Filmed in Atlanta and Sea Island, Ga., by David Brown Prods. and Spelling TV Inc. Exec producers, Aaron Spelling, E. Duke Vincent, David Brown, Richard P. Rubinstein, Mitchell Galin; producer, Robert Berger; director, David Greene; writer, Robert W. Lenski; based on novel by Dominick Dunne.
Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Sherilyn Fenn, Craig Sheffer, Edward Herrmann, David Marshall Grant, Bonnie Bedelia, Blair Brown, Brian Dennehy, Kathleen York, Wendy Phillips, Maureen Mueller, Lisa Akey, Jere Shea, Jeanie Drynan, W. Earl Brown, Mary Ann McKellar, Tony Higgins, Melissa McBride, Ric Reitz, Rob Trevieler, Jessica Sias, Theresa O'Shea, Libby Whittemore, Emilie Jacobs, Tom Nowicki, Brent and Ryan Cone, Dan Albright, Terry Beaver, James Donadio, Wilbur T. Fitzgerald, Rebecca Koon.
Dominick Dunne's derivative novel about a large, wealthy, powerful, ambitious Irish-American Catholic family stumbles through its paces with enough pizzazz (and pretentiousness) to seize trash-TVers by the throat.
First half, set in 1983 and involving a brutal slaying, reflects Evelyn Waugh , Scott Fitzgerald and countless sagas exploiting the Kennedys; the second half, mostly stripped down to a murder trial, toys with power, blackmail and the effects of too much power. In a season of reruns, it should detonate ratings.
Harry Burns (Patrick Dempsey), a would-be writer at prep school with extravagantly rich Constant Bradley (Craig Sheffer), visits Bradley's manse where Constant's father, financier Gerald (Brian Dennehy), runs people and things.
Gerald, host to Washington toppers, the pope and everyone rich and famous, offers to help Harry get through school if he'll anonymously scribble an essay for Constant, who's in dutch with school authorities.
Harry agrees and finds he's in quicksand. After helping remorseless Constant conceal the body of a girl he has bashed to death, Harry seems doomed to lying forever. Gerald, promising him a lifetime allowance, agrees that Harry never will have to face Constant again.
Leap ahead 13 years. Constant, now a politician, is married to abused Charlotte (Lisa Akey). Harry is divorced from Clair (Kathleen York) and gets involved with Constant's sipping sister, Kitt (Sherilyn Fenn).
As he tries to fight Bradley, Harry, a variation on Nick from "Gatsby," opens the case despite his promise.
Director David Greene injects life into the artificial characters in Robert W. Lenski's teleplay. Storyline sets up the situation with borrowed characters (the Bradleys play softball, not touch football) in the first half, and adds flesh during the second. But the people are still static.
Dempsey, who sustains an appeal as odd-mix Harry, makes the character credible. Blair Brown gracefully plays pretentiously devout Grace -- an Americanized, uncomplicated Lady Marchmain out of "Brideshead."
Dennehy's got the no-fangs-showing patriarch down to a phone-in form, but Bonnie Bedelia offers a crisp interp of Constant's mouthpiece in Part II.
Maureen Mueller offers a smart-but-brief turn as an interior designer, and Fenn, after an overdone adolescent period, gives Kitt an interesting underlying melancholy.
Production designer Charles Bennett, up to his customary high values, establishes a proper tone for the Bradley milieu, and Stevan Larner's lensing is topflight. John A. Martinelli's editing is again pro. Peter Manning Robinson's score is routine.
Camera, Stevan Larner; editor, John A. Martinelli; production designer, Charles Bennett; sound, Mary Ellis; music, Peter Manning Robinson; casting, Gary Zuckerbrod; Georgia casting, Shay Bentley-Griffin.
Contact the Variety newsroom at
news@variety.com
Date in print: Fri., May. 3, 1996