User Reviews

Given the title of this miniseries, I thought I was going to see the Vivien Leigh-Larry Olivier story. That is not what this is, much to my dismay. Instead, we have here the story of Olivier and Leigh leading an Old Vic tour of Australia during 1947 or 1948.

The screenplay attempts to use this year's tour as a microcosm of the Leigh-Olivier relationship. And that's the problem. The film is mostly talk rather than action, or, more specifically, mostly arguing between Olivier and Leigh, which quickly becomes boring. In addition to all the dialogue, much of it expository, there are newsreels that provide transitions and still further exposition.

We need a backstory. This film should have shown the origins of the Leigh-Olivier romance, and then have shown us what lead up to their trouble. Instead of being the whole story, the Australian tour should have been a ten-minute episode in the Olivier-Leigh story.

Apparently, Leigh did meet Peter Finch in Australia, and the two had a sexual encounter there. Also, Finch met Olivier there and managed to negotiate with him a position with the Old Vic Company, arriving in England the day after Leigh and Olivier returned from the tour.

We see Leigh's breakdowns here, and Elsie Beyer, manager of the Old Vic tour, tells Olivier that Leigh is mentally ill, that she'd seen patients like Leigh when she was a nurse, earlier in her life. It is with Elsie's announcement that Olivier begins to understand and accept just what he has on his hands with Leigh.

Throughout the film, the characters never came to life. I was never drawn into their situation, made to care for them. And there was little narrative thrust, since I knew exactly where the Olivier-Leigh relationship was bound.

A significant contribution to the miniseries' failure--beyond the writing and the plebeian TV-style direction--is the casting. Anthony Higgins bears no physical resemblance to Olivier at all. He came across as a mundane, all-purpose TV series type actor. Mel Martin, who played Vivien, does manage in some scenes to look like Vivien, but most of the time she does not. Jerome Ehlers does show a probable resemblance to the young Peter Finch. None of these actors does a good job in his/her role, and I don't think their failure can all be blamed on the faulty script and mundane direction. They are all walking through this, just waiting to collect their paychecks and get on to the next assignment.

Jackie Kelleher as Elsie Beyer is the only actor who impressed me, probably because her character was the only one that wasn't one note. Elsie undergoes a change from a hard-as-nail company manager to a more sympathetic and understanding woman before the film is over.