Word: whitelaw
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...soon as the bill was law, William Whitelaw, the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland-"the Supremo of Ulster," as the newspapers dubbed him-flew by helicopter to Windsor to accept his seals of office from Queen Elizabeth, and then proceeded to Belfast. One of his first tasks, he promised Parliament, would be to review the files of the internees-numbering some 720-and free some of them...
Following Whitelaw to Ulster were 600 more British troops, bringing the total number there to 15,000 men. They were sent to keep the peace during Ulster's traditional season of marching, which began last weekend with the Catholic commemoration of Dublin's 1916 Easter Rising, and ends with the Protestant parade of the Apprentice Boys of Derry in August...
...think. The plot, such as it is, consists of four strands: the foiled escape; the efforts of the garrison commander (Richardson) to move his prisoner from a damp villa to an even damper one; a couple of perfunctory sexual bouts by Napoleon with a married woman (Billie Whitelaw) and a 17-year-old groupie; and some dotty politicking (sample: "I want Vienna!") with Lord Sissal, who is making a deal to restore Napoleon to France on condition that he attack Prussia forthwith...
...left with two hours of Napoleon sitting in his villas, suffering cardiac spasms-a mild attack while mounting Billie Whitelaw, a worse one while mounting a horse-and grinding out fatuities like "Power is my art; I love it the way a musician loves his instrument." The routine virtuosity of good professional actors fills the gaps-but only with the kind of narcissism that mocks the story. No eagle, caged or free, could survive this taxidermy...
...passes most of his days pressed against an upstairs window, telescope to his eye, watching the human comedy unfold in the shops and tenement windows across the way. When he is not peeping, he is halfheartedly fighting off the advances of a maneater named Margaret (Billie Whitelaw) and trying to avoid the intricate political machinations of some of his father's henchmen...