When a hurricane is bearing down, and you can no longer stand the hysteria on the local news channel, but have not the mood for anything requiring mental effort, get a copy of Mistral's daughter and wallow in mindless eye candy - the best of mini-series trash. It is a wonderful antidote to serious issues: a fun wallow in the kind of romantic fiction loved by 14-year-old girls.
The story concerns a young French orphan, Maggie, who has run off to Paris to seek her fortune, and who manages to land on her feet from day one, as one wealthy patron after another falls madly in love with her. 18 year old Maggie is played by 40 something Stephanie Powers, under a thick layer of makeup and long luxurious wigs. She shows up in Montparnasse where people with no job skills hire themselves out as artists models. This is the Paris of the 1920's, and Maggie has landed right smack in the centre of where it is all happening.
Maggie is immediately discovered by an arrogant, selfish artist, Julian Mistral, who would fall in love with her if he did not love himself more. The world according to Mistral is that other people are placed on earth in order to serve his needs. They move in together, and she supports him until he sells a painting that he had given her. She moves out and is immediately snapped up by a wealthy Irish American, Timothy Dalton, who comes from a prominent Irish Catholic family of the type who always have a Cardinal in tow. He falls madly in love with her and sets her up in grand style. Of course, his wife will not give him a divorce when Maggie becomes pregnant. He goes back to New York and she follows, arriving just as the stock market crashes and he drops dead on the squash court. Not one to waste a moment, Maggie hikes off to a diamond broker to sell her jewels. Despite the crash, the smitten jeweller gets her top dollar for the rocks, enough to set her up in business for herself later. The jeweller recommends her to a fashion house to find work as a model, which she does immediately and makes her entry into society.
WWII comes to France; Mistral locks his gates and ignores the plight of everyone around as he wishes to work undisturbed. He collaborates with a German officer in order to get painting supplies and work in peace, and in return turns in a few good men to the Nazis.
By the 50's Maggie is running her own modelling agency and her teenage daughter wants in. On assignment in France she meets up with Mistral and it is love at first sight. She moves in with him, his American wife gets the cold shoulder and she gives birth to a daughter, then dies in an accident.
We leap ahead and Mistral is establishing a relationship with his daughter, at the expense of his own wife and child. His legitimate daughter has married a snobbish French playboy with an aversion to work. The illegitimate girl then meets up with a young man who is the son of a Jewish art dealer and long time friend whom Mistral had turned his back on during the war. Wife dies, Mistral dies, there is a squabble over the will, the French playboy finds a Princess with better prospects, and young love triumphs.
The hilarious part of this mini series is trying to guess who characters are based on in real life. The Irish American catholic family with the Cardinal always on hand; the French playboy who dumps his wife for a Princess; the artist? All this is wrapped up in a gorgeous package, wonderful scenery, lots of costume changes, but unfortunately, an awful cheesy piano and strings "romantic theme" being hammered out and washing over the sound track lest there be any quiet moments. The phony French would not have been so bad if they had not had real French actors whose English sounded like vocal paint-by-numbers. Perhaps they were reading it off phonetic cue cards! whatever, it sounds like the British comedy 'Allo, 'Allo.
The story concerns a young French orphan, Maggie, who has run off to Paris to seek her fortune, and who manages to land on her feet from day one, as one wealthy patron after another falls madly in love with her. 18 year old Maggie is played by 40 something Stephanie Powers, under a thick layer of makeup and long luxurious wigs. She shows up in Montparnasse where people with no job skills hire themselves out as artists models. This is the Paris of the 1920's, and Maggie has landed right smack in the centre of where it is all happening.
Maggie is immediately discovered by an arrogant, selfish artist, Julian Mistral, who would fall in love with her if he did not love himself more. The world according to Mistral is that other people are placed on earth in order to serve his needs. They move in together, and she supports him until he sells a painting that he had given her. She moves out and is immediately snapped up by a wealthy Irish American, Timothy Dalton, who comes from a prominent Irish Catholic family of the type who always have a Cardinal in tow. He falls madly in love with her and sets her up in grand style. Of course, his wife will not give him a divorce when Maggie becomes pregnant. He goes back to New York and she follows, arriving just as the stock market crashes and he drops dead on the squash court. Not one to waste a moment, Maggie hikes off to a diamond broker to sell her jewels. Despite the crash, the smitten jeweller gets her top dollar for the rocks, enough to set her up in business for herself later. The jeweller recommends her to a fashion house to find work as a model, which she does immediately and makes her entry into society.
WWII comes to France; Mistral locks his gates and ignores the plight of everyone around as he wishes to work undisturbed. He collaborates with a German officer in order to get painting supplies and work in peace, and in return turns in a few good men to the Nazis.
By the 50's Maggie is running her own modelling agency and her teenage daughter wants in. On assignment in France she meets up with Mistral and it is love at first sight. She moves in with him, his American wife gets the cold shoulder and she gives birth to a daughter, then dies in an accident.
We leap ahead and Mistral is establishing a relationship with his daughter, at the expense of his own wife and child. His legitimate daughter has married a snobbish French playboy with an aversion to work. The illegitimate girl then meets up with a young man who is the son of a Jewish art dealer and long time friend whom Mistral had turned his back on during the war. Wife dies, Mistral dies, there is a squabble over the will, the French playboy finds a Princess with better prospects, and young love triumphs.
The hilarious part of this mini series is trying to guess who characters are based on in real life. The Irish American catholic family with the Cardinal always on hand; the French playboy who dumps his wife for a Princess; the artist? All this is wrapped up in a gorgeous package, wonderful scenery, lots of costume changes, but unfortunately, an awful cheesy piano and strings "romantic theme" being hammered out and washing over the sound track lest there be any quiet moments. The phony French would not have been so bad if they had not had real French actors whose English sounded like vocal paint-by-numbers. Perhaps they were reading it off phonetic cue cards! whatever, it sounds like the British comedy 'Allo, 'Allo.