Friday, February 08, 2008

TV review - "Palomino" (1991) **

By 2005 it was estimated that there were more than 530 million copies of Danielle Steele books in print. The New York Times described the basic formula of Steel novels:

A marriage suddenly disintegrates, the hero or heroine struggles to build a new life, eventually virtue is richly rewarded. Unlike Judith Krantz, another best-selling novelist with a substantial television track record, Ms Steel is not obsessed with the life styles of the very rich and powerful. Her characters live on more modest though hardly uncomfortable scales. Steel country is decidedly conservative, almost prim, a place where good men are stubborn and truly good women are dutifully impressed.

In 1990, NBC commissioned Doug Cramer to produce three TV movies based on Danielle Steel novels. The network wanted to use them as counter-programming on nights when rival networks broadcast sports events. The strategy worked, with all the films (Kaleidoscope, Fine Things and Changes) achieving solid ratings. NBC commissioned some more, including an adaptation of Steel’s 1981 novel Palomino.

The story of Palomino concerned Samantha Taylor, an advertising executive whose husband leaves her for another woman; she runs off to a Californian ranch owned by a friend, Caroline, and falls in love with the ranch foreman, Tate Jordan. Tate is uncertain about the differences in class between him and Samantha, and breaks off their relationship. There is a subplot about a romance between an older couple - Caroline and Bill King, another worker at the ranch – who are similarly divided by a difference in backgrounds.

Lead roles were played by Lindsay Frost and Lee Horsley. For the supporting parts of rough-as-guts-but-down-deep-a-softie Bill King and classy Caroline, the filmmakers cast Rod Taylor and Eva Marie Saint. Palomino is a sweet, well-made film which seems to know exactly what it wants to do and does it. Frost and Horsley make love on pink sain sheets and in a bathtub by candlelight; the dialogue includes lines like “you know how much I want you” and “you’re wrong about me – about us” – but it is quite watchable if in the mood. For those unfamiliar with Steel’s work, the paraplegia of the heroine came as a genuine surprise. It is nicely acted and a very well-cast Rod and Eva Marie Saint are a delight in their scenes together.

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