THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 13, 1994 TAG: 9411140237
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Long : 164 lines
IN WRITING this column about ``Scarlett,'' the CBS miniseries which begins an eight-hour, four-night run tonight at 9, I could lay some boring stuff on you.
I mean, I could talk about the nuts-and-bolts, such as . . . it was filmed at 53 locations in the United States and abroad . . . 200 actors had speaking parts . . . Scarlett alone wears 90 different costumes . . . more than 2,000 extras were employed by executive producer Robert Halmi Sr. . . . ``Scarlett'' will be seen on TV in seven countries and Hong Kong.
Fiddle-dee-dee. You don't want to know all of that.
Do you?
You want to know if ``Scarlett,'' the sequel to the movie of the ages, ``Gone With the Wind,'' is worth eight hours of your couch time.
It is.
You want to know how Joanne Whalley-Kilmer compares to Vivien Leigh, who was Scarlett in ``Gone With the Wind.'' You want to know if Timothy Dalton, cast as Rhett Butler, is even half as good as Clark Gable was in the movie made by MGM 55 years ago.
Whalley-Kilmer is not the radiant beauty Leigh was, but she's just fine as the mature but still spunky heroine.
Dalton, who didn't quite fill the bill as James Bond in a couple of big-screen features, has the same problem here. He's not quite up to playing Rhett.
In ``Scarlett,'' his character comes on as unbearable in the first segment, changes to merely insufferable as the miniseries advances, evolves into a fairly decent sort, and in the finale, emerges as the hero of the piece.
You want to know something? The man really gives a damn.
When our paths crossed in Los Angeles not long ago, Dalton said he expected to be judged harshly in the Rhett Butler role.
``An actor would have to be crazy to follow in Gable's footsteps, to take on that kind of a challenge,'' Dalton said. ``He'd have to be perverse, masochistic, self-destructive and kind of dumb and stupid, too. Playing the same part that Gable played so brilliantly is like putting yourself on a cross and waiting for people to shoot arrows at you.''
Exactly.
So why take the role?
``For the same reason I chose to play James Bond.''
And that is?
``I'd feel like a coward if I had not accepted the challenge. Remember that it is one of the great parts written for the screen.''
Scarlett and Rhett first appear together on the small screen in a scene that takes place early in ``Scarlett.'' The story begins in Atlanta with Scarlett consoling an old love, Ashley Wilkes, at the gravesite of his wife, Melanie.
Cut to Tara. At the ol' plantation, Mammy is on her deathbed.
Scarlett, estranged from Butler, summons him from Charleston, S.C., to bid Mammy farewell. From that point on, Scarlett pursues Rhett across several states, Ireland and England. In the process, she's nearly drowned in a stormy sea, gets tossed from a horse, is brutalized by a sadistic nobleman, finds herself arrested for murder and, gulp, faces the gallows.
The last two hours of ``Scarlett'' is some hunk of TV. The pot boils over.
What ``Scarlett'' is - as was ``Gone With the Wind'' many years ago - is a soap opera. There is nothing wrong with that when you're in the mood for a ``Dynasty'' or ``Dallas.''
It isn't a great miniseries for which the world will stop and watch. It isn't ``Roots'' or ``Lonesome Dove,'' which Halmi also produced, or ``The Thorn Birds.''
But that's not to say ``Scarlett'' won't pick you up and sweep you away. (After tonight, the miniseries resumes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 9.)
Let it, and it will take you away from car pooling, rising mortgage rates and your kids' lousy report cards.
Isn't that all we ask from network television?
``They don't write roles like Scarlett anymore,'' said Whalley-Kilmer when she met TV reporters in L.A., including many who took exception to Rhett referring to Scarlett as bitchy - and worse.
``I would have been mad to say no to playing Scarlett.''
She did her homework. Whalley-Kilmer pored over Margaret Mitchell's ``Gone With the Wind'' and the sequel by Alexandra Ripley on which the miniseries is based. She saw the movie six or seven times.
She plunged into the role feet first and didn't worry for a second about being compared to Leigh.
``We did not do a copy of the original. We took the `Gone With the Wind' story somewhere else,'' Whalley-Kilmer said. ``We developed the characters. In `Scarlett,' you will see how her drive and willpower saves her as she starts with nothing. No Tara. No Rhett. No Mammy. She is shunned. She accepts the horrors in her life and changes for the better.''
The filming of ``Gone With the Wind'' started before Leigh was chosen to play Scarlett. For the CBS miniseries, Halmi sent out a worldwide call for candidates to play the mature Scarlett before one frame was shot.
Halmi said he spent $1 million looking for his Scarlett.
(In 1939, producer David O. Selznick searched for months to find his Scarlett. NBC put the story of his quest in a made-for-TV movie, ``The Scarlett O'Hara War,'' which TBS will revive at 8:05 p.m. Monday with Tony Curtis playing Selznick and Sharon Gless cast as Scarlett wannabe Paulette Goddard.)
Look into Whalley-Kilmer's eyes for the clue to why she was chosen. In her eyes, said Halmi, he saw Scarlett's will to survive.
``You believe that this woman would persue Rhett for eight hours,'' he said. In a nice touch, Halmi cast five other finalists in the International Search for Scarlett in scenes that were shot in Ireland.
The supporting cast includes Ann-Margret, Stephen Collins, John Gielgud in an absolutely delicious performance as Scarlett's grandfather, Pierre Robilard, Annabeth Gish, George Grizzard, Paul Winfield and Jean Smart, using a Southern accent not unlike that of her character on ``Designing Women.''
``Scarlett'' moves slowly at times, which was no surprise to me after talking with Halmi in Los Angeles. CBS wanted an eight-hour miniseries. He could have put the story on film in five or six hours.
That would have meant cutting a ``fiddle-dee-dee'' here and there. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CBS
Joanne Whalley-Kilmer plays Scarlett O'Hara and Timothy Dalton plays
Rhett Butler in ``Scarlett,'' a miniseries beginning tonight at 9 on
CBS.
Photo
Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable played the original Scarlett and Rhett
in ``Gone With the Wind.''
Graphic
THE ``SCARLETT'' SYNOPSIS
Part 1 - Scarlett and Rhett are reunited at the bedside of the
dying Mammy. Tara is still around with weeping willow and all, but
needs a good coat of whitewash. It's where Scarlett's sister,
Suellen, lives with her husband in modest circumstances. Rhett wants
out of his marriage to Scarlett. While waiting for a divorce, he
hangs out with bordello owner Belle Watling. Scarlett dabbles in the
building business, travels to Charleston, S.C., and then to
Savannah, Ga., never telling Rhett that she is pregnant with their
daughter. Showstopper is scene in which a sudden storm spoils a
boating holiday for Scarlett and Rhett and darn near finishes them
off.
Part 2 - This is where the Irish angle comes in. Scarlett refuses
her grandfather's offer to nurse him in old age in return for
inheriting his considerable wealth. Instead, she searches for her
roots in the O'Haras' ancestral home in Ireland. Scarlett buys a
Gothic estate (Ballyhara), meets a man she'll regret knowing (the
Earl of Fenton), gives birth to Catherine or Cat, and finds herself
immersed in local politics.
Part 3 - Rhett and Scarlett meet again in Ireland, at the
Drogheda Horse Fair, where Rhett has come to buy prize horse flesh.
Scarlett continues to keep Cat's birth a secret from her former
husband, who by now has remarried. In this episode, viewers see the
dark side of the Earl of Fenton for the first time. When Suellen
becomes ill, Scarlett returns to Atlanta, where she cashes in her
business interests and heads back to Ireland and Ballyhara for
good.
Part 4 - The yellow fever outbreak in the United States threatens
the life of Rhett's pregnant young wife, Anne. Scarlett's love
affair with Fenton takes a nasty turn after she tells him that she's
not interested in sleeping with him any longer. There's a shocking
bedroom scene after which the evil lord is found stabbed through the
heart. The coppers say that Scarlett did it, and haul her off to the
dungeons. Rhett races back to London to help pull Scarlett out of
the jam of her life. There's a servant girl named Mary Boyle who
knows more about the murder than she's telling. It's up to Rhett and
Scarlett's savvy barrister to save her from the gallows.
You'll have to wait until Part 4 to see if tomorrow ever comes
for Scarlett - again.
by CNB