Beulah Land

This miniseries, based on a series of supermarket novels, concerns the lives and travails of a southern family from the antebellum days on up past the Civil War. A TV version of "Gone With The Wind", cast with many well-known actors(Hope Lang, Meredith Baxter, Lesley Anne Down), as well as up-and-comers(Jonathan Frakes, Madeleine Stowe). Recommended.

These novels were not cheap paperbacks when they first came out. I read them years ago, and to call them Supermarket novels is to do them an injustice. But also, that same person who posted that said the movie starred Lesley Ann Downe-- he didn't even get Lesley Ann Warren's name right.

I loved this movie. I bought it from Amazon.com about a month ago. I had planned to watch it in three or four sittings, since it ran over 4 hours, but I became so engrossed that I watched it in two sessions. It is a two disc movie. There were a lot of similarities to Gone With The Wind in the movie, but not so many in the books. I've been to Natchez, and I was happy to see a shot of "The Delta Queen." I've ridden on the Delta Queen. It used to dock at Louisville.

Like Gone With The Wind, Beulah Land is centered around the figure of a southern belle who turns out to have the right stuff to see her's and another family through the tribulations of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Lesley Ann Warren is the central character here. When we first meet her she's in the best fiddle-dee-dee tradition of Scarlett O'Hara. But she's married to Paul Rudd who is weak and self indulgent. Gradually she takes over as head of the family and doing the running of the plantation while Rudd pursues his vices along with neighbor Don Johnson who marries Rudd's sister.

The prominent black role in Beulah Land is that of Dorian Harewood who is manumitted free and actually becomes the overseer of the plantation known as Beulah Land that Warren runs. Between the two of them they pull both the blacks and whites through a few crises.

The Union Army is hardly seen as liberators. A great of emphasis is placed on General Sherman's war waged on the Southern aristocracy. In particular his 'Bummer's Brigades' whose mission was to rob and pillage and take their pleasures when they find them.

Though it covers the same ground as Gone With The Wind and a great deal more before and after, Beulah Land when you come right down to it is more like a southern fried Peyton Place. Between the two families, the Kendricks and Davises there's a lot of sex going on for three generations plus the outsiders drawn in. No doubt the sex sold Beulah Land to the reading public.

Besides those I've mentioned pay attention to Meredith Baxter who is Warren's sister who disgraces her class by going on stage and marrying an actor. She gets disowned, but comes back in Reconstruction to settle some scores.

It's not Gone With The Wind, neither is it Roots. Beulah Land is good drama with more sex than history.

One of the previous posters wrote that this mini-series was based on a series of "supermarket novels." I would like to defend these books. I believe later editions printed in paperback were most likely designed with supermarket novel buyers in mind and at first glance would appear to be silly romances. Years ago I happened on an old paperback copy in a library with a caption reading, "Beulah Land. Where splendor mingled with shame and sex was as easy as laughing." This made ME LAUGH because I had just finished reading the series (in vintage hardback) and they're actually quite good and well-written. The miniseries is far too melodramatic compared to its source material. Sure, there are some historical inaccuracies in the books but all in all the characters are well-thought out. The characters of Sarah, Loretta and Annabelle are surprisingly real, in my opinion, and readers really get a chance to know them because they each remain fairly prominent throughout all three novels. Each remains entirely true to her character to the last.

RELEASED IN 1980 and DIRECTED BY Harry Falk & Virgil W. Vogel, "Beulah Land" focuses on the titular Georgia plantation in Antebellum South, starting in 1827 and proceeding well past the Civil War.

MAIN CAST: Lesley Ann Warren stars as the emerging matriarch, Sarah, who basically takes over the plantation after marrying the likable, but feeble Leon (Paul Rudd). Meredith Baxter is on hand as Sarah's drama mama sister while Michael Sarrazin surfaces as Sarah's 'knight in shining armor' from the North. Eddie Albert & Hope Lange play the elders of Beulah Land. Dorian Harewood, Franklyn Seales, Grand L. Bush & Jean Foster have important black roles. Paul Shenar plays a literal slave-driver with Jenny Agutter as his babe of dubious morality. Don Johnson appears in the first act as a rash young buck from a neighboring plantation and Madeline Stowe his maybe (or maybe not) wife. Ilene Graff, Laurie Prange, Jonathan Frakes & Patrick Harrison all have secondary key roles.

COMMENTARY: Novelist Lonnie Coleman obviously used Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" for inspiration for her first two Beulah Land books (1973 and 1977) from which this three-part miniseries was based. While it lacks the production values of the iconic "Gone with the Wind" (1939), "Beulah Land" is a generally more accurate depiction of the Plantation Era in the Deep South. For one thing, it was actually shot in the Deep South, at a plantation in Natchez, Mississippi, whereas the outside sequences in "Gone with the Wind" were all obviously shot in friggin' California (not counting establishing shots).

The beginning is weak with all the principles as children (provoking me to tune out the first time I tried to watch it), but after the first half hour you'll find yourself embroiled in the melodrama of plantation life. You can tell John Jakes' "North and South" trilogy took a lot from "Beulah Land," but the latter came first. There are a few shocking moments and thrilling sequences, particularly when the Yankees invade, but this is a melodrama of the Plantation Era with the expected virtues, sins and gray areas thereof. Needless to say, "Beulah Land" is a great companion piece to "The Blue and the Gray" (1980) and "North and South" (1985/1986/1994).

The three parts run 281 minutes (19 minutes shy of 5 hours). The screenplay was written by Jacques Meunier from Coleman's books.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE DVDS: PART II is featured on Disc 1 immediately following PART I. You have to wait for the ending credits of PART I and then it automatically goes into PART II without selecting anything. The disc makers should have indicated this on the Main Menu, but they didn't, which can confuse some viewers and make them think that the 2-Disc set doesn't include PART II.

GRADE: B