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The Murder of Mary Phagan
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Wikipedia article
'The Murder of Mary Phagan' is a 1988 American two-part television miniseries starring Jack Lemmon. The supporting cast features Richard Jordan, Robert Prosky, Peter Gallagher, Kathryn Walker, Rebecca Miller, Paul Dooley, Charles Dutton, Kevin Spacey, Cynthia Nixon, Dylan Baker and William H. Macy.
Summary
Dramatizing the true story of Leo Frank, a factory manager who was convicted of the murder a 13-year-old girl, a factory worker named Mary Phagan, in Atlanta in 1913. His trial was sensational and controversial and at its end, Frank was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan and sentenced to death by hanging. After Frank's legal appeals failed, the governor of Georgia commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment on June 21, 1915, destroying his own career in the process. On the morning of August 17, 1915 Frank was kidnapped from prison and lynched by a small group of prominent men from Marietta, Georgia, Mary Phagan's home town.[http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/ogh/Leo_Frank_and_the_murder_of_Mary_Phagan "Leo Frank and the murder of Mary Phagan"] - Our Georgian History[https://web.archive.org/web/20071122030754/http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=161019 MSN movies: 'The Murder of Mary Phagan'], MSN[http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/filmnotes/murderofmaryphagan.html 'Murder of Mary Phagan'], University of San Diego, Filmnotes
[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/frank.html "Leo Frank"], Jewish Virtual Library[http://ngeorgia.com/feature/littlesecrets.html "Little Secrets"], 'About North Georgia'[https://web.archive.org/web/20001029043847/http://www.atlantanation.com/leofrank.html "Leo Frank", Atlanta Nation][http://www.ajhs.org/scholarship/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=284 "The Lynching of Leo Frank"], American Jewish Historical Society
Production
Written by Larry McMurtry, produced by George Stevens Jr., and directed by William "Billy" Hale, the miniseries stars Lemmon and features Kevin Spacey, Rebecca Miller, Peter Gallagher, Charles Dutton, Richard Jordan, Cynthia Nixon, Dylan Baker and William H. Macy. Lemmon noted during a publicity appearance on 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson' shortly before the miniseries was broadcast, that the cast was the best with which he had ever worked.
The film was shot in Richmond, Virginia, extensively in Shockoe Bottom, with a running time of 251 minutes (over 4 hours), originally broadcast over two evenings by NBC.
Cast
* Jack Lemmon as Gov. John Slaton
* Richard Jordan as Hugh Dorsey
* Robert Prosky as Tom Watson
* Peter Gallagher as Leo Frank
* Kathryn Walker as Sally Slaton
* Rebecca Miller as Lucille Frank
* Paul Dooley as William Burns
* Charles Dutton as Jim Conley
* Kevin Spacey as Wes Brent
* Cynthia Nixon as Doreen
* Dylan Baker as the Governor's Assistant
* William H. Macy as Randy (credited as W.H. Macy)
* Kevin Kravitz as Jurist (unbilled)
* William Newman
* Russell Murray as Militia Guard (unbilled)
Honors
The film won three Emmy Awards including Outstanding Miniseries[https://www.emmys.com/shows/murder-mary-phagan Television Academy] and a Peabody Award.
Other treatments
An earlier movie version of the case, with the names changed, was directed by Mervyn LeRoy in 1937 and titled 'They Won't Forget', starring Claude Rains and Lana Turner. In 1997, David Mamet published a book about Leo Frank titled 'The Old Religion'. The following year a Broadway musical titled 'Parade', written by the playwright Alfred Uhry, with music composed by Jason Robert Brown was produced. In 2004 the journalist Steve Oney published his history of the Mary Phagan case, titled 'And the Dead Shall Rise'. The trial and Frank's lynching have also been explored in works of academic history.
References
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