MovieChat Forums > East of Eden (1981) Discussion > Disappointed by this TV movie

Disappointed by this TV movie


The ads make it look like Jane Seymour as Cathy Ames will be in nearly 6 hours. I looked forward to beautiful Cathy's wicked ways to wreck havoc. Instead, Adam is in nearly 1 and half hour and Cathy has about 30 minutes top in the first part. The second part has 30 minutes of Cathy. Total: about 1 hour of Cathy in 1 and 2 part. Don't get me started on third part which nearly wrote Cathy off for good.

I am not crazy about Bottons brothers as Adam and Caleb. Too uninteresting and too much time devoted to them. Too bad, Hart as Aron was not featured long enough for viewers to understand him better. Sigh!!!

I sure liked Bruce as wicked Charles.

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Oh, I'm sorry, I guess you wanted something different than Steinbeck wanted to write about in the book, huh?

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Nah, I have read Steinbeck's East of Eden. I liked it better than TV Movie. It gives more detailed about Cathy... even though he offered no clues to her motives. I wish TV Movie covered Cathy's time in brothel, her meetings with her sons and husband, her blackmailing plans, her plans for sons in the future and plotting to kill the man responsible for murder attempt on her life and her death at her hands like the book mentioned. John went in more details what has becoming of her.

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ABC, Viacom, and the production company was only given 8 hours with commercials to make this film. Naturally something is gonna be cut. Even at 12 hours with commercials, Shogun was not complete. Do you expect every "Novel Made For Television" to have every scene from the first page to last in it? Even with today's movies that would be a large effort.

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I liked the miniseries which by and large to faithful to Steinbeck's novel. Seymour was a bone-chilling Cathy, but Timothy Bottoms was a washout. All in all, great show.

PS. I've seen the Kazan version, which I found exceptionally irritating, mostly due to James Dean's acting. Without Cathy's backstory, even Jo Van Fleet's performance left me wanting.

"The flip side of fear is understanding."

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