{"id":46083,"date":"2025-01-10T08:30:42","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T13:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=46083"},"modified":"2025-01-08T17:18:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T22:18:27","slug":"the-bootleg-files-kennedys-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/10\/the-bootleg-files-kennedys-children\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Kennedy’s Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 893:<\/strong> \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d (1982 television film based on Robert Patrick\u2019s play). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN: <\/strong>On OK.ru.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> It is unclear why this was never released for home entertainment viewing.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely.<\/p>\n

Adapting a stage play into a film is always something of a challenge, but taking Robert Patrick\u2019s drama \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d from its theatrical setting into a cinematic format was not an easy journey. For starters, \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d is not a conventional play, but rather a series of monologues delivered by five strangers in a bar. The characters never interact with each other, but instead voice their inner frustrations to the audience.
\n<\/p>\n

If reviews from back in the day are any indication, Robert Patrick\u2019s text resulted in a memorable experience for the audiences that saw it in the original New York runs (Off-Off-Broadway in 1973 and on Broadway in 1975) and its London presentations (staged in between the New York productions). But the cinematic format is completely different, especially when the camera magnifies the actor \u2013 and, by extension, the dialogue \u2013 via close-up. A work with five main characters talking to themselves in a bar, no matter how well-written, is an unlikely concept for film.<\/p>\n

The two directors assigned to \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children,\u201d Merrill Brockway and Marshall W. Mason, didn\u2019t entirely crack the puzzle of making a memorable film from Patrick\u2019s play. A few silent flashback moments were added to illustrate the monologues, but they added nothing except hazy distracting visuals. The characters were also given the opportunity to occasionally look at each other while speaking, but that behavior came across as odd when the roots of a conversation never sprouted from these monologist talkathons. <\/p>\n

Even worse, the camera emphasized the theatricality of Patrick\u2019s drama, and the oversized neuroses on display often came across as bad acting rather than an honest presentation of emotional breakdowns.<\/p>\n

The title \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d doesn\u2019t refer to the offspring of everyone\u2019s favorite Massachusetts dynasty, but rather it alludes to the young people who embraced the idealism and optimism of the JFK presidency in the early 1960s. The play is set in February 1974, more than a decade after the promise of that era was literally shot to pieces in a Dallas motorcade, and the characters who came of age during that brief but giddy time of a political Camelot find themselves and their worlds in a confusing, dreary and seemingly endless miasma.<\/p>\n

The five characters are Wanda (Jane Alexander), a school teacher who continues to hero-worship JFK; Sparger (Charles Harper), a gay actor stranded in the artistically unsatisfactory fringes of the Off-Off-Broadway orbit; Mark (Brad Dourif), a Vietnam veteran self-destructing via pills, beer and re-reading from his frontline diaries; Rona (Lindsay Crouse), an aggressive political activist turned lawyer who cannot comprehend how the protest movements failed to dislodge the status quo; and Carla (Shirley Knight, repeating her Tony-winning Broadway performance), a would-be starlet whose attempt to become the next Marilyn Monroe came to naught.<\/p>\n

To its credit, \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d plumbs strong performances from Jane Alexander \u2013 she\u2019s so natural that you forget she\u2019s acting \u2013 and Lindsay Crouse, who gets to growl some of the funniest lines as the bitter ex-activist who failed in her attempts to change the world. When recalling the media\u2019s coverage of the many protest marches she attended, she bitterly laments, \u201cThey mostly photographed Norman Mailer, but we were there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dourif gives a decent performance as the damaged veteran, despite having the least colorful monologues and being buried in Sasquatch levels of hair \u2013 a flashback to him as a clean shaven young soldier makes the actor seem barely out of his teens, even though he was in his early thirties when the film was made. But poor Shirley Knight, decked out like a Hollywood red carpet habitue, babbles endlessly and pointlessly about Marilyn Monroe in a breathy voice that sort of recalls the doomed bombshell. \u201cPeople don\u2019t want to hear me talk at all,\u201d she declares at one point \u2013 and who can blame them for that wish?<\/p>\n

Alas, poor Charles Harper \u2013 who has no other IMDb credits beyond this film \u2013 is stuck with the least satisfactory role of Sparger. The character embodies every gay stereotype imaginable \u2013 including a flashback where he does a crossdressing act and is raped by sailors \u2013 and he swishes and minces about with such brutal unsubtlety that you half expect someone to yell out \u201cAre you free, Mr. Humphries?\u201d In fairness, his character has one very funny theater-related line regarding his attempts to get noticed: \u201cWe all tried to draw Clive Barnes to us with the power of prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, all these efforts may have been in vain. \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d premiered in February 1982 on CBS Cable, a short-lived effort by CBS to launch a fine arts cable television channel. Few people saw it on CBS Cable and (as far as I know) the film was not broadcast again on either CBS or any other network. It was never released on a home entertainment format, although an unauthorized upload videotaped from its broadcast premiere can be found on the Russian-based OK.ru. The link to that offering is here<\/a> <\/strong>\u2013 and while I was disappointed with the production, perhaps you might find it to your liking.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to Phil Hall\u2019s award-winning podcast \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud and his radio show \u201cNutmeg Chatter<\/a>\u201d on WAPJ-FM in Torrington, Connecticut, with a new episode every Sunday. His new book \u201c100 Years of Wall Street Crooks<\/a>\u201d is now in release through Bicep Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 893: \u201cKennedy\u2019s Children\u201d (1982 television film based on Robert Patrick\u2019s play). LAST SEEN: On OK.ru. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It is unclear why this was never released for home entertainment viewing. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely. Adapting a stage play into a film is always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":46080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[3586,302,2068,3585,3588,1794,3587],"class_list":["post-46083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-brad-dourif","tag-drama","tag-jane-alexander","tag-kennedys-children","tag-lindsay-crouse","tag-robert-patrick","tag-shirley-knight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46083"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46091,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46083\/revisions\/46091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}