The Bastard (1978)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I think the other reviewers are a little hard on the first part of what later turned out to be a three part mini-series. Part II, "The Rebels" was not as good as the first, and the third part "The Seekers" is kind of a throw away movie.Still, I think "The Bastard" was pretty good and Stevens in the lead role was well cast in my opinion. Of course it doesn't have the technical sophistication that we have come to expect from more recent series like 'John Adams' but that is part of its charm.This has a '70's' look to it all the way, and the photo locations are easily identified as California in some scene rather than England.Heck, half the reason I like this series is because of the cheesy dialogue and there are some really good scenes such as Phillipe's encounter with Lord North on the stairway at Kentland.Forget the bad reviews, just sit down and enjoy. No, it's not serious history but we have so little to choose on the American Revolution and the Jakes original story is quite good.This should be available on DVD by now but alas it is not. This review is from the double VHS set.

If you've ever wanted to see Howard Cunningham as founding father, scholar and inventor Benjamin Franklin, if you've ever wanted to hear Jerry the Dentist from the "Bob Newhart Show" lecture on Rousseau in a lousy French accent, if you've ever wanted to watch Patricia Neal die midway through a monologue . . . well, find yourself a DVD of this goofy mini-series based the first installment of John Jakes' pulpy historical epic. It's odd, really, that in the post-bicentennial, pre-Reaganite buzz of jingoism lingering in the late 70's that one of the Big 3 Networks didn't pick up the option on Jakes' potboiler and make it into a much better, glitzier miniseries. Instead, this 8th-grade pageant of B-listers, has-beens and never-weres wound up in syndication, a chilling forbearer of the crud that would appear on the early Fox and WB networks ten or twenty years later."The Bastard" is the story of Phillip Kent, born Phillipe Charbonneau, the illegitimate (i.e. bastard) son of an English nobleman and Patricia Neal. Little Phillipe's transformation from French peasant to American patriot would test a talented actor, but "The Bastard" stars Andrew Stevens -- Stella's boy, and the future Mr. Kate Jackson. Stevens doesn't bring much to his role except for a pleasant smile and a Keith Partridge haircut, but at least his blandness is offset by the cheesy sideshow that is the rest of the cast. The buck-toothed kid from those horrible "Witch Mountain" movies plays the Marquis de Lafayette, and that's just the start of it. Beginning with the aforementioned Marquis, Phillip keeps encountering the most famous people of his age in random places -- "hi, Mr. Franklin, what are you doing here in Philadelphia?" -- and the absurdity is exacerbated by the fact that these legendary figures are essayed by "Hollywood Squares" refugees in silly costumes (wait 'til you see Tom Bosley in the Bozo wig he puts on to play Franklin). William Shatner as Paul Revere. Need I say more? The other improbability is that every nubile young woman in the film goes wild for young Phillip when they get within sniffing distance of his hairspray and are willing to risk life, limb and social status just for a quick roll in the hay with this soap opera cast-off. ("I want you, Phillip. If only for tonight.") Not historically accurate, not dramatically compelling, hilarious for all the wrong reasons, "The Bastard" makes for some good, trashy fun you shouldn't miss.

Although this is a hokey mini-series, there is no denying the enormous power of this television show. It's like what Gangs of New York would be like if Scorsese was still talented and it starred Tom (Happy Days) Bosley and William Shatner instead of Daniel Day-Lewis. Kim Cattral is amazing in this film, so incredible that it makes all her later work seem utterly redundant. It's a historical epic, which begins in France then moves to London and Bristol, before heading to America. It's the first in a trilogy of 4-hour TV films that use one man's life story to explain, as Raymond Burr suggests in his voice-over, the origin of all Americans.

Made for tv production typical for the time, The Bastard cast then hot-babe Andrew Stevens in the title role. With a cast of too many name Hollywood actors, this 18th century costume drama is based on The Kent Chronicles. Although heaving bodices supplied by buxom beauty, Olivia Hussey and chubby-face Kim Cattral of Sex and the City fame provide brief distraction, the story is too shallow and all too predictable. Andrew Stevens, in the lead role gives his standard wooden performance begging one to wonder why a sequel was ever produced.