Anyone interested in American popular culture should hunt down a DVD of "Rich Man, Poor Man." With its epic length (12 episodes!), "RMPM" established the television miniseries as the premier way to dramatize popular literature -- for a decade after it aired, every sweeps month bulged with middlebrow seriousness: "Roots," "The Thorn Birds," "Winds of War," etc etc. With its epic cast (half of Hollywood), "RMPM" established the miniseries as a respectable way for an out-of-work TV actor to make a quick buck between game-show gigs (Mike Brady, Darrin Stephens and Stanley Roper all made some residuals off this sucker). Beyond its historical significance, though, "Rich Man Poor Man" is just a soap opera masquerading as some grand statement about the middle of the 20th Century. Don't get me wrong -- as a soap opera, it delivers. There's plenty of sex, scenery and histrionics, the lattermost generally delivered by Susan Blakely ("All I ever see of you anymore is that skinny kiester disappearing through the door!" screams our horny, alcoholic political wife). As art, it falls pretty short.
Part of the problem is the Irwin Shaw novel on which it is based. Shaw had plenty of ambition, but was a far better storyteller than moralist so his books are like rivers -- they wander wide but don't run very deep. The title "Rich Man, Poor Man" alludes to the class distinctions Shaw tries (and fails) to explore over 25 years and about 900 pages. TV producers are far more literal-minded than novelists so they assumed "Rich Man, Poor Man" is a description of the book's two main male characters, the brothers Rudy (Rich Man) and Tom (Poor Man) Jordache. This rather limited vision excludes the other Jordache sibling, sister Gretchen, whose character is combined with Rudy's first girlfriend and first wife into Julie, played by the plucky Miss Blakely. Since she's actually three women, Julie comes off as a little schizophrenic -- she careens from dewy young thing to long-suffering wife to desperate housewife to pathetic drunk, sometimes in the same scene. To her everlasting credit, Blakely almost manages to pull it off (why didn't she have a better career after this show? She should at least have scored some 80s nighttime soap or a few memorable disease-of-the-week movies. Were her standards too high? Too low?). Without a stable female character, "RMPM" is forced to make its point by contrasting the wildly divergent paths the two brothers follow. Rudy becomes a successful businessman. Tom becomes a blue-collar drifter. So I guess that in post-WWII America, different men do different things. Wow.
Still, "RMPM" is a pretty gripping story, and for the most part it's well-acted. Blakely, as said before, is laboring under some awfully heavy demands and acquits herself admirably. Ed Asner, as the German-born patriarch of the Jordache family, dominates the early episodes and deserves the Emmy he picked up (he must have a room full of them at home, and he's earned every single one of them). Dorothy MacGuire as Mama Jordache, and Gloria Grahame as the mother of the ill-fated Julie, are both a bit shrewish and frumpy but I'm pretty sure Irwin Shaw had some issues with his Mom that he was trying to work out here. Peter Strauss is a tad insubstantial as Rudy but he manages to convey a certain phony charm that makes the character meteoric rise believable. Nick Nolte is brilliant as the gruff, violent but ultimately honorable Tom Jordache. He never appears to be acting, but you always know what he's feeling and his performance seemed to be a harbinger of more great things than the man has delivered over the past few decades ("Affliction" was great, but it seemed long overdue). As for the small army of guest stars who drop in to chew a little scenery and collect a paycheck, well, they look like they're having fun. The only genuinely embarrassing performance comes, inexplicably, from Bill Bixby, who directed this mighty mess. He cast himself as Julie's first husband and figured that playing a frustrated writer meant imitating Charles Nelson Reilly. When Julie catches him cheating, you're surprised to see a woman follow him out of the bedroom.
Part of the problem is the Irwin Shaw novel on which it is based. Shaw had plenty of ambition, but was a far better storyteller than moralist so his books are like rivers -- they wander wide but don't run very deep. The title "Rich Man, Poor Man" alludes to the class distinctions Shaw tries (and fails) to explore over 25 years and about 900 pages. TV producers are far more literal-minded than novelists so they assumed "Rich Man, Poor Man" is a description of the book's two main male characters, the brothers Rudy (Rich Man) and Tom (Poor Man) Jordache. This rather limited vision excludes the other Jordache sibling, sister Gretchen, whose character is combined with Rudy's first girlfriend and first wife into Julie, played by the plucky Miss Blakely. Since she's actually three women, Julie comes off as a little schizophrenic -- she careens from dewy young thing to long-suffering wife to desperate housewife to pathetic drunk, sometimes in the same scene. To her everlasting credit, Blakely almost manages to pull it off (why didn't she have a better career after this show? She should at least have scored some 80s nighttime soap or a few memorable disease-of-the-week movies. Were her standards too high? Too low?). Without a stable female character, "RMPM" is forced to make its point by contrasting the wildly divergent paths the two brothers follow. Rudy becomes a successful businessman. Tom becomes a blue-collar drifter. So I guess that in post-WWII America, different men do different things. Wow.
Still, "RMPM" is a pretty gripping story, and for the most part it's well-acted. Blakely, as said before, is laboring under some awfully heavy demands and acquits herself admirably. Ed Asner, as the German-born patriarch of the Jordache family, dominates the early episodes and deserves the Emmy he picked up (he must have a room full of them at home, and he's earned every single one of them). Dorothy MacGuire as Mama Jordache, and Gloria Grahame as the mother of the ill-fated Julie, are both a bit shrewish and frumpy but I'm pretty sure Irwin Shaw had some issues with his Mom that he was trying to work out here. Peter Strauss is a tad insubstantial as Rudy but he manages to convey a certain phony charm that makes the character meteoric rise believable. Nick Nolte is brilliant as the gruff, violent but ultimately honorable Tom Jordache. He never appears to be acting, but you always know what he's feeling and his performance seemed to be a harbinger of more great things than the man has delivered over the past few decades ("Affliction" was great, but it seemed long overdue). As for the small army of guest stars who drop in to chew a little scenery and collect a paycheck, well, they look like they're having fun. The only genuinely embarrassing performance comes, inexplicably, from Bill Bixby, who directed this mighty mess. He cast himself as Julie's first husband and figured that playing a frustrated writer meant imitating Charles Nelson Reilly. When Julie catches him cheating, you're surprised to see a woman follow him out of the bedroom.