Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 14, 1994 TAG: 9411260011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The eight-hour, four-night miniseries, which premiered Sunday night, on CBS and continues Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, is a pathetic joke when compared to ``Gone with the Wind,'' the 1939 movie epic to which it is nominally a sequel. But compared to other TV miniseries, ``Scarlett'' is presentable, eventful, occasionally involving. It's a fitfully entertaining exercise in utter presumptuousness.
What's perhaps most disappointing about the film is that while Margaret Mitchell's story of the Old South is a classic of Americana, more than half of ``Scarlett'' takes place in Ireland and England, and almost all of the film was shot there. ``Gone with the Wind'' was a love story set against a tumultuous historical context; ``Scarlett'' has almost no context at all. It just sits there in a puddle of its own tears.
As it starts out, ``Scarlett'' looks as though it will be an account of Scarlett O'Hara's attempts to reclaim both the old Tara plantation where she grew up and Rhett Butler, her one true love. But as the plot meanders along, Scarlett seems to lose interest in Tara, and after a passionate tryst in a boathouse near the end of part one, she and Rhett part company for much of the rest of the film.
The miniseries starts out like ``Showboat'' without the music and eventually turns into ``Irish Roots.''
Scarlett gets involved with Irish rebels, including a gun-running priest, and a despicable English cad whom she is eventually accused of stabbing to death. Along the long way to the end, there are two rapes, two murders, numerous fainting spells and a good deal of birthin' babies.
Indeed, a Caesarean birth at the end of part two, accompanied by some sort of spooky ritual and, naturally, a roaring thunderstorm, is one of the most horrific scenes ever filmed for a TV movie. It's horrific but, one wonders, what's the point?
As Scarlett, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer does have presence and pizzazz. Made up for some strange reason to look rather drab, Whalley-Kilmer nevertheless gives an enjoyably fiery performance. But Timothy Dalton, as Rhett Butler, comes across as Sir Smirks-A-Lot, an oily charmer with a sleazy smile. In part one, Dalton looks particularly ridiculous when he dons a silly pirate outfit to attend a costume party -something Rhett Butler would never ever do.
Whalley-Kilmer doesn't have to carry the show alone. She has a fairly spectacular supporting cast. Julie Harris brings her special stature to the role of Miss Eleanor, Rhett's mother. Ann-Margret is a lusty old soul as Belle Watling, Atlanta madame. Stephen Collins shows new depth and poignancy as Ashley Wilkes, anguished widower. Jean Smart is a riot as cigar-smoking hellcat Sally Brewton.
Tina Kellegher is heartbreaking as a young Irish woman brutally exploited by the villain of the piece, Sean Bean as the Earl of Fenton. But the scene-stealer all sublime is Sara Crowe as Luli the wacky hooker, an absolute delight in her few brief appearances.
Also popping up are John Gielgud as a cranky millionaire, George Grizzard as Scarlett's lawyer and uncle, and Rakie Ayola as an ex-slave called Pansy. Esther Rolle is seen fleetingly in part one as the dying Mammy. Paul Winfield plays Big Sam, an African American with a thriving lumber business.
One reason the writers shift the scene to Europe is, clearly, that they want to avoid problems involved in depicting the post-Reconstruction South. Characters with names like ``Mammy'' and ``Pansy'' are inherently offensive today. But transplanting Scarlett across the Atlantic greatly diminishes her and deflates almost all the story's social significance.
``Gone with the Wind'' was a lament for a lost culture. ``Scarlett'' is mainly, if unintentionally, a lament that they don't make movies like they used to. As if we didn't know already.
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB