's the very doll Steven had written to Santa asking before being kidnapped.
In jail, the police find that Parnell has a record of kidnapping and molesting stretching back 30 years.
Over his first dinner at home, Steven is peppered with questions by his family, but his parents want some alone time with him. "This guy, he treat you okay?" his father asks, until his older brother Cary (Todd Eric Andrews) bursts in, having been camping in Yosemite (where he would later kill four women and earn the nickname "The Yosemite Killer"). Steven volunteers to sleep in the couch, saying, "I've slept in a lot of worse places."
Mom tries to ask Steven questions, and he replies to them with obvious discomfort, but the conversation ends when he refuses to sleep without Queenie, saying he'll share the garage with her. He then gets a chance to go through the house while everyone is asleep, trying to remember the past. For breakfast, he wants bacon and eggs, strange for his family, but they will do anything to make him happy.
Remember Murphy? When he sees the news of Steven's return, he knows to expect a knock from the police and one comes.
Cary tells Steven that life changed once he was kidnapped. As for Dad, "he started crying when you left and he never stopped," becoming a softy. The parents never come into Cary's room, and don't even know how talented an artist he is.
The police have gone over Parnell's home a few times, but it takes a DA to find naked pictures of Steven, proof of the molestation that he has always denied. The police come to talk to Steven about it, warning his father to leave the room, but he stays. Apparently Parnell's bail is less than Murphy's, and only because they didn't know about the molestation. Papa Stayner refuses to believe the allegations, but the police have proof from other boys, as well as the pictures. "When did it start?" the policeman asks. "The first night he took me," he whispers, which causes his father to explode, "you let that guy..." "Let him? I was seven years old!" Steven yells. Steven and his father both want to keep it a secret, but the police have to use the evidence and "it will probably get into the papers" because they need to stop it from happening again. This causes great awkwardness in the home because it was still 1980 when attitudes toward molestation were very different than they would be over the next few decades.
"He thinks it's my fault," Steven says to his mother. She denies it, to which Steven replies, "then how come he can't even look at me?" The kids at school are ruthless. "Hey Stevie, you forget your purse," one teases. The world associates molestation with homosexuality, but Steven is too traumatized and confused to either fight back or accept the sympathy of those who want to be nice to him. And Dad simply doesn't understand, refusing to even look at his son. Mom forces an encounter, which takes place at the garage door where Steven had written his name and gotten in such trouble for doing so. Dad has kept it there ever since. Dad tentatively admits that "I understand...and I don't blame you," but Steven snaps, "yeah, that's why you can't even look me in the eye."
The showers at school are a breeding ground for jokes. One nasty kid is so awful that Steven punches him until the teacher pulls them apart. Cary half helps, but Steven is too angry to accept any assistance or, again, sympathy.
When it comes time to prosecuting Parnell, Steven has to testify to the abuse in order to get a conviction, or else Parnell will only serve time for second degree kidnapping of Timmy. What about the other boys? "The other boys are scared. We've lost them," the lawyer tells Steven. He reluctantly agrees.
Adjustment does not come easily. Cary's solution is that Steven needs a "W-O-M-A-N" and gives Steven the number of a girl. After all, he's famous and he'll be rich. He screws a girl three times in a car, but she wants to know about the abuse. "You still think there's something wrong with me after three times?" he asks, drinking heavily and passing out on the girl. Mom wants him disciplined for his behavior, but Dad won't. "I don't want to take the chance of losing him again," Dad says, but Mom reminds him he was kidnapped and goes for the tough love approach. "We can't keep treating him like he's not one of our kids," she yells.
Steven asks a girl out on a date, spending money he's won in court on a suit, a taxi and a fancy restaurant. "He just needs to celebrate, have a little fun," Dad says, but Cary snaps, "I was never in a taxi in my whole life." The fancy approach doesn't work, but Steven is able to open up to his date, confessing, "I try to do the right things, but I don't even know what the right things are...before it never mattered, I could never hurt anyone, never disappoint anyone." He says his parents are upset to have "lost their sweet little boy and got THIS instead. Who wouldn't be disappointed?" he says. "I wouldn't," she sweetly coos.
Trial time. Timmy testifies that he fought when abducted. Steven testifies about Timmy's abduction, but Parnell's lawyer has it spun so that Deke and his father did it. Parnell gets seven years in prison, much to the dismay of the Stayners.
As Steven turns 16, he wants a car, but his mother is worried that he drinks too much to drive safely. "I can take care of myself. I did it for seven years!" he roars at her. The school sees him as a problem child, getting in to fights and enduring slipping grades. He has also been absent too many days and will not graduate without an additional year of high school. "No offense sir, but I'd have to be crazy to repeat this year again," he tells the principal. Though he wants a fancy car, girlfriend Jodie (Amy O'Neill) convinces him to buy a safer Nova. However, she's soon in trouble with him because she wants to go to the trial and he won't allow it. "I don't want anyone I know to hear about those things he says.
The school bully, Birch (Harold Pruett), who has been hassling Steven, continues to do so, but Steven would rather exploit his celebrity and buy beer by telling the clerk who he is and draw on his sympathy. "I hope they nail the dirt bag," the clerk says as he lets Steven buy the beer. The truth behind it all is that he cannot cope with life the way everyone wants to live it. He even contemplates suicide.
Parnell's trial regarding Steven starts in December of 1981. He is forced to admit to the molestation, testifying it started on the first night of his capture. He describes how there was only one bed, it starting with some touching and then he tells of the rest in halting whispers. Steven is angry that Jodi came, though she says, "I tried not to" in the movie's absolute worst line. He takes her to the lake where he gets drunk and she confesses her love for him. He responds in kind, swearing he means it. "Sometimes I feel like you're all I have" he tells her before reaching over to kiss her. She wants to go home, but she ends up staying.
Things at home get worse, so bad that Mom is forced to admit "he never really came home," but it gets worse when Parnell is sentenced to only 20 months under California law. "That makes our laws crazier than that sick bastard," Dad tells the press. Parnell gives Steven a monstrous look when sentenced, so Steven takes Jodie on a fast and dangerous drive over a cliff, though both are fine. "You could have killed it," Jodie says, revealing she's pregnant.
As he threatened, Steven moves out, because he can't live under his parents' rules. He has blown through the money, and his mother reminds him he can always come home. With Queenie, he is gone again from the family home. "He'll be back," Dad says. "I don't think so," more rational Mom says. Dad still can't face the truth or paint over Steven's name on the garage. Steven moves into a trailer and tells his mother he wants to marry Jodie. "That's the right thing to do," she says and agrees to sign the papers since they are both minors. They have a heart-to-heart where he says he understands why his parents act the way they do, but that he's not a typical 16-year old. Steven won't allow anyone to love him. "Why do you hate yourself so much?" Mom asks. "I let him do it to me," Steven says. He still feels responsible, saying "there are times I could have killed him." It's the first time he's really opened up about it, even admitting that he told his friends to deny it, for which he feels terrible guilt. He also tells her that he expected them to "come and get me," and asks why they didn't. "We couldn't find you. We tried everything. We never stopped trying," she replies as he falls into her arms in the perfect TV ending. "You're home now. Things will be better now."
The very year "I Know My First Name is Steven" was released, Steven Stayner was killed in a motorcycle accident, survived by Jody (in the movie, it's spelled Jodie) and two children.
Corky Nemec, and to a large degree Luke Edwards, are what make this movie so gripping. Their confused complex performances are made to be the focus rather than the details, though none of them are left out. The movie is incredibly faithful to the true story, but yet it does not feel sensationalized to the point of triviality. While watching this story, all other stories of abduction are melted into it and the pain of the kids, as opposed to the parents, who are usually at the center of these stories, is felt so strongly.
Monday, April 18, 2011
From the Dead of Night (1989)
If you want to escape from the long tedious histories and romances of the miniseries genre, go for something supernatural. "From the Dead of the Night," just by the cast alone, should be the remedy, but it's so inane and so boring, that I would rather sit through "War and Remembrance" again.
This time around, miniseries heroine Lindsay Wagner is a fashion designer, but one apparently blocked inspiration-wise. It doesn't help, I'm guessing, that she works in studio of almost complete darkness. Boyfriend Robin Thomas surprises her (after attempting to scare the viewer by showing only his shoes coming up a very loooooong elevator ride) and they have sex a few times, though all Lindsay wants to know is "what do you think about the colors?" Of her designs, people.
Lindsay works for slumming Diahann Carroll, wearing a Cleopatra wig and bigger shoulder pads than during her time on "Dynasty." Another designer at the shop hates Lindsay, and Diahann chalks it up to Lindsay being "my favorite." She will let Lindsay put clothes in the show finally after six years. In the first ten minutes, we get a parade of outfits so outrageously locked in their time period that this might as well be "Dynasty!"
Arriving at a party for Lindsay's good luck is old flame Bruce Boxleitner, with a stewardess he met on the plane in Tangiers. He asks if it's an engagement party, and seething Robin says, "not yet, but hopefully soon." You mean, hopefully soon during the party or soon in general, because the way Lindsay looks at Bruce, Robin's days seem numbered. Robin baits Bruce, telling him Lindsay fell in love with him while Bruce was gone. "I'm an Anthropologist, I travel!" Bruce snaps. The conversation goes cliche from that high. Bruce apologizes to Lindsay, she's bitter and finally it's interrupted by the stewardess. Lindsay does what all jilted women do in these situations: she ignores her guests and goes to sit at the pool with her cat.
Getting up, she trips over the cat and falls into the pool, hitting her head and all but dying. Oh, she sees a flash of light and her spirit leaves her body before a guest sees her in the pool and starts screaming. Lindsay's spirit, all in white, as opposed to the black she was wearing for the party, is all smiles and peacefulness (she must know her exact right sleep number). What her spirit sees is, well, I'm not sure. There is a tunnel of colored light and images of people, but then she hears Bruce begging her to breathe and telling her not to die. The images of people have hands that grab for her and her spirit fights to get away. Finally, her spirit is back in her body and she's alive, saved from drowning. It all looked like a very cheap LSD trip.
Lindsay explains all of this to Robin, who doesn't buy it. The person clutching her spirit's wrist was really Robin trying to save her, he says. She goes off to Dr. Robert Prosky, who chides her. "You know a good physical every now and then wouldn't hurt," he says, as if he's a Pediatrician. He gives her some pills and says her "near-death experience is not uncommon," but his explanation is that it's a replay of the birth canal experience.
Leaving the doctor, Lindsay is almost killed by a runaway car on the sidewalk. "A split second either way and you'd be dead along with her," the glum policeman says of the situation and the driver being pried out of the car.
"Sex." That's Professor Bruce's explanation for why his class is so popular. Samoans, African rituals, that's what they all want. Well, it's more likely him, judging by a) the looks of the girls in his class and b) the tightness of his jeans. Or, perhaps since this is Anthropology 101 and everyone looks about 43 years old, maybe they are the worlds oldest undergrads with the world's youngest professor. After rambling for an hour, he shoos the students away with "we'll get to sex soon enough."
"I've almost died twice in one week!" Lindsay blubbers to Bruce when she meets him for lunch. It wouldn't be a Lindsay Wagner miniseries if something like that didn't happen to her! Bruce actually believes in her near-death experience and wants to enroll her in a class about it. She dismisses it, so instead, he pulls out the tarot (pronunciation on the last syllable by Bruce, FYI) cards and does a reading. The death card is her immediate future. "It may not be a physical death, it may mean the death of an idea," he says, trying not to frighten her. The rest of the cards tell a very grim story, and except for a joke about sexual positions, Bruce seems genuinely worried for her.
In her building, goblins frighten her in the elevator. Oh, wait, it's only kids and it's Halloween. Maybe those creepy mannequins in her apartment will be the key to her issues. Unable to sleep, she calls Robin and asks to go away, the journey perhaps that Bruce suggested was coming in the near future. Off they fly to Mexico, Lindsay in a coat that looks like it was once an Incan blanket. Lucky for her, they have arrived just in time for the Day of the Dead celebration. Lindsay and Robin unwind with what I think is supposed to be a torrid sex scene, but is barely even sexy enough to be called romantic. They look like two spastic seniors.
Now, at the Day of the Dead parades, there are six zillion people in all sorts of masks that frighten the crap out of Lindsay, exactly the relaxation she so sought. They are followed by an annoying used car salesman they ditch who chokes to death as Lindsay is being frightened by the sights and sounds of the celebration.
But wait, the car salesman is on a boat with them as they look at fireworks, not speaking or taking off his mask as he has the last few times they saw him. Instead, he climbs on top of the little boat and rocks it back and forth until falling in the water. Like a complete idiot, Lindsay reaches out to pull him back in and of course he pulls her out of the boat, trying to strangle her. Robin has to jump into the water for the second time in under an hour and save her, though the poor twice dead car salesman gets chopped up by the boat's motor. "There was nothing you could do...it happens...We can't escape death. When our time comes, nothing on Earth can save us. Nothing," says a passer-by, unsolicited.
Diahann is no help, so Lindsay finally agrees to go to the group Bruce suggested. It's essentially group therapy in a very dark room. Everyone describes the out-of-body experience, one overly-crimped lady noting that she was upset to have to come back to life. One of the others in the group, Merritt Butrick, has had the exact same experience as Lindsay and tells her she's in trouble, but he's such a crackpot that she discounts him.
A very angry Robin agrees to go with Bruce and Lindsay to a mysterious woman whose apartment manages to combine every bit of cliche knick-knack that the set designer could find to make her seem like an actual seer. "She has the power of prophesy," Bruce tells Robin, who answers back, "if she has so much power, why is she living in East LA?" As Lindsay goes in alone, with the candles, the cards, the palm reading, the covered lamps, etc., the two men argue below the apartment in a giant storm. We can't really expect the mystery woman to answer Lindsay's questions because that would be far too easy and make the movie only about an hour. Instead, she merely tells her that the six figures she saw in her experience are after her "and must be fought." She's then too upset to talk further and Robin has beaten down her door to get Lindsay home anyway. He's so cartoonishly angry that he can't live much longer by the rules of the miniseries.
When she arrives at home, Merritt is there, telling her "it's too late," "it's already happening" and scaring her further. "Do you know anyone who has died?" he shouts as she goes up the elevator. Well, her mother, the woman in the car that almost killed Lindsay, the used car salesman, and probably the seer by now. Putting on another of her endless series of overly large coats, Lindsay goes to the house of the woman who died in the car accident. Living there is the woman who was at Lindsay's party and screamed loud enough to alert everyone. Wow, a genuine coincidence. Or is it...?
Lindsay is told that the woman also had a near-death experience before actually dying. Coming out of the shower, she was sort of electrocuted, but not entirely, "and then the next day, to have her die in a car accident..." her bereaved husband sobs. Just like Lindsay! She has almost died a few times. She has Dr. Robert Prosky pull the woman's autopsy records. Those turn out to be problematic, proving she was electrocuted and actually died, before getting in her car and causing the accident. Is it bureaucratic mix-up? That's what the Medical Examiner calls a "walker," an error in the police report that shows someone dying twice.
Robin is getting fed up with Lindsay and her worries. He explains Merritt as "the 60s were the high point of his life," before assuring Lindsay that he will take care of her. Oh, and he proposes again. When she tells Diahann about Robin, she constantly compares him to Bruce, though it's not very convincing. Diahann's theory is that Lindsay never got over her mother's death and that's what is causing all of this. Yes, discussion of marriage and dead mother are in the same conversation.
The police show up at Lindsay's apartment to tell her she needs to identify a victim of a homicide because her information was found on him. It's poor Merritt, of course. For some reason, everyone leaves Lindsay alone in the morgue with the corpse, doing some really horrible acting that is supposed to be either confusion nor sadness or I don't know what (this ranks high among Lindsay's worst performances, and there are plenty of those). The body springs up and tries to grab Lindsay, but the morgue guard shoots it back to death. Lindsay dissolves into hysterics...again.
The Medical Examiner explains to her it was "calcium flux response," saying it's "one of nature's more macabre little tricks," but completely normal. It makes sense to everyone and it's said with a straight face. Even Dr. Robert Prosky believes it and explains that the woman who died twice only seemed to do so because of a clerical error. In the best moment of the movie, Lindsay tries to explain what is going on AFTER they give her a sedative, so she babbles as her eyes are rolling back in her head. It's the kind of a scene a soap actress would kill for but anyone else would laugh at.
Lindsay's drugged rantings have Dr. Robert Prosky somewhat interested, so he asks Robin the details of what happened in Mexico, popping a pill and leaning against a door, another surefire sign of a miniseries goner. After the hospital scene, she has another outrageously hideous acting exercise as she faces a bunch of visions in that loooooooong elevator of hers. She's so scared by the time she reaches the lobby that she runs all the way back up THE STEPS to her apartment. She calls out sick and trades her chunky day wear for some chunky night wear.
To relieve her of the gloom, Bruce takes her to what most would consider the most stressful place on Earth, a carnival. Ah, masks, rides, fun house mirrors, etc. That's just what her cracking mind needs! She does win a stuffed bear and a stuffed penguin, and the admission that Bruce loves her. Frankly, the penguin is the only one of the three worth anything.
Dr. Joanne Linville, the leader of the group, puts Lindsay under hypnosis so she can relive her trip into the pool. This brings on another incoherent scene for Lindsay, who battles bright overhead lighting with fits and starts of words. The entire pool scene is replayed again, frame by frame: the splitting from the body, the tunnel of light, the bodies, though this time there is an addition of Robin and Bruce's faces. Lindsay is in such a state of twitching that Dr. Joanne brings her out of the hypnosis slower than even her elevator ride. If this is how a woman counts back from 10, you better hope she's never officiating a boxing match. Lindsay leaves the entire session fed up because Dr. Joanne just doesn't seem to understand what makes such perfect sense to Lindsay, you know, that six mysterious figures are out to get her, that the dead aren't dead, etc. Shame on Dr. Joanne for trying to be sensible!
Back at home, a clearly under-sexed Robin barks at Lindsay that "having sex used to be a team sport" when she resists his kissing.
Dr. Robert Prosky investigates the death of the car salesman, whose cause of death is listed as drowning and...skip it, all we need to know is that he's a "walker." He now knows Lindsay is onto something, but on the drive home, his heart issues flare up and since it's a rainy night, he has a heart attack. He doesn't die, so Lindsay can rush to the hospital and try to talk to him. Diahann lets her go, but "tomorrow morning, 9am..." she yells after her, never the most sympathetic boss. Before Robert can have a second heart attack, he goes on about the "walkers" and tells the nurse to have his body burned. When Lindsay gets to the room, he attacks her in slow motion and terrible make-up. He's gone crazy and jumps out the window. NOW he's dead. It took a few tries, but now he's officially dead, though no doubt he'll have two causes of death.
Lindsay, suddenly Catholic, goes to church with Bruce. She tells Bruce all, though she's shushed by the priest. Lindsay wants to go back to the seer, but Bruce says she's refused to see Lindsay. However, she does have to go to her fashion show. "It's the only sane thing in my life!" she yells at him (in church).
Here comes the comic relief (if the whole thing weren't so boring, it would all be comic relief). Lindsay is easily the worst fashion designer in miniseries history. The outfits are atrocious even for 1989. And the scene itself will make you nauseous because it's shot and edited like an 80s music video upside down. Diahann brings Lindsay out as the "designer and my new partner," which is somehow a surprise to Lindsay, who has no idea how to walk a runway.
"I knew you would come back," the seer says to Lindsay when she arrives with Bruce. Wouldn't that be because Bruce called her and begged for a second appointment? "For one moment, you walked in the land of the dead, traveled far, saw much. They thought you were one of them and now the dead want you back," she tells Lindsay. The solution is to become a strong person and stop relying on others. But, it will only happen after six people die, but not just die, die violently. "Who is next?" Lindsay asks, but of course the seer doesn't know. "If you survive until midnight of the next full moon, you will be saved," the seer says. That's two nights away. Bruce's brilliant solution is to take her away somewhere, but any idiot knows what the seer's response will be: "you can't hide from death."
After the appointment, Bruce and Lindsay go into Vern's Diner, an extremely hostile place, where Lindsay bumps into a particularly ornery truck driver. He gets squashed by a truck a few minutes later but is there to glower at Lindsay when she leaves the diner. The dead truck driver follows them, bumping into their car as Lindsay breaks into sentence fragments once again. If Bruce would pull over and stop the car, this deathly game could be ended, but that doesn't occur to him. Instead, he has the truck follow him into a narrow area where it can go over the side of the road and burst into flames while Bruce and Lindsay watch. The police come, to which Bruce snaps, "damn it, not now!" because this is wasted time. "If there's one more of these coming, I want it on my ground!" Bruce asserts before taking Lindsay home to his apartment, which is coated in all sorts of ugly rugs.
Bruce puts Lindsay to bed and assures her he's only downstairs. In more welcoming bluish lighting, she might just be able to fall asleep. Bruce curls up on the couch with blankets that match his ugly rugs, but Lindsay, either afraid or horny, comes down to the couch and snuggles up with him. "One more night, huh? How we gonna get through it?" Lindsay asks the next morning. Bruce doesn't know, and doesn't have time to plan because Robin shows up breathing fire. Robin is angry at both. "God damn it, did you sleep with him?" he roars? "If the most important thing to you right now is if I've slipped into the sheets with another man..." she yells at Robin and then leaves, giving up Bruce, her best security.
The last death is poor Christian Hoff, a flower delivery boy who uses a skateboard. Lindsay had almost killed him earlier when he darted out of nowhere, but now, as he's off to deliver yellow roses to Lindsay from Diahann, he experiences his first death (again, the second death is supposed to be the violent one, but this looks pretty damn scary to me). This gives him an opportunity to scare Lindsay and get her to run through a parking lot at night, another cliche that couldn't be ignored here. Run, Lindsay, run, as Christian, his head cocked and blood all over him, chases her on the skateboard. He's then hit by a second car and killed a second time.
"He was the last one. It's over," Bruce says. Lindsay's reaction? You can guess by now. Incoherent stuttering. She celebrates by kissing Bruce, though she does have to dine with Robin to tell him their relationship is over. So, she soaks in a big bubble bath with a glass of wine. Robin uses his ultra modern car phone to tell her he will be late. Lindsay puts on a big white chunky goodbye outfit as Robin goes to the ATM, where he's robbed and beaten. Lindsay waits by tapping on her fish tank.
Bruce is awakened by the police, who have questions about the truck driver. I could quote the call, which is pretty amusing, but the point of it is that the truck driver did not die twice. Bruce frantically calls Lindsay, who is asleep at her fish tank. That means we are one death short, but Lindsay doesn't know that when she lets Robin into her apartment, Bruce racing at top speed to get there. He should have plenty of time because Robin does have to take that looooooooong elevator ride. Robin is in the middle of strangling her when Bruce arrives, but he doesn't take the looooooong elevator ride. He's tough, so he bolts up the stairs as Lindsay is running through the shadows of her apartment trying to avoid Robin. She knocks him out with a bottle, but that doesn't kill him. He only plays dead (again). He grabs her foot and trips her. It's 11:55 and Robin has to kill her in the next five minutes. Bruce is arrived and promptly knocked out, so Lindsay does the smartest thing you can do when being pursued by a zombie--she goes to the roof! With only a minute to go, Lindsay pushes Robin through a skylight (sound the midnight clocks) and he dies his violent death, with a piece of wood through her chest. To prove he's not a zombie, Bruce cuts his hand. "They don't bleed. Walkers don't bleed!" he assures Lindsay.
This time around, miniseries heroine Lindsay Wagner is a fashion designer, but one apparently blocked inspiration-wise. It doesn't help, I'm guessing, that she works in studio of almost complete darkness. Boyfriend Robin Thomas surprises her (after attempting to scare the viewer by showing only his shoes coming up a very loooooong elevator ride) and they have sex a few times, though all Lindsay wants to know is "what do you think about the colors?" Of her designs, people.
Lindsay works for slumming Diahann Carroll, wearing a Cleopatra wig and bigger shoulder pads than during her time on "Dynasty." Another designer at the shop hates Lindsay, and Diahann chalks it up to Lindsay being "my favorite." She will let Lindsay put clothes in the show finally after six years. In the first ten minutes, we get a parade of outfits so outrageously locked in their time period that this might as well be "Dynasty!"
Arriving at a party for Lindsay's good luck is old flame Bruce Boxleitner, with a stewardess he met on the plane in Tangiers. He asks if it's an engagement party, and seething Robin says, "not yet, but hopefully soon." You mean, hopefully soon during the party or soon in general, because the way Lindsay looks at Bruce, Robin's days seem numbered. Robin baits Bruce, telling him Lindsay fell in love with him while Bruce was gone. "I'm an Anthropologist, I travel!" Bruce snaps. The conversation goes cliche from that high. Bruce apologizes to Lindsay, she's bitter and finally it's interrupted by the stewardess. Lindsay does what all jilted women do in these situations: she ignores her guests and goes to sit at the pool with her cat.
Getting up, she trips over the cat and falls into the pool, hitting her head and all but dying. Oh, she sees a flash of light and her spirit leaves her body before a guest sees her in the pool and starts screaming. Lindsay's spirit, all in white, as opposed to the black she was wearing for the party, is all smiles and peacefulness (she must know her exact right sleep number). What her spirit sees is, well, I'm not sure. There is a tunnel of colored light and images of people, but then she hears Bruce begging her to breathe and telling her not to die. The images of people have hands that grab for her and her spirit fights to get away. Finally, her spirit is back in her body and she's alive, saved from drowning. It all looked like a very cheap LSD trip.
Lindsay explains all of this to Robin, who doesn't buy it. The person clutching her spirit's wrist was really Robin trying to save her, he says. She goes off to Dr. Robert Prosky, who chides her. "You know a good physical every now and then wouldn't hurt," he says, as if he's a Pediatrician. He gives her some pills and says her "near-death experience is not uncommon," but his explanation is that it's a replay of the birth canal experience.
Leaving the doctor, Lindsay is almost killed by a runaway car on the sidewalk. "A split second either way and you'd be dead along with her," the glum policeman says of the situation and the driver being pried out of the car.
"Sex." That's Professor Bruce's explanation for why his class is so popular. Samoans, African rituals, that's what they all want. Well, it's more likely him, judging by a) the looks of the girls in his class and b) the tightness of his jeans. Or, perhaps since this is Anthropology 101 and everyone looks about 43 years old, maybe they are the worlds oldest undergrads with the world's youngest professor. After rambling for an hour, he shoos the students away with "we'll get to sex soon enough."
"I've almost died twice in one week!" Lindsay blubbers to Bruce when she meets him for lunch. It wouldn't be a Lindsay Wagner miniseries if something like that didn't happen to her! Bruce actually believes in her near-death experience and wants to enroll her in a class about it. She dismisses it, so instead, he pulls out the tarot (pronunciation on the last syllable by Bruce, FYI) cards and does a reading. The death card is her immediate future. "It may not be a physical death, it may mean the death of an idea," he says, trying not to frighten her. The rest of the cards tell a very grim story, and except for a joke about sexual positions, Bruce seems genuinely worried for her.
In her building, goblins frighten her in the elevator. Oh, wait, it's only kids and it's Halloween. Maybe those creepy mannequins in her apartment will be the key to her issues. Unable to sleep, she calls Robin and asks to go away, the journey perhaps that Bruce suggested was coming in the near future. Off they fly to Mexico, Lindsay in a coat that looks like it was once an Incan blanket. Lucky for her, they have arrived just in time for the Day of the Dead celebration. Lindsay and Robin unwind with what I think is supposed to be a torrid sex scene, but is barely even sexy enough to be called romantic. They look like two spastic seniors.
Now, at the Day of the Dead parades, there are six zillion people in all sorts of masks that frighten the crap out of Lindsay, exactly the relaxation she so sought. They are followed by an annoying used car salesman they ditch who chokes to death as Lindsay is being frightened by the sights and sounds of the celebration.
But wait, the car salesman is on a boat with them as they look at fireworks, not speaking or taking off his mask as he has the last few times they saw him. Instead, he climbs on top of the little boat and rocks it back and forth until falling in the water. Like a complete idiot, Lindsay reaches out to pull him back in and of course he pulls her out of the boat, trying to strangle her. Robin has to jump into the water for the second time in under an hour and save her, though the poor twice dead car salesman gets chopped up by the boat's motor. "There was nothing you could do...it happens...We can't escape death. When our time comes, nothing on Earth can save us. Nothing," says a passer-by, unsolicited.
Diahann is no help, so Lindsay finally agrees to go to the group Bruce suggested. It's essentially group therapy in a very dark room. Everyone describes the out-of-body experience, one overly-crimped lady noting that she was upset to have to come back to life. One of the others in the group, Merritt Butrick, has had the exact same experience as Lindsay and tells her she's in trouble, but he's such a crackpot that she discounts him.
A very angry Robin agrees to go with Bruce and Lindsay to a mysterious woman whose apartment manages to combine every bit of cliche knick-knack that the set designer could find to make her seem like an actual seer. "She has the power of prophesy," Bruce tells Robin, who answers back, "if she has so much power, why is she living in East LA?" As Lindsay goes in alone, with the candles, the cards, the palm reading, the covered lamps, etc., the two men argue below the apartment in a giant storm. We can't really expect the mystery woman to answer Lindsay's questions because that would be far too easy and make the movie only about an hour. Instead, she merely tells her that the six figures she saw in her experience are after her "and must be fought." She's then too upset to talk further and Robin has beaten down her door to get Lindsay home anyway. He's so cartoonishly angry that he can't live much longer by the rules of the miniseries.
When she arrives at home, Merritt is there, telling her "it's too late," "it's already happening" and scaring her further. "Do you know anyone who has died?" he shouts as she goes up the elevator. Well, her mother, the woman in the car that almost killed Lindsay, the used car salesman, and probably the seer by now. Putting on another of her endless series of overly large coats, Lindsay goes to the house of the woman who died in the car accident. Living there is the woman who was at Lindsay's party and screamed loud enough to alert everyone. Wow, a genuine coincidence. Or is it...?
Lindsay is told that the woman also had a near-death experience before actually dying. Coming out of the shower, she was sort of electrocuted, but not entirely, "and then the next day, to have her die in a car accident..." her bereaved husband sobs. Just like Lindsay! She has almost died a few times. She has Dr. Robert Prosky pull the woman's autopsy records. Those turn out to be problematic, proving she was electrocuted and actually died, before getting in her car and causing the accident. Is it bureaucratic mix-up? That's what the Medical Examiner calls a "walker," an error in the police report that shows someone dying twice.
Robin is getting fed up with Lindsay and her worries. He explains Merritt as "the 60s were the high point of his life," before assuring Lindsay that he will take care of her. Oh, and he proposes again. When she tells Diahann about Robin, she constantly compares him to Bruce, though it's not very convincing. Diahann's theory is that Lindsay never got over her mother's death and that's what is causing all of this. Yes, discussion of marriage and dead mother are in the same conversation.
The police show up at Lindsay's apartment to tell her she needs to identify a victim of a homicide because her information was found on him. It's poor Merritt, of course. For some reason, everyone leaves Lindsay alone in the morgue with the corpse, doing some really horrible acting that is supposed to be either confusion nor sadness or I don't know what (this ranks high among Lindsay's worst performances, and there are plenty of those). The body springs up and tries to grab Lindsay, but the morgue guard shoots it back to death. Lindsay dissolves into hysterics...again.
The Medical Examiner explains to her it was "calcium flux response," saying it's "one of nature's more macabre little tricks," but completely normal. It makes sense to everyone and it's said with a straight face. Even Dr. Robert Prosky believes it and explains that the woman who died twice only seemed to do so because of a clerical error. In the best moment of the movie, Lindsay tries to explain what is going on AFTER they give her a sedative, so she babbles as her eyes are rolling back in her head. It's the kind of a scene a soap actress would kill for but anyone else would laugh at.
Lindsay's drugged rantings have Dr. Robert Prosky somewhat interested, so he asks Robin the details of what happened in Mexico, popping a pill and leaning against a door, another surefire sign of a miniseries goner. After the hospital scene, she has another outrageously hideous acting exercise as she faces a bunch of visions in that loooooooong elevator of hers. She's so scared by the time she reaches the lobby that she runs all the way back up THE STEPS to her apartment. She calls out sick and trades her chunky day wear for some chunky night wear.
To relieve her of the gloom, Bruce takes her to what most would consider the most stressful place on Earth, a carnival. Ah, masks, rides, fun house mirrors, etc. That's just what her cracking mind needs! She does win a stuffed bear and a stuffed penguin, and the admission that Bruce loves her. Frankly, the penguin is the only one of the three worth anything.
Dr. Joanne Linville, the leader of the group, puts Lindsay under hypnosis so she can relive her trip into the pool. This brings on another incoherent scene for Lindsay, who battles bright overhead lighting with fits and starts of words. The entire pool scene is replayed again, frame by frame: the splitting from the body, the tunnel of light, the bodies, though this time there is an addition of Robin and Bruce's faces. Lindsay is in such a state of twitching that Dr. Joanne brings her out of the hypnosis slower than even her elevator ride. If this is how a woman counts back from 10, you better hope she's never officiating a boxing match. Lindsay leaves the entire session fed up because Dr. Joanne just doesn't seem to understand what makes such perfect sense to Lindsay, you know, that six mysterious figures are out to get her, that the dead aren't dead, etc. Shame on Dr. Joanne for trying to be sensible!
Back at home, a clearly under-sexed Robin barks at Lindsay that "having sex used to be a team sport" when she resists his kissing.
Dr. Robert Prosky investigates the death of the car salesman, whose cause of death is listed as drowning and...skip it, all we need to know is that he's a "walker." He now knows Lindsay is onto something, but on the drive home, his heart issues flare up and since it's a rainy night, he has a heart attack. He doesn't die, so Lindsay can rush to the hospital and try to talk to him. Diahann lets her go, but "tomorrow morning, 9am..." she yells after her, never the most sympathetic boss. Before Robert can have a second heart attack, he goes on about the "walkers" and tells the nurse to have his body burned. When Lindsay gets to the room, he attacks her in slow motion and terrible make-up. He's gone crazy and jumps out the window. NOW he's dead. It took a few tries, but now he's officially dead, though no doubt he'll have two causes of death.
Lindsay, suddenly Catholic, goes to church with Bruce. She tells Bruce all, though she's shushed by the priest. Lindsay wants to go back to the seer, but Bruce says she's refused to see Lindsay. However, she does have to go to her fashion show. "It's the only sane thing in my life!" she yells at him (in church).
Here comes the comic relief (if the whole thing weren't so boring, it would all be comic relief). Lindsay is easily the worst fashion designer in miniseries history. The outfits are atrocious even for 1989. And the scene itself will make you nauseous because it's shot and edited like an 80s music video upside down. Diahann brings Lindsay out as the "designer and my new partner," which is somehow a surprise to Lindsay, who has no idea how to walk a runway.
"I knew you would come back," the seer says to Lindsay when she arrives with Bruce. Wouldn't that be because Bruce called her and begged for a second appointment? "For one moment, you walked in the land of the dead, traveled far, saw much. They thought you were one of them and now the dead want you back," she tells Lindsay. The solution is to become a strong person and stop relying on others. But, it will only happen after six people die, but not just die, die violently. "Who is next?" Lindsay asks, but of course the seer doesn't know. "If you survive until midnight of the next full moon, you will be saved," the seer says. That's two nights away. Bruce's brilliant solution is to take her away somewhere, but any idiot knows what the seer's response will be: "you can't hide from death."
After the appointment, Bruce and Lindsay go into Vern's Diner, an extremely hostile place, where Lindsay bumps into a particularly ornery truck driver. He gets squashed by a truck a few minutes later but is there to glower at Lindsay when she leaves the diner. The dead truck driver follows them, bumping into their car as Lindsay breaks into sentence fragments once again. If Bruce would pull over and stop the car, this deathly game could be ended, but that doesn't occur to him. Instead, he has the truck follow him into a narrow area where it can go over the side of the road and burst into flames while Bruce and Lindsay watch. The police come, to which Bruce snaps, "damn it, not now!" because this is wasted time. "If there's one more of these coming, I want it on my ground!" Bruce asserts before taking Lindsay home to his apartment, which is coated in all sorts of ugly rugs.
Bruce puts Lindsay to bed and assures her he's only downstairs. In more welcoming bluish lighting, she might just be able to fall asleep. Bruce curls up on the couch with blankets that match his ugly rugs, but Lindsay, either afraid or horny, comes down to the couch and snuggles up with him. "One more night, huh? How we gonna get through it?" Lindsay asks the next morning. Bruce doesn't know, and doesn't have time to plan because Robin shows up breathing fire. Robin is angry at both. "God damn it, did you sleep with him?" he roars? "If the most important thing to you right now is if I've slipped into the sheets with another man..." she yells at Robin and then leaves, giving up Bruce, her best security.
The last death is poor Christian Hoff, a flower delivery boy who uses a skateboard. Lindsay had almost killed him earlier when he darted out of nowhere, but now, as he's off to deliver yellow roses to Lindsay from Diahann, he experiences his first death (again, the second death is supposed to be the violent one, but this looks pretty damn scary to me). This gives him an opportunity to scare Lindsay and get her to run through a parking lot at night, another cliche that couldn't be ignored here. Run, Lindsay, run, as Christian, his head cocked and blood all over him, chases her on the skateboard. He's then hit by a second car and killed a second time.
"He was the last one. It's over," Bruce says. Lindsay's reaction? You can guess by now. Incoherent stuttering. She celebrates by kissing Bruce, though she does have to dine with Robin to tell him their relationship is over. So, she soaks in a big bubble bath with a glass of wine. Robin uses his ultra modern car phone to tell her he will be late. Lindsay puts on a big white chunky goodbye outfit as Robin goes to the ATM, where he's robbed and beaten. Lindsay waits by tapping on her fish tank.
Bruce is awakened by the police, who have questions about the truck driver. I could quote the call, which is pretty amusing, but the point of it is that the truck driver did not die twice. Bruce frantically calls Lindsay, who is asleep at her fish tank. That means we are one death short, but Lindsay doesn't know that when she lets Robin into her apartment, Bruce racing at top speed to get there. He should have plenty of time because Robin does have to take that looooooooong elevator ride. Robin is in the middle of strangling her when Bruce arrives, but he doesn't take the looooooong elevator ride. He's tough, so he bolts up the stairs as Lindsay is running through the shadows of her apartment trying to avoid Robin. She knocks him out with a bottle, but that doesn't kill him. He only plays dead (again). He grabs her foot and trips her. It's 11:55 and Robin has to kill her in the next five minutes. Bruce is arrived and promptly knocked out, so Lindsay does the smartest thing you can do when being pursued by a zombie--she goes to the roof! With only a minute to go, Lindsay pushes Robin through a skylight (sound the midnight clocks) and he dies his violent death, with a piece of wood through her chest. To prove he's not a zombie, Bruce cuts his hand. "They don't bleed. Walkers don't bleed!" he assures Lindsay.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985)
As I write this, in April 2011, there is actually a brand new miniseries called "The Kennedys" on some obscure cable channel. From what I've seen of it, the ado of finding even an obscure cable channel to air it (supposedly after remaining Kennedys made threats--to whom?) is far juicier than the movie itself.
That's because it's 2011 and there really isn't anything left to find out! The Kennedy bones have been picked over for a few generations now, and with only Jean left of the famous siblings and Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver the (odd) faces of the family, I think we know pretty much all there is to know.
However, that was not always the case and the American Miniseries movement certainly wanted to share all it could with TV viewers. In the 80s, the Kennedys were still the personifications of so many dreams. Rose was still alive, Teddy was still a very important member of the Senate and Her Highness Jackie O was still making headlines. John John was growing up and becoming a man. Caroline was getting married. William Kennedy Smith would be in the news. The Kennedys mattered and we didn't know all the dirt on them yet. Sure, there were whispers of affairs, but there was a certain amount of respect still paid to them. However, the pull to film them was ferocious, a cottage industry or subset genre of its own. They were colorful, active, scandalous, questionable, and, most importantly, the closest thing the United States had to royalty. British miniseries have put on film nearly every royal going back to names no one can pronounce and sure, we've filmed the lives of various famous people, but they don't hold fascination the way the name KENNEDY does.
But, while everyone has them on the brain, I'll jump on the bandwagon with "Robert Kennedy and His Times," a tad less obvious than a few of other versions that will be discussed later. Let's also note that this miniseries is based on the book by Arthur Schlesinger, a eminently respectable historian and power player among the Kennedys. It gets the facts pretty much right, though it has an awfully obvious desire to paint Bobby Kennedy as close to living sainthood as possible.
Boston, 1946. Bobby Kennedy (the much-adored and much-missed Brad Davis) has come to the campaign headquarters of his brother to help out. He doesn't take off his coat before being introduced to Ethel Skakel (Veronica Cartwright, in casting waaaaaaaay too kind of our dear Ethel). The two are sent to canvass the 11th District together. Bobby confesses to Ethel that he's not sure what he wants to do, but maybe journalism. A dockworker tells Bobby that there isn't an Irishman in good standing "who wouldn't vote for the son of lovely Rosie Fitzgerald." Bobby tells Ethel a little Kennedy history, that his grandfather Honey Fitz was Mayor of Boston and his mother was "something of a celebrity." This sort of detail would get written out in later years as Joe Kennedy put his star in front of everyone else's.
Bobby (Brad seems to have based his accent more on Jackie's cousin Edie Beale than Bobby Kennedy) doesn't want to get married until he's well into his 30s, but Ethel, who is only 18, says she'll wait for "however long it takes" and then races him back to headquarters. Watching her sprint like that must have meant love for one of the infamous athletic Kennedy offspring. Jackie never sprinted, of that we're sure. Peter Lawford never sprinted.
When Bobby goes to see his brother, John (Cliff DeYoung, a miniseries regular) is on the phone with a woman seducing her into plans. That's okay, it's only 1946, he's not married yet. It's off to lunch with Papa Joe (Jack Warden). Bobby, only in law school, is supporting Civil Rights, somewhat to the dismay of his father and brother.
Now it's 1948. Matchmaker Jean (Dorothy Fielding) has brought Ethel along for Christmas and Bobby looks at her like she's a beauty queen in a sea of lepers as he hangs the star on the tree. It's hard to believe there was EVER a moment as goony as this, especially between those two! Ethel willingly joins a Kennedy clan football game, frolics by the pool with gusto, all the while making Bobby fall madly in love with her. I believe the football game, perhaps, but the rest? Between those two? Bobby and Ethel making out under palm trees? Those two?
The two are married while still in school, and everyone is thrilled. Okay, I'll buy that. The Skakels were a nice respectable family (only one killer in the clan, but that's far in the future) and Ethel did fit in with the Kennedys. I don't think anyone started collecting dossiers on potential spouses until names like Bouvier and Lawford started appearing. Ethel dances at her wedding with Joe, with John and of course with Teddy ("North and South" heartthrob James Read).
Off on a "Congressional fact finding mission," John takes Bobby and sister Pat (Mimi Kennedy, unrelated, or else she wouldn't be here). On the plane ride, John wants Bobby to handle the "details." To Bobby, that means actually helping with the fact finding, having "prepared files on all the places we're going." Oops, John meant carrying the luggage and making reservations. And here we have a pivotal moment. Instead of John being the hero, as he has been since his untimely death, it's Bobby who is the family brains, and we're allowed to celebrate that. "Do you resent carrying my bags?" John asks, in a moment that seems to approach something interesting. Unfortunately, it evaporates when Bobby jokes, "I promised Mother I would carry your bags so you wouldn't strain your back." Damn, no sibling rivalry here.
Nehru (Gokul) is impressed that JFK is the first American Congressman to visit, and at his own expense no less. A little historical foreshadowing comes when Nehru pronounces "the poor stupid French fighting a hopeless war" in reference to their next stop in Saigon. This leads to talk on the fear of Communism and Nehru makes some very good arguments (and wouldn't live to see his own country's wild flirtation with the USSR in a few decades). Bobby seems almost pro-Communist in Saigon when he reads the reactions of the people, who want the French gone and would vote for Ho Chi Minh if given the chance.
There are hints that not all the Kennedys are saints. When Bobby learns that Ethel is having a second child, he quips to John about his lack of marital status, "is there any girl left on the Eastern seaboard you haven't dated?" See, in 1985, that might have been a bit juicy. In 2010, the word "dated" would start with an F and end with a D. "The only girl I like says she only wants to marry a Senator from Massachusetts," John says. "But Henry Cabot Lodge is already married," Bobby chirps innocently. "Then I'll just have to beat him," John retorts and the dynasty is born. In fact, John and Bobby discuss Joe Sr.'s ambitions and Bobby lovingly notes, "Dad would have made a great President." Yup, right up there with Harding and Nixon in the honest politician department.
If you can stomach the scene where John thanks his family for helping him win the Senate election in 1952, you have an iron stomach. He literally thanks all of his siblings present, his mother (who doesn't do anything but smile), Bobby and Dad with jokes, Ethel and pretty much everyone but the football sitting outside somewhere. The only honest line, some might say, is when he thanks his father: "The Republicans say you bought me this election, so I suppose I ought to thank you for that." Oh, and as an afterthought, he has another announcement. "I know what that is," Rose (Beatrice Straight) is finally allowed to say and he says he and Jackie (Juanin Clay, as unpleasant looking a Jackie as can be, especially in a film with a radiant Ethel) are getting married.
The ever astute Joe Sr. has set Bobby up as counsel to Joe McCarthy (or, to be more specific, counsel to the Democrats on his committee). Just so we are are clear, Bobby has objections to both McCarthy's politics and his rabble-rousing, but he takes the job anyway. With that said, we can watch knowing that Bobby was totally innocent of anything during McCarthy's idiotic Red Scare. I said we could watch knowing that. Just don't commit it to memory, because Bobby Kennedy certainly helped the crazy drunken Senator plenty in those years. To hammer it in that Bobby was an angel, he gives McCarthy (a wonderful Harris Yulin) and Roy Cohn (Joe Pantoliano) more of his famous fact sheets that disprove a lot of what McCarthy was saying, but they ignore it. Still not ready to absolve Bobby of any sin here? This line ought to take care of that: McCarthy says to Roy "call the FBI and see if they have anything on our young Mr. Kennedy." What could they possibly have? He's halfway to heaven according to this movie!
Bobby is a veritable hero at the Senate hearings, the only intelligent person there, especially up against doofus Roy Cohn with the infamous Annie Lee Moss (Dorothy Butts) episode, in which Bobby certainly made a lasting enemy of Roy. A heated moment in the Senate chamber where they actually brawl is so insanely comical because I don't think Roy Cohn every threw a punch in his life (but his gorgeous young aide protects him).
We move to 1956 really quickly so we can gloss over the Communist hearings and get to Jimmy Hoffa and the Unions, which is very rah-rah because even history can't sugar coat their illegal funfests in the 50s. Only Joe Sr. is upset because he feels it will cost John a Presidential election. Don't worry, Joe doesn't get to say too much in defense of the unions because Ethel calls Bobby in to put the star on the top of the Christmas tree. But, still, Bobby heeds his father's words because he'll do anything for the family. He'll even quit if it will cost John an election, but luckily Ethel is there to cheer him on, to tell him he's fighting for what he believes in and that it's really something only Bobby and John can decide, not Joe. That conversation may have actually happened. We have no way of knowing, but somehow I think Ethel would be missing a kneecap or two if it did. But, not to worry, because John supports him, as long as he "gets the facts right."
Facts will not be a problem, because Bobby puts together a crack team of surefire reporters on his Labor Committee, including Pierre Salinger (Jeffrey Tambor in a piece of strange casting) and John Seigenthaler (George Grizzard). John holds the hearings, with Bobby at his side and though Joe doesn't like it, Bobby gets hundreds of letters of support. Rose watches the hearings on TV with Joe, but remains silent. She makes a lot of "oh Joe!" faces at everything her husband says, but that's about it. When Jimmy Hoffa (Trey Wilson) takes over as the head of the Teamster's Union, truck drivers invade the tranquility of Bobby's estate while he is outside playing with his kids or at night so no one can sleep, assuring eternal enemies are made. In the context of this movie's hero-worshipping, when you keep Ethel awake at night, you might as well be Judas Iscariot or Adolph Hitler. However, Bobby does tell Ethel that as long as he's doing his great public works, there will "always be threats. There's no way to avoid it. We can either learn to live with that or I've got to make other choices." Ethel would never let him do that, so she hugs him and sighs in agreement.
There's no point in dwelling on the actual work Bobby Kennedy really did. We know he made his point about Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. Let's gallop right along to1960 and Sinatra's voice singing "High Hopes" as John campaigns for President. He wins, by the way.
As for making Bobby Attorney General, John confides him him that he's asked some "very important people about it. His mother and his sisters (no mention of Teddy). Well, okay, he mentioned it to J. Edgar Hoover and a few others who were bound to hate the idea and they, naturally, hated the idea, but John tells Bobby, "I need someone I can trust." A heartbeat later, Bobby is playing marriage counselor to his brother. John catches the football at a Hyannis Port game and the family goes wild, except for Jackie, off with her nose in a book. Bobby explains, "it was a good catch" and Jackie goes over to John and congratulates him, managing to look happy for a half a second.
We couldn't avoid him forever. Looming large in the history of every president going back to Coolidge of the 20th Century until Nixon finally did him in is J. Edgar Hoover (Ned Beatty), of course with Clyde Tolson (Jack Thibeau) in tow. Now that Bobby is his boss, the FBI Director has no choice but to pay him a visit in his new office. But he doesn't have to be happy about it. "I've been here since 1924. If I'm not mistaken, that's before you were born," he says glumly, his point very obvious. Bobby is not afraid and lists the changes he intends to make, each one causing Hoover greater dismay, but the best is saved for last because Bobby wants a direct line to Hoover's desk.
Nearing sainthood step by step, Bobby is forced to deal with the Freedom Riders in Alabama, the prickly issue of race relations. John and Joe Sr. want them quashed as John goes off to Europe, but Bobby has a conscience. He knows they have every right to ride the bus and as Attorney General, he has to back them. Joe explodes at him, telling him it could cost his brother the presidency come 1964, but Bobby forges ahead. The only problem is that no one can find a bus driver willing to make the journey. He shouts on the phone at the head of a bus company, "you call Mr. Greyhound or whoever" to make sure that bus has a driver! Seigenthaler is sent to Alabama to follow the bus and all seems quiet and peaceful as they hit Montgomery, until out of the shadows storms an angry mob with every weapon imaginable to beat the riders. The police watch lazily as the media captures it for all to see. The Governor of Alabama calls Bobby to tell him that neither he nor the US military guarantee Martin Luther King's safety as he comes to Montgomery, so Bobby deputizes local marshals. "He has just committed political suicide," the Governor says with a smile. Seigenthaler, beaten in the melee, jokes that Bobby "should never run for office in Alabama," but that he did the right thing. That can't be denied.
Then comes Vietnam. Technically, as Attorney General, Bobby's role in any decisions should have been fairly minimal, but the movie takes great pleasure in mocking the Kennedy administration's glossy version of events there, sending troops as "observers." Everyone thinks the French bungled it and aren't the same as the US Army but John...oh no! Ethel comes barrelling over to the brothers walking through the woods to tell them Joe Sr. has just had a stroke (poor Ethel hasn't had a whole lot to do lately, other than look bored at one of Jackie's classical music receptions or fix Bobby's blankets as he tries to sleep for ten minutes). With Joe paralyzed, Rose finally gets a chance to speak! "There are so many things he wanted to say, advice he wanted to give," she tells the clan, "he held himself in check," her point being that Joe Sr. has been remaining mum to let his sons run the country. The movie has shown otherwise, but then again, having her first real lines of the movie must be terrible pressure for Rose.
With the South still ducking Civil Rights laws, the Kennedy brothers are in for some rough times. While Bobby and John exercise, Pierre regales them with the latest Washington jokes ("If John, Bobby and Teddy Kennedy were in a sinking ship, who would be saved? The nation."), and John tries to think furiously of something he's done well. The Peace Corps? Yeah, that works, for about four people. Physical fitness? "You've got the jock vote," Pierre quips. Because Bobby is played by sexy Brad Davis, we even get a shirtless scene here as he and his brother head into the steam room.
Next up is the Cuban Missile Crisis. A war room full of politicians and generals disagree on what to do, but Bobby comes up with the idea to talk to the Soviet Ambassador himself since their kids play together, and that should pretty much solve it. The only problem is that no one is allowed to discuss this potential nuclear nightmare, and Bobby can't even tell Ethel. He can't take the pressure, so as they are shopping in a discount store for clothing (we get it, he's a man of the people), he cracks and tells Ethel. She does well with secrets, so I think we're okay. The meeting with Dobrynin (Walter Gotell) does not go so well and it looks like war. At the very last moment, the Soviets call off their ships, so Bobby can go home to Ethel jumping up and down giggling "it's over!" like she just found the exact right curtains.
Hoffa is still a priority, but Civil Rights remains Bobby's main concern. Hell, he even has the support of Lyndon Johnson (G.D. Spradling), who has taken over Rose Kennedy's role as the eternal observer, with almost no lines, though Lyndon is far more realistic about how to get things done. However, the Kennedy brothers do agree with Martin Luther King's March on Washington and even pull aside a Civil Rights activist aside, outside of course, to warn him that Hoover is tapping everything he can to discredit them.
According to this movie, it is the Kennedy brothers, with Salinger, who planned the seismic historical March that August of 1963. Bobby wants to make sure there are white faces in the crowd, "your average looking people," not just students and John wants his celebrity friends to get involved. John and Bobby, with their wives, watch King's speech on TV. Ethel, of course, is enraptured, and Jackie, of course, looks bored. For that matter, John looks like he's falling asleep. Remember, this is the St. Robert and St. Ethel Story, so it's Ethel's bodice heaving in delight and Bobby bug-eyed at every work King speaks. During the "let freedom ring" portion of the speech, Bobby couldn't be more thrilled and John even cracks a fake smile.
Rose is back, and she has perhaps the most unfortunate line of the entire movie. After Bobby has helped Joe with some exercises, John and Jackie and the kids arrive and Rose coos about the best tonic for Joe is the family. "You'll see when you all come for Thanksgiving," she says. It's 1963. It's during this trip that the fated Dallas trip is first mentioned because everyone knows potential Republican Barry Goldwater will win the South, but they can win Texas if John "fixes Texas with a little person politicking." As Jackie packs suitcases for all weather (they really just aren't nice to her at all here), John and Bobby make plans for an upcoming football game. We're positively crawling to November 22 and laying on the brotherly hugs and feelings and trust with an iron hand.
Bobby's birthday celebration is a big shindig with more food than imaginable (with Ethel careful to note that it's all her cook Ruby who does it, with even a "this is a great, Rube" line in there to show her dedication to Civil Rights). Bobby's daughter gets him to make a paper airplane, the press toasts him in between discussions of John's trip and then Ethel gets up to make a toast, a very curious one. "To the President of the United States," she says. Well, John isn't even there and it's Bobby's birthday, so other than to once again delay the inevitable, why?
"Big friendly crowds in Dallas and San Antonio," Bobby's secretary notes as Bobby heads home for some lunch with colleagues. A workman runs over with the news and Hoover calls at the same time. Bobby freezes in panic.
Actual news footage is used for the elaborate funeral because one can't improve on that. Bobby lights his own eternal flame at home with Washington in the distance. Hell, even the Teamster Building flies the flag at half mast, at least until Hoffa gets there and orders it raised. "The only thing this means to me is Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now," snarls the great Hoffa. Wow, talk about your villains! Hoover gloats just as hungrily, ripping out the direct line Bobby had put to his desk and undoing all of Bobby's rules. Johnson moves into the White House with desperate alacrity. Of course, the consummate politician, Johnson tells Bobby, "I need you more than he ever did," but Bobby is too upset that Johnson has moved in so quickly. Johnson blames others and notes again how much "I need your support. How much the country needs it," leaving Bobby alone in the Oval Office to finish the packing. However, there is a quizzical look on his face, one that says, "hmmmmm, this might not be such a bad place to work."
"You're the head of the family now," Rose tells Bobby. "It's up to you now to lead us forward," she says, clutching her rosary, having given this speech no doubt to John after Joe Jr. died. And no doubt again in a few year for the third time. He may never get the chance because Johnson and Hoover have a scene right out of a comic book where the villains plot against the hero, though these two don't actually cackle.
Johnson uses a minor infraction from the Cubans to pit Bobby against the rest of his team, but still Bobby doesn't quit. However, after Hoffa is convicted, Bobby says, "I'm tired of chasing people." Ethel notes that New Hampshire wants Bobby to run as Vice President in the 1964 election, but Bobby makes a joke about running for Senator, though he knows he's known as "Ruthless Robert" and not the great smiling glad handler that his brother was.
Trying to duck Johnson, who violently detests Bobby, Bobby encounters another crisis when Teddy is in a plane crash and very seriously injured. Since he's running for Senator, while he recuperates, Rose is handling speeches for Teddy. "You better get well quick or she'll steal your Senate seat," Bobby jokes to Teddy. Not this Rose, who can't string together four words. "If my parents had stopped after having four children, they wouldn't have any now," Bobby remarks. That is completely untrue! Joe Jr., Kathleen and John are dead, but Rosemary lived for decades in an institution. Wow, this is revisionist history of the absolute worst kind!
Johnson and Hoover have a chili lunch at the White House, where Johnson is upset that "every time I turn on the TV, I see something about Bobby Kennedy." Johnson needs Hoover on his side, and despite hating him, tells him he'll make him FBI Director "for life," with the unstated quid pro quo that Hoover will help him against Bobby. Johnson hated both men, but picked what he thought was the lesser of two evils. Johnson then summons Bobby to the White House with a "together we can make it a better world" speech and to tell him that he will not be putting him on the ticket for Vice President. He tells him he won't use anyone in his cabinet, and Bobby goes on TV to make a cheeky comment about cabinet members being unable to run, which just pisses off Johnson even more. Johnson's most hysterical scene is one where he calls the wife of one of his staffers to tell her that the staffer's shirts are not clean, offering laundry tips. The reason he does this is to avoid having to hear Bobby's speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention, but the applause goes on so long, that even with the conversation, he still has to hear the speech.
Bobby packs his carpetbag and heads to New York to run for a Senate seat. "Aren't you just using New York as a jumping off point for a presidential run?" a reporter asks, but Bobby sounds convincing saying he wants to be "a good Senator" rather than retire "on my father's money." He relies heavily on his brother's ghost, but when he gives a speech in Brooklyn praising his opponent's voting record during the Kennedy Administration, this staff is furious. "Damn it Bob, be yourself. You're real, your brother's dead," Andy McLaughlin (Pat Corley) tells him. His opponent buys network television time to debate Bobby, who has refused to do so, but when the opponent makes a statement Bobby doesn't like, Bobby rushes to the TV station and agrees to debate, with music accompanying him that was last heard when John Wayne was galloping to save a damsel or a town or whatever. His opponent's team is horrified because they know Bobby would win a debate, so they ask, "what is the senator won't debate you." "Then I'll debate the empty chair!" Oh, for the love of Pete! His opponent darts out the building and just when you think the scene can't get any more bizarre, Ethel walks in, with all of the cameras on her, dripping faux innocence saying, "I'm here to watch the debate, with my husband."
Teddy is there in the Senate to help Bobby learn the ropes and not prattle on in committee, going against cigarettes and pesticides. He's still not happy. "It's all talk, just debating and haranguing. I just have the feeling I'm not getting very much accomplished," he tells Ethel in bed, soon before she gives birth to their 89th child. "I guess this destroys my position on birth control," Bobby jokes with his family, especially Rose, who is obviously in favor of large families (and gets a line saying so).
With trouble in Santo Domingo that receives military support from Johnson, Bobby decides to make a South American tour, which infuriates Johnson. Though he can't stop him, he can try to keep him in line. "If he so much as breaks wind down there, it better sound like praise for this administration!" Johnson thunders and then has his staff at the State Department do a less-than-satisfactory briefing on all matters South American that might arise. So, Bobby decides to do the trip his own way, ignoring what the State Department has set up for him and making his own itinerary. St. Bobby speaks about poverty in Peru to huge crowds, though supportive and antagonistic. In Chile, he's warned not to speak because there may be hostility and violence. In fact, they do throw food at him in a display of anti-American sentiment, but Bobby yells over the fighting crowd that someone should come debate him. He then runs into the melee in the stands, with horrified State Department employees having to physically pull him off and throw him in a car. He then gives Seigenthaler and Ethel a speech about why South America hates the US government so much. There is no cause this man won't champion!
However, he is the Senator from New York, so following his radically anti-Johnson time in South America, he does the same for his state, starting in Brooklyn and moving around New York. At least this doesn't go against the Johnson Administration. Meeting migrant workers upstate, he's chased off property where people are paid only $1 an hour by a man threatening to shoot him. Yes, we're getting there, I'm afraid.
The issue of Vietnam further divides Bobby and Johnson. Bobby does all he can to avoid furthering the war, even going to France and talking to DeGaulle and finding out the North Vietnamese are open to peace talks, which the Johnson Administration had steadfastly denied because it believed it was winning the war. "You will be dead politically," Johnson tells Bobby when that news is leaked, explaining to Bobby what being anti-war means. Johnson reminds him that it was his brother who sent the troops to Vietnam and Bobby admits "I was wrong" to support it. On the day Bobby is to make an anti-war speech, Ethel is bitten by one of the kids' (a very young River Phoenix) pet ferret, but manages to land a zinger, saying, "if these are the only scars the Kennedys get by the end of the day, we'll be lucky!"
The speech is roundly condemned by most (even Nixon agrees with Johnson), since it's still early in the protest movement, but Bobby is undeterred, even as Johnson reminds anyone in earshot, "I told that boy it would be political suicide." However, the tide slowly turns. Even Martin Luther King publicly states he thinks Johnson should not run in 1968. The anti-war movement gains strong momentum and Johnson tells Hoover, "I will not go down as the President who fiddled while Washington burned!"
This all gives Bobby the opportunity to run for President himself. So, up to Hyannis Port we trudge, where all Kennedy decisions are made. There is first a goofy slide show where Rose coos over pictures of her sons (but not daughters) and Joe Sr. seems to get emotional. Then Rose tells Ethel that when Bobby was young, "he used to play with his sisters so much, my mother thought he would turn out to be a sissy. She would be so proud of him now." But, of course it's up to Bobby and Teddy, and of course whatever Joe Sr. can manage to add. Teddy tells him to go for it, but Bobby says, "I'll have no support from politicians," but his team urges him to announce his candidacy and run against the incumbent Johnson. Bobby does have a point, though the sentence containing it is more of that crawling to the inevitable that happened back in November 1963. He asks them what happens if he's at the California primary and Johnson makes a bold decision one way or the other to affect the outcome. He had to pick California of all states for this wondering moment? Bobby decides not to run. Eugene McCarthy and the folk singers will have to rebel against Vietnam themselves.
It's left to Ethel to do the pushing, as always. She calls him the "Hamlet of Hickory Hills" because of his indecision about a presidential run. Despite what happened to John, Ethel believes he is the only man who can unite everyone. Her source is The Village Voice. Bobby does the only thing a man who needs to make a heavy decision can do: he saddles one of the horses and goes on a wild ride through the countryside. "I'm going to do it," he informs Ethel upon return. "I've got to do it." Cue the entire orchestra at its most powerful.
The biggest problem, as Bobby sees it, is Hubert Humphrey, who is surging in the polls. So, Teddy is sent to get him on board as a Kennedy supporter, but that doesn't really work. "It's a fantasy. At the convention, they'll chew him up and spit him up in the aisles," a staffer says. The Chicago convention certainly would be one hell of a brawl, but that's still months away. What is most important in announcing the Kennedy candidacy is a hair cut, though I can't say I noticed the pre and post difference. Predictably, Johnson is not pleased to hear during Bobby's speech that "the President divides us" and rattles off another of his dreams, morals, stories, whatever, to Lady Bird (Danna Hansen, who has only a line or two, and not in this scene, where her she's only shown from the neck down). "The thing I feared most since the first day of my Presidency has happened. Robert F. Kennedy has announced his intention to reclaim the throne because of the memory of his lost brother and the American people, swayed by the magic of that memory, have come to him rejoicing, dancing in the streets. I am so tired," Johnson says, paving the way for a massive change in American politics that took decades to untangle. He will not run in 1968.
Bobby is flabbergasted by the news, not hearing of it until he lands at an airport where massive crowds are chanting for him. Equally loud are the chanting 106 children who scream for Rose when she arrives to visit. She hasn't been paid that much attention since 1919 or so, and Bobby has a discussion with her. Her best advice? "Go with your heart." Not much of a politician, this Rose, but sentimental and loving. "Don't try to be a traditional politician," she says, and though she has misgivings, she says that "ever since childhood, you could never be deflected from doing what you thought you should do." That's also not really helpful, but what is helpful? Her advice that he get a haircut. Another one? Is this an in-joke I'm not getting?
In April, Martin Luther King is assassinated. Bobby insists on speaking to a mostly black audience standing in the rain, a crowd that has not heard the news. The crowd of extra is a pretty lame one, but then again, they are on a rain set. By all accounts, Bobby's passion for Civil Rights was genuine and he was truly devastated by this turn of events. He urges the crowd to "replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has run across our land with an effort to understand. With compassion, with love," the introduction a thrilling speech about racial harmony that Brad Davis delivers exceedingly well.
It's followed by an unfortunate scene aboard Bobby's train with a grating sing-a-long as his candidacy hurls ahead. That is followed by an even worse scene where Bobby goes to Nebraska to speak to dairy farmers and bash Nixon before another sing-a-long. Is this Bobby Kennedy's campaign or Grover Cleveland's? Ethel is pregnant again. Is she sure? "I don't need to see a doctor. I've been right 10 times!" she tells Bobby. Take that, Pat Nixon! Fearing that he and McCarthy are too close on the issues, he decides to get a "shorter haircut." Enough with the damn hair!
Let's chalk up the campaign stop scene where he gives a speech about gun control laws to just a bad idea and move on.
The campaign hits some snags when McCarthy wins primaries, but "we won't lose California," Bobby tells his team. In May, he goes there to plan, splitting up the duties to make sure the state is covered. "If I died in Oregon, let's make Los Angeles my resurrection city," he announces to applause from volunteers. This is the same kind of schmaltz we had to get through leading up to November 22, 1963.
In June of 1968, Bobby is working San Francisco singing in Chinese at a rally. Geez, we're really just fluffing time, aren't we? But, the point is made. Bobby is very popular. There's a scare when some firecrackers go off, but Bobby is soon again shaking hands. Since Bobby is ahead by only four points in the polls, he insists on covering all of California in two days, or rather "one day. Use the other day to set it all up." He needs to win big at the convention. He wants pregnant Ethel to stay behind, but a look on her face says, "do I look like wilting flower Jackie or that lush Joan? I'm going!"
On June 4, Bobby wakes up in Malibu to the sounds of his kids playing outside. He and Ethel joke about picking names for the baby due in December and then he helps the kids make sandcastles. Teddy and Joan (Wendy LaMastra) show up and reveal some returns from other states before it's off to the Ambassador Hotel for a speech celebrating his victory in California. Everyone is in high spirits. And then it's back to a crawl. There is an elevator ride that goes on for about 45 minutes, a silent elevator ride, no less. The speech is a big success, but after five hours, is a bit cruel. Luckily, Brad rushes through the speech at top speed, though stopping to thank everyone from Rosie Grier to Freckles the dog and then finally Ethel. "It's on to Chicago and let's win there..."
Very famous last words, unfortunately and sadly.
The decision is made to go through the kitchen and it's there Sirhan Sirhan is waiting with a loaded gun in the minutes after midnight. The movie makes a tasteful choice not to show it, instead playing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" as his funeral train chugs through the country. A still shot of the movie's RFK is shown as a great speech is read by the star.
So, this is clean collectible Kennedy culture. This is Robert Kennedy, the crusader for Civil Rights and for the common man. This is Robert Kennedy, father of many children, brother of many siblings, son to adoring parents, model for an entire nation. If you want Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe or Robert Kennedy and Ari Onassis or any of the more scandalous tales, true or false, there are plenty of other places to find them. "Robert Kennedy and His Times" is so squeaky clean you can see your reflection of it, and that's a good thing, because you'll be wearing a halo and wings, like this hero.
At the center of the movie are Brad Davis and Veronica Cartwright. Davis did not have many roles left before his early death, and this is a great one for him. There's a lot to bite into, especially since all he really has to do is bask in the glow of the script, which is worshipful. However, he does infuse the one-dimensional saint character with good humor. Cartwright has the harder job since Ethel was far less of a public figure, and never any one's favorite. The script reduces her to the loving wife who always smiles broadly and shows support no matter how bad the odds. She tries, as she always does, but there just isn't much here to work with, no fault of her own.
And the Kennedy mystique lives on. There had already been a few Kennedy miniseries before this one and they are still making them! The family fascinates forever.
That's because it's 2011 and there really isn't anything left to find out! The Kennedy bones have been picked over for a few generations now, and with only Jean left of the famous siblings and Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver the (odd) faces of the family, I think we know pretty much all there is to know.
However, that was not always the case and the American Miniseries movement certainly wanted to share all it could with TV viewers. In the 80s, the Kennedys were still the personifications of so many dreams. Rose was still alive, Teddy was still a very important member of the Senate and Her Highness Jackie O was still making headlines. John John was growing up and becoming a man. Caroline was getting married. William Kennedy Smith would be in the news. The Kennedys mattered and we didn't know all the dirt on them yet. Sure, there were whispers of affairs, but there was a certain amount of respect still paid to them. However, the pull to film them was ferocious, a cottage industry or subset genre of its own. They were colorful, active, scandalous, questionable, and, most importantly, the closest thing the United States had to royalty. British miniseries have put on film nearly every royal going back to names no one can pronounce and sure, we've filmed the lives of various famous people, but they don't hold fascination the way the name KENNEDY does.
But, while everyone has them on the brain, I'll jump on the bandwagon with "Robert Kennedy and His Times," a tad less obvious than a few of other versions that will be discussed later. Let's also note that this miniseries is based on the book by Arthur Schlesinger, a eminently respectable historian and power player among the Kennedys. It gets the facts pretty much right, though it has an awfully obvious desire to paint Bobby Kennedy as close to living sainthood as possible.
Boston, 1946. Bobby Kennedy (the much-adored and much-missed Brad Davis) has come to the campaign headquarters of his brother to help out. He doesn't take off his coat before being introduced to Ethel Skakel (Veronica Cartwright, in casting waaaaaaaay too kind of our dear Ethel). The two are sent to canvass the 11th District together. Bobby confesses to Ethel that he's not sure what he wants to do, but maybe journalism. A dockworker tells Bobby that there isn't an Irishman in good standing "who wouldn't vote for the son of lovely Rosie Fitzgerald." Bobby tells Ethel a little Kennedy history, that his grandfather Honey Fitz was Mayor of Boston and his mother was "something of a celebrity." This sort of detail would get written out in later years as Joe Kennedy put his star in front of everyone else's.
Bobby (Brad seems to have based his accent more on Jackie's cousin Edie Beale than Bobby Kennedy) doesn't want to get married until he's well into his 30s, but Ethel, who is only 18, says she'll wait for "however long it takes" and then races him back to headquarters. Watching her sprint like that must have meant love for one of the infamous athletic Kennedy offspring. Jackie never sprinted, of that we're sure. Peter Lawford never sprinted.
When Bobby goes to see his brother, John (Cliff DeYoung, a miniseries regular) is on the phone with a woman seducing her into plans. That's okay, it's only 1946, he's not married yet. It's off to lunch with Papa Joe (Jack Warden). Bobby, only in law school, is supporting Civil Rights, somewhat to the dismay of his father and brother.
Now it's 1948. Matchmaker Jean (Dorothy Fielding) has brought Ethel along for Christmas and Bobby looks at her like she's a beauty queen in a sea of lepers as he hangs the star on the tree. It's hard to believe there was EVER a moment as goony as this, especially between those two! Ethel willingly joins a Kennedy clan football game, frolics by the pool with gusto, all the while making Bobby fall madly in love with her. I believe the football game, perhaps, but the rest? Between those two? Bobby and Ethel making out under palm trees? Those two?
The two are married while still in school, and everyone is thrilled. Okay, I'll buy that. The Skakels were a nice respectable family (only one killer in the clan, but that's far in the future) and Ethel did fit in with the Kennedys. I don't think anyone started collecting dossiers on potential spouses until names like Bouvier and Lawford started appearing. Ethel dances at her wedding with Joe, with John and of course with Teddy ("North and South" heartthrob James Read).
Off on a "Congressional fact finding mission," John takes Bobby and sister Pat (Mimi Kennedy, unrelated, or else she wouldn't be here). On the plane ride, John wants Bobby to handle the "details." To Bobby, that means actually helping with the fact finding, having "prepared files on all the places we're going." Oops, John meant carrying the luggage and making reservations. And here we have a pivotal moment. Instead of John being the hero, as he has been since his untimely death, it's Bobby who is the family brains, and we're allowed to celebrate that. "Do you resent carrying my bags?" John asks, in a moment that seems to approach something interesting. Unfortunately, it evaporates when Bobby jokes, "I promised Mother I would carry your bags so you wouldn't strain your back." Damn, no sibling rivalry here.
Nehru (Gokul) is impressed that JFK is the first American Congressman to visit, and at his own expense no less. A little historical foreshadowing comes when Nehru pronounces "the poor stupid French fighting a hopeless war" in reference to their next stop in Saigon. This leads to talk on the fear of Communism and Nehru makes some very good arguments (and wouldn't live to see his own country's wild flirtation with the USSR in a few decades). Bobby seems almost pro-Communist in Saigon when he reads the reactions of the people, who want the French gone and would vote for Ho Chi Minh if given the chance.
There are hints that not all the Kennedys are saints. When Bobby learns that Ethel is having a second child, he quips to John about his lack of marital status, "is there any girl left on the Eastern seaboard you haven't dated?" See, in 1985, that might have been a bit juicy. In 2010, the word "dated" would start with an F and end with a D. "The only girl I like says she only wants to marry a Senator from Massachusetts," John says. "But Henry Cabot Lodge is already married," Bobby chirps innocently. "Then I'll just have to beat him," John retorts and the dynasty is born. In fact, John and Bobby discuss Joe Sr.'s ambitions and Bobby lovingly notes, "Dad would have made a great President." Yup, right up there with Harding and Nixon in the honest politician department.
If you can stomach the scene where John thanks his family for helping him win the Senate election in 1952, you have an iron stomach. He literally thanks all of his siblings present, his mother (who doesn't do anything but smile), Bobby and Dad with jokes, Ethel and pretty much everyone but the football sitting outside somewhere. The only honest line, some might say, is when he thanks his father: "The Republicans say you bought me this election, so I suppose I ought to thank you for that." Oh, and as an afterthought, he has another announcement. "I know what that is," Rose (Beatrice Straight) is finally allowed to say and he says he and Jackie (Juanin Clay, as unpleasant looking a Jackie as can be, especially in a film with a radiant Ethel) are getting married.
The ever astute Joe Sr. has set Bobby up as counsel to Joe McCarthy (or, to be more specific, counsel to the Democrats on his committee). Just so we are are clear, Bobby has objections to both McCarthy's politics and his rabble-rousing, but he takes the job anyway. With that said, we can watch knowing that Bobby was totally innocent of anything during McCarthy's idiotic Red Scare. I said we could watch knowing that. Just don't commit it to memory, because Bobby Kennedy certainly helped the crazy drunken Senator plenty in those years. To hammer it in that Bobby was an angel, he gives McCarthy (a wonderful Harris Yulin) and Roy Cohn (Joe Pantoliano) more of his famous fact sheets that disprove a lot of what McCarthy was saying, but they ignore it. Still not ready to absolve Bobby of any sin here? This line ought to take care of that: McCarthy says to Roy "call the FBI and see if they have anything on our young Mr. Kennedy." What could they possibly have? He's halfway to heaven according to this movie!
Bobby is a veritable hero at the Senate hearings, the only intelligent person there, especially up against doofus Roy Cohn with the infamous Annie Lee Moss (Dorothy Butts) episode, in which Bobby certainly made a lasting enemy of Roy. A heated moment in the Senate chamber where they actually brawl is so insanely comical because I don't think Roy Cohn every threw a punch in his life (but his gorgeous young aide protects him).
We move to 1956 really quickly so we can gloss over the Communist hearings and get to Jimmy Hoffa and the Unions, which is very rah-rah because even history can't sugar coat their illegal funfests in the 50s. Only Joe Sr. is upset because he feels it will cost John a Presidential election. Don't worry, Joe doesn't get to say too much in defense of the unions because Ethel calls Bobby in to put the star on the top of the Christmas tree. But, still, Bobby heeds his father's words because he'll do anything for the family. He'll even quit if it will cost John an election, but luckily Ethel is there to cheer him on, to tell him he's fighting for what he believes in and that it's really something only Bobby and John can decide, not Joe. That conversation may have actually happened. We have no way of knowing, but somehow I think Ethel would be missing a kneecap or two if it did. But, not to worry, because John supports him, as long as he "gets the facts right."
Facts will not be a problem, because Bobby puts together a crack team of surefire reporters on his Labor Committee, including Pierre Salinger (Jeffrey Tambor in a piece of strange casting) and John Seigenthaler (George Grizzard). John holds the hearings, with Bobby at his side and though Joe doesn't like it, Bobby gets hundreds of letters of support. Rose watches the hearings on TV with Joe, but remains silent. She makes a lot of "oh Joe!" faces at everything her husband says, but that's about it. When Jimmy Hoffa (Trey Wilson) takes over as the head of the Teamster's Union, truck drivers invade the tranquility of Bobby's estate while he is outside playing with his kids or at night so no one can sleep, assuring eternal enemies are made. In the context of this movie's hero-worshipping, when you keep Ethel awake at night, you might as well be Judas Iscariot or Adolph Hitler. However, Bobby does tell Ethel that as long as he's doing his great public works, there will "always be threats. There's no way to avoid it. We can either learn to live with that or I've got to make other choices." Ethel would never let him do that, so she hugs him and sighs in agreement.
There's no point in dwelling on the actual work Bobby Kennedy really did. We know he made his point about Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. Let's gallop right along to1960 and Sinatra's voice singing "High Hopes" as John campaigns for President. He wins, by the way.
As for making Bobby Attorney General, John confides him him that he's asked some "very important people about it. His mother and his sisters (no mention of Teddy). Well, okay, he mentioned it to J. Edgar Hoover and a few others who were bound to hate the idea and they, naturally, hated the idea, but John tells Bobby, "I need someone I can trust." A heartbeat later, Bobby is playing marriage counselor to his brother. John catches the football at a Hyannis Port game and the family goes wild, except for Jackie, off with her nose in a book. Bobby explains, "it was a good catch" and Jackie goes over to John and congratulates him, managing to look happy for a half a second.
We couldn't avoid him forever. Looming large in the history of every president going back to Coolidge of the 20th Century until Nixon finally did him in is J. Edgar Hoover (Ned Beatty), of course with Clyde Tolson (Jack Thibeau) in tow. Now that Bobby is his boss, the FBI Director has no choice but to pay him a visit in his new office. But he doesn't have to be happy about it. "I've been here since 1924. If I'm not mistaken, that's before you were born," he says glumly, his point very obvious. Bobby is not afraid and lists the changes he intends to make, each one causing Hoover greater dismay, but the best is saved for last because Bobby wants a direct line to Hoover's desk.
Nearing sainthood step by step, Bobby is forced to deal with the Freedom Riders in Alabama, the prickly issue of race relations. John and Joe Sr. want them quashed as John goes off to Europe, but Bobby has a conscience. He knows they have every right to ride the bus and as Attorney General, he has to back them. Joe explodes at him, telling him it could cost his brother the presidency come 1964, but Bobby forges ahead. The only problem is that no one can find a bus driver willing to make the journey. He shouts on the phone at the head of a bus company, "you call Mr. Greyhound or whoever" to make sure that bus has a driver! Seigenthaler is sent to Alabama to follow the bus and all seems quiet and peaceful as they hit Montgomery, until out of the shadows storms an angry mob with every weapon imaginable to beat the riders. The police watch lazily as the media captures it for all to see. The Governor of Alabama calls Bobby to tell him that neither he nor the US military guarantee Martin Luther King's safety as he comes to Montgomery, so Bobby deputizes local marshals. "He has just committed political suicide," the Governor says with a smile. Seigenthaler, beaten in the melee, jokes that Bobby "should never run for office in Alabama," but that he did the right thing. That can't be denied.
Then comes Vietnam. Technically, as Attorney General, Bobby's role in any decisions should have been fairly minimal, but the movie takes great pleasure in mocking the Kennedy administration's glossy version of events there, sending troops as "observers." Everyone thinks the French bungled it and aren't the same as the US Army but John...oh no! Ethel comes barrelling over to the brothers walking through the woods to tell them Joe Sr. has just had a stroke (poor Ethel hasn't had a whole lot to do lately, other than look bored at one of Jackie's classical music receptions or fix Bobby's blankets as he tries to sleep for ten minutes). With Joe paralyzed, Rose finally gets a chance to speak! "There are so many things he wanted to say, advice he wanted to give," she tells the clan, "he held himself in check," her point being that Joe Sr. has been remaining mum to let his sons run the country. The movie has shown otherwise, but then again, having her first real lines of the movie must be terrible pressure for Rose.
With the South still ducking Civil Rights laws, the Kennedy brothers are in for some rough times. While Bobby and John exercise, Pierre regales them with the latest Washington jokes ("If John, Bobby and Teddy Kennedy were in a sinking ship, who would be saved? The nation."), and John tries to think furiously of something he's done well. The Peace Corps? Yeah, that works, for about four people. Physical fitness? "You've got the jock vote," Pierre quips. Because Bobby is played by sexy Brad Davis, we even get a shirtless scene here as he and his brother head into the steam room.
Next up is the Cuban Missile Crisis. A war room full of politicians and generals disagree on what to do, but Bobby comes up with the idea to talk to the Soviet Ambassador himself since their kids play together, and that should pretty much solve it. The only problem is that no one is allowed to discuss this potential nuclear nightmare, and Bobby can't even tell Ethel. He can't take the pressure, so as they are shopping in a discount store for clothing (we get it, he's a man of the people), he cracks and tells Ethel. She does well with secrets, so I think we're okay. The meeting with Dobrynin (Walter Gotell) does not go so well and it looks like war. At the very last moment, the Soviets call off their ships, so Bobby can go home to Ethel jumping up and down giggling "it's over!" like she just found the exact right curtains.
Hoffa is still a priority, but Civil Rights remains Bobby's main concern. Hell, he even has the support of Lyndon Johnson (G.D. Spradling), who has taken over Rose Kennedy's role as the eternal observer, with almost no lines, though Lyndon is far more realistic about how to get things done. However, the Kennedy brothers do agree with Martin Luther King's March on Washington and even pull aside a Civil Rights activist aside, outside of course, to warn him that Hoover is tapping everything he can to discredit them.
According to this movie, it is the Kennedy brothers, with Salinger, who planned the seismic historical March that August of 1963. Bobby wants to make sure there are white faces in the crowd, "your average looking people," not just students and John wants his celebrity friends to get involved. John and Bobby, with their wives, watch King's speech on TV. Ethel, of course, is enraptured, and Jackie, of course, looks bored. For that matter, John looks like he's falling asleep. Remember, this is the St. Robert and St. Ethel Story, so it's Ethel's bodice heaving in delight and Bobby bug-eyed at every work King speaks. During the "let freedom ring" portion of the speech, Bobby couldn't be more thrilled and John even cracks a fake smile.
Rose is back, and she has perhaps the most unfortunate line of the entire movie. After Bobby has helped Joe with some exercises, John and Jackie and the kids arrive and Rose coos about the best tonic for Joe is the family. "You'll see when you all come for Thanksgiving," she says. It's 1963. It's during this trip that the fated Dallas trip is first mentioned because everyone knows potential Republican Barry Goldwater will win the South, but they can win Texas if John "fixes Texas with a little person politicking." As Jackie packs suitcases for all weather (they really just aren't nice to her at all here), John and Bobby make plans for an upcoming football game. We're positively crawling to November 22 and laying on the brotherly hugs and feelings and trust with an iron hand.
Bobby's birthday celebration is a big shindig with more food than imaginable (with Ethel careful to note that it's all her cook Ruby who does it, with even a "this is a great, Rube" line in there to show her dedication to Civil Rights). Bobby's daughter gets him to make a paper airplane, the press toasts him in between discussions of John's trip and then Ethel gets up to make a toast, a very curious one. "To the President of the United States," she says. Well, John isn't even there and it's Bobby's birthday, so other than to once again delay the inevitable, why?
"Big friendly crowds in Dallas and San Antonio," Bobby's secretary notes as Bobby heads home for some lunch with colleagues. A workman runs over with the news and Hoover calls at the same time. Bobby freezes in panic.
Actual news footage is used for the elaborate funeral because one can't improve on that. Bobby lights his own eternal flame at home with Washington in the distance. Hell, even the Teamster Building flies the flag at half mast, at least until Hoffa gets there and orders it raised. "The only thing this means to me is Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now," snarls the great Hoffa. Wow, talk about your villains! Hoover gloats just as hungrily, ripping out the direct line Bobby had put to his desk and undoing all of Bobby's rules. Johnson moves into the White House with desperate alacrity. Of course, the consummate politician, Johnson tells Bobby, "I need you more than he ever did," but Bobby is too upset that Johnson has moved in so quickly. Johnson blames others and notes again how much "I need your support. How much the country needs it," leaving Bobby alone in the Oval Office to finish the packing. However, there is a quizzical look on his face, one that says, "hmmmmm, this might not be such a bad place to work."
"You're the head of the family now," Rose tells Bobby. "It's up to you now to lead us forward," she says, clutching her rosary, having given this speech no doubt to John after Joe Jr. died. And no doubt again in a few year for the third time. He may never get the chance because Johnson and Hoover have a scene right out of a comic book where the villains plot against the hero, though these two don't actually cackle.
Johnson uses a minor infraction from the Cubans to pit Bobby against the rest of his team, but still Bobby doesn't quit. However, after Hoffa is convicted, Bobby says, "I'm tired of chasing people." Ethel notes that New Hampshire wants Bobby to run as Vice President in the 1964 election, but Bobby makes a joke about running for Senator, though he knows he's known as "Ruthless Robert" and not the great smiling glad handler that his brother was.
Trying to duck Johnson, who violently detests Bobby, Bobby encounters another crisis when Teddy is in a plane crash and very seriously injured. Since he's running for Senator, while he recuperates, Rose is handling speeches for Teddy. "You better get well quick or she'll steal your Senate seat," Bobby jokes to Teddy. Not this Rose, who can't string together four words. "If my parents had stopped after having four children, they wouldn't have any now," Bobby remarks. That is completely untrue! Joe Jr., Kathleen and John are dead, but Rosemary lived for decades in an institution. Wow, this is revisionist history of the absolute worst kind!
Johnson and Hoover have a chili lunch at the White House, where Johnson is upset that "every time I turn on the TV, I see something about Bobby Kennedy." Johnson needs Hoover on his side, and despite hating him, tells him he'll make him FBI Director "for life," with the unstated quid pro quo that Hoover will help him against Bobby. Johnson hated both men, but picked what he thought was the lesser of two evils. Johnson then summons Bobby to the White House with a "together we can make it a better world" speech and to tell him that he will not be putting him on the ticket for Vice President. He tells him he won't use anyone in his cabinet, and Bobby goes on TV to make a cheeky comment about cabinet members being unable to run, which just pisses off Johnson even more. Johnson's most hysterical scene is one where he calls the wife of one of his staffers to tell her that the staffer's shirts are not clean, offering laundry tips. The reason he does this is to avoid having to hear Bobby's speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention, but the applause goes on so long, that even with the conversation, he still has to hear the speech.
Bobby packs his carpetbag and heads to New York to run for a Senate seat. "Aren't you just using New York as a jumping off point for a presidential run?" a reporter asks, but Bobby sounds convincing saying he wants to be "a good Senator" rather than retire "on my father's money." He relies heavily on his brother's ghost, but when he gives a speech in Brooklyn praising his opponent's voting record during the Kennedy Administration, this staff is furious. "Damn it Bob, be yourself. You're real, your brother's dead," Andy McLaughlin (Pat Corley) tells him. His opponent buys network television time to debate Bobby, who has refused to do so, but when the opponent makes a statement Bobby doesn't like, Bobby rushes to the TV station and agrees to debate, with music accompanying him that was last heard when John Wayne was galloping to save a damsel or a town or whatever. His opponent's team is horrified because they know Bobby would win a debate, so they ask, "what is the senator won't debate you." "Then I'll debate the empty chair!" Oh, for the love of Pete! His opponent darts out the building and just when you think the scene can't get any more bizarre, Ethel walks in, with all of the cameras on her, dripping faux innocence saying, "I'm here to watch the debate, with my husband."
Teddy is there in the Senate to help Bobby learn the ropes and not prattle on in committee, going against cigarettes and pesticides. He's still not happy. "It's all talk, just debating and haranguing. I just have the feeling I'm not getting very much accomplished," he tells Ethel in bed, soon before she gives birth to their 89th child. "I guess this destroys my position on birth control," Bobby jokes with his family, especially Rose, who is obviously in favor of large families (and gets a line saying so).
With trouble in Santo Domingo that receives military support from Johnson, Bobby decides to make a South American tour, which infuriates Johnson. Though he can't stop him, he can try to keep him in line. "If he so much as breaks wind down there, it better sound like praise for this administration!" Johnson thunders and then has his staff at the State Department do a less-than-satisfactory briefing on all matters South American that might arise. So, Bobby decides to do the trip his own way, ignoring what the State Department has set up for him and making his own itinerary. St. Bobby speaks about poverty in Peru to huge crowds, though supportive and antagonistic. In Chile, he's warned not to speak because there may be hostility and violence. In fact, they do throw food at him in a display of anti-American sentiment, but Bobby yells over the fighting crowd that someone should come debate him. He then runs into the melee in the stands, with horrified State Department employees having to physically pull him off and throw him in a car. He then gives Seigenthaler and Ethel a speech about why South America hates the US government so much. There is no cause this man won't champion!
However, he is the Senator from New York, so following his radically anti-Johnson time in South America, he does the same for his state, starting in Brooklyn and moving around New York. At least this doesn't go against the Johnson Administration. Meeting migrant workers upstate, he's chased off property where people are paid only $1 an hour by a man threatening to shoot him. Yes, we're getting there, I'm afraid.
The issue of Vietnam further divides Bobby and Johnson. Bobby does all he can to avoid furthering the war, even going to France and talking to DeGaulle and finding out the North Vietnamese are open to peace talks, which the Johnson Administration had steadfastly denied because it believed it was winning the war. "You will be dead politically," Johnson tells Bobby when that news is leaked, explaining to Bobby what being anti-war means. Johnson reminds him that it was his brother who sent the troops to Vietnam and Bobby admits "I was wrong" to support it. On the day Bobby is to make an anti-war speech, Ethel is bitten by one of the kids' (a very young River Phoenix) pet ferret, but manages to land a zinger, saying, "if these are the only scars the Kennedys get by the end of the day, we'll be lucky!"
The speech is roundly condemned by most (even Nixon agrees with Johnson), since it's still early in the protest movement, but Bobby is undeterred, even as Johnson reminds anyone in earshot, "I told that boy it would be political suicide." However, the tide slowly turns. Even Martin Luther King publicly states he thinks Johnson should not run in 1968. The anti-war movement gains strong momentum and Johnson tells Hoover, "I will not go down as the President who fiddled while Washington burned!"
This all gives Bobby the opportunity to run for President himself. So, up to Hyannis Port we trudge, where all Kennedy decisions are made. There is first a goofy slide show where Rose coos over pictures of her sons (but not daughters) and Joe Sr. seems to get emotional. Then Rose tells Ethel that when Bobby was young, "he used to play with his sisters so much, my mother thought he would turn out to be a sissy. She would be so proud of him now." But, of course it's up to Bobby and Teddy, and of course whatever Joe Sr. can manage to add. Teddy tells him to go for it, but Bobby says, "I'll have no support from politicians," but his team urges him to announce his candidacy and run against the incumbent Johnson. Bobby does have a point, though the sentence containing it is more of that crawling to the inevitable that happened back in November 1963. He asks them what happens if he's at the California primary and Johnson makes a bold decision one way or the other to affect the outcome. He had to pick California of all states for this wondering moment? Bobby decides not to run. Eugene McCarthy and the folk singers will have to rebel against Vietnam themselves.
It's left to Ethel to do the pushing, as always. She calls him the "Hamlet of Hickory Hills" because of his indecision about a presidential run. Despite what happened to John, Ethel believes he is the only man who can unite everyone. Her source is The Village Voice. Bobby does the only thing a man who needs to make a heavy decision can do: he saddles one of the horses and goes on a wild ride through the countryside. "I'm going to do it," he informs Ethel upon return. "I've got to do it." Cue the entire orchestra at its most powerful.
The biggest problem, as Bobby sees it, is Hubert Humphrey, who is surging in the polls. So, Teddy is sent to get him on board as a Kennedy supporter, but that doesn't really work. "It's a fantasy. At the convention, they'll chew him up and spit him up in the aisles," a staffer says. The Chicago convention certainly would be one hell of a brawl, but that's still months away. What is most important in announcing the Kennedy candidacy is a hair cut, though I can't say I noticed the pre and post difference. Predictably, Johnson is not pleased to hear during Bobby's speech that "the President divides us" and rattles off another of his dreams, morals, stories, whatever, to Lady Bird (Danna Hansen, who has only a line or two, and not in this scene, where her she's only shown from the neck down). "The thing I feared most since the first day of my Presidency has happened. Robert F. Kennedy has announced his intention to reclaim the throne because of the memory of his lost brother and the American people, swayed by the magic of that memory, have come to him rejoicing, dancing in the streets. I am so tired," Johnson says, paving the way for a massive change in American politics that took decades to untangle. He will not run in 1968.
Bobby is flabbergasted by the news, not hearing of it until he lands at an airport where massive crowds are chanting for him. Equally loud are the chanting 106 children who scream for Rose when she arrives to visit. She hasn't been paid that much attention since 1919 or so, and Bobby has a discussion with her. Her best advice? "Go with your heart." Not much of a politician, this Rose, but sentimental and loving. "Don't try to be a traditional politician," she says, and though she has misgivings, she says that "ever since childhood, you could never be deflected from doing what you thought you should do." That's also not really helpful, but what is helpful? Her advice that he get a haircut. Another one? Is this an in-joke I'm not getting?
In April, Martin Luther King is assassinated. Bobby insists on speaking to a mostly black audience standing in the rain, a crowd that has not heard the news. The crowd of extra is a pretty lame one, but then again, they are on a rain set. By all accounts, Bobby's passion for Civil Rights was genuine and he was truly devastated by this turn of events. He urges the crowd to "replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has run across our land with an effort to understand. With compassion, with love," the introduction a thrilling speech about racial harmony that Brad Davis delivers exceedingly well.
It's followed by an unfortunate scene aboard Bobby's train with a grating sing-a-long as his candidacy hurls ahead. That is followed by an even worse scene where Bobby goes to Nebraska to speak to dairy farmers and bash Nixon before another sing-a-long. Is this Bobby Kennedy's campaign or Grover Cleveland's? Ethel is pregnant again. Is she sure? "I don't need to see a doctor. I've been right 10 times!" she tells Bobby. Take that, Pat Nixon! Fearing that he and McCarthy are too close on the issues, he decides to get a "shorter haircut." Enough with the damn hair!
Let's chalk up the campaign stop scene where he gives a speech about gun control laws to just a bad idea and move on.
The campaign hits some snags when McCarthy wins primaries, but "we won't lose California," Bobby tells his team. In May, he goes there to plan, splitting up the duties to make sure the state is covered. "If I died in Oregon, let's make Los Angeles my resurrection city," he announces to applause from volunteers. This is the same kind of schmaltz we had to get through leading up to November 22, 1963.
In June of 1968, Bobby is working San Francisco singing in Chinese at a rally. Geez, we're really just fluffing time, aren't we? But, the point is made. Bobby is very popular. There's a scare when some firecrackers go off, but Bobby is soon again shaking hands. Since Bobby is ahead by only four points in the polls, he insists on covering all of California in two days, or rather "one day. Use the other day to set it all up." He needs to win big at the convention. He wants pregnant Ethel to stay behind, but a look on her face says, "do I look like wilting flower Jackie or that lush Joan? I'm going!"
On June 4, Bobby wakes up in Malibu to the sounds of his kids playing outside. He and Ethel joke about picking names for the baby due in December and then he helps the kids make sandcastles. Teddy and Joan (Wendy LaMastra) show up and reveal some returns from other states before it's off to the Ambassador Hotel for a speech celebrating his victory in California. Everyone is in high spirits. And then it's back to a crawl. There is an elevator ride that goes on for about 45 minutes, a silent elevator ride, no less. The speech is a big success, but after five hours, is a bit cruel. Luckily, Brad rushes through the speech at top speed, though stopping to thank everyone from Rosie Grier to Freckles the dog and then finally Ethel. "It's on to Chicago and let's win there..."
Very famous last words, unfortunately and sadly.
The decision is made to go through the kitchen and it's there Sirhan Sirhan is waiting with a loaded gun in the minutes after midnight. The movie makes a tasteful choice not to show it, instead playing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" as his funeral train chugs through the country. A still shot of the movie's RFK is shown as a great speech is read by the star.
So, this is clean collectible Kennedy culture. This is Robert Kennedy, the crusader for Civil Rights and for the common man. This is Robert Kennedy, father of many children, brother of many siblings, son to adoring parents, model for an entire nation. If you want Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe or Robert Kennedy and Ari Onassis or any of the more scandalous tales, true or false, there are plenty of other places to find them. "Robert Kennedy and His Times" is so squeaky clean you can see your reflection of it, and that's a good thing, because you'll be wearing a halo and wings, like this hero.
At the center of the movie are Brad Davis and Veronica Cartwright. Davis did not have many roles left before his early death, and this is a great one for him. There's a lot to bite into, especially since all he really has to do is bask in the glow of the script, which is worshipful. However, he does infuse the one-dimensional saint character with good humor. Cartwright has the harder job since Ethel was far less of a public figure, and never any one's favorite. The script reduces her to the loving wife who always smiles broadly and shows support no matter how bad the odds. She tries, as she always does, but there just isn't much here to work with, no fault of her own.
And the Kennedy mystique lives on. There had already been a few Kennedy miniseries before this one and they are still making them! The family fascinates forever.
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