This story of a black man (Juano Hernandez) falsely accused of shooting a white man in the back and about to be burned to death by a sullen crowd of Southern gentlemen, is considerably better than I'd remembered.
It's based on a story by Nobelist William Faulkner, known to Ernest Hemingway as "old corn-drinking mellifluous." Faulkner was a Mississippian and was not your garden variety liberal, not even Mississppi's version of "liberal." He always blamed slavery for the South's racial problems, never the South. And in one of his short stories, when a black man is being hustled into a car to be taken off and lynched, someone in the crowd interferes and tries to stop it. The black man in the car, hysterical with fear, lashes out and strikes his would-be rescuer. The rescuer belts him back.
I'm nobody's idea of a literary scholar but I rather liked Faulkner's early work, like "Mosquitoes." The writing was precise, evocative, and often funny. Later on, he became wildly experimental and a little glum, leaving me somewhere in the dust myself.
In any case, this story is nothing like the usual Hollywood fare motivated by white guilt and box office. Hernandez' character is proud -- too proud. He won't beg for mercy or help. He's too dignified to desire sympathy. He refuses to explain to his lawyer, David Brian, why or how he came to be standing over a white man shot in the back, and holding a smoking pistol. That's taking pride too far. Pride is always impractical but it usually doesn't jeopardize one's life. And Hernandez is no better or worse than any other black man in the South of 1926. He's not Sidney Poitier showing off his discernment and impeccable credentials.
The white folks aren't spared either, but neither are they denied humanity. Porter Hall is the first redneck peckerwood we get to meet and he looks the part, shabby, unshaven, angry, and armed. But he weeps over his murdered son, and he is amenable to reason.
It's a complicated murder mystery with racial overtones. I don't know why it's not as well known as some of the other films of the period that dealt with prejudice. Clarence Brown and his photographer have included some shots that are almost arty; two white hands and two black hands gripping the same bars of a jail cell.
I admired it because it depicts a community in which no one is a perfect type of anything, a characteristic that is something called verisimilitude because it resembles real life.
It's based on a story by Nobelist William Faulkner, known to Ernest Hemingway as "old corn-drinking mellifluous." Faulkner was a Mississippian and was not your garden variety liberal, not even Mississppi's version of "liberal." He always blamed slavery for the South's racial problems, never the South. And in one of his short stories, when a black man is being hustled into a car to be taken off and lynched, someone in the crowd interferes and tries to stop it. The black man in the car, hysterical with fear, lashes out and strikes his would-be rescuer. The rescuer belts him back.
I'm nobody's idea of a literary scholar but I rather liked Faulkner's early work, like "Mosquitoes." The writing was precise, evocative, and often funny. Later on, he became wildly experimental and a little glum, leaving me somewhere in the dust myself.
In any case, this story is nothing like the usual Hollywood fare motivated by white guilt and box office. Hernandez' character is proud -- too proud. He won't beg for mercy or help. He's too dignified to desire sympathy. He refuses to explain to his lawyer, David Brian, why or how he came to be standing over a white man shot in the back, and holding a smoking pistol. That's taking pride too far. Pride is always impractical but it usually doesn't jeopardize one's life. And Hernandez is no better or worse than any other black man in the South of 1926. He's not Sidney Poitier showing off his discernment and impeccable credentials.
The white folks aren't spared either, but neither are they denied humanity. Porter Hall is the first redneck peckerwood we get to meet and he looks the part, shabby, unshaven, angry, and armed. But he weeps over his murdered son, and he is amenable to reason.
It's a complicated murder mystery with racial overtones. I don't know why it's not as well known as some of the other films of the period that dealt with prejudice. Clarence Brown and his photographer have included some shots that are almost arty; two white hands and two black hands gripping the same bars of a jail cell.
I admired it because it depicts a community in which no one is a perfect type of anything, a characteristic that is something called verisimilitude because it resembles real life.