Callie & Son

This movie is being sold by "Passion Productions" with the blurb: "Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Callie...." Obviously someone didn't bother watching the film or finding out much about it before writing the packaging for the DVD and videotape.

A popular cast, starring Lindsay Wagner and Jameson Parker in the title roles, and featuring Joy Garrett, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dabney Coleman and Andrew Prine, along with familiar character actors Macon McCalman, James Sloyan and John Harkins, may draw you toward this film about an unwed teenage mother facing no options for herself nor the baby but to profit from his sale via an illegal adoption agency.

The story begins in a rural Texas community bearing an antiquated Truman campaign board, indicating that it begins quite some time after 1948, the one election cycle for which Harry S. Truman has sought the U.S. Presidency, along with running mate, Alben W. Barkley, who is not cited, which indicates that the road sign was posted between the time in which Truman has cinched the Primary elections that spring, before announcing his Vice-Presidential selection at the Democratic Convention that summer.

But, around the corner, we observe a movie theater marquis announcing "Mildred Pierce," starring Joan Crawford, which is released in 1945. This, quite possibly could indicate a film re-release, but questions about this production's historical accuracy begin to emerge rather immediately.

Anyway, Kimball Smythe (Andrew Prine) narrates this saga, specifying that he has yet to meet Callie (Lindsay Wagner), which provides evidence that Kimball couldn't be the baby's father, and whoever would have been is no longer a part of Callie's life, and neither does the film provide information upon her family. In other words, her back-story begins with the birth of her child, whom she is not permitted to hold, before she is sent into one direction, and he into another.

Jeannie (Joy Garrett), a lady with a past and now a waitress, befriends Callie, who arrives to wait tables during her evening shift. Jeannie continuously stands beside her new friend and offers support and encouragement for Callie to take courses as a courtroom stenographer. At the restaurant, Jennie suggests that she make lonely newspaper Publisher Randall Bordeaux (Dabney Coleman) to feel welcome, and when she later meets him in her new position as stenographer, they rekindle a flirtation, leading to marriage.

Callie consults a shady Private Investigator, Deacon (Macon McCalman, who often plays a good guy gone wrong), paying him a large fee, which she cannot afford, to locate the son whom she has given up for adoption. Deacon absconds with her money and creates an enemy for life once the now Callie Bordeaux reigns in power through her joint ownership of a powerful family newspaper operation, especially after a mass murder advances her station.

Randy Bordeaux (who grows up to become Jameson Parker) is quickly set back into Callie's lap with no objections from his adoptive parents, perhaps because of his rebellious streak and irresponsible nature such as holding up his own engagement party to elope with cheap gold-digger Sue Lynn Bordeaux (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Jeannie, meanwhile, marries wealth oil tycoon Arthur Cotham (John Harkins) and stands beside Callie, as does Kimball although he is given little to do except to yearn over his unrequited romance.

Fashions and hairstyles seem appropriate enough for the fast-paced period sketches through the 1950's, 60's and 70's, but a promising sketch of a role model in Callie Bordeaux is ruined by an over-extensive trial occupying about a third of the film after a second murder is committed.

Corrupt District Attorney Bubba Wrench (James Sloyan, who's often cast in these roles) does not represent justice, by trying the wrong suspect, and presenting false testimony to over the truth without proof to judge and jury even when the perpetrator confesses to the crime, thus teaching anything but a moral lesson to "Callie & Son," as it misses its mark to entertain and to educate by any means.

(Extra points for the appearances of Joy Garrett, Dabney Coleman, Andrew Prine and Jameson Parker.)

....This film is really not that bad at all if purchased for a cheap price and if you don't expect too much from it. Lindsay Wagner puts in a fine performance and the story development/pace is fine until around the last quarter of the film when it falls apart into hokey melodrama. I wished they had just left off the whole murder subtext and wrapped it up at some point after her son grows up. The film felt like a mess because of the trial/murder twist and if it were somehow up to me, I would actually edit that whole part right out! Why do this? Because it needs to be tightened up with some good and selective editing. I feel it runs much too long and if somebody cleaned it up and lopped off that silly trial sequence, the whole film would improve considerably. Quite a few leads drop off with no resolution and the whole thing gets harder to believe as the story line goes for cheap camp value. Editing would help this film. Despite all this, it's still worth a look for Lindsay's fans!

From the opening this film is narrated by Kimball Smyth, (Andrew Prine), an integral character who serves as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the events as they unfold. In the late 1950s Texas teenager Callie Martha Lord (Lindsay Wagner), an unwed mother, is forced to sell her baby to adoptive parents. She regrets this but, moving on with her life, Callie goes to Dallas and becomes a court stenographer. The film now follows the events of her rise from self-directed young woman to owner and editor of a Dallas newspaper. Dabney Coleman as her rich and devoted husband manages to locate and somehow repurchase her lost son, presenting him to his wife as a gift. Making up for lost time, Callie devotes herself so exclusively to Randy that she begins to dominate his life, transferring her ambitions for his future onto the young man who doesn't share them. Events from the 60s and 70s impact the story as it unfolds an increasingly sophisticated Callie and a rebellious Randy who marries a less than suitable Sue Lynn (Michelle Pfeiffer) in an act of passive aggression. Everything takes a downturn now. There is murder, incarceration, broken dreams and unrequited love. But somehow, Callie emerges relatively unscathed and manages to find a way to, in effect, start over. There is a furtive, mean-spirited energy that drives the story: entitlement, privilege, lies and secrets, issues of dominance and reprisal color the action, making it darker than it need have been. As a contrast and for its calm, detachment, Prine's narration is, arguably, the best part of the film.

Lindsay Wagner is Callie Martha Lord from Chillacott, Texas who moves to Dallas after giving up her son for black market adoption. Whilst working as a waitress she meets the Dallas Post Despatch newspaper editor Randall Bordeaux (Dabney Coleman) whom she marries. Randall locates Callie's adopted son Randy (Jameson Parker), and she succeeds Randall as editor, however Callie's ambition for Randy is ruined by his wife Sue Lynn (Michelle Pfeiffer), with Randy on trial for murder.

The treatment is noteworthy as a role for which Wagner abandons her customary long blonde hair. Her Callie is a brunette, who changes from a wavy long style to a short mannish cut and ends with a straight pageboy bob with grey touches and shadows under her eyes to indicate aging. Callie is seen as a court reporter wearing spinster spectacles, in a tacky orange ball gown, and black widow weeds and sunglasses. Wagner's makes amusing use of her southern accent, and is touching with Randy as a child, but the few times where she has long hair she does her flicking mannerism. She is good with indignation eg `Who bore him?!' and `Who is this child?!', when crying with `Why did God wait so long to punish me?', and spits out a whipped `Why?' in a hospital scene. In a trial she chews on her lips, and there is an off-camera big scream. At one point Wagner runs a champagne glass over her lips as she looks at Randy, and in her last scene with Parker, she gives a look of terror to `Do you hate me?'.

It's interesting to compare the acting styles of Wagner with the practically unrecognisable chubby-cheeked Pfeiffer, particularly in one confrontation scene. Wagner is all controlled technique whilst the novice Pfeiffer has a preferable messy emotionalism.

The teleplay by Thomas Thompson is mediocre, using a narration by Kimble Smythe (Andrew Pine) who is barely around and giving Callie a life long friend in Jeannie (Joy Garrett). Thompson tries for a gothic tone in the tale, closing with a cyclic act, with the shootings paralled with that of JFK. However the Mildred Pierce association, where a movie marquee shows it playing, doesn't quite work. The dialogue is soap opera cornball, with `She crossed the line between possession and obsession', `Please don't waste your love on a woman who can't accept it', and `It takes a whole lot more courage to die than go on living on the instalment plan'.

Director Waris Hussein only enlivens trial scenes, which border on camp, cutting to Callie's reactions, and he uses the spinning newspaper edit. To his credit, however, he freezes on television footage of JFK before we see him in the car at the airport, and we aren't shown the shooting of someone who gets it in the face.