Subject: ALAAAAAAARM!!!
I picked up Danielle Steele's JEWELS on the way home. It's three and a half hours long and, judging from the blurb, Jürgen has a major role... as a Nazi officer... who gets the babe after the war is over.
In consolation, given the plot description I'm guessing that the babe is probably a ho, at least as far as Jürgen is concerned, DURING the war. In any case, there's unquestionably reams of good material in this one. Stay tuned.
Subject: Re: ALAAAAAAARM!!!
You paid money for anything associated with Danielle Steel? EEK! The books I am tempted to buy are from the library sale shelf for a dime just so I can go over them with a red pen. Peat and repeat! Ochen redundant. Sticky with liquid saccharine. Clearly, liberties were taken for the screenplay. I remember children- sibling children- as being central.
To speculate that any of Dani-girl's pure, good, talented, good, kind to animals, good, riches to rags to riches to morgue, good heroines (did I mention that they are ALL GOOD?) could be a ho! Shocking! They are befuddled by the term trick as anything unrelated to magic. Sex only happens in the case of true love in marriage, engagement, love at first sight, mean step-brother, or Haight-Ashbury commune initiation ritual.
I can only speculate that the jewels of the hero are more central than the metaphorical jewels of the heroine. Perhaps that could make the story interesting, but I wouldn't hold out much hope.
Three and a half hours???????? [Actually, it's closer to four. -ed.] Good God, you could read the book aloud in that time. Even with the redundancies.
I read her just to mock her. A few of her stories actually exhibit character development, surprising plot twists, or sledgehammer social commentary, but generally, very weak formula writing. I have considered a "dis"ertation studying the names of the characters, and how frequently one is the good friend, Andrew is a "good son" name, certain bad guys have common names. How does that relate to the names of her 11 children?
Subject: Jewels
"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little
Nell without laughing."
Ok, just wanted to get that off my chest.
So far, I have only seen Jürgen's scenes in Jewels - and just that stuff was a long haul. Eventually I'll get through the whole movie (oh, god). I think I know pretty much everything that happened, though, which is another reason this movie reminded me why I don't watch movies like this - or read the books. The story is like something that was written by a dreamy teenage girl for other dreamy teenage girls, and my reaction was to groan louder and laugh harder the farther into the story it got. Consider yourself warned.
Sarah is an American who marries the British Duke of Whitfield. They move to France and have a baby named Phillip. WWII starts; the Duke joins the service and almost immediately goes MIA. Sarah is pregnant again. The Germans invade France and Sarah's estate is taken over by a Nazi unit commanded by you-know-who.
I liked Jürgen for a while because he was such a sweet ole Nazi (he was a gentleman, and he developed a crush on Sarah instantly). The liking turned into something akin to fascinated horror because the character became unbelievable pretty quickly - he was too damn nice. He was a wimp. This critter wouldn't have been no Major in Hitler's army, and he wouldn't have been a bachelor, either. [The character was divorced - ed.] He'd have been, like, an accountant or something, married right out of high school to someone known as Dragon Lady, with a bunch of kids who like Daddy a whole lot more than they like Mommy, and his two favorite phrases would be "yes, sir" and "yes, dear" (not necessarily in that order).
So you get the picture. Then there's all the fun stuff he got to do, like stopping soldiers from raping Sarah and the French housekeeper and threatening to shoot them if they ever messed with the women again. The highlight of the movie was when he delivered Sarah's baby. He slapped the kid's bottom to get her breathing, and the film editor accidentally used an outtake there; I refuse to believe they couldn't get a better print than THAT.
Don't ever let Jürgen deliver your baby.
And Linda, I know you still suffer over the hula. Try this one: Jürgen giving a newborn baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation right between the mother's naked, open legs. OH, GOD!!!
I swear I'm trying to be nice about this whole thing. It's not working, of course. But I keep telling myself that Danielle Steele is very, very rich, and I'm not. I'm going to repeat that numerous times a day until I stop twitching, though I don't expect to live long enough for it to work.
Well, the war lasts for a while and Jürgen and Sarah become the closest of friends for two years - but no affair - and little Phillip starts to hate Jürgen's guts because Jürgen is a "dirty bosch" and "wants to kill my daddy," issues he raises while still playing with the Christmas presents he just got from the dirty bosch.
Then the little girl, Lizzie - the child who deserved to live - gets the flu and it's up to Jürgen to save her again. But he can't, because the Allies are moving in and there are no supplies and all the doctors just high-tailed it for the border. Ready for Highlight #2? The kid's been unconscious all day long. Sarah's holding her. Jürgen comes in, takes the kid in his arms, puts her on the bed, and sings to her. Before anyone gets excited about this, I hasten to say that he sang twice in this movie (very briefly) and it did no damage to my nervous system. On the other hand, my nervous system resembled a coarse low-grade twine by that point, so it couldn't have made much difference in any case.
And what do you think happens? Right you are - Lizzie opens her eyes. Only it's much, much worse than that because when she opens her eyes she looks at her mother, says, "Mommy, I love you," and dies. I fell over laughing. You would have too, and you know it.
Then the war is over. Jürgen leaves, then comes back three months later - just after the shot-up Duke has been located and reunited with Sarah. Jürgen doesn't get to see her because the French housekeeper who hates his guts answers the door. She never even tells Sarah that he came by. Phillip also hates Jürgen's guts more now because it was Jürgen's fault that Lizzie died ("He wouldn't get her any medicine"). For a super-nice guy, Jürgen wasn't scoring points with too many people in this movie.
So he does the lovely pained-smile thing, tells the housekeeper to tell Sarah he's very happy for her, and leaves. Then you get 100 years' worth of Sarah and the Duke, who spends the rest of the movie having heart attacks in a wheelchair, restoring the estate and going into the jewelry business and having a bunch more kids, eventually. Finally the Duke croaks; Jürgen hears about it and comes back to try again. Since Sarah's now an expert on acquiring jewels, she gets his this time (you're welcome) - and then she dumps him because even though she loves him, she still loves her dead husband too much to take up with anybody else on a steady basis.
I dunno if that scene was done right or not - I'd have to read the book to find out, and you know that ain't gonna happen - but it comes across as if her real problem was that, having just slept with him, she was greatly disappointed with his performance and just didn't want to tell him. I wish she had, because this movie desperately needed an adult moment in it. There may be one someplace in the parts I didn't watch, but it's a safe bet there's not.
So Jürgen disappears and Sarah spends the rest of the movie, as far as I could tell, turning into a matriarch and dealing with her rotten kids and their lovers and possibly some grandchildren. Robert Wagner shows up at the end, and maybe he and Sarah had something going by the time it was all over. I don't know. I hope not, after the way she ditched Jürgen. He traveled across Europe to bring her flowers. Twice.
I'd like to think Sarah would have married Jürgen if he'd been a better Nazi. What she really needed was to have somebody around who'd whop Phillip upside the head for her. Phillip is all grown up by the end of the movie, and he does not improve with age.
And the final verdict? JEWELS made me long to see HURRICANE SMITH again.
I only surfed that flick between other flicks -- couldn't BEAR the tedium -- romance makes me ill, unless it's in black and white (pretty much), but that whole totally un-pc Nazi fetish just makes me howl. And who can resist - those crisp creases, those shiny boots! What an ODD thing for wilting ladies to hanker after -- though of course, that SPECIAL Nazi all our own would be dewy-eyed, dreamy and never think of raising his voice to us, never mind annexing Poland. JEWELS was the baldest display of cock-eyed Nazi lust I've ever seen, and I thought that part was very funny. Of course, he IS so likeable, you just have to fall for it all and feel dirty afterwards. I think from his point of view he was a) happy to have a jolly big part and b) happy to show a WWII era German with a good heart -- however unrealistic the conception might have been -- and hey, that stuff ain't his fault. I didn't know he finally nailed the old toe-rag. I couldn't watch that long. I think her first husband should have hit her harder. Harumph.
Subject: Jewels
Oh dear god...it's taking forever for Jürgen to get here....and what a true pot-boiler it is! I'm sure this makes women weepy, all this romance and riches and wealth and swooning. Was this ever on TV, or just a direct to video production? Jürgen should be just around the corner...god I hope this is all worth the wait!
Subject: One Jacket Jürgen
So he goes thru this movie wearing one jacket....he and the ho work in the hospital all night, she comes out looking like she's been wrestling a side of beef, and he's still in this beautiful un-bloodied uniform jacket??? aarrrgh!
But the scene at the door when the french ho tells him the duchess is married and in england...it broke my heart
She was nursing the wounded (if you can call that nursing)... HE was ADMINISTRATING. didn't you see him floating around in the background... consulting... encouraging... not-doctoring? What I can't believe is that he didn't crash to the floor at the first sight of blood.
did you make it all the way through JEWELS? you know, the one thing i was willing to give it credit for is that they dolled jürgen up real good... even his uniform looked sharper than any uniform he's worn in any other movie... and you had to go and spoil it. i thought messing HER up and leaving HIM looking like a model in a military catalog was inspired.
No, I didn't make it all the way thru...I had to stop after the Duke died. Sheesh.
OK, so I had a dream (I swear) where i and some other floozie showed up at the Duke's palace, and he hired us to watch the kiddies and we would laugh hysterically at their hoi-polloi parties and drop shrimp cocktails down the ladies' decolletage. then I fell for the Duke (who was Jürgen this time) and I told him that I was not Lady Pencroft, but some american from east podunk.
I shook his hand and walked away...and fainted in the large hallway. and then someone dropped a scoop of potato salad in my lap...and I woke up.
Ok, that's it. I GUESS you can go ahead and see Jürgen in bed with the ho, but after that NO MORE DANIELLE STEELE FOR YOU.
yes, I think Danielle Steele is very bad for my psyche
How come YOU get the good dreams about Jürgen? I think I might have dreamed about him once, but he was just sorta hanging around in the background...I didn't get to talk to him...and I certainly didn't get to shake his hand. I hate you.
If I DID have a good dream about him, we'd be riding a giant anaconda thru a car wash, chugging tequila the while... Jürgen would swallow the worm... Then he'd slap the snake around to get the soap off it.
[Evidently Danielle Steele is bad for EVERYONE's psyche.
We ended up coming to two conclusions about JEWELS:
1) ROBIN HOOD: THE MOVIE may still be the Prochnow film we most love to
hate...but it probably isn't.
2) Though we prefer picking on Maid Marian, when you get right down to it
Sarah is Jürgen's worst ho ever. At least Marian made her feelings clear
up front. Sarah is doing nothing but stringing Joachim along for
no good reason. We still don't understand why she went to bed with him. Not
only wasn't she happy about it afterward, she wasn't happy about it before
either. He's getting ready to make love to her, and she looks like she
wants to vomit. Sarah, hon - if you're not going to do it right, don't do
it at all. Don't have sex with a man because you feel sorry for him. Just
give him pie and coffee and send him home.
In fact, Sarah has inspired enough venom now that I threw it into "Uma, Go Home" as being thematically related...but much more of this and Sarah's going to get a little fan page of her own on this website.
Incidentally, the joke about Jürgen's singing was just a joke - as far as we know. We've never heard him do any real singing (loud, clear and solo), but the scraps we've been exposed to make us suspect it may not be his thing. If we are wrong about that, we beg forgiveness. Most of us are serious music connoisseurs and there ain't nuthin' better than a good singer, even if it's just a good amateur. Inability to sing isn't a character flaw, but having seen Das Boot, Kill Cruise, and Jewels, we have decided to err on the side of caution and razz Jürgen for his singing until we know for sure whether or not he deserves it. -ed.]