The read
Critics rate it 17 points higher than audiences do. Scores higher than 81% of the 466 1940s drama movies in this catalog. It runs a compact 1h 27m.
Synopsis
Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.
Ratings
Critics rate it 17 points higher than audiences do.
51 audience votes
Key crew
- Clarence BrownDirector
- Adolph DeutschOriginal Music Composer
- Ben MaddowScreenplay
Cast
- David BrianJohn Gavin Stevens
- Claude Jarman Jr.Chick Mallison
- Juano HernándezLucas Beauchamp
- Porter HallNub Gowrie
- Elizabeth PattersonMiss Eunice Habersham
- Charles KemperCrawford Gowrie
- Will GeerSheriff Hampton
- David ClarkeVinson Gowrie
- Elzie EmanuelAleck
- Lela BlissMrs. Mallison
- Harry HaydenMr. Mallison
- Harry AntrimMr. Tubbs
