North and South

HISTORY AS JUNK FOOD

An 18 hour-long miniseries adapted from two John Jakes novels about the Civil War as seen through the eyes of two West Point buddies, North and South is trashy but irresistible and absorbing, a 19th Century National Enquirer. Modeled after the sweeping TV saga Roots, the whole thing is Grade A suds: we find ourselves amazed by how we get so into the latherings of the old workhorse melodrama plot situations and clichés. Why it’s so deeply satisfying is the genuine bond of bromance between the buddies James Read as a Philadelphia industrialist and Patrick Swayze a Southern plantation owner tested by shitloads of sons of bitches, endure countless upheavals and family betrayals and suffer heartbreaking tragedies. So pure yet sentimentally stacked are these two men that we’re in virtual petition for their lives to be spared—and absolutely why we’re hooked until the very last scenes. As Bill Conti’s theme soars when the train slowly moves out of sight at the conclusion of first part, we’re reeling from the swirling emotions in cultural oppositionality. In the second half, the war commences and, inevitably, the two friends face each other on the battle field. What would we do in their position? Soapers almost always have their supporting cast glories and Kirstie Alley as the Northern abolitionist is the real standout and Terri Garber as the mandatory Scarlett a real screamer. Alley’s equality-bound duty forces her into a number of public shames to morally acquit herself; as actress, she’s a dare devil—as she also showed in ABC’s Radiant City—but what gets to us is her disquieting rabidness. Garber’s all shame as the gossipy, power-hungry vixen from the start, and she hits the villainess lows with comic pleasure as we wait, and wait, for her to get her due. In the tradition of giant sudzers, those who really need to get theirs—David Carradine and Wayne Newton—get it good and Philip Casnoff as the revenge-obsessed Bent (author Jakes’ prescient version of Trump) seems to get his but we’re not entirely sure. (He quickly became the miniseries’ favorite scoundrel and in wicked adultery with Garber.) Adding touches of class, Elizabeth Taylor sashays in hourglass black gown and delicious Southern accent as a madam, Lee Horsley looking and sounding more like James Garner than ever, James Stewart, Linda Evans, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Simmons, Anthony Zerbe and especially Hal Holbrook as Lincoln (enhanced by Dick Smith’s cosmetic rendering). The lovely Lesley-Anne Down plays the series’ dipshittiest character in various décolletage, with buttoned-up Mommie-in-law Simmons taking a noticeable peek. The costumes for the ladies by Joie Hutchinson, Vicki Sánchez and Robert Fletcher rank among the most fanciful, glittering, conspicuously majestic scene-stealers designed for television. Even the men are dandified fashion plates. Gone with the Wind this miniseries ain’t and we’re very thankful: Scarlett’s whining and conniving can get mighty tiresome, while here there’s a huge and satisfying dose of unforgiving ignominy. North and South takes minor liberties in re-creating factual events as matter of storytelling to include its long list of charactors but accurate enough as acceptable history to be insatiable junk food.

Note: The third “book,” Heaven and Hell, defeats everything coming before it. The only way to watch, if compelled, is to wait a few dozen years, allowing memory banks to be emptied, granting an escape clause to the presumed dead for a return engagement.

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