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North And South (1985): Patrick Swayze, James Read, Lesley Anne Down, Wendy Kilbourne, Terri Garber, Kirstie Alley, Genie Francis, Phillip Casnoff, Jean Simmons, John Stockwell, Lewis Smith, David Carradine, Inga Swenson, Jonathan Frakes, Wendy Fulton, Erica Gimpel, Tony Frank, Jim Metzler, Olivia Cole, Andy Stahl, William Ostrander, George Stanford Brown, Robert Mitchum, Morgain Fairchild, Johnny Cash, Hal Holbrook, Gene Kelly, David Ogden Stiers, John Anderson, Lee Bergere, Olivia De Havilland, Elizabeth Taylor, Forest Whitaker, Robert Jones, ....Director Richard T. Heffron, Teleplay...Paul F. Edwards, Patricia Green, Douglas Heyes, Kathleen A. Shelley.
Based on John Jake's successful paperback novels "North and South", "Love and War" and "Heaven and Hell", this was a mini series on television from 1985 to 1987. Its success owed more to the success of "Roots" a similar Civil War era/slavery soap opera televised about a decade earlier in the 70's. Patrick Swayze, at the beginning of his career and at the time he was doing many films like Dirty Dancing which would make him famous, stars as Orry Main, a plantation-born young man from South Carolina who sets off to West Point. Here he meets George Hazard (James Read) who is supposed to be the hated enemy, the Yankee North, but with whom he bonds closely. Soon, the Mains from the South and the Hazards from the North become friends despite the turbulent era leading to civil war. The theme of family, friendship and doing the right thing even when the nation was falling apart is at the heart of this otherwise soap opera full of action and romance. Clariss and Ashton (Jean Simmons and Teri Garber) portray sisters who become enemies when one of them marries Yankee Billy Hazard (John Stockwell. Garber's bitchy, seductive, manipulative, ambitious and evil Ashton is fun to watch on screen. Though the series didn't cover everything in Jakes' novels, what we see is a condensed version of it and they changed a few things to make it a sort of historical romance with history lessons attached. The characters find themselves in all the major Civil War scenes - Harper's Ferry where abolitionist and feminist Virgilia Hazard (Kirstie Alley) loses the love of her life, the ex-slave Grady, Fort Sumter, Vicksburg, Antietam, Gettysburg, Appomatox and we are privy to the White House where we see Abraham Lincoln (Hal Halbrook) battle out the war in his conscience, we meet all the prominent players including Lee, Grant, Sherman, Jackson and Davis. Several veteran Hollywood actors from the Golden Era - Robert Mitchum, Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia De Havilland have cameos and it's interesting to see them. This is not historical fact, it's historical FICTION and purely dramatized entertainment. But it's got cliffhanger endings and beautiful cinematography, costumes and locations. It is like watching an epic movie that runs longer than Gone With The Wind with with war scenes in it! The script may be bad at times and the acting may not be the best, despite the good casting. Swayze hams it up as does Terri Garber but some performances, like that of Kirstie Alley, James Read (as George Hazard)and Leslie Anne Downes as the beautiful and strong Madeline are really good performances. They shot in sets and in Southern locations.The music is enchanting and this is a feel good film in which we root for the good guys and watch the villains scheme and ultimately get their comeuppance. All fans of Civil War movies and the Jakes novels should watch this. It's available on DVD and VHS.


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