Two F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.Two F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.Two F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 17 wins & 25 nominations total
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- (as Tom Mason)
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film is inspired by the murder of voting rights activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman by the Ku Klux Klan.
- GoofsWhen Anderson throws Pell into the chairs at the barbershop, Pell's stunt double has a different hairstyle (balding, with a comb-over).
- Quotes
Ward: Where does it come from? All this hatred?
Anderson: You know, when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was... well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. My daddy hated that mule, 'cause his friends were always kidding him that they saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule, and Monroe was going to rent another field now he had a mule. One morning, that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn't any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time, we were driving down that road, and we passed Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something. I looked over at my daddy's face. I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, If you ain't better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?
Ward: You think that's an excuse?
Anderson: No it's not an excuse. It's just a story about my daddy.
Ward: Where's that leave you?
Anderson: My old man was just so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killing him.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Siskel & Ebert: The Naked Gun/Dakota/Mississippi Burning/Vincent (1988)
- SoundtracksTake My Hand Precious Lord
Words and Music by Thomas A. Dorsey
Performed by Mahalia Jackson
Courtesy of CBS Records
THE STORY: Is based on the real events of the murder of 3 civil rights activists in 1964 Mississippi and the subsequent FBI investigation into their deaths. The problem is not with the ongoing story of how the Fed's crack the case.This is fiction based on fact and as a police story it works fine.
THE COMPROMISE: 1, the FBI. J.Edger Hoover in 1964 was possibly the most powerful man in the country, with a file on everyone of importance or power.The FBI was his private fiefdom. Mr.Hoover believed Martin Luther King was a Communist and had no sympathy for the Civil Rights Movement.This is mentioned in one small line of script.The Bureau would have to go after murderers but was certainly on no crusade. Mr.Hoover detested the Kennedys and only kept his job because he had enough info to destroy them.So how the Defoe character, as a Kennedy man , got beyond a filing job is hard to say. Mr.Hoover used Hollywood to create the myth of the G-man ,this myth is still alive and kicking in this film.The Gene Hackman character had been a Mississippi sheriff and obviously part of a Bureau dirty tricks squad and we are expected to believe he has a bleeding heart under his badge. What would have made it interesting if his character was more truthful.The FBI was an all white agency and it certainly was not politically correct.Mr Hoover's views were no secret so rascism would certainly not effect anybody'career.Again this is hinted at in his speech about his father. 2,the KKK, It seems the whole white community in the South is a member which oversimplifies the situation a lot. Also, it does not show the main cause of the hatred was the Southern establishment,the wealthy landowners who encouraged the politicians,the police and judiciary to preach segregation as a classic measure of divide and rule of the poor- whites and African-Americans. It also ignores the fact that segregation had been twisted into the very fabric of the Southern states post- Confederacy identity. 3,the African-Americans, The docile passivity,gospel singing over ashes of churches and the lack of anger is patronising in the extreme.The Civil rights movement was born in South and the churches were its most vocal advocates.
Maybe if this film had been made in the 70's rather than the 80's these major background issues would not have been ignored.
- Markhoysted
- Sep 24, 2005
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $15,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $34,603,943
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $225,034
- Dec 11, 1988
- Gross worldwide
- $34,603,943