Sean Bean Week: Scarlett

Welcome folks to Day 3 of Sean Bean Week and unlike yesterday's goof I assure you Bean has a much greater role in this tale of the South.   A journey from Atlanta, Charleston, Savannah to London and finally to the ancestral home of Ballyhara in Ireland.  This story continues after Gone with the Wind, the sequel manages a six hour mini-series filmed in more than 53 separate locations in the States, England and Ireland in this 1994 creation.  This is Scarlett.

Take that for entering my life, Kilmer!

Set 1873 in Atlanta show begins with Scarlett (Joanne Whalley of Emmerdale, How We Used to Live, A Kind of Loving, Willow, Shattered, Before You Go and The Borgias) at the funeral of Melanie Wilkes, her former sister-in-law and former rival for her very estranged husband, Rhett Butler (Timothy Dalton of Cromwell, Mary, Queen of Scots, Flash Gordon, Jane Eyre, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, The Rocketeer and Penny Dreadful).  Heartbroken that Rhett has kept her at bay, Scarlett finds her guardian Mammy (Esther Rolle of Cleopatra Jones, Maude, Good Times, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Singer & Sons, My Fellow Americans and Rosewood) is dying and Scarlett cannot forsake this woman that would be her mother in every sense of the matter.  Reluctantly Rhett accompanies her to Mammy's death bed.  Moments after this selfless old woman of good works passes away, Rhett and Scarlett have another drag down fight causing him to leave her and she heads back to Atlanta, for some reason convinced she will win him back.

Frankly, I don't care if it scares the living daylights out of her.

With a slight encounter with Ashley Wilkes (Stephen Collins of All the President's Men, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 7th Heaven and Blood Diamond) she leaves Savannah and forsakes the States in search her roots finding them in the library of her grandfather Pierre Robillard (the late John Gielgud of Secret Agent, Julius Caesar, Richard III, Murder on the Orient Express, Caligula, Chariots of Fire and Arthur) and forced to stay at her grandfather's household while his remaining years are among him in return his estate would be half a million dollars.  She graciously turns him down in a lady like fashion, Butler serves her divorce papers and she chooses to leave to Ireland which of course it is under British rule causing Scarlett reminder of the North's treatment to the South.  With child she strives to make a new change in this life no matter the obstacles in the way.

 She encounters the noble Lord Richard Fenton (Sean Bean of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sharpe's Challenge, The Hitcher, Outlaw, Sharpe's Peril, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Ca$h and Crusoe) a handsome, pompous and heartless man that badgers and batters the servants about, a man that takes what he wants and expects no questions to the contrary.    He, of course takes a liking to Scarlett who turns him down.  No woman would or can turn this egotistical monster away or he loses face in the eyes that he deems matter.   From his forceful ways he is murdered by a servant girl Mary (Tina Kellegher of In the Name of the Father, The Snapper, Ballykissangel and The Wednesdays)  and yet Scarlett fall under blame for such.  Will Scarlett be found guilty and sentenced to hang?  Will Mary come foreward?  Will Rhett ever seek out Scarlett before it is too late?   Well go watch it but bear in mind this is a mini-series and is about six hours long.

A few highlights about the series.  This film takes slight to unbelievable directions from the novel.  Events unfold for the sake of a TV viewing audience rather than the slower story building sections of a reader.    Lord Fenton is far more evil in this than ever in the novel and Bean depicts a dapper monster than no one dare challenge.   Jean Smart was astounding in this and stole the scenes with her comedy gold.   Every location itself told a tale and set dramatic sequences film worthy so dare not call this just another TV movie.   Joanne Whalley breathed life into Scarlett and while her performance differs with the late Vivian Leigh, she brought strength, character and dignity to the a similiar fashion.  Both Dalton and Whalley bring their A game to these paradigmatic roles and do them justice.  Lengthy but highly impressive.

Thought Jake forgot about me, didn't you?

BBC Week: Mystery!: Campion

Greetings and a warm welcome to all you little, enthusiastic readers.   Well we have seen a bit of space oddities and a loopy duo sketch comedy but what do you say to a little murder?   Oh not yours of course… (for now) but a poor miscreant that knew not where to turn.   So grab your meerschaum pipe, observe all and interrogate everyone.  This is Campion

 

A Doctor? Well I was once.

Albert Campion: Albert Campion- born May the 20^th 1900. Name known to be a spoiler. Education: priviledged.  Embarked on an adventurous career, 1929. Justice neatly executed, nothing sordid, deserving cases preferred. Police no object. Business address: 17 Bottle Street, Piccadily, London W1. Specialist in fairy stories.

A posh gentleman of well to do decides to use his cunning intellect to benefit people well deserving of some Justice, our Albert Campion (Peter Davison of Doctor Who, All Creatures Great and Small, The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything, Mrs. Bradley Mysteries, At Home with the Braithwaites and Law and Order:UK) is a believer in his clients and will stand by them until the truth is unveiled.  Oh he has come to expect his clients to tell the odd fib or the blatant lie but with his companion of ill repute Magersfontein Lugg (Brian Glover of An American Werewolf in London, Doctor Who, Lost Empires, To Kill a Priest, Kafka and Alien 3), a man of many talents and friends in low places the two seek out to prove who done it, how they did it and why. 

Commonly Campion deals in the unusual cases or be it the unorthodox.   Many is the time his deductive reasoning is called into play when a murder has occurred and he does his level best to remain objective.  That being said the dear fellow does have a wandering eye for the most unavailable lady but steadies himself to not pursue such endeavors in spite of his manservant Lugg’s teasings.

When utterly baffled Campion’s police friend Stanislaus Oates (Andrew Burt of Emmerdale, The Bill, Oscar Charlie, I’m Alan Partridge and MI-5) does come around for the advice on a case if not a hire for that same case.

Whut you lookin' at? Clear off!

And now I have a few tidbits about the creation of itself.  This show is set in the 1930’s as a nod to its phenomononal writer Margery Allingham. Campion was nothing more than a minor character in The Crime at Black Dudley but came back strong in Mystery Mile.  After a less than stellar response to her occult in mystery series, Campion seemed to be a winner with three novels under her belt and she even wrote short stories and some journalism for The Strand Magazine.  Campion was such the success that she went on to create 17 more novels and over 20 short stories of the fellow.  Campion has ties in nobility and government as well as known to get around the more dubious in the criminal underworld allowing his ear to always be able to catch a thing or two.  Rather than the obsessive nature of Sherlock Holmes, Campion’s series is a bit more lighthearted and jovial even in the face of danger.

And that is my badger impersonation. Nifty, huh?