...due to the limitations of the production code. The 1955 film mainly shows the Cain and Abel like struggle of the two brothers, with James Dean playing the wilder brother, the brother that relates to his mother who is proprietress of a whore house in the town near where he and his brother live. What you never see is mom's back story. How did she get to where she is? This mini-series, set in the 50 years or so after the Civil War, answers some of those questions and has Jane Seymour stealing the show as Kate Trask, who seems born to be bad. From childhood on she is shown choosing evil at every turn, even resorting to murder if it suits her plans. In a parallel plot line there is the story of the Trask family - dad is an embezzler, Adam's mom commits suicide when she learns she has caught an STD from cheating on her husband, and the second wife is married mainly to care for the infant child of the now dead first wife. She is also the mother of Charles. The paths of Kate, Charles, and Adam eventually all converge after Kate is beaten badly by somebody even worse than herself, when she shows up on the brothers' front porch barely alive. Kate can show a soft side as long as it suits her - and it suits her long enough to get Adam to marry her. On her wedding night, she drugs Adam's drink so she can sleep with Charles. Although the movie never says it, you have to believe that Kate's twin boys may have different fathers - the wild Cal possibly being Charles' son and the sensitive Aron being Adam's. At any rate, Kate deserts the family as soon as she is recovered from childbirth and shoots Adam, leaving him for what she believes is dead, when he tries to stop her.
I really haven't spoiled anything for you here, because this is just the first half of the mini-series! The point is, in 1955 you could show just one wild troubled kid who didn't fit in with his family, but by 1981, post-Vietnam and post-Watergate, you could show generation after generation in multiple families loaded up with scandal and hypocrisy and nobody would even raise an eyebrow that this was not possible or even probable.
The other point is, Jane Seymour as Kate steals this mini-series almost entirely. Unlike every other character there is no gray here. She always acts in her own self interest and from the beginning seems to really hate men and enjoys tormenting them. Her sexuality is merely a means to that end. She is rather indifferent to women, but that doesn't mean she won't kill one if she gets in her way. However, in the cases of hurting or killing women she is like The Godfather - it is simply business, not pleasure.
So watch this and you'll never be able to see Jane Seymour quite the same again, especially if you watch reruns of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". Highly recommended.
I really haven't spoiled anything for you here, because this is just the first half of the mini-series! The point is, in 1955 you could show just one wild troubled kid who didn't fit in with his family, but by 1981, post-Vietnam and post-Watergate, you could show generation after generation in multiple families loaded up with scandal and hypocrisy and nobody would even raise an eyebrow that this was not possible or even probable.
The other point is, Jane Seymour as Kate steals this mini-series almost entirely. Unlike every other character there is no gray here. She always acts in her own self interest and from the beginning seems to really hate men and enjoys tormenting them. Her sexuality is merely a means to that end. She is rather indifferent to women, but that doesn't mean she won't kill one if she gets in her way. However, in the cases of hurting or killing women she is like The Godfather - it is simply business, not pleasure.
So watch this and you'll never be able to see Jane Seymour quite the same again, especially if you watch reruns of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". Highly recommended.