musical_notes12
Firstly, I do not understand why Marette van Kamp as Princess Daisy is given no billing on the DVD cover, she was, after all, playing the lead role. Her character was intense, and very sad considering the circumstances of losing her natural mother and then her father. At three hours, the film is very long, and jumps from one time zone to another, leaving perplexing gaps in the storyline. One of the major disturbing themes of the film is the incestuous behaviour of Daisy's half brother Ram, and Daisy's move to America to make a life for herself.There are many interesting moments, and the fact of hiding a disabled child away in a remote home strikes at the heart and conscience of anyone who has a disabled child. On the whole, the film is thought provoking, although too long. The best effort was from Marette van Kamp.
Danica Love
I have not read this book, so I can't comment on how the movie may compare to it. But having watched the movie, even without reading the book, I would imagine that some little things are probably missing.The story: In the 1940's Francesca (Lindsey Wagner), an American actress, meets, falls in love with, and marries a Russian Prince, Stash Valenski (Stacey Keach). The two have twin girls, Daisy and Danielle. Danielle is mentally retarded from birth and Stash has her secretly institutionalized. Stash believes it to be insanity, which runs in his family, and which he is greatly afraid of. When Francesca learns of what he has done to Danielle, she takes both of her daughters and leaves her husband, going to America. When the girls are 6, Francesca decides to return to work to get the money she needs to put Danielle in a home. But she is killed in a car accident. The girls are then given to their father, who by this time is living with a woman named Annabelle (Claudia Cardinale) in England. Prince Stash picks the girls up from the airport and immediately takes them to St.Anne's home for retarded children, where Danielle is left. Daisy is told to forget her sister and never mention her, but eventually gets her father to allow her to visit Danielle at the home every Saturday. Daisy's new home is not unhappy, as she gets along well with her father and wonderful stepmother, but her older half-brother Prince Ram Valenski (Rupert Everett), son of Prince Stash from a previous relationship, is always unkind to her. Though Ram lives with his mother in Scotland, he often visits. When Daisy is 16, Prince Stash is killed in an airplane accident. Daisy's finances are in the control of her half-brother Ram, who we come to find is obsessively in love with Daisy. After Ram rapes her twice, Daisy enlists Annabelle's help and escapes to America for school. Years pass and Ram, in an attempt to get her back, cuts her off financially and Daisy is forced to work to support herself and Danielle's tuition at the home. She works for an advertising company, under her boss North (Paul Michael Glaser), and a business tycoon Patrick Shannon (Robert Ulrich). Though leery of men, she eventually allows North close enough to become great friends, and briefly lovers. When Ram informs Daisy that Annabelle is in debt, in the hopes of getting Daisy back , she decides to become a model for the company she works for in order to support Annabelle, Danielle and herself, rather than go back to Ram. During the course of working as a model, she and Patrick Shannon fall in love. Ram is still obsessed with Daisy, despite all the years and her obvious hatred for him, and has been involved in a relationship with a Daisy look alike. Ram, desperate to ruin Daisy financially so that she will have to come back for him, leaks to the press about Danielle. The damage is contained by Patrick, and Daisy confronts Ram who then kills himself. Daisy agrees to marry Patrick and takes her place in the world as Princess Daisy.The movie is 3 hours long, and though interesting, was obviously made for T.V. It moves slowly in areas, and then very fast in others, so that you always feel as though you may have missed something. Perhaps these are little things, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that things were left out, little scenes that may have better explained other scenes, or script that brought a better understanding to certain characters or relationships. Wagner is only in the movie for the first half hour, and the relationship with Francesca and Stash is never delved to deeply into. Though references are made to Ram being cruel to Daisy when they were children, you only see Ram as a child for a brief second when he first meets Daisy, so you have no idea what kind of things happen. The relationship with Patrick and Daisy is moved through too quickly, and though you feel Patrick is a great guy, you don't really understand how they got so close, so fast, or fell in love. The performances were OK, and I was surprised to see how many well known people were in this (Stacy Keech, Lindsay Wagner, Robert Ulrich, Rupert Everett, Paul Micheal Glaser, Ringo Starr) and in such small roles.Generally the story was interesting, the performances OK, even if it did move too fast through certain areas and too slow through others. The locations were beautiful and fun to watch. It's an enjoyable enough movie if you happen to catch it on t.v. and have nothing else to do, but not good enough to go looking for.
petershelleyau
Those hoping for a Scruples orgy of Lindsay Wagner will be disappointed or relieved as she only appears in the first 30 minutes of this 3 hour saga. Her one memorable moment is standing on a Big Sur cliff top reading a letter (as one does), while the wind blows the blonde tendrils of her scarfed hair around her head.Wagner is Francesca Valenski, a former movie star who marries Russian Prince Stash (Stacy Keach) and bears him twin daughters, Daisy and Danielle. Regrettably Danielle is brain damaged, and institutionalised at birth, something Stash keeps from Francesca. When she finds out, she leaves him to go to America. However when Francesca is killed in a car accident, Stash takes the girls to live in England and returns Danielle to St Anne's. Although visited regularly by Daisy, she remains a secret, until Daisy's private life is exposed to international media by her spiteful half-brother Ram (Rupert Everett) when she becomes a cosmetics model in New York courtesy of tycoon Patrick Shannon (Robert Ulrich). Will the publicity ruin romance? And will make-up sales decline?The teleplay by Diana Hammond, based on the novel by Judith Krantz, seems to have derived Francesca Valenski from the story of Grace Kelly. The only intriguing plot element is incest, and Daisy delivers a well-written speech to her commercial company boss Charles North (Paul Michael Glasser) about why she doesn't want to be his girlfriend. Otherwise this production directed by Waris Hussein is only notable for Ringo Star cast as a gay fashion designer, Keach eating a piece of toast, another brooding bad performance by Everett, and the indeterminate accent of Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Merete van Kamp as Daisy.
