Love’s Sweet Song takes in the standalone episodes, Ireland, April 1916 and London, May 1916 and – as far as these Frankenstein’s monster mash-ups of episodes go – works reasonably well in terms of the story moving logically from one to the other. Sure, there’s the bridging scenes, filmed at a later time, where Remy’s moustache is out of control and Indy’s hair is about 50% longer, then when you get to the next episode (which is ostensibly happening within hours of the bridging scenes), Remy has no moustache at all (!) and Indy’s hair is back under control, but you just have to roll with it. Clumsy, but not terrible.
(I never got around to mentioning that this happened a lot during the Corey Carrier movie-length stories, too. He was noticeably older in many of the bridging scenes. Discombobulating at times!)
Ireland, April 1916 is a bit of a mixed bag. Landing in Dublin (after leaving Mexico in the previous story), Indy and Remy gain work in a bar where the scenes are largely Remy washing up and Indy being told to “hurry up” every 10 seconds, working the bar itself. Not terrible, but not high adventure, either.
During this period, Indy meets a girl called Maggie, her brother Seán, and her friend Nuala. Through a misunderstanding, Maggie thinks Indy is an American millionaire, and is constantly getting him to buy her things like tea and cream cakes, and rides on fun fair amusements. None of this is really affordable to Indy who is trying to get enough money saved so he and Remy can take a ferry to London where they will join the Belgian army. The scenes are meant to be comedy, but I’ve always found them quite annoying as Indy allows himself to be put upon over and over. It’s less of a romantic relationship and more of a, “What can I get out of this guy today?” scenario and I don’t like seeing Indy used like that.
This story is also interspersed with Indy meeting a local playwright (also called Seán), who talks to him about the medium and the kind of plays he’d like to write. He even takes Indy along for a meeting with WB Yeats at one stage, where Yeats warmly praises, but still rejects, Seán’s latest writing efforts.
Just when you think all hope is lost, however, and the episode is becoming a sort of kitchen sink drama that is showing the era, but nothing of particular interest, it takes a sharp left turn. The Easter Rising kicks off and we have a section of really well-shot street fighting between Irish rebel forces and the British Army/Royal Irish Constabulary, in addition to the siege of the General Post Office in Dublin.
Maggie’s brother Seán is involved, tying Indy even closer to the action than he already was by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the aftermath of the uprising we see executions and imprisonment; the episode pulls no punches. Seán’s fate is left to the imagination as Indy has to leave for London, but if you dig a little, you learn the character was representing Seán Lemass who spent about a month in prison and, many decades later, actually became Taoiseach (or prime minister), of Ireland.
Similarly, if you dig a little on the local playwright Seán, he is meant to be Seán O’Casey who went on to become the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. These are good examples of how the series will often utilise characters “before they were famous” and, as such, can’t convey to the audience that the person is famous… because they haven’t got there yet. It’s actually a better set-up than Indy meeting everyone when they’re at the height of their fame. Sometimes it works in the opposite way, too. When Indy met Roosevelt in Africa, for example, he was no longer President of the USA. When he met Tolstoy, he was decades beyond being a famous writer. I think it’s done well.
Onto London, May 1916 and an episode I’ve always had a soft spot for. That said, I’m sorry, but I have to point out that, after showing Indy and Remy working hard for weeks in Ireland to simply survive (and leaving town with next to nothing), once they hit London, the topic of money isn’t mentioned again. Even though the guys aren’t working, we see fancy dinners, train trips, and even a loan from Indy to a war widow, comprising many bank notes. It all just magically happens. How? A missing episode where Indy and Remy robbed a bank? It’s not the worst plot hole, but it’s sloppy for those paying attention.
That is one of my only complaints about this episode which otherwise shines thanks to… Elizabeth Hurley. Although she was already 27 years old here, she looks incredibly young and fresh and a perfect companion to Sean Patrick Flanery. The two of them just radiate off the screen and their romance – which begins with an hilarious pissing contest between them to see who knows the most foreign languages – is warm and believable. This isn’t Maggie from Dublin wanting another cream bun – Hurley’s character, Vicky, is a suffragette who knows what she wants and takes on Miss Seymour at one stage and, to top that, even Winston Churchill later in the story. But far from being one-dimensional, she is fleshed out into a complete character. I love the way she travelled the world when she was young, much like Indy – hence her language ability. We even meet her family (her mother is played by the legendary Vanessa Redgrave), and the parting of the pair when Indy has to go to war is genuinely sad.
I really like the way their split is played out over two scenes. One of them is a near-proposal scene the night before Indy leaves (and again, for a broke kid, where did he get the engagement ring?), where despite the fact she is crazily in love with him, Vicky has the most level-headed response to not wanting to be engaged to someone going to war that I can think of. Naturally, Indy is crushed and upset. The second scene is the cliche – but still so sad – train station scene we’ve seen done in many films, where we know Vicky hasn’t changed her mind, per se, but she does want to see Indy one last time – for all she knows, it’s the last time she’ll ever see him in her life. Their faces, and the score, sell this one big time.
If the first half of Ireland, April 1916 was a little more interesting, this movie-length feature would be an overall 8.5/10 for me. However, with the pre-Easter uprising scenes being a little ho-hum and even annoying at times, this gets pulled back to an 8/10. It’s still good though – especially once in London.