`Andersonville' Captures Essence Of War's Horror

Director John Frankenheimer's cinematic know-how, a host of capable character actors, a workable script by David Rintels and the contributions of production designer Michael Hana and Civil War historian Dale Fetzer have pulled together this engrossing two-part movie from what originally might seem like unpromising material.

Mainly set in that infamous Confederate prison in Georgia in which more than 32,000 Union soldiers were held in the final months of the Civil War. "Andersonville" holds one's attention and interest, as well as sympathies, as a panorama of misery and death, courage and loyalty unfolds.

Andersonville was also the subject of a bestseller by MacKinlay Kantor in the 1950s, so popular that it was scheduled to be filmed then. The movie failed to materialize - and Rintels' script licks some of the problems that must have stymied filmmakers at the time. Mainly he focuses on two Union soldiers - Josiah Day and Sergeant McSpaden, excellently portrayed by Jarrod Emick and Frederick Forrest - and we see Andersonville in all of its ramifications through their eyes.

Plenty of energy

Considering the prison stories unfold in confined areas to begin with, Rentels and Frankenheimer have managed to give the film a great deal of energy and action. (And Frankenheimer is no stranger to a prison locale - think "Birdman of Alcatraz.)" "Andersonville" begins on a battlefield when a group of Union soldiers are captured and then transported to Andersonville. There's action inside the camp, too, as we learn that Union soldiers were not above victimizing their fellow prisoners, which often resulted in violence. There's a tense escape attempt, with prisoners chased down by dogs, a near riot that takes place inside the camp and is masterfully filmed, as well as turbulent courtroom scene - and all of these major set pieces are interspersed with vignettes that dramatize the details of prison life, utilizing an exceptionally large cast.

The set for "Andersonville" covered 27 acres; some of the panoramic shots are very nearly as impressive as the famed "Burning of Atlanta" scene in "Gone With the Wind." The attention to detail helps give the film the feeling of a documentary, although actual photographs of Andersonville show that no matter how drab and miserable the movie may paint Andersonville, it's still less terrible than the real thing. (There's only one serious photographic flaw: In the final scenes, as the prisoners are leaving Andersonville, an overhead shot of a long winding line of prisoners dramatizes the size and scope of the camp but a great many of the men appear to be wearing clean white shirts - an impossibility given the horrible sanitary conditions, the squalor and mud of the camp.) But that's a small error in what otherwise is a compelling and involving movie that re-creates a part of the Civil War period without any false sentimentality.

Other featured performers

In addition to Emick and Forrest, there are also important contributions by Jan Triska as the hated Captain Wirz, commandant of the camp; Cliff DeYoung as a sergeant who escapes and Ted Marcoux as a soldier befriended by Josiah Day.

But "Andersonville" is not a movie in which the acting is the primary aspect. Here it's Frankenheimer's ability to re-create another time and another place, and to get the details accurate and authentic, that makes this an important addition to cinematic records of our nation's darkest times. However, one of the most powerful scenes wasn't re-created: At the close, the camera pans over the Andersonville cemetery, now a National Cemetery, where 12,914 inmates are buried.

Simon strikes out ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Jake's Women," "CBS Playhouse 90" drama, 9 p.m. Sunday, KSTW-TV. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Usually you can count on Neil Simon for some laughs along with insights into the continuing battle between men and women, but even Simon strikes out occasionally - and "Jake's Women," one of his more recent plays which has been adapted for TV by the author, appears to be an example.

Jake, played by Alan Alda (and probably an alter ego for Simon), is a successful writer who hasn't a clue about women. As the film opens, a crisis has arisen in his marriage to Maggie, his second wife, played by Anne Archer. She suggests a trial separation. Jake doesn't understand why she feels as she does and he spends the rest of the play conferring with the several women in his life whom he conjures up in his imagination, trying to sort out his life.

These include Julie Kavner as his down-to-earth sister, Joyce Van Patten as his therapist, Kimberly Williams and Ashley Peldon as his daughter (at various ages), Mira Sorvino as his deceased first wife and Lolita Davidovich as a new girlfriend.

Glenn Jordan directs and tries to give the production a slick and glossy New York veneer. But the plain truth is that Jake is a bore who doesn't deserve any of these women (with the exception of his sister), and his continual self-absorption quickly becomes tiresome. Alda's standardized Alda performance doesn't help much, either, and the trick of having various women pop in and out of Jake's imagination soon becomes pointless because it's impossible to care about Jake.

Another loser ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Dalva,"

"ABC Sunday Night Movie," 9 p.m., KOMO-TV -----------------------------------------------------------------

Another clinker. "Dalva" is like some vanity production which allows Farrah Fawcett to look fabulous in chic country-western duds and listen to lines like: "Have you always known you were beautiful?" So much sepia-toned detail is crammed into a kind of precede before th story (by Jim Harrison of "Legends of the Fall") gets started that it takes a while before you figure out where all this is going. And by that time you don't care.

It all involves a family journal about farming in Nebraska in the 19th century, treatment of Native Americans, city vs country living, the search for a lost son and having to make a choice between Peter Coyote and Powers Boothe. The former is a kind of happy absent-minded professor who is great sex; the latter is a rugged Native American who loves the land and is great sex. What's poor Dalva to do? Who cares? Rod Steiger is doing Burl Ives as Dalva's grandfather and about the only tolerable performance is by Carroll Baker as Fawcett's mom.

`Lake' is a mess ----------------------------------------------------------------- "In the Lake of the Woods,"

"Fox Tuesday Night Movie," 8 p.m. KCPQ-TV -----------------------------------------------------------------

Tim O'Brien's highly praised novel, "In the Lake of the Woods," won numerous awards in 1994, but it has been turned into a mess of a movie starring Peter Strauss and Kathleen Quinlan.

It gets off to a promising start: Strauss plays a successful young politician about to win a U.S. Senate race in Minnesota - until, on the eve of elections, it is revealed he participated in a massacre (not unlike My Lai) during his vietnam service.

He loses the election and he and his wife (Quinlan) go to a lakeside cabin to lick their wounds. Eventually his wife disappears. Did she flee on he own? Did he kill her? The movie givers you a chance to choose either option, (For Suicide, Press 1; for murder, Press 2).

It's difficult to believe the information about the politician's involvement in the massacre wouldn't have been previously uncovered, especially since we're shown flashbacks of hearings that must have been public. Secondly, after the movie moves to the cabin, it loses all its energy and vitality and drifts aimlessly. Thirdly, director Carl Schenkel has opted for the gimmick of interviewing various people who knew the politician, commenting directly to the camera, which quickly becomes tiresome, since none of the comments are enlightening.

Strauss does moody very well, and Quinlan is appealing. The Vietnam scenes, however, fail to provide the kind of repulsion and horror they're supposed to. In the end, "In the Lake of the Woods" fizzles out rather like a wet firecracker.