children of fortune Archives

Children of Fortune. One of the little Holy Grails of the Virginia Madsen collectors out there. Not an easy one to come by this. Up there with Babylon Fields or Hatfield and McCoys at least.

It’s a TV movie from 2000 made for CBS. It follows the story of Navy Detective Dave Passenger (James Brolin) as he is sent to investigate a murder in a small Arizona community named Fortune.

Nothing particularly unusual with any of that. Well except that this particular small Arizona community practices polygamy. And Dave also decides to take his estranged teenage daughter, Erica (Amanda Fuller) along for the ride to help with the investigation for some much needed bonding.

OK. Maybe, there is a bit more to it than him just deciding to bring her along. He’s taken her in after she goes off the rails a bit, they’ve not been long reunited when he gets the call about the murder. Not wanting to abandon her when they’ve just started to get to know each other, and not having a lot of other options, he brings her along. They’re met with some hostility when they arrive in town, but the investigation seems to be pretty much open and shut soon enough when the main suspect, a fella by the name of Shane (Kris Lemche), is caught pretty quickly.

Job done, promises to visit the Grand Canyon are made and all done. Right?

Wrong.

Shane might not be as guilty as he’s made out to be. He asks to see Dave while he’s being held at the local jail and says as much, but keeps it all mysterious and does that telling him everything but without saying anything thing.

They still plan to leave the next day, they get breakfast but something is niggling at Dave.

He meets Ingrid (Virginia Madsen) and asks if they can talk and she’s only too happy to oblige. She seems convinced that Shane couldn’t be the murderer when questioned about the whole situation. And as it turns out she’s the local Sheriff’s daughter, which is convenient. She’s recently moved back to Fortune after living away in New York for a while so she’s got a slightly different perspective on a lot of things. It’s not long before Dave realises there’s more going on here than meets the eye. The more he listens to what people have to say, the less he likes it.

Dave continues his investigation much to the annoyance of the town folk who just want him and Erica gone.

There aren’t any real surprises in what comes next. Dave and Erica do some bonding, Dave and Ingrid get to know each other better and develop feelings for each other. Dave does some more digging into what’s going on in Fortune.

Etc.

Was it worth all the effort of tracking down? Yes and no. It’s not a bad movie, but… It is a bit odd. Quite heavy in the justification of the whole polygamy thing as the residents of Fortune explain themselves to Dave and his daughter. Quite corny in the execution of how these two strangers bring out the apparent unhappiness within the community about how things are.
The story itself isn’t going to blow anyone away, but it has nearly a half decent twist at the end, two, technically.

Virginia Madsen does a decent enough job, but it’s a pretty muted performance, which I guess is kind of the point. No strong woman archetype here, no femme fatale sexpot, no concerned Mother doing anything and everything for her kids. No real hardship in her life, but an acceptance of who she is and where she’s from with what’s expected of her very firmly at the front of her mind. In many ways it’s a testament to her abilities as an actress for her to pull this kind of role off.

Normally I’d say it was a Sunday afternoon film, one to watch if it was on. But given the hoops to track it down I’m half tempted to say it’s worth a watch just for the novelty value alone.

If you’re a Virginia Madsen Collector, then yeah. If you’re just idly curious then maybe not.

Which brings me to…

Availability:

By fair means or foul is the expression that comes into play here. It’s not easy to find. It’s not available to buy, I don’t think it ever has been. Conflicting information of if and or when it’s shown on TV. And not available on any streaming platform, including YouTube, which is normally the last refuge for films like this.

I did manage to find one place that would sell me a copy. It’s about as dodgy as it gets though, the disc starts with it being selected from some kind of PVR menu and then the film is watermarked with the TV station logo throughout (see captures). It’s also still got the adverts still in which date the recording to around 2010.

And then, I had to order it twice. International shipping saw a damaged disc arrive the first time around. There was no response from the seller when I tried to contact them to complain. So I left it alone. Whatever, right?

I tried again as I was getting close to the end of these write ups, I filled in the special instructions for delivery on the website to ensure adequate protection was given to the packaging – a good piece of cardboard would do.

The disc arrived undamaged the next time, but not protected as I asked. I was lucky.

With all that in mind, if you want to roll your dice then you can do so…

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