The Bastard

If you've ever wanted to see Howard Cunningham as founding father, scholar and inventor Benjamin Franklin, if you've ever wanted to hear Jerry the Dentist from the "Bob Newhart Show" lecture on Rousseau in a lousy French accent, if you've ever wanted to watch Patricia Neal die midway through a monologue . . . well, find yourself a DVD of this goofy mini-series based the first installment of John Jakes' pulpy historical epic. It's odd, really, that in the post-bicentennial, pre-Reaganite buzz of jingoism lingering in the late 70's that one of the Big 3 Networks didn't pick up the option on Jakes' potboiler and make it into a much better, glitzier miniseries. Instead, this 8th-grade pageant of B-listers, has-beens and never-weres wound up in syndication, a chilling forbearer of the crud that would appear on the early Fox and WB networks ten or twenty years later.

"The Bastard" is the story of Phillip Kent, born Phillipe Charbonneau, the illegitimate (i.e. bastard) son of an English nobleman and Patricia Neal. Little Phillipe's transformation from French peasant to American patriot would test a talented actor, but "The Bastard" stars Andrew Stevens -- Stella's boy, and the future Mr. Kate Jackson. Stevens doesn't bring much to his role except for a pleasant smile and a Keith Partridge haircut, but at least his blandness is offset by the cheesy sideshow that is the rest of the cast. The buck-toothed kid from those horrible "Witch Mountain" movies plays the Marquis de Lafayette, and that's just the start of it. Beginning with the aforementioned Marquis, Phillip keeps encountering the most famous people of his age in random places -- "hi, Mr. Franklin, what are you doing here in Philadelphia?" -- and the absurdity is exacerbated by the fact that these legendary figures are essayed by "Hollywood Squares" refugees in silly costumes (wait 'til you see Tom Bosley in the Bozo wig he puts on to play Franklin). William Shatner as Paul Revere. Need I say more? The other improbability is that every nubile young woman in the film goes wild for young Phillip when they get within sniffing distance of his hairspray and are willing to risk life, limb and social status just for a quick roll in the hay with this soap opera cast-off. ("I want you, Phillip. If only for tonight.") Not historically accurate, not dramatically compelling, hilarious for all the wrong reasons, "The Bastard" makes for some good, trashy fun you shouldn't miss.

A French lad (Andrew Stevens, son of Stella) discovers he's the son of an English lord born on the wrong side of the blanket. When his English family tries to kill him he flees to America (no United States as of yet) and becomes involved in Revolution.

John Jakes' Revolutionary series of books were the Harry Potter of their day. They were must-read. Naturally, they were snapped up for a miniseries (the wonder is, they were left on the shelf so long and not dramatized in time for the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence).

The cast is a cross section of 1970s TV stars. It may seem weird these days to see Tom Bosley as Benjamin Franklin or William Shatner as Paul Revere (whose ride was not a failure, btw--he accomplished what he was sent to do). But when America had three commercial networks TV stars were important and everyone in America knew who they were. Casting well-known faces were useful shorthand.

Rising stars (Kim Cattrell, Stevens, etc.) Joined old hands like James Gregory and Harry Morgan.

These adaptations of Jakes' novels are sometimes stiff and ring in historical figures at odd moments, hence the title of this review. That's a fault of Jakes, a hack writer who cut his teeth on unremarkable sci-fi, who was not bad but hardly great. The standard TV writers were worse. And, of course, real people did talk more formally back then.

The then-famous faces handle the dialogue with various degrees of facility. Buddy Ebsen (then playing "Barnaby Jones") and Noah Beery (then the dad on 'The Rockford Files") are swamped. William Daniels, who played John Adams on the stage and then the movie of "1776" (a musical using lots of dialogue taken from letters and diaries of the time) sounds totally natural as Sam Adams.

While it's not as slick as today's TV productions (how could it be?) It's a good story. If it seems hackneyed it's because we've seen it all since. But there was nothing like it on TV before.

In a day when ignorance of what American freedom is about is so high, I'd suggest this as a nice crash course in why the United States is here and what it's all about. It's a lot more entertaining than the ancient Encyclopaedia Brittanica films they fed us in grade school in the 1960s and 1970s.

It may be soap operaish, but it's hard to resist the soaps. What, after all, is "Game of Theones" but a soaper set in another world with more blood?

Made for tv production typical for the time, The Bastard cast then hot-babe Andrew Stevens in the title role. With a cast of too many name Hollywood actors, this 18th century costume drama is based on The Kent Chronicles. Although heaving bodices supplied by buxom beauty, Olivia Hussey and chubby-face Kim Cattral of Sex and the City fame provide brief distraction, the story is too shallow and all too predictable. Andrew Stevens, in the lead role gives his standard wooden performance begging one to wonder why a sequel was ever produced.

I think the other reviewers are a little hard on the first part of what later turned out to be a three part mini-series. Part II, "The Rebels" was not as good as the first, and the third part "The Seekers" is kind of a throw away movie.

Still, I think "The Bastard" was pretty good and Stevens in the lead role was well cast in my opinion. Of course it doesn't have the technical sophistication that we have come to expect from more recent series like 'John Adams' but that is part of its charm.

This has a '70's' look to it all the way, and the photo locations are easily identified as California in some scene rather than England.

Heck, half the reason I like this series is because of the cheesy dialogue and there are some really good scenes such as Phillipe's encounter with Lord North on the stairway at Kentland.

Forget the bad reviews, just sit down and enjoy. No, it's not serious history but we have so little to choose on the American Revolution and the Jakes original story is quite good.

This should be available on DVD by now but alas it is not. This review is from the double VHS set.