In the mood

Press, 27 May 1981, Page 20

In the mood

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Douglas McKenzie

“The Last Convertible” (Two, Monday) was just the right length, of just the right number of episodes, of the j right sentiment, of the right ■' casting, right for its period ; and right for just about anyj thing else that comes to ■ mind. In a word, “The Last i Convertible" was right. ! It was true and evocative ’ without being sentimental, brave and logical and I human, and drawing on a generation whose work and strength are now gone. It was a piece over which it was perfectly possible to cry. The music in it was, of course, almost unfair. The 100-odd recordings of Glenn Miller can bring out the mood for any occasion and suggest the rhythm of a ; whole decade. There were two kinds of ! break in the story to confess I that the era of the 1940 s was (finished: the first was the > introduction of Brubeck’s ; “Take Five,” quite briefly; i the second, the discovery, by ’ the men that the unlockable 1 convertible had been slashed ; and vandalised. This was the | last of the convertible as a | way of life. In a strong sense it was all a celebration of the Jack Kennedy years, and what happened to them. The five young men, all university classmates together, all went to war and only one was lost. The others returned unscathed. Was this an unreasonably high proportion? It’s, hard to say. It was not impossible. If a dramatic liberty was taken it was perhaps the only one of any dimension; and, of course, without it the story could not have been developed the way it was. For a story as well realised as this one, the liberty, if it existed, is forgiven. “The Last Convertible” was a love story on many levels. It was of a standard not often seen on TV — an experience not likely to be

forgotten, or repeated, soon. Perry King had everything going for him as the dashing and popular winner, but it was the brooding and intense Bruce Boxleitner who held the thing together in a performance which set him apart from all the others. And Deborah Baffin, as the girl next door (in this case, at Radcliffe), who quite understandably had three of the young Harvard men in love with her desperately and simultaneously, can ’ come back on the screen any time she likes.

Her wide-faced prettiness and then handsomeness stayed over the 25 years as student, wife and mother with a durability which very nearly had the viewer forgetting the intervention of the make-up room.

There were one or two rather overdrawn aspects. One was, in fact, in the make-up, which had the ageing Mr King under a beard of truly Lincolnesque propor-

tions without the oratory to match.

Another concerned a ridiculous escape portrayal of the Army Air Corps hero from prison camp. Again, the naval ships at sea, especially when being blown up. were too obviously models. But these were not serious lapses placed alongside the other hours that really mattered. Certain production techniques have to be accepted. It may be only an American device, but with a blockbuster like this — others were “Holocaust” and “Washington Behind Closed Doors” —

where there are perhaps three, two-hour episodes, the viewer has to- wait as patiently as he may at the start of the second and subsequent episodes for something like 10 minutes of altogether futile recapitulation.

After all, if the viewer has seen the preceding episodes he does not want or need the recap (it is only stopping him getting ahead with what is

next) and if he hasn’t seen the earlier part the recap will hardly help because it is so arbitrary and disjointed.

As a matter of fact, the recap system, which is really a form of self-promotion, is probably only a demonstration of how ’insanity finally strikes TV people who have to watch too many advertisements.

On this point of the ads: the intolerable interruptions to “The Last Convertible,’’ which effectively smashed the mood time ’and again, should be carefully noted byviewers not with the object of buying the objects advertised but of disgustedly boycotting them. Finally, let the nice things be remembered about “The Last Convertible,” which was American TV at its best and a great promise for the days to come.