Five Film Favorites: Jailhouse Flicks

 

A recent Five Film Favorties column was devoted to courthouse dramas, films about trials. What should follow?

Jailhouse flicks, naturally.

Movies about people who are confined against their will have always appealed to me. Liking such movies goes all the way back to when I was a little kid. In those days, I suppose I felt like a prisoner a lot of the time, especially in school. In one way, or another, films with detainees as protagonists are usually about escape, real or imagined, which may have been part of the original lure of jailhouse flicks for me.

This Five Film Favorites list is devoted to movies set in civilian jailhouses/penitentiaries. So if the plot unfolds in a stockade or a brig it’s not included. For my purpose, this time, I’m saying they are military movies. 

Which means marvelous films like “The Hill” (1965) or “Stalag 17” (1953) must be left for another column’s consideration. The same goes for movies about captives who are hostages or kidnap victims. 

The films on this particular list are all pictures in which most of the action takes place in a penitentiary. They tell us about the torture of tedium that life in the big house entails, as well as the horrors. As all five are about men in confinement, they also tell us something about how mean and bleak a world without women can be.

• “Birdman of Alcatraz” (1962): B&W. 147 minutes. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter, Neville Brand, Telly Savalas, Betty Field. Note: A young recalcitrant prisoner kills a prison guard and winds up in solitary confinement for life. Years later he adopts a sparrow as a pet. Eventually, that leads to the lonely prisoner keeping other birds and he becomes an expert on treating avian diseases. Of course, there’s a cruel warden who tries to put the kibosh on the Birdman’s work and a test of wills ensues.

The Man With No Eyes in "Cool Hand Luke."

• “Cool Hand Luke” (1967): Color. 126 minutes. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Cast: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, J.D. Cannon, Jo Van Fleet, Dennis Hopper. Note: Luke Jackson (Newman) is a decorated WWII veteran who gets drunk, goes on a parking meter sabotaging spree and ends up in a Florida prison camp run by sadistic guards. This is the movie that put the catch phrase, “What we’ve got here is … failure to communicate,” into the lexicon of popular culture.

• “Dead Man Walking” (1995): Color. 122 minutes. Directed by Tim Robbins. Cast: Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Robert Prosky, Raymond J. Barry. Note: A prisoner awaiting his execution for a double murder asks a nun to assist him with an appeal; he claims his accomplice actually did the killing. As the condemned man and the nun get to know one another, and his days dwindle, his need to be honest with the only person who cares about him grows.

• “Papillon” (1973): Color. 151 minutes. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Cast: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Anthony Zerbe. Note: On his way to a French penal colony in the Caribbean Henri “Papillon” Charierre, a thief wrongly convicted of murder, befriends and protects Louis Degas, a forger. The story is about their grueling exploits to survive and escape. Papillon’s over-the-top will to resist his captors and be free are unforgettable.

• “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994): Color. 142 minutes. Directed by Frank Darabont. Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, James Whitmore. Note: Adapted from a Stephen King short story, this is an inspiring yarn about the power of courage, decency and patience in the face of daunting circumstances. Lots of patience, but all 142 minutes of watching this picture are well spent. Rita Hayworth isn’t actually in this one, but she still plays a pivotal role. It received seven nominations for Academy Awards.  

In each of the five movies on this list, the prisoners strive to gather and hold onto some shred of their dignity, while facing extremely tough odds. Which is a pretty good plot device for any story, behind bars or not. 

Consequently, the best jailhouse flicks usually aren’t merely about brutality and dreams of escape. They are also about thwarting a timeless villainy that has always been only too happy to imprison the hapless and the punish the resisters of authority.

-- 30 --

In Search of Brer Rabbit

Below this introduction the reader will see a feature article about Daryl Cumber Dance that I wrote in 2003. It was published by a Richmond magazine called FiftyPlus. At that time Dance was an English professor at the University of Richmond. She has written extensively about African-American folklore.

*

Unbeknownst to the slave traders transporting their kidnapped human cargo from Africa to the New World, there was a stowaway on-board. Folklore scholars tell us that Brer Rabbit made his way across the Atlantic Ocean, hidden in the minds of shackled men and women on their way to a life that might as well have been on another planet.

Impish Brer Rabbit is just one of the fascinating characters from African American folklore who appeal to University of Richmond English professor Daryl Cumber Dance.

In Dance’s newest book, "From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore," she has fashioned an eclectic collection of African American folklore, music lyrics, art, toasts, proverbs, riddles, and superstitions.

“What I’m doing is capturing a certain tradition, in print,” she said of her 736-page anthology, published last year by W. W. Norton.

That “certain tradition” was a subculture that in its time relied entirely on the spoken word of storytellers, or griots (pronounced gree-oh). After all, it was illegal during extended parts of America’s slavery era to even teach Negroes how to read and write.

In "From My People," next to her collection of yarns featuring mythical characters, such as Brer Rabbit, the Signifying Monkey, and Stagolee, Dance includes thought-provoking samples of the words of well-known Black figures, including Ralph Ellison, Jelly Roll Morton, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Then, too, there’s a chapter on Soul Food, with plenty of useful recipes.

While Brer Rabbit made it to America’s shores in the memories of slaves, Dance pointed out, it was Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908), author of the Uncle Remus stories, who brought Brer Rabbit to the reading public.

Slaves told him those stories, featuring animals blessed or cursed with human-like traits, when he was a boy. Uncle Remus, the kindly yarn-spinner, was Harris’s invention. Significantly, the stories were written in a style he asserted was the dialect spoken by slaves in his youth. Harris also underlined the universal nature of stories concerning subjugated underdogs and their struggle for survival with dignity intact.

Dance happily subscribes to the basic idea expressed by mythology guru Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), when he held forth, in his authoritative writings on storytelling in ancient civilizations, that fables about heroes and their transforming quests are more similar than not.

Now, well after the days of Harris’ Uncle Remus, the study of folklore has become quite important to historians and anthropologists. Then, too, folklore can also be seen as the forerunner to today’s popular culture of magazines, movies, popular music and broadcasting.

The word “toast” is among the interesting terms Dance examines in From My People. As she explains, toasts were artful rants presented from the point of view of a powerful Black man. They began to be a popular form of expression/entertainment in urban neighborhoods around the turn of the century. They were always bawdy.

“A clean version of a toast is not a toast,” said Dance, eyebrows raised.

She struggled with how to include such material in From My People. Nonetheless, Chapter Nine contains some traditional toasts, including Stagolee.

If that title has a familiar ring to it, that’s because there is a raft of songs out there about a gun-toting Stagolee, or Stagger Lee. New Orleans singer/songwriter Professor Longhair did his take on it, “Stag O Lee,” in 1974. There was also Lloyd Price’s big hit, “Stagger Lee,” in 1959. Still, Mississippi John Hurt’s version of the song, “Stack O'Lee Blues,” in 1928, is considered the definitive version.

Deciding the book needed some examples of traditional toasts in it, while also wanting to make it accessible to young readers, Dance compromised her long-held belief in absolute authenticity, to do with wording. She crafted a few substitute terms, here and there, hoping to retain the original toast’s meaning and verve.

As a toast, Stagolee probably originated in turn-of-the-century Memphis. It may well have been based on a real murder. Eventually the songs came, with all the variations on the same theme. Today, it’s easy to imagine the bloody saga of Stagolee and Billy presented with a hip hop treatment.

“Rap is an outgrowth of the toast,” said Dance. “Things find ways of going on.”

That apt observation sheds light on such acts as the legendary Last Poets. Their first performances in New York City in 1968, of what many popular culture aficionados see now as seminal rap music, could also be seen as bringing the long-established tradition of the toast forth for a new generation.

Born in Richmond in 1938, Daryl Cumber grew up on land in nearby Charles City County that her free Black ancestors of the Brown family owned in the time of legalized slavery in Virginia. Of course, if any of those pre-Civil War ancestors traveled, they were well advised to carry their precious free papers with them, to be able to prove their status. The regional tradition that kept most folks close to home had its roots in reason.

Dance’s father was a jointer at the shipyard in Newport News. He also built and owned a beer garden called the Shanty Inn. It was a no-frills place with a jukebox where the Black men and women who lived in the county gathered to wet their whistles and socialize. At first he kept his day job, but eventually he began working full-time at his own business, once it began to thrive.

The Shanty Inn wasn’t a wild roadhouse or whiskey-serving speakeasy, Dance said. Still, young Daryl wasn’t permitted to go inside during business hours. She was nine years old when her father died of a heart attack, at the age of 36.

As a girl, Dance expected to become a teacher. “I always wrote,” she said with a laugh and a sigh. “I had the nerve to send a play to a radio show [called] ‘Dr. Christian’.”

Although she may have thought about becoming a lawyer, as her grandfather was, in her bucolic 1950s world women didn’t study law.

“In my family, women taught,” said Dance, who attended Ruthville High School, which had been named for a great-great aunt, Ruth Brown. Daryl Cumber went on to Virginia State College, where she majored in English, and in 1956 she began her teaching career at Armstrong High School in Richmond.

Two years later she married Warren C. Dance, a teacher who is now retired from Richmond Public Schools; he also served on the adjunct faculties of J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College and Virginia Union University. The union of life-long teachers has produced three children (two sons and a daughter), who, in turn, have produced two grandchildren, so far.

Speaking of family, From My People is dedicated to “my son Allen Cumber Dance, a bright, handsome, generous, and supportive individual who would make any mother proud, but an inveterate Trickster, who almost always makes me worry a little but laugh a lot.”

Dance returned to Virginia State to get an M.A., which was followed by a doctorate in English from the University of Virginia. She has received a couple of Ford Foundation Fellowships, three Southern Fellowships Fund grants, two National Endowment for the Humanities grants, a Fulbright research grant, a grant from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and other honors too numerous to list in this space.

Ten years ago, after teaching at Virginia State University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Virginia Commonwealth University, she became a member of the English Department faculty at the University of Richmond.

Dance now has eight books to her credit. Her first, "Shuckin' and Jivin': Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans" (1978), established her as an emerging figure in the folklore field. Subsequent books have dealt with a variety of subjects, including Caribbean folkore and African American women’s humor.

"Long Gone: The Mecklenburg Six and the Theme of Escape in Black Folklore," published in 1987, buffed her reputation not only as a dauntless researcher, but also as a scholar who was willing to weigh in on controversial matters and deal with them evenhandedly.

With an unflinching directness, Dance sought to demonstrate how the audacious 1984 escape from a maximum-security prison’s death row by the two infamous Briley brothers (and four accomplices) fell into a well-established template of tales about the authorities searching for Black men on the lam.

The crimes of Linwood and James Briley (both were eventually executed) were not the book’s issue. Their much-storied last gasp of freedom was. The mainstream media’s high-profile accounts of the escape and subsequent sightings of the escapees - many of which were more hysterical than they were accurate - stoked the myth-making machine, spawning songs, stories, and all sorts of curious Briley brothers’ memorabilia. However, their crimes, carried out in Richmond, were so gruesome that some in the area couldn’t countenance the notion that such wretched men should be written about in any way, other than to condemn them.

Dance was surprised at how many people, officials and private citizens alike, attempted to frustrate her project. Nonetheless, the scholar pressed on. In the book she mentions that a good number of people also went out of their way to help her overcome contrived obstacles.

Tall and graceful in manner, Daryl Cumber Dance brings a rare combination of tools to her work. Her curiosity and integrity don’t stumble over one another. She intuitively blends her researcher’s need to seek the authentic, with her chosen role of editor/translator of an arcane language from another age. In the doing, Dance uses those colorful expressions to paint an American history with what amounts to an impressionistic style.

Yet, her very Southern-seeming modesty makes her laugh softly and shrug off the suggestion that she should be called a “historian,” a “folklorist,” or even, a “writer.”

“I haven’t written novels,” said the English professor in her Ryland Hall office.

What about the seeming contradiction of an expert on the folk culture established by generations of slaves, and their descendants, on tweedy Richmond’s West End campus?

“Richmond is beginning to be a different school than what people think,” replied Dance.

Throughout her enlightening examination of an American history that has been largely ignored by traditional historians, Dance uses the words Negro, Colored, Black, and African-American with equal ease. She explains that she chooses the term that was appropriate in the era to which she is referring.

In fact, Dance seems completely at ease with all sorts of words that ruffle feathers. And, she seems just as at ease in her own mahogany-colored skin. That has to be part of her success as a researcher. It’s easy to imagine that strangers would be disarmed by her gentle curiosity and trust her with their stories.

While Brer Rabbit was shanghaied, once he returned to land he was far too slippery to be held down for long. He freely hopped from one generation to the next. Trials and tribulations came and went, but Brer’s dignity was crushproof.

“The story of our history, as African Americans,” said Daryl Cumber Dance, “is just beginning to be told.”

-- 30 --

Along Grace Street

One afternoon in the mid-1970s, I was walking along, some 20 yards behind a guy heading east on the 800 block of West Grace Street. I think it was summertime, but I don't remember anything in particular about the weather. Anyway, the guy in front of me nonchalantly picked up the Organic Food Store’s hand-painted sandwich board style sign from the sidewalk, put it under his arm and kept walking.

We both kept heading eastward. I don't remember what I first thought, at the time, but I was curious about it and to close the distance between us, I walked a little faster down the red brick sidewalk. By the time we had passed the Biograph Theatre (where I worked), I was pretty sure that he had no honest reason to take the sign. He was a big-haired hippie and I suppose he could have been a student. Or, he might have been a traveling panhandler/opportunist. In those days there were plenty of both in the neighborhood.

Passing by Sally Bell’s Kitchen, in the 700 block, I was within five yards of him when I spoke the lines I had just written for myself. My tone was resolute: “Hey, I saw you take the sign. Just put it down and walk away.”

The thief’s body language announced that he had heard me. He didn’t turn around. Instead he walked faster. I continued following and I said with more force: “Put the sign down. The cops are already on the way. Walk away, while you still can” (or words to that effect).

Without further ado, the wooden sign clattered onto the sidewalk. I was delighted!

The sign thief kept just going without looking back. As I gathered my neighbor’s property, I watched the fleeing hippie break into a sprint. He crossed Grace Street was last seen going toward Monroe Park at the next corner. By then, it all struck me as funny.

So I carried the recovered property back to the store. Obviously, I don’t really remember exactly what I said in this incident, all those years ago, verbatim, but what you just read was a faithful recounting of the events and the spirit of what I said. 

What I had done came in part from a sense of righteous indignation. That, together with the spirit of camaraderie that existed among some of the neighborhood’s merchants in that time. There were several of us, then in our mid-to-late-20s, who were operating businesses on that bohemian strip — bars, retail shops, etc. We were friends and we watched out for one another.

My tough guy performance had lasted less than a minute. Now I’m amazed that I used to do such things. Young people can be so sure of their interpretation of what they see. The character I invented was drawn somewhat from Humphrey Bogart, with as much Robert Mitchum as I could muster. 

Hey, since the thief bought the act, he probably felt lucky to have gotten away. Who knows? Maybe he’s still telling this same story, too, but from another angle.

This much I know — that quirky milieu on Grace Street in those days was a goldmine of offbeat characters and colorful stories. Chelf’s Drug Store was at the corner of Grace and Shafer. With its antique soda fountain, it had been a hangout for magazine-reading art students for decades. It seemed frozen in time. Maybe the late-1940s?

The original Village Restaurant, a block west of Chelf’s, was a legendary beatnik watering hole, going back to the 1950s. Writer Tom Robbins and artist William Fletcher “Bill” Jones (1930-‘98) hung out there. In the '60s and '70s the same neighborhood was also home to cartoon-like characters, such as the wandering Flashlight Lady and the Grace Street Midget.

By the late-'70s the scene in that neighborhood had evolved. It was meaner and more dangerous. Bars hired badass bouncers to guard their front doors. Style-wise, hippies were gradually being replaced by punks. Cocaine was replacing pot as the most popular recreational drug.   

In 1981, or so, I can also remember a summer day when an angry, red-bearded street beggar with a missing foot was scaring old ladies coming and going from the then-new Dominion Place apartment building on the 1000 block of Grace. He and I were about the same age. 

As I walked by, I said something to him like, "Hey, cut it out. Move on!"

The surly panhandler laughed like a corny villain in a slasher movie and threatened to, “Bite a plug” out of me. And, I'm sure that's exactly what he said. 

Wisely, I didn’t press my case any further. Instead, I moved on.

*

As she moved slowly with tiny steps, getting across a busy street could be difficult for Priscilla. So, beginning sometime back in the 1970s, whenever I’d see her struggling with that problem, routinely, I used to help out by walking her across.

Usually it was West Grace Street or Harrison, somewhere not far from the Biograph. She lived in the neighborhood. The ritual went on for years; I suppose she was some 12-to-15 years my senior.

However, I can still picture her from one particular gray afternoon that I’m guessing was in the late-1980s, during my Slant-publishing days. I was heading west on W. Grace St. Priscilla was standing between two parked cars on the north side of the 900-block. The traffic was heavy. She was crying.

So, I stopped my VW bus and switched on the emergency blinker. Got out and greeted Priscilla. Of course, she knew what would come next, so she smiled through her tears. We both nearly chuckled at the sound of the car horns honking, as we crossed the street at her pace. Maybe that was the last time for our routine.

-- 30 --

Discover the Fan: April 14, 1973

Forty-nine years ago an ad hoc group of 21 merchants along the commercial strip just north of most of VCU's Fan District campus cooperated for a one-time-only promotion called Discover the Fan. It should be noted that none of the participating businesses are still there today.

On April 14, 1973 a lingering cold spell left town and warm breezes brought in a bright spring day. For that Saturday afternoon the 800 and 900 blocks of West Grace Street, and environs, were packed with an unprecedented amount of foot traffic. Hundreds of helium-filled balloons and free prizes donated by the merchants were given away. The street was not closed and the vehicular traffic was slowed to a crawl all day. There was live music on-stage.

Motorists traveling toward the West End were treated to an unexpected scene, given the neighborhood's then-bohemian image. (Grace Street was a busy one-way street heading west in those days.) On that Saturday there were thousands of ordinary people milling about having a good time. Many of them acted like tourists on a lark. Kids with balloons were everywhere.

The illustration below is a scan of a handbill done by yours truly. With its list of participating businesses it provides a snapshot of the area in what was probably the zenith of the hippie age. Some of the characters who ran those businesses were rather interesting people. (H/t: One-on-One co-owner Fred Awad came up with the name for the event.)

At this time I had been the manager of the Biograph Theatre for a little over a year and the Discover the Fan promotion itself was my project. I convinced my fellow merchants to chip in and promote our oddball collection of businesses as the equivalent of a hip shopping center in the middle of town. Many people helped put it together and worked on aspects of it, but the happening couldn't have come about without the help of Dave DeWitt and Chuck Wrenn (the Biograph's assistant manager), which was significant.

Below is a piece about this event from that era. It was penned by the late Shelley Rolfe:

Shelley Rolfe’s
By the Way
Richmond Times-Dispatch (April, 16, 1973)

It was breakfast time and the high command for Discover the Fan Day had, with proper regard for the inner man, moved its final planning meeting from the Biograph Theater to Lum’s Restaurant. Breakfast tastes ran a gamut. Eggs with beer. Eggs with orange juice. H-hour -- the operations plan had set it for noon -- was less than three hours away. Neither beer nor orange juice was being gulped nervously.

Terry Rea, manager of the Biograph and the extravaganza’s impresario, was reciting a last-minute, mental things-to-do list. There was the vigilante committee, which would gather up the beer and soft drink cans and bottles that invariably infest the fronts of the shops in the 800 and 900 blocks of W. Grace St., focus area of the discovery.

The city police had promised a dragnet to sweep away the winos who also invariably litter the neighborhood. The day had bloomed crisp and sunny, the first dry Saturday since Groundhog Day. “I knew it wouldn’t rain,” Rea said with the brash confidence of the young. “Lots of young businessmen around here,” a beer drinker at another table said. The free enterprise system lives.

REA WAS assigning duties for the committee that would rope off two Virginia Commonwealth University parking lots that would serve as the setting for a fashion show and band concert. The committee to blow up balloons, with the aid of a cylinder of helium [sic]. One thousand balloons in a shrieking variety of colors. “If we only get 500 kids... two to a customer,” Rea said cheerfully.

“I need more people,” said the balloon task force leader.

Twenty-one businesses were involved in the project. Each of them had contributed prizes, and gift certificates had been put into plastic Easter eggs. An egg hunt would be part of the day, and Rea had a message for the committee that would be tucking the eggs away: “Don’t put them in obvious places, but don’t put them were people can get hurt looking for them.”

“We talked about doing this last summer but we never got it together,” Rea said. There had been fresh talk in late February, early March, and it had become airborne. The 21 businesses had anted up $1,500 for advertising, which was handled by Dave DeWitt, proprietor of a new just-out-of-the-Fan, small, idea-oriented agency.

“Demographically, we were aiming for people between 25 and 34,” Rea said. There had been newspaper advertising and spots on youth-oriented radio stations. “We had a surplus late in the week...” Rea said. The decision was made to have a Saturday morning splurge on radio station WRVA. “Hey,” said a late arrival, “I heard Alden Aaroe talking about it.”

“We wanted people to see what we have here,” Rea said. “People who probably close their windows and lock their doors when they drive on Grace Street and want to get through here a quickly as possible.”

Well, yes, there must be those who look upon the 800 and 900 blocks as symbolic of the counterculture, as territory alien to their visions of West End and suburban existence. Last November the precinct serving the 800 and 900 blocks went for George McGovern, by two votes. Not a landslide, but, perhaps, a trend.

NOON WAS approaching. Rea and DeWitt set out on an inspection tour. Parking lot ropes were being put into place. Rock music blared from exotically named shops. The balloon committee was still short on manpower. An agent trotted out of a shop to report, “They’ve got 200 customers ...” And how many would they normally have at this hour of a Saturday” “They wouldn’t be open,” Rea said.

Grace Street was becoming clogged with cars It would become more clogged. Don’t know how many drivers got out of their cars, but, for a while they were a captive audience making at least vicarious discovery.

Also much pedestrian and bicycle on the sidewalks. Merchants talked of espying strangers, of all ages. A white-haired woman held a prize egg in one hand, a balloon in the other. A middle-aged man had rakishly attached a balloon to the bill of his cap.

The fashion show went on to the accompaniment of semijazz music and popping balloons, most of them held by children. Fashions were subdued. A dress evocative of the 1840s. Long skirts. Loudest applause went to a man who paraded across the stage wearing a loud red backpack. Everybody’s urge to escape?

ON GRACE STREET a sword swallower and human pin cushion was on exhibition. No names please. “My mother ...” he said. He wished to be identified only as a member of “Bunkie Brothers Medicine Show.”

Discounted merchandise on sale included 20-yesr-old British Army greatcoats and a book fetchingly titled “Sensuous Massage.” Sales resistance remained firm.

On Harrison Street a sidewalk artist was creating. A wino, who had somehow escaped the dragnet, lurched across the sidewalk art muttering. “Free balloons ...” In a shop a man said, “I want the skimpiest halter you have ... for my wife.”

On an alley paralleling Grace Street, a man holding a hand camera and early on a VCU class assignment was directing actors. One stationed in a huge trash bin. “Waiting for Godot” revisited? The second, carrying a an umbrella in one hand, popcorn in another, approached the bin. A hand darted out for popcorn. “I ran out of film!” screamed the director.

Everything was being done again. The actor in the bin emerged, seized the umbrella and ran. “Chase him,” from the direct. Actor No. 2 did a Keystone Kop-style double take, jumped and ran. A small crowd that had gathered applauded.

LATE IN the day. Traffic still was at a saturation level. Early settlers said the territory hadn’t seen such congestion since the movie, “Deep Throat.” Rea spoke of objectives smashingly achieved. Euphoric talk from him on another day of discovery in September. City Hall would be petitioned to block off Grace Street.

The writer, Rolfe, lived only a few blocks away from the Biograph, so he was actually quite familiar with the cinema I ran and the surroundings he described. This was a day in which many things could have gone wrong, but didn't, so it was remembered fondly. Some of the merchants said they set new records for business in one day.

  -- 30 --

Five Film Favorites: Courtroom Dramas

The courtroom in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

by F.T. Rea

After the crime has been committed, the cops have investigated it and the handcuffs have been slapped on the culprit, some movies end. If they think about it, most viewers probably assume the captive will face the music in a courtroom. 

In a general sense, the characters in crime films are usually developed by what they do -- action. If the story is more about the legal ordeal after arrest, the trial, then it’s usually dialogue that drives the story. Typically, the characters in courtroom dramas are developed by what they say … and of course, how and when they say it. 

This installment of five film favorites is focused on courtroom dramas. Legitimate courtrooms, please. Not kangaroo courts. Furthermore, trials that take place outside of a real courthouse, such as in "M" (1931) or in "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), as good as they both are, belong on another day’s list of favorites.

To narrow the field even more, movies about courts martial aren’t being considered this time, either. So that means great war films with pivotal military trials in them, such as "Breaker Morant" (1980), "The Caine Mutiny" (1954) and "Paths of Glory" (1957) can’t be included on this particular list. However, as you will see, below, a film about a tribunal for war crimes can be included.

Now that I've said what can't be on the list, here are today's five favorite courtroom dramas: 

• "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959): B&W. 160 minutes. Directed by Otto Preminger. Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott, Eve Arden. Note: In the late-50s this story about a violent killing and some sex-related issues was a bodice-ripper. Gazzara, the defendant, claims to have amnesia. Stewart is the easy-going defense attorney who doesn't miss much. Remick, a fun-loving temptress, is the defendant's wife. The judge is played by Joseph Welch, a real-life lawyer who was made famous by the live telecasts of the Army-McCarthy Hearings.

• "Inherit the Wind" (1960): B&W. 128 minutes. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Harry Morgan. Note: Adapted from the play with the same title, which was a fictionalized version of the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial (in 1925), the movie offers Matthew Harrison Brady (March) as a William Jennings Bryan-like figure. Henry Drummond (Tracy) as a Clarence Darrow-like figure and E. K. Hornbeck (Kelly) as a H. L. Mencken-like figure. To avoid a spoiler, I can't reveal here who plays the role of the monkey.

•  "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961). B&W. 159 minutes. Written by Abby Mann. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, William Shatner, Werner Klemperer. Note: Set in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1948, the film presents a fictionalized version -- a composite -- of the famous Judges' Trials of 1947. The film centers on a particular tribunal led by Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood (Tracy), in which a small group of German civilians stand accused of committing “crimes against humanity” for their roles in making the Holocaust possible. Warning: Some of the death camp footage is hard to watch.
  

• "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962): B&W. 129 minutes. Directed by Robert Mulligan. Cast: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall, Phillip Alford. Note: Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, via Horton Foote’s screenplay, was smoothly interpreted to the big screen in this compelling story set in a small town in Alabama during the Depression. A respected white lawyer, who is the father of two precocious kids, is appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. This is that rare movie that's as good as the great book it was based on.

• "The Verdict" (1982): Color. 129 minutes. Directed by Sidney Lumet. Cast: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Lindsay Crouse. Note: Newman’s character was a hot shot attorney at a big law firm before alcoholism unraveled his life. As a favor, a helpful former colleague tosses him what seems, at first glance, to be an easy medical malpractice case. Of course, it turns out to be a much more complicated situation and tough choices must be made. 

The courtroom in "The Verdict"

Maybe one reason so many courtroom dramas have been produced is that if most of the scenes are in the courthouse, it saves money on sets. Another reason is that a trial provides a ready-made and organized context in which to present a story. The testimony of witnesses can tell the whole tale. The disclosure of the verdict is a natural way to wrap up the story.

Once the suspense is over, the viewers frequently see "The End" on the screen, appearing over footage of attorneys gathering up their papers. Sometimes justice has been wrought. 

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Satchel Paige at Parker Field: 'Don't Look Back'

Satchel Paige in 1949

Each spring, with the return of professional baseball, naturally, I think of times spent at what was a temple of baseball in my youth, Parker Field. It was located where the Diamond is now on Arthur Ashe Boulevard. 

In 1954 Parker Field became the baseball park to serve as the home field for a new International League club — the Richmond Virginians. When the Baltimore Orioles (formerly the St. Louis Browns) joined the American League that year, it created an opening in the IL for the Richmond entry.

A couple of years later, via a business agreement, the V’s became one of the New York Yankees’ Triple A farm clubs. As such, in those days the Bronx Bombers paid Richmond an annual visit in April, just before the Big Leagues' opening day. That meant Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and the other great Yankees of that era played a preseason exhibition game in Richmond facing the V’s. It was always a standing-room affair. 

Today I wish I hadn't lost track off the photos I shot of a few of those Yankees stars at one of those games. When the game ended I hopped over a low wall, to get on the playing field with my Brownie Hawkeye in hand. Before I was shooed away, I did manage to fire off a few semi-closeups. 

Other than the pinstripe-clad hometown V’s, my favorite club in the IL in those days was the pre-revolution Havana Sugar Kings. With a single every one of them would round first base like they were going to second. They played with a striking intensity, bordering on reckless abandon. It made them a lot of fun to watch, especially for the kids who played baseball and appreciated that style.

One of my all-time favorites I saw perform on that ball field was Leroy “Satchel” Paige (1906-'82). Yes, the legendary Paige, with his windmill windup, high kick and remarkably smooth release still working for him, actually plied his craft on the mound here in Richmond. I don't remember how many appearances he had here, but I suppose this piece is probably based on a composite of two or three times he pitched. 

In 1971, Paige (pictured above, circa 1949) was the first of the legendary Negro Leagues’ stars to be admitted to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. His induction was based mostly on his contributions to baseball before he helped break the color line in 1948, as a 42-year-old rookie. 

The statistics from Paige's pre-Big League days are mind-boggling. It's been said he won some 2,000 games and threw as many as 45 no-hitters. Furthermore, well before the impish boxer/poet Muhammad Ali, there was the equally playful Satchel Paige, with his famous Six Guidelines to Success:

• Avoid fried meats that angry up the blood.
• If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
• Keep the juices flowing by jangling gently as you walk.
• Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying-on in society - the society ramble ain’t restful.
• Avoid running at all times.
• Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you. 

Long after his days as the best pitcher in the Negro Leagues (maybe any league), and following his precedent-setting stint in the American League, Paige was on the roster of the Miami Marlins (1956-58). Like the V’s, the Marlins played in the International League. When I saw him, Paige was in his 50s (his date of birth was vague). Not a starter, anymore, he worked out of the bullpen.

In the late-1950s live professional baseball in Richmond was mostly a White guys’ scene. Unfortunately, that meant the chorus of boos would start as soon as some in the crowd noticed Paige’s 6-foot-3, 180-pound frame warming up in the middle of a game. When he’d be summonsed to pitch, in relief, the noise level would ratchet up. Not all the grown men booed, but many did. That, while their children and grandchildren were split between booing, cheering, or perhaps being embarrassed and not knowing what to do.

Naturally, some of the kids (like me) liked seeing the grownups getting unraveled, so Paige was all the more cool to us. Sadly, for plenty of White men in Richmond, then caught up by the thinking that buoyed Massive Resistance, any prominent Black person was seen as a figure to be against. So, those booing Paige probably would have booed Duke Ellington or A. Philip Randolph, too.

Paige with two Marlins teammates.

Upon being called in, the showman Paige would take forever to walk to the mound from the bullpen. Each of his warm-up pitches would be a big production. After a slow motion windup, the ball would whistle toward home plate with a startling velocity, making some of the kids cheer and laugh ... to mix with the boos. Everything Paige did seemed to prompt a reaction from the grandstands. 

With his worldwide travels, Paige, from Mobile, Alabama, must have understood what was going on better than most who watched him pitch in the twilight of his career. He knew perfectly well there wasn’t much he could do to change the minds of those who were booing; those folks were trapped in the past.

So, Paige played to the cheers, as his vast experience as a performer had surely taught him to do. Of course, as a 10-year-old I lacked the overview to understand that what I was seeing was an awkward but long overdue change, to do with race, the South was beginning to go through. Much more of that was on the way and some of those booing were probably protesting that, too, in their way.  

Nonetheless, my guess is few in attendance grasped that the crowd's mixed reaction to Paige, largely being split on generational lines, was foreshadowing of how America’s baseball fans, coast-to-coast, were going to be changing. One day Jim Crow attitudes would have no proper place at baseball temples.

Now, with the benefit of decades of reflection, I understand that Satchel Paige was a visionary. At Parker Field, Paige was seeing the future by following his own advice -- "Don’t look back."

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-- Images from satchelpage.com

Truth Is Democracy's Oxygen

When politicians, pundits and other blowhards refer to "the free world," what do they mean? 

Well, I'm  not sure. To me, the term is warmed over Cold War vernacular; the "free" in those days sort of meant the democracies that were allied with USA, against the USSR and its allies. But in that era the term always had more to do with politics than it did with how much actual freedom a particular society enjoyed. Thus, during the Cold War it was always partly propaganda.

Today, with that conflict 30 years behind us, the term may have more to do with how important "truth" is within a given society. Because, without truth, democracy can't breathe. And, without democracy, how much freedom, based on people having genuine and equal rights, can truly exist?

When people of different persuasions can't at least agree to stand on some verifiable facts -- reality -- problems just don't get solved. Moreover, when citizens have no faith in their elections' integrity the government will always lack legitimacy, which will encourage chaos that invites autocracy. 

In 2022 there are politicians, pundits and other blowhards in the USA who appear to favor an autocratic system with the audacity to overthrow elections. They sell tested lies their followers like to buy. Marinating those lies in hate tends to make them easier to swallow.   

Speaking of politics and so-called "alternative facts," now honest conservatives who want to remain loyal to the Republican Party have a new problem: After a few senators hurled their absurd facilitator-of-child-abuse accusations at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, during her confirmation hearing, Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene recently proclaimed that three Republican senators are "pro-pedophile" -- Romney, Murkowski and Collins -- because they ended up voting "yes," along with the Senate's 50 Democrats, to confirm Judge Jackson's appointment.  

With the QAnon wing of the GOP chiming in, to support a scurrilous effort underway to depict all Democrats as being knee-deep in child porn, well, it looks like Pizzagate Redux is the new mid-terms propaganda strategy. Can the aforementioned "honest conservatives" really go along with that bizarre scheme? 

Truth is all about reality. So the attacks on truth, itself, we've seen in recent years are helping to smother democracy in this country and other countries. Moreover, the notion that such a thing as the "free world" really exists today is seeming more and more fictitious.  

"Free" as opposed to what?

Tomorrow, the USA needs a political movement that clearly asserts that a reverence for pure truth is at its core. Under its tent should be everyone who agrees that truth is more important than ideology, or religion, or ethnicity, or class, or any of the other handy things that so many seekers of power routinely use to set groups of people at each others' throats. 

It ought to include Democrats and Republicans. Libertarians and Greens. Dogs and cats. 

Bottom line: No truth, no democracy.    

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Five Film Favorites: Directors

Being the manager of a repertory cinema, Richmond's Biograph Theatre, for nearly a dozen years (1971-83) was quite a film education. By watching selected movies several times I came to understand, somewhat, the factors that made particular movies so outstanding and what made others difficult to watch. 

During those years, by also reading a lot about movies and frequently discussing related topics with people who knew a lot about cinema, it further developed my appreciation for the ingredients that usually made the great films just that. It all went to understanding why I loved my favorite films so much.

Put simply, let's stipulate that popular feature-length movies usually contain at least a couple of really good scenes that people like to talk about. In the best films, such scenes are strung together gracefully.  

Most of my all-time favorite films were made by directors who developed a distinctive style that is noticeable in several films they directed. Thus, my favorite movie directors are pretty good examples of what film aficionados once liked to call, "auteurs." 

Frequently such directors wrote or co-wrote the screenplays. Somehow, perhaps chiefly because they were so talented, they managed to get their artistically ambitious projects financed, without having to make the sort of stylistic compromises many of their fellow filmmakers had to make, in order to keep steady work. 

And, yes, my five favorites in this category are all dead. Which means they can‘t keep doing what one prolific filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, has been doing to tarnish his once-stellar reputation. (Have you seen "The Irishman" (2019)? 

It's awful!

Now it appears that making a movie, using the up-to-date gadgetry most productions seem to use, has gotten to be so expensive that the rainmakers who gather the financing for motion pictures don’t want to risk gambling on projects that exceed the bounds of focus group wisdom. 

Anyway, for whatever reasons, we hear much less about "auteurs" these days. That's OK by me; the word always has sounded a bit overcooked. 

Now, in alphabetical order, my list of favorite five directors, along with five of their most representative/best films are as follows (my favorite flick for each director is in bold): 

Luis Buñuel (1900-83; born in Spain, made some films in Spanish, some in French): “Los Olvidados” (1950), “Belle de Jour” (1967), “Tristana” (1970), “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972), “The Phantom of Liberty” (1974).

Federico Fellini (1920-93; born in Italy, made films in Italian): “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “8½” (1963), “Juliet of the Spirits” (1965), “Amarcord” (1973).

John Huston (1907-87; born in the USA, made films in English): "Key Largo" (1948), “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), "The Asphalt  Jungle" (1950), “The African Queen” (1951), “Wise Blood” (1979).

Elia Kazan (1909-2003; born in Istanbul and immigrated to the USA at the age of four, made films in English): “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951), “On the Waterfront” (1954), “East of Eden” (1955), “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), "Wild River" (1960).

Stanley Kubrick (1928-99; born in the USA, made films in English): “The Killing” (1956), “Paths of Glory” (1957), "Lolita" (1962), “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964), “Full Metal Jacket” (1987).

In 1977, at the Biograph Theatre, it was my job
to select the films for our repertory festivals
and design the promotional programs, such
as this one with the auteur theme.  

Note: The director I am liking more in recent years (especially since I first wrote this piece about 10 years ago) is Louis Malle. "Elevator to the Gallows" (1958) has shouldered its way onto my all-time top ten features list. 

 

Last Dance

Tonight, at the Superdome in New Orleans, the tournament's Last Dance will play out. The North Carolina Tar Heels (29-9), a No. 8 seed, are facing the Kansas Jayhawks (33-6), a No. 1 seed. Sportswriters are calling them, "blue bloods," because down through the years at both schools their predecessors have played in multiple Final Fours. Both well-funded programs have won national championships: Kansas 3, Carolina 6.

The Jayhawks probably have the guy who seems to be the best player -- AP First Team All-American Ochai Agbaji. But that evaluation is based on a season of great performances. This game for the title is just one 40-minute ordeal. Nobody knows who will emerge as the best player in tonight's tilt. However, at this writing, the betting line has Kansas as a 4-point favorite. 

While UNC is being seen as the underdog, that perception is based in great part on the season-long records of the two finalists. The Tar Heels have won 10 of their last 11 games. So have the Jayhawks. So both teams have gotten hot at the right time of year. If there's a difference that might matter in the game's most important possessions, maybe UNC has dealt with more drama in their tournament games than Kansas has. 

The wildcard could be whether the Heels' center, Armando Bacot (from Richmond), can be at his best. He injured an ankle late in the game with Duke on Saturday. It looked bad enough that there's no telling how long, or well, he can perform. His rebounding has been a key to Carolina's success lately. 

Kansas deserves to be the favorite. Plus, UNC may be emotionally exhausted after their epic win over Duke. Or, such a big victory over their biggest rival could magnify their confidence. 

Bottom line: For some reason, I think the mojo factor that has gotten the Heels this far will carry them past the Jayhawks. Or maybe that's just what I hope to see.

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