Themes: Miscarriage of Justice, Race Relations, Social Injustice
Main Cast: Lee Marvin, Richard Burton, Cameron Mitchell, Lola Falana, Luciana Paluzzi
Release Year: 1974
Country: US
Run Time: 112 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The setting is Atoka County, Alabama -- the time is somewhere after the peak of the civil rights movement, after cities such as Birmingham, Alabama were out of the headlines. The movement is coming to the sticks, including Atoka County, and a lot of the white residents don't like it and are prepared to commit felonious assault, rape, or murder to get their point across. In the middle of this powder keg are two men on either side of a very dangerous line -- County Sheriff "Big Track" Bascomb (Lee Marvin) and Mayor Hardy (David Huddleston). Each man is playing both ends against the middle in the impending race war -- Bascomb wants to keep the peace as best he can, blocking the local klavern of the Ku Klux Klan from their worst excesses and making sure that the Klan's business and the county's business remain separate; Hardy, who also owns the lumber company that employs most of the county and the bank on which most of the residents depend, wants a good environment for business, which includes keeping enough poor blacks around to do the most menial work for the miserable pay he's willing to fork over; this, in turn, requires that they be too scared to ask for too much, including better treatment, but not so scared that they leave the county altogether, which would wipe out his business. Between them is Breck Stancill (Richard Burton), an eighth-generation resident with lots of land but little money and even fewer friends; a wounded war veteran and loner, he still resents the lynching of his grandfather and no longer respects what the white south purports to stand for -- he's even allowed dispossessed blacks to live for free on his property, angering the poor whites around him even more. Bascomb would like Stancill to be a little less high profile, while Hardy would like him to sell out and disappear, and wouldn't mind it if the local Klan helped that process along by trying to kill him. Bascomb's balancing act fails because of two events -- Nancy Poteet (Linda Evans) is raped one night, apparently by a black man, which precipitates the murder of a black teenager and her being violently ostracized by the white community; and a civil rights rally is planned for the town, bringing in lots of "outside agitators" and getting the local klavern eager to act against them. The prime mover in all of this is Big Track's deputy, Butt Cut Bates (Cameron Mitchell), a hardcore klansman who won't be reined in by Hardy and who is not above raping a black woman prisoner (Lola Falana) that he's arrested illegally, or trying to kill Stancill; directly opposed to him is Garth (O.J. Simpson), a young black man who witnessed a Klan murder and, in response, gets a rifle and starts meting out justice on his own. Before it's over, a major part of the county is at war and the bodies are falling everywhere. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
David Huddleston - Mayor Hardy; John Alderson - Vernon Hodo; Jeanie Bell - Mary Anne; Charlie Briggs - Reporter; Susan Brown - Maybelle Bascomb; Ed Call - Mr. Shaneyfelt; Gary L. Catus - Charles Peck; Eve Christopher - Martha; Lee de Broux - Rev. Alverson; Linda Evans - Nancy Poteet; Virgil Frye - Johnson; John Pearce - Taggart; Vic Perrin - Hector; O.J. Simpson - Garth; Morgan Upton - Reporter; Wendell Wellman - Alan Bascomb; Spence Wil-Dee - Willy Washington; Bert Williams - Doctor; Hoke Howell - Bobby Poteet; David Ladd - Flagg; Scott Edmund Lane - Jim Hodo; Robert Porter - Rev. Josh Franklin; Larry Williams - Lightening Rod
Credit
Ridgeway Callow - First Assistant Director, Terence Young - Director, Gene Milford - Editor, Dale O. Warren - Composer (Music Score), Stu Gardner - Composer (Music Score), Mack Rice - Songwriter, Bettye Crutcher - Songwriter, John S. Poplin - Production Designer, Aldo Tonti - Cinematographer, Lloyd Ahern Sr. - Cinematographer, William Alexander - Producer, Ray Molyneaux - Set Designer, Samuel Fuller - Screenwriter, Millard Kaufman - Screenwriter, William Bradford Huie - Book Author
For his 1967 book, Huie had received death threats, and the KKK burned a cross on his front lawn.
Sam Fuller was the original director of the film, but left before shooting began. He was displeased with major changes to the script; however, he still gets a co-writing credit on the finished film.
Despite the casting of major stars, the film was not well received, with rumors that stars Lee Marvin and Richard Burton were both continuously drunk on the set. Burton's accent also wavers noticeably. It is notable for featuring O.J. Simpson in the role of a black militant.
