American hustle: 'Franklin' tells how one of the Founding Fathers 'seduced' the French monarchy

Apr. 11—Tim Van Patten knows that each film or TV project is a lot of hard work.

The director is at the helm of the Apple TV+ series "Franklin," which airs its first three episodes on Friday, April 12.

"It was hard work, as it always is," he says. "Any day of shooting, it's hard work. But when you're in Paris for a year and a half, your hours are not as long as they are in America. You're working with a brilliant cast with a brilliant script and a wonderful production and crew. That takes the sting out of all of it."

The series stars Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin, Noah Jupe as Temple Franklin, Thibault de Montalembert as Comte de Vergennes, Daniel Mays as Edward Bancroft, Ludivine Sagnier as Madame Brillon, Eddie Marsan as John Adams, Assaad Bouab as Beaumarchais, Jeanne Balibar as Madame Helvetius and Théodore Pellerin as Marquis de Lafayette.

The journey of bringing the gripping eight-episode "Franklin" to the screen began when producer Tony Krantz optioned Stacy Schiff's book "A Great Improvisation: Benjamin Franklin, France, And The Birth of America."

Writers Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder, who share a fascination with the people and events that helped shape the United States, were excited to take on the challenge of adapting Schiff's work.

Ellis is a Santa Fe resident.

The series tells the story of when Benjamin Franklin arrives in France in December 1776.

At this point in history, Franklin is the most famous American in the world, celebrated and fawned over for his electrical experiments.

But a different kind of lightning strikes when it appears that he has arrived to solicit monies and munitions for the colonies in revolt.

The court of King Louis XVI at Versailles, licking its wounds from the last war with England, refuses to grant Franklin an audience.

But its canny foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, seeing a chance to humiliate France's longtime rival and restore French hegemony, opens backchannel discussions with the unofficial American envoy.

Franklin's every move is watched by "noses" and informers for Jean-Charles Lenoir, the omniscient, shadowy Paris police chief, whose eyes extend even to the private corridors of Versailles. Sometimes aiding and sometimes obstructing Franklin's efforts is a gallery of lively historical characters: Madame Brillon, Franklin's attractive musical neighbor, trapped in a loveless marriage and seeking a sympathetic heart; the flamboyant playwright Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais, who doubles as a gunrunner; Franklin's trusted compatriot Edward Bancroft, who also happens to be a British double agent; and the seductive Madame Helvetius, whose salons are notorious for their alleged debaucheries and in whom Franklin finds a kindred spirit.

Then there is Temple Franklin, the 17-year-old illegitimate son of Franklin's own illegitimate, Loyalist son. Franklin hopes to launch Temple on a diplomatic career while in France, but the boy's path veers in an unexpected direction when he falls in with the Marquis de Lafayette and his band of America-crazed aristocrats. The colonies had declared their independence without the means to achieve it; as Franklin is sorely aware, the success of any revolution rests squarely on whatever assistance he can extract abroad.

Franklin's fortunes rise and fall as the colonies fail to achieve success on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the British step up a campaign of intimidation, dispatching master spy Paul Wentworth to infiltrate Franklin's inner circle and eliminate him should other means to thwart American ambitions prove ineffective.

Achieving the alliance is only the first step in a long game of geopolitical chess that pushes Franklin to the limits of his abilities and physical endurance. Tensions reach a breaking point with the arrival of John Adams. Dispatched by Congress to reinforce Franklin's efforts, Adams nearly undoes all of Franklin's efforts.

As the final victory — a guarantee of independence and peace with England — comes within Franklin's grasp, his hold on Temple continues to loosen. Egged on by the ne'er-do-well son of Franklin's French hosts, Temple embarks on ever more wayward adventures, plunging into an affair with an actress at the Comédie-Française and plotting a career as a courtier at Versailles. In the end, America's first international player manages to outsmart and outmaneuver his opponents on all sides, making use of his considerable charms and wiles even if it means a few betrayals along the way. With his mission accomplished and after nine years in Paris, Franklin returns to America, at age 79, to set eyes for the first time on the country he has done so much to create.

Van Patten says he's covered many historical shows and wasn't really looking to do another one.

Then the script for "Franklin" came along.

"The thing that really hooked me about it was, it was set in 18th century France, which is an incredibly fascinating period of time," he says. "It was really this slice of American history that, in my opinion, felt untold. ... I had no idea that Franklin seduced the French, an absolute monarchy, to supply money, men and arms to overthrow another monarchy. That's one of the greatest American hustles of all time."