Hurry Sundown (1967)

"Crummy . . . monumentally tasteless saga. . . . Unfortunately, Otto Preminger apparently was out of town when the civil-rights movement started and still hasn't checked back in. Nobody told him that the old prewar collection of pickaninnies, Uncle Toms, Uncle Remuses and Little Black Sambos just doesn't stand up any more as a sociological cross section of the black community in the South."
- Paul D. Zimmerman, Newsweek

What was Preminger thinking? And why would actors such as Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, John Philip Law, Diahann Carroll, Fay Dunaway, Burgess Meredith, Beah Richards and George Kennedy want to even associate themselves with such trash? It had to be the money. I personally can't think of any other reason.

Caine plays Henry Warren who is a ruthless land speculator intent on buying all the real estate he can. Two parcels of land, though, stand in his way: one owned by a humble-but-hard-working poor black family and the other owned by a humble-but-hard-working poor white family. Warren sends his wife, Julie (played by Jane Fonda), to the black family to try to talk them into selling their land to her husband.

As luck would have it, the matriarch of the family (Beah Richards) is none other than the woman who was once Julie's 'mammy'. When Julie asks 'Aunt Rose' to sell her land, the old woman promptly collapses on the floor in one of the most ludicrous heart attacks in cinematic history. She stumbles from side to side, her hands grasping at air, until she falls out of camera range and a 'thud' can be heard.

Rose's young son, Reeve (Robert Hooks), takes over the family farm and also refuses to sell out to Warren. Warren takes Reeve to court claiming that he has no legal title to the land. Despite a bigoted judge (over-acted beyond extreme by Burgess Meredith who emphasizes every third word), Warren loses the case and Reeve retains his farm.

Warren then plays his final card by organizing a good, old-fashioned lynch mob. But, when the mob arrives on the farm, they see the family enjoying a good, old-fashioned hoedown where they're eating fried chicken and watermelon and singing spirituals in perfect harmony. How could the mob possibly lynch such a God-fearing man?

Foiled again, Warren then turns his attentions to the other family who, it just so happens, are his cousins, but he meets similar dead ends and decides to blow up the local dam instead. The white family's farm is destroyed, but, miraculously, the black family's farm survives. Warren is foiled one final time as the blacks help the whites rebuild their farm and their lives.

Some unforgettable dialogue:

'Mammy' Rose: Somethin's ailin' you, Reeve.
Reeve: No, Mama.
Rose: Well, sometin' hasn't changed your mood since breakfast. Tell me.
Reeve: Mama, you better dan anyo' dat radar day had out in de Souf Pacific!
Rose: I don' know nothin' 'bout radar, but I know when sometin's plaguin' ma chile.

I won't even talk about Michael Caine's attempt at a southern accent.

Preminger had acquired the rights to Hurry Sundown, the best-selling novel by K. B. Gilden, and set a $4 million budget. Known for filming on location, Otto, for some reason, decided to film in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, instead of in Georgia, where the book was set. Hurry Sundown was to be the first feature film with black actors in starring roles to be filmed entirely in the South. The 'town' scenes were filmed in St. Francisville, the center of the Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana. Black actors were restricted use of the town's services. White cast and crew members received threatening phone calls. Car tires were slashed. The motel where the cast and crew were housed was protected by armed state troopers every minute of their stay.

All this in protest of trash that barely turned a profit and set the film industry back a century.