To start off with, If you think "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the first "you better not get in trouble in the South" films, think again. They won't Forget was 25 years before Mockingbird and just as controversial back in its day I'm willin' to bet.
I went into this thinking' it would just be a 1937 murder mystery but what I got was an Anti-South melodrama. I think it hooks you in from the beginning because a very young Lana Turner appears and to say she's beautiful is an absolute understatement. She is just stunning for the little time she appears in this film. The basic premise of the film is that her character gets murdered off early on and they try and railroad one character after another into the electric chair until they find one that fits the best.
You know how you know that this is just an Anti-South lesson? Sadly, you don't even know at the end who did do it. They just leave that part out. Most of the film concentrates on 1 character they think did it and go from there. The bad/fake southern accents and the lynching of the character who gets found guilty and gets his sentenced commuted to life at the end. Nowhere throughout the entire film does it point to anyone else. I mean not 1 character gets any light shed unto them on how they may be the actual killer. The character who gets convicted may have done it but you really have no clue. But that's the real point of the film. Your not suppose to know. It's all about how bad the southern judicial system is. This film concentrates solely on the "southern" angle. Kind of a North vs. South typa thing. It was just sad and way over stereotyped.
The worst part is that the first person to come upon the body of the girl is a black night watchman and of course they throw him in jail and scare him to tears by tellin him he's gonna be executed if he doesn't tell a load of lies on the stand because if he doesn't, the other accused man's lawyer is gonna point the murder on him. Of course you know back then that blacks rarely got a fair shake so they play that angle up real well.
I'm guessin you might be able to tell that I'm from the south..and I am...but there are much better films on the south that aren't so over the top on the subject matter. Go for To Kill a Mockingbird first. The ending is sad but you know that you'll walk away from it with a sense of not ever wanting to be like any of those characters that got him convicted. This film doesn't give you that at the end. All it says to you is.."better be glad you didn't live in the South way back when."
I went into this thinking' it would just be a 1937 murder mystery but what I got was an Anti-South melodrama. I think it hooks you in from the beginning because a very young Lana Turner appears and to say she's beautiful is an absolute understatement. She is just stunning for the little time she appears in this film. The basic premise of the film is that her character gets murdered off early on and they try and railroad one character after another into the electric chair until they find one that fits the best.
You know how you know that this is just an Anti-South lesson? Sadly, you don't even know at the end who did do it. They just leave that part out. Most of the film concentrates on 1 character they think did it and go from there. The bad/fake southern accents and the lynching of the character who gets found guilty and gets his sentenced commuted to life at the end. Nowhere throughout the entire film does it point to anyone else. I mean not 1 character gets any light shed unto them on how they may be the actual killer. The character who gets convicted may have done it but you really have no clue. But that's the real point of the film. Your not suppose to know. It's all about how bad the southern judicial system is. This film concentrates solely on the "southern" angle. Kind of a North vs. South typa thing. It was just sad and way over stereotyped.
The worst part is that the first person to come upon the body of the girl is a black night watchman and of course they throw him in jail and scare him to tears by tellin him he's gonna be executed if he doesn't tell a load of lies on the stand because if he doesn't, the other accused man's lawyer is gonna point the murder on him. Of course you know back then that blacks rarely got a fair shake so they play that angle up real well.
I'm guessin you might be able to tell that I'm from the south..and I am...but there are much better films on the south that aren't so over the top on the subject matter. Go for To Kill a Mockingbird first. The ending is sad but you know that you'll walk away from it with a sense of not ever wanting to be like any of those characters that got him convicted. This film doesn't give you that at the end. All it says to you is.."better be glad you didn't live in the South way back when."