via Giphy/Courtesy YouTube
"... Well, you know how this business is. They think of you for sexy comedian type parts."
"And cancer isn't sexy or funny, so that wipes me out, right? ... "
"... C'mon, will you eat this? You gotta keep up your strength."
"You haven't seen strength."
Lamont Johnson, Lincoln's director, was no stranger to prestigious network programming. That also was true of screenwriter Ernest Kinoy. And maybe that was the problem. Maybe Lincoln needed to be brought to the screen with less superficial grandeur and taste, and more heart and soul. I've never read the book, so I don't want to delve too deep into questionable dialogue that might have come from Vidal. But certain moments had an "Of course!" element to them, like when Mary identified a significant Pennsylvania town. No points for guessing that the burg is Gettysburg. I also see that either Waterston, Vidal or Kinoy beat Daniel Day-Lewis and Tony Kushner to the "President Columbo" approach of playing and depicting Lincoln as a leader.
*I forget who called it that, but I vaguely remember hearing it at the Old Country.
Moore has the most substantial female role. Ruby Dee has a few scenes as modiste Elizabeth Keckley, who functions as the Black female version of Steven Culp's Johnny Hay, someone observing Mary's irresponsible behavior. Deborah Adair, as cunning Kate Chase, could have had her own, soapier miniseries. Kate dreamed of getting her father, Salmon (John McMartin), into the White House. He only got as far as SCOTUS, while she married treasonous Rhode Island governor-to-senator William Sprague (Thomas Gibson). A few more notables pop up -- this is an '80s miniseries, after all! -- like Richard Mulligan as William Seward, James Gammon as Ulysses S. Grant, Cleavon Little as Frederick Douglas and John Houseman as Winfield Scott.
One thing's for sure about Moore: you don't forget her. It's an amped-up performance, with the dialogue as fast as the Kentucky accent is thick. A lot of Mrs. Lincoln's scenes play like monologues. Maybe that's what she was like, with a subconscious urge to overwhelm anyone in her presence by just talking, talking, talking. Some of Moore's best work is with Waterston. I can't tell if the contrast in their acting styles was eventually mitigated or I just became better accustomed to it. I'll also admit that, whether retained or new, some of the dialogue is moving. But then I'm again wondering, "Is 'moving' as much as an '80s miniseries can achieve?"
"I'm better off awake tonight."
"Don't be foolish. You can hardly keep your eyes open."
"That's true. But I don't dare sleep."
"Are your dreams so bad?"
"Yes, Mother, they are so bad."
"Do you remember when little Eddie died, and I was afraid to sleep? You sat by the bed all night and held my hand. You said, 'It's all right, Mother, I will watch over you.' You sleep, Father. I will watch over you this time. I know what dreams are like."
*Andy lowers Ann's prosthesis and finally sees how her body looks after the mastectomy*
"Look. ... I'm looking at you and so what? I still love you. *embraces Ann* And I ain't lettin' you go. And yeah, I'm gonna take another look. ... You had a mastectomy and I'm lookin' at it. And I see you. *Ann is face to face with Andy for the first time since he's seen her* And I love you. And I'm gonna chase you around the bedroom for as long as I can move."
True love doesn't have to be portentous. If I took nothing else from The Ann Jillian Story, it's that and also that Ann was (is?) a more impressive performer than I'd given her credit for. Jillian is more entertaining than your average TV movie with a woman overcoming adversity. There's humor and there's romance. Ann and Andy occasionally come across like they're hard-selling their bravery and irreverence in the face of a life-changing situation, but they were also like that before she found the lump in her breast. I'm glad to see that they've stayed married for more than 40 years. They seem like an ideal pair: two conservatives devoted to an honest day's work, their loved ones (including Viveca Lindfors as Ann's mother) and especially each other.
Jillian's last hour is an account of her cancer story, but it wasn't as overwhelming as I expected. Screenwriter Audrey David Levin and director Corey Allen tempered the confusing and intense, like Ann facing the fact that she'll need to receive radical surgery, with the unique and familiar. Ann insists that she be allowed to go back to work** less than two weeks after the mastectomy, arguing that she needs to have something to hang onto. "Please, don't take away the part of me that I have to come back to, the productive part of me." The movie also includes a good amount of Ann singing. She proves to Andy that she's no canary with her notes on "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" and wraps things up with a triumphant "There's a Winner in You."
**The movie jumps from 1979 to 1985, so It's a Living isn't depicted. Sugar Babies is included, since it was the musical that helped Ann start her comeback, getting her and Andy out of Chicago and in Hollywood.
While Jillian is unmistakably carried by its leading lady, it includes fine moments for Lo Bianco. I'm not just talking about his two beefcake scenes. One of them takes place the morning after Ann and Andy hooked up. She's found a guitar in his apartment, as well as a poem he started. "Annie's got a song to sing ..." I actually expected that a full version of the little ditty would be performed at the finale. Chekhov's gun in this case is Andy's lapsed Catholicism. Once you've seen him opt to wait outside for Ann when she goes to church, you just know that he'll make a "If you let her live, I'll come back!" prayer. I don't make the TV and movie rules.
"(Assassination) had to happen. You know the south had every right to leave the union. ... But Mr. Lincoln said, 'No. This union can never be broken.' Now that was a terrible responsibility for one man to take, but he took it, knowing he would be obliged to fight the greatest war in human history. Which he did and which he won. ... So, he not only put the union back together again ... he made an entirely new country. And all of it in his own image."
"And then he was murdered."
"I remember so many times, he would tell me dreams. Premonitions. I think in some way, he willed his own murder. As a form of atonement. For the great and terrible thing he had done, in giving so bloody and absolute a rebirth to this nation."
And on a happier note ...
via Giphy/Courtesy YouTube
Thoughts:
-- *Mary Todd Lincoln is on a shopping spree. The clerk insists that no lady can be without at least a dozen pair of a choice style of gloves.* "Oh, I agree, I agree. And there are all those receptions next month. There's Christmas, New Year's ... *glances at Hay* But, I must be practical. ... I'll take three dozen pair."
-- Awards Watch: Both Moore and Jillian were nominated for the Emmy, losing to Jessica Tandy for Foxfire. Lincoln also received nominations for Outstanding Miniseries, Dee's performance and Johnson's direction, which won. As for Ann, she won the Golden Globe.
-- Of note: The Ann Jillian Story was a ratings blockbuster when it premiered Monday, Jan. 4, 1988. According to TV Tango, it won the night with a 23.8 rating and a 35 share. Lincoln, which aired on Sunday, March 27 and Monday, March 28, wasn't quite as successful (16.6 and a 26 share, followed by 14.9 and a 24 share).
-- Hey, It's 1988!: Looking for how Gore Vidal responded to Lincoln's adaptation, I came across his angry letter to The New York Times, which he felt made sure to lessen the production's audience appeal:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1988/04/28/gore-vidals-lincoln-an-exchange/
And, in the interest of fairness, the article that pissed off Gore:
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/20/arts/television-a-filtered-portrait-of-lincoln-comes-to-the-small-screen.html
-- And what the hell, let's catch up with Ann, too:
https://www.goerie.com/article/20141005/LIFESTYLE/610194163
-- I've never seen Jillian until now, but I suspect that it entered my subconscious. In college, I wrote a spoof hybrid of St. Elsewhere and Knots Landing and eventually a full history of the fake show (The Healers). My Dr. Westphall takeoff had a wife named Bunny (an Ann-Margret type) who also was diagnosed with breast cancer. Unlike Ann and Andy, Wesley and Bunny discovered they had a shallow, selfish relationship.
-- *Ann checks out fur coats, causing Andy to emphasize that he doesn't have the kind of bread to buy one* "Well, who the hell asked you? I didn't ask you to buy the coat. ... One of these days I'm gonna have that coat, if I want it. I'm gonna have that coat." "Yeah? Well you won't be living with this jerk."
-- Next: Newhart. On deck: 227.
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