TV: Nostalgia Binge:
Murray, Michael
NOSTALGIA BINGE TV The root meaning of "nostalgia" is "homesickness," and the evidence from the popular arts these days is that we are all getting very homesick. There is, for one thing, a sort of...
...MICHAEL MURRAYICHAEL MURRAY...
...It points up some truth in the harmonicanized nostalgia...
...She makes a spectacle of herself in public, but she is taken to Addie's house where she dries out for a few days and fattens up on Grandma's food...
...For many people, the only safe thing they can remember is Mom, Dad and Home...
...We are homesick for that...
...It is the kind of thing to give the institution of the family a bad name...
...One believes she will be an artist, as she says...
...There is, for one thing, a sort of Bicentennial itch in the recent array of nostalgic American novels, films, television shows and popular histories-a search for those American qualities which we remember from our childhood, or remember being told about, and which we have trouble locating now in the streets or in the news...
...Unlike "The Waltons," however, the characters here give the impression of being actual human beings, which is in large measure due to the director, Paul Bogart, and to the actors: Jason Robards as grouchy Dad, Mildred Nat-wick as saintly Grandma, and Lisa Lucas as the 12-year-old heroine, Addie...
...as the crashing sound of broken homes up and down the block grows noisier, and as dozens of old reliable beliefs and institutions turn inside out, the search becomes more desperate...
...CBS has presented two holiday specials, "The House Without a Christmas Tree" in 1972 and "The Thanksgiving Treasure" in 1973 (both have been repeated annually) which are very much in this genre, and will present a third, "The Easter Promise," on Wednesday, March 26...
...she makes John-Boy Walton look like Rod McKuen...
...Television has been working in this groove for several years now...
...The nostalgia shows are considered "family fare," which means they are for children...
...Obviously, "The Waltons" and "Little House on the Prairie" are the heavyweights in the nostalgia field, each featuring a solid family unit which holds together each week against attacks from selfishness, prejudice, lack of faith, and, most often, nasty assaults from outside, usually from the modern world, the wickedness of which does not have to be demonstrated to a modern audience...
...At the end, she goes to church with the whole family, and afterwards the scandalized community relents and smiles at her, a sign that she is welcome again in Clear River...
...The adults are stumbling about in hurt and confusion, and the child loves them back to health...
...Contrast this with a recent "Waltons" which is cut from a similar pattern: A famous woman writer from the big city (very young, glamorous, plastic) comes to town to talk to the school-kids about literature...
...But nostalgia, by definition, is felt by those who have lost something, that is, big people...
...The Easter Promise," like most TV drama, mixes up the truth with a lot of baloney, but, sitting behind the children, there will be many parents watching the show, looking for something they lost...
...Mom presents Dad with a sweater made out of scraps from all the old baby sweaters in the house...
...Young Miss Lucas, who carries the heaviest burden, is as smart as a whip and cool as a breeze...
...Addie and her friends are full of brash schemes to involve her in the annual school fashion show...
...He wants to go back to the city with her, leaving Walton Mountain behind forever...
...This sounds dreadful in the retelling, I grant, but the drama is simply done, and one believes that the actress has stretched Addie's horizons-that she has something to offer-and indeed that the two of them have discovered something of consequence in each other which is an Easter awakening for both...
...Into the seventh grade world of pajama parties and peanut butter comes, sure enough, an outsider-Jean Simmons as a glamorous actress from New York who is in Clear River to sell the old family mansion...
...Unfortunately, the pressure of getting this basic scheme organized into a story every week has by now thoroughly dissipated whatever new perceptions these programs once offered...
...this woman is in trouble...
...All of these programs trade on the same homesickness, but "The Easter Promise" has at least something genuine knitted into its sentimental yarn: the people themselves...
...The children wander about in large groups-popping in on Grandma and Grandpa in the middle of the night, for example-getting everyone to draw his own picture in what will be a group anniversary present...
...Although these programs by no means escape the traps of the formula, they have been produced with care and comparative intelligence, they are acted by good actors, and they are unabashed in trying to move our emotions with a hint of what it was really like to grow up in Clear River, Nebraska during the 1940s, a place we would all have liked to grow up in, and perhaps imagine we did grow up in...
...Grandma is tolerant...
...We want to remember a time when we were loved, when love circumscribed the world...
...John-Boy is immediately dazzled by her insights...
...It is not the grown-ups, but Addie, the 12-year-old in "The Easter Promise," who is really capable of understanding, of consoling...
...The actress turns out to be a failure and something of a drunk...
...We identify, we remember ourselves as being full of love...
...The guilty consciences and generous sacrifices have become routine, and the wistful smiles and soulful looks around the dinner table are beginning to put even the participants to sleep, necessitating larger and uglier grizzly bears or meaner city slickers to threaten the peaceful scene and stir up some action...
...At the same time, the Walton clan are bustling about in preparation for Mom and Dad's wedding anniversary, at which marriage vows will be renewed...
...Like "The Waltons," "The Easter Promise" (and its two predecessors) begins with theme music in a vaguely Virgil Thompson mode and a narration-here by a woman, now presumably a successful writer-who looks back on her days as a seventh grader in the small town...
...But the tug of the past is not just patriotic...
...As in "The Waltons," the town itself is so wonderful you can taste it, but in this case it is more middle-class and towny: nice old-fashioned houses with porches, spacious lawns, big kitchens and picturesque parlors...
...Dad is scornful...
...Dad buys Mom a new dress...
...Like the others in the cast, Jean Simmons transcends the formula...
...Her close-ups, although often beautiful, are never just flattering...
...These gifted performers, against many odds, simply do not permit the characters to become soupy (although Miss Natwick's challenge is near to overwhelming-she has a staggering amount of peeling, boiling, baking, stirring, basting, tasting and ladling to contend with...
...they moon over-actually can remember-which patch came from whose sweater...
...Needless to say, John-Boy attends the ceremony, is overcome with tenderness (perhaps he recognizes his old sweater), and lets the lady writer go off by herself...
...The story of "The Easter Promise" sounds worse than it is...
...Also by something else-he is, one gathers, seduced by her...
...More important, I think, we want to remember when our own love was strong and unreserved, when our power to love was so enormous that it could solve the whole family's problems, if necessary, and those of a few passing strangers as well, when the power of a child's love could keep the world from breaking apart-or so we thought...
Vol. 102 • March 1975 • No. 1
