Lace 2 Mini Series Youtube

[Eboni Kleifgen]

Thestory opens circa 1980 at an abandoned chateau in the Swiss Alps, once a prestigious boarding school, L'Hirondelle. Internationally famous film siren, Lili, travels from there to a private meeting with the elderly Hortense Boutin, whom Lili knows was paying money on behalf of one of the school's students to a family which adopted the student's illegitimate child. Lili is the child, now grown up.

An attempt by the school's headmaster Monsieur Chardin to expel the girls is thwarted when they unearth photographs of him in a homosexual tryst with the school's chauffeur, Paul. They blackmail Chardin into allowing them to stay and graduating them with honors. The child is placed with a foster family. On their behalf, Maxine's aunt, Hortense Boutin, agrees to pay money to Felix and Angelina Dassin, a French couple who consent to raise the child until her real mother establishes herself and can come back for her someday.

The three girls, on the verge of success in their respective careers, receive a report that the child has been killed in an auto accident. Consumed with guilt and shame, the three friends have a falling out and go their separate ways. In fact, Lili survived. Felix and Angelina were gunned down by Hungarian Soldiers after the accident. She was placed in a detention camp on the Eastern Bloc, where she spent the next ten years before finally escaping and eventually transforms herself into a film sex symbol.

Employing a private investigator, Lili tracks the payments to her adopted parents to Hortense, and through her, finds out about the three school friends and their pact. She knows one of them is her mother. Pagan Trelawney is now Lady Swann, a British aristocrat and the wife of a cancer researcher; Judy Hale has become a journalist, war correspondent, and publisher of Lace magazine; while Maxine Pascal is now the Countess de Chazalle, a French socialite. Hortense insists to Lili that the child is dead. But Lili defiantly proclaims "They'll wish I was. They made their schoolgirl pact and sent me to Hell--I'll teach them what I learned there!" As she leaves, the revelation proves to be too much for Hortense to bear and she suffers a fatal heart attack and dies.

After Hortense's funeral, which Maxine, Pagan and Judy all attend and where she witnesses the extent of their estrangement from one another, Lili inveigles herself in the lives of the three women, promising each of them something of value: for Judy, an exclusive interview for her magazine; to Pagan, a very sizable donation to her cancer society charity and for Maxine, to stop dating her son. But she also intends to ruin them if they do not reveal which of them is her mother. She assembles the three and challenges them with the mini-series' most famous line: "Incidentally...which one of you bitches is my mother?" The second part of the mini-series is driven largely by flashbacks to the three women's young adulthood, charting their career successes and returning occasionally to the present where all three are in the company of the woman who claims to be the abandoned daughter. Lili, at the end of the flashbacks, again tries to force a confession from them, but they still remain silent. Infuriated, Lili orders them to leave, but says she intends to keep the promises she made them regardless. As she ascends to her bedroom, she shocks the women by revealing the full details of her birth to the trio.

Later in the hotel bar, Judy, Pagan and Maxine all confirm that Lili was telling the truth and they all humorously agree that she is better than all of them put together. Maxine comments that "Well, at least she brought us all back together. I missed you - I really did." That last declaration finally repairs their damaged relationship. They agree Lili must be told the truth with Judy stating that this time, Lili's real mother is on her own in doing so.

Lili receives a phone call from the hotel manager, telling her that her mother wants to see her. A pair of high heels can be seen walking up the stairs. Finally, Judy Hale comes into the room and beckons Lili to come closer. Lili slowly rises and walks toward Judy, and the two embrace.

Lace was produced by Gary Adelson, Preston Fischer, Lynn Guthrie and David Jacobs. The original music, including the title theme, was composed by Nick Bicat. It was directed by William Hale, from a script by Elliott Baker.

The novel on which Lace is based, also titled Lace, was written by Shirley Conran. It was first published in the United States by Simon & Schuster on July 1, 1982. The hardcover edition ran to 604 pages. In the book there is a fourth "mother", a journalist named Kate, but this character does not appear in the adaptation, in which Judy is the journalist.

We also debuted our new Hot Dog grill. For its inauguration, we bought Nathan's dogs and mustard and sauerkraut. I am, after all, from New York. The hot dogs were terrific. Sadly, the entertainment wasn't.

In 1984, Phoebe Cates starred as Lili in the mini-series LACE. I never saw it (which in retrospect is probably what led to Phoebe breaking up with me...idiot me), but I do remember LACE being talked about a lot. The first night ended with Lili cornering three women and delivering what they must have hoped would become a classic line - "Which one of you bitches is my mother?!" Oh my! How edgy! Night two was devoted to the answer. This format was repeated the following year in LACE II with Lili asking for help to find out "which one of these bastards is my father." I'm still waiting for LACE III, where Lili lines up three poodles and asks, "which one of you bitches is my doggie?"

Here's the plot, but I warn you - LACE II is a soap opera, so it's going to get a bit messy here. Lili is now a huge movie star. In fact, the show opens with a man painting a massive billboard of her in Times Square. That's how big she is. Her mother Judy Hale (Deborah Raffin, taking over the role from LACE's Bess Armstrong) runs a magazine called Lace. She shows Lili a book she was writing about her life. Though she changed all the names, she didn't change the initials. It's here Lili discovers that her dad was a Vietnam soldier who was killed in action. When Lili wants to read more, Judy doesn't let her.

Lili goes to shoot a movie, and mom Judy goes to a dangerous part of the world (the jungles of Thailand, I think) to interview the reclusive General Zedd who has a small army hiding in a secluded area. But she's fooled by a man in cahoots with the general, and is held hostage for $1 million, money to advance their cause. At the film shoot, which looks more like a Duran Duran video, Lili is threatened by two henchmen who give her a week to come up with the million. Lili, who's made of strong stuff, tries to get the money herself. She asks the movie producer for the mil, and when he turns her down she walks off the film. Then she speaks to her mom's editor at Lace, and he tells her no. She then visits Mr. Cliff, a stately, prominent banker and the father of her dead dad. She threatens to tell the world that she is his illegitimate granddaughter (as if that will hurt his career), and he laughs her off. Lili looks in Mom's book and discovers that her mother lied to her. Her dad couldn't have been her dad because he was unable to father children.

It's really hard to believe that such a huge movie star and magazine can't find money to save her mother's life. But they can't. So there's only one smart move for her to play. Call the FBI.

No, I was joking. Lili's has a plan of her own. She asks the two other women (remember, in LACE there were three women who might have been her mom), Pagan (Brooke Adams) and Maxine (Arielle Dombasle) to find out who her dad is. This is just dumb. They're going to kill her mom in a few days...and she wants to find her dad? So her thinking is that after 20 years of not knowing he has a kid, some stranger is going to hand her a million bucks? I mean, what if he's a cashier at Del Taco? What kind of plan is this, Lili?

Lili tells Pagan and Maxine that Judy, for reasons unknown to all of mankind, wrote three versions of the ending to her book. In each, Judy was raped by a different man. And now it's their job to find out which one this rapist/dad is, blackmail him for the cool mil, then send the mil to Thailand and free her mom.

Speaking of her mom - her kidnapper tells Judy he will kill her if Lili doesn't come through with the cash. So she grabs a fork and rips his eyes out. No, I'm joking again. Actually, Judy does something even worse. She sleeps with him. I guess she caught a dose of Stockholm Syndrome in the jungle. Afterwards, he tells her again that he will kill her. And it is here, finally, that she plunges those forks in his eyes. Nope. I was joking yet again. Now she walks out of the hut all mad and stuff.

Anyway, through flashbacks of Pagan, Judy and Maxine (almost the Andrews Sisters!) in boarding school in what I think is the Swiss Alps, we learn the identities of the three prospective father-slash-rapists. One is a cocky hockey player-turned-famous orchestra conductor. Another is the helicopter-flying King Abdullah of Sydon. And the third, and I kid you not, is an astronaut!

Well, that's all for now kids. I'll just tell you that each woman (Pagan, Maxine, and Lili) split up to visit these men. They each threaten them with blackmail, and are each scoffed at. In the end, the real dad comes through with the money (see SPOILER at end). And just like the three men and Mr. Cliff the banker didn't care, neither do we. So the whole movie is sort of pointless.

LACE II (that's a Roman numeral, not an eleven!) is a real dairy product. It's nearly 100% cheese. But there's also buckets of milking as well. You don't get to know who the dad is until the final minute. And they sure milk that for all it's worth.

In a move to save mankind, LACE II remains unavailable on DVD and even VHS. Truth be told, it wasn't bad enough to make us want to slit our throats (no, we have the movie RIVER RED for that honor), it was simply...nothing. A mix of "who cares" and "so what".

The real star of this screening was the commercials from 1988 (though LACE II aired in '85, I must have taped a rerun in '88). These ads are so '80s-specific. Lots of Linn Drums and Bryan Adams-y jingles. All fake tough guys singing about things like orange juice as if they're saving the world. But we did get to see a ton of celebrity testimonials, including Roger Rabbit pimping Coca Cola, Steve Landsberg shilling dog food, Mike Tyson selling Pepsi, pre-FRIENDS Matt LeBlanc for Heinz, Dom DeLuise for Ziploc, and Whoopi Goldberg for some cause I can't recall. A teen Jerry O'Connell also appeared in a Ragu commercial. The funny thing is how close these commercials and LACE II are. It almost felt like one long movie, or one very long Mentos ad.

So it's a pass on the 240 minute fondue titled LACE II. Even if you like ostentation, it's just too long to waste your life on. I mean, at 4 hours, you can see three different bad movies instead of one. I hear the original LACE was much better. It's in the Random Movie Club library, so perhaps one day we'll see it. And perhaps on that same day we'll stick forks in our eyes. And this time I'm not joking.

SPOILER: Was Lili's father the conductor, the astronaut or the king? Yes! He was! Well, I'm tempted not to tell you. I mean, I suffered, why shouldn't you? But I'll take the high road and die so that you may live. But you still have a few seconds to vote. I voted and got it right. How will you do? Perhaps I can milk this myself for four hours. Or perhaps I'll just tell you now. Yeah, I'll tell you now. It was not the astronaut. So now it's either the king or the conductor. Hmmm. Okay, it wasn't the conductor either. That means it's the king. See? Who cares? So the king fathered Lili, which makes him the rapist, and in his country that's a crime worthy of beheading. But will Lili, who is so famous that she is holding a press conference to divulge her father's real name, let the world know? Naw. Darling Lili will also take the high road and save the dad she never met. And in the process, set the rapist free.

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