sol1218
***SPOILERS*** Going out to Van Cordlandt Park in the Bronx one evening in the summer of 1957 to get some air Charile Williams Jr, Garland Whitt, ends up beaten within an inch of his life by a gang of Irish teenagers who claimed that he tried to mug one of them. In fact Charlie didn't mug young Pat Sullivan,Michael Longstaff, he murdered him. Charlie strangled Sullivan to death before his friends could get Charlie off him! With a 1st degree murder charge hanging over his head Charlie now faces the hot seat in Sing Sing prison if he's convicted. And in Charlie being black and his victim Pat Sullivan Irish and white that's an absolute certainty with the city of New York in danger of exploding into race riots if Charlie ends up getting off. The fact that Charlie signed a written confession to the crime he's charged with they, the court, might as well forgo a trail and send him straight to death row!It's Charlie's concerned pop Charles Williams, Charles Dutton, a NYPD policemen who gets his kid brother defense attorney John, Courtney B. Vance, to defend Charlie and somehow try to get the death penalty thrown out by showing that Charlie's killing of Pat Sulliavn was not as clear cut or cold blooded as it at first seemed to be. Facing a brick wall in trying to find evidence in Charlie's favor John does find an eye witness to the Sullivan murder and elderly black lady Mrs. Berry, Birdie M. Hale, who lived in an apartment overlooking Van Cordlandt Park when the killing took place. What shocks John in Mrs. Barry's testimony is her description of the shirt that Charlie was wearing that night: powder blue instead of the one he was arrested with deep red! Yet Mrs. Berry swears that that's, powder blue, the color of the shirt that Charlie was wearing! What was not known at the time is that two murders were committed in the park that night. One of Pat Sulliavn and another of a back teenager wearing a powder blue shirt just like the one that Mrs.Berry described!It'a almost by accident that law student Frank, Alex Krzis, who's helping john on the case mistakingly hands him over a murder report that took place at the park that night, July 5, 1957, of a young black teenager from Brooklyn named David Mercer, Joel Gordon. Mercer was murdered the very day or night in the very same place, Van Cortlandt Park, that Charlie was arrested for murdering Pat Sullivan!***MAJOR SPOILERS*** John seeing that there's some connection to both Sullivan and Mercer's murders is socked to find out from his reefer smoking beatnik and saxophone playing brother, the black sheep in the Williams family, Eddie played by Kadeem Hardison that the two, Charlie and David, were secretly having an homosexual affair behind everyone's back! The fact that his son is gay is something that his policeman macho father Charles Williams had found out the night that Charlie was arrested and together with his fellow cops kept that hidden from the D.A's office. It's also a fact that Charlie killed Sullivan in self defense after he and his gang murdered Charlie's gay lover David and then tried to murder him as well! But to keep his son's gay lifestyle secret his father is more then willing to let Charlie Jr end up in the electric chair to keep that secret from his family friends and fellow policemen!Deeply disturbing as well as touching movie about innocence lost in the big city circa 1957 when in the mind of many, men and women, back then in one, man or woman, being gay was worse then death itself. Charlie himself was more then willing to get executed as a convicted cold blooded murderer rather then him admit that he killed only in self defense when attacked by a gang of white teenagers, who tried to murder him, because of his sexual preference. John trying to get Charlie to go public in court about the circumstances in his killing of Pat Sullivan got nowhere with him as well as his father Charles Williams who was steadfast in keeping his son's, who he was grooming to be a member of the NYPD, gay lifestyle secret. ***MAJOR MAJOR SPOILER***It was only when the end was near and Charlie was on his way to the execution chamber that his dad Charles Williams broke down and called on brother John to go public by telling the state governor and local D.A the extenuating circumstances surrounding Charlie's killing of Pat Sullivan. But by that time it was too late! Charlie Jr pulled off a Hermann Goering by cheating the hangman, or in this case electric chair, by hanging himself just hours before he was to be executed! That without Charlie knowing that he had a very good chance of having his pending execution suspended with the new evidence that his uncle John was about to make public!
fineart5
I saw this movie today never having heard about it before. What a gift to have found it. That being said, I decided to look up some additional info about it's background and cast. I came across this message board and felt compelled to comment.While this is on the surface a racial, sexual orientation, legal drama I found it to be much more universal than that. I am a married white heterosexual woman and the theme that I came away with is how destructive negativity and hatred are and how beautiful love and acceptance can be on every level. Negativity and hatred affect us all from a soul level right to our global community. While love and positivity has the opposite profound ability to bring warmth and light into our lives.I was so moved by the end of the movie and the narrators last words about living a life dedicated to change. After the recent loss of my own son I too now live a life full of purpose. That purpose being to bring about a change of love and positivity to my own life and those within the greater community. Change on the grand scale is a slow process because belief comes from experience and patience is a requirement. But,once one feels the effects of such a change it is our greatest desire to highlight and make obvious the powers of love, acceptance and positive action for each and every soul on our planet regardless of our differences.
Joy Evans
Well, I don't get why some would thing that the reason why this movie did not make it to the big screen is because of "bad actors." The MAIN CHARACTERS were also WELL KNOWN black actors who have been in SEVERAL movies which were on the big screen. Now why would someone continue to work with so called bad actors? Hmmm, I get it.....it must have been those "extras" in the movie that no one had ever heard of. Such as the welfare-ish white woman who shunned Courtney Vance's characters while on her porch. I admit....she was NOT a believable racist. Or, maybe it was the white guys with the lame and heavy New York accent who were on the witness stand? Maybe??? Or it could have been the prison guards who made death by electric chair seem like a joyous event?
jkay-3
I think this film could teach all people, including Black, White & Gayfolk.... what hate is about and what it can cause society as well asfamily.... I would love to see this film brought back and put intotheaters...I had the privilege of working on the Canadian Casting. Even afterreading the script, I knew right away that it would make a greatfilm. I was blown away and brought to tears when I actually saw iton the big screen.I was so disappointed when it disappeared after only a short time. I tell people about this film all the time. It's a shame that it hasn'tbeen advertised more.To date, this is my favorite film.Juli Ann Kay, CSA / CDC Juli-Ann Kay Casting Toronto, Ontario
