Review of The Klansman

Outrageous, awful, astonishing...words fail to adequately to describe this big-budget picture distributed by a major Hollywood studio in 1974. On the eve of a "We Shall Overcome" demonstration of black people in the southern county of Atoka, a black man rapes a white woman stranded on the road (her husband later complains to the sheriff, "Why did this have to happen to me?"). This sets off members of the Ku Klux Klan against sheriff Lee Marvin, who wants to keep the peace but also placate the racists (he needs their votes come election time!). Richard Burton plays a southern aristocrat who befriends black rape victim Lola Falana, who was attacked by the white deputy; meanwhile white rape victim Linda Evans is shunned by the rest of the town for fornicating with a black man--they even kick her out of the church. Adaptation by William Bradford Huie's novel by Millard Kaufman and Samuel Fuller was extensively reworked during production, to the point where Marvin's character has become so benign he hardly makes any sense. Both he and Burton look sheepish just being in an exploitive movie like this, although for his part Burton was reportedly drunk throughout the filming. *1/2 from ****