"Million Dollar Babies" is tragedy times five.
The (mostly) true story of the world-famous Dionne quintuplets, which airs Sunday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CBS (Ch. 5), will bring tears to your eyes. And make you wonder how all of this could possibly have happened.It all began on May 28, 1934, in rural northern Ontario when - much to everyone's surprise - Elzire Dionne gave birth to five tiny baby girls. The doctor in attendance, Allan Roy Dafoe, told the babies' father, Oliva, not to hold out any hope that any of the two-pounds-or-less babies would survive.
But they did.
And the tragedy began.
Because the parents were poor and French-Canadian, the assumption was that they were incapable of caring for their own children. This despite the fact that they already had five healthy, happy offspring.
Dr. Dafoe (Beau Bridges), who portrays himself as a simple country doctor, is openly contemptuous of the French in general and the Dionnes in particular. He basically forbids the family from having any contact with their own children, and Oliva (Roy Dupuis) and Elzire (Celine Bonnier) - fearful for the babies' lives - reluctantly go along.
But its when the press catches wind of the story that things really take a turn for the worse.
Helena Reid (Kate Nelligan), a popular radio personality, is the one truly fictional character in "Million Dollar Babies." But she represents the excesses of the press of the '30s.
Reid makes a hero out of Dr. Dafoe and villains out of the Dionnes, portraying them as ignorant peasants who want only to exploit their children. Oliva, overwhelmed and reluctant to take charity, signs a contract to take his children to the Chicago World's Fair, where they will be cared for at a state-of-the-art American hospital as well as being exhibited.
At this point, the Canadian government steps in, taking the children away from their parents and giving Dafoe total control over their lives. Dafoe becomes a celebrity - and takes his newfound fame far too seriously.
The good doctor and the government both exploit the quints to the fullest. A "hospital" is built across the road from the Dionne farm, purportedly to care for the girls but even more to exhibit them. "Quintland" soon becomes a huge tourist attraction, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to the province - and lining Dafoe's pockets as well.
As it turns out, both Dafoe and the government basically stole money from five babies.
Meanwhile, the Dionnes are kept away from their children. And, while Dafoe truly loves the girls, he raises them in a sterile, clinical environment where they are treated more as lab animals than as little girls.
Which sets up Part 2 of this movie, as the Dionnes battle to regain custody of their children.
Bridges does a marvelous job, taking a character who could have been pure villain and giving him enough substance to make him understandable, if not likable. Both Bonnier and Dupais are excellent as the overwhelmed parents caught up in an incredible phenomenon. And Nelligan manages to bring to life the entire press in one character.
Working with a fine script by Suzette Couture and outstanding sets, costumes and other fittings of the '30s, director Christian Duguay takes a tragic tale and tells is sensitively, but without becoming maudlin.
Just don't expect any happy endings here. What was done to the Dionne quintuplets ruined not just their lives, but the lives of almost everyone around them.
The miniseries ends when the quints were returned to their parents. Although they're 6 in the movie, in real-life they were 9.
And by that age, it was too late for them to become part of the family.
"They are totally estranged from their other brothers and sisters - there were six other children - and virtually estranged from their father and mother," said executive producer Bernard Zukerman in an interview with TV critics earlier this year. "It was a tragedy. This family was torn apart."
When the quints turned 18, they left the family - never to return.
Annette, Cecile and Yvonne are still alive, although all are in poor health. Emilie died in 1954, apparently from complications of epilepsy, and Marie died in 1970 - a possible suicide.
REALLY BAD LOCAL MOVIE: "Robin Cook's Mortal Fear" (Sunday, 8 p.m., Ch. 2) was filmed here in Salt Lake City.
And that's probably the only reason anyone would want to tune in and see this miserable piece of TV dreck.
What a stinker.
Joanna Kerns ("Growing Pains") stars as a doctor who is mourning the recent death of her husband. She's also part detective, or so it seems, because she's soon on the trail of a strange epidemic that seems to be killing her patients.
That trail leads to another doctor who works at the same hospital - a genetics genius who also happens to be dating a stripper. When he expires rather revoltingly right in front of our plucky heroine, she gets really suspicious.
(And that's just one of several distasteful, tacky scenes.)
Of course, at the same time she's beginning a romance with the hospital's handsome, charming chief administrator (Gregory Harrison).
To be blunt, the plot is derivative of any number of other movies of this genre. If you pay even the slightest bit of attention, you'll figure out whodunit halfway into the movie - or sooner.
And let's not forget the exploitation. "Mortal Fear" loses touch with reality in the first five minutes when the stripper in question starts performing at a hospital party.
(That's not the last we see of strippers, unfortunately.)
Among the reasons the producers came to Utah to film this teleflick was to use the old, empty Primary Children's Hospital as a location. It is, however, unrecognizable.
Local viewers will be able to pick out some local restaurants and other sites, but the setting for this movie is not Salt Lake City.
And the setting doesn't do anything to make a bad movie any better.
There are few things less worth watching than attempts at humor that aren't funny, a mystery that isn't mysterious, a thriller that isn't thrilling and a chiller that isn't chilling.
And "Robin Cook's Mortal Fear" is none of the above.