The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
by Keith A. Beauchamp
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DVD Cover Information
Director: Keith A. BeauchampBrand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 70 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-28
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Velocity / Thinkfilm
Movie Reviews of The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
Movie Review: correction to Mr. Bernabo's review
Summary: 5 Stars
Although I greatly enjoyed reading Mr. Bernabo's excellent and well-written review above, I wanted to correct him on one fact. Roy Bryant did not die in 1990. He died on September 1, 1994. I know he didn't die in 1990 because I met and briefly spoke to Roy Bryant in May of 1991. I had just read the book A Death in the Delta by Stephen Whitfield (professor from Brandeis University) when I met Mr.Bryant. In his book, Mr. Whitfield wrote that Roy Bryant had an unlisted number because he was afraid somebody would try to avenge Emmett Till's murder and come to his Ruleville house in order to exact revenge. If my memory is correct (and this was almost 18 years ago), Roy Bryant lived in Ruleville, Mississippi. In mid May 1991, I called directory assistance and they gave me Roy Bryant's phone number and address. A week later, I drove from Chicago to Mississippi. After visiting Money and several of the other places that are mentioned in books about Emmett Till, we drove to Mr. Bryant's Ruleville neighborhood and got the name of a nearby street. We then drove past Roy Bryant's house and he was outside in his driveway in black pants and a white shirt (his clothes looked pretty much the same as the ones he was wearing in the 1955 photos). After driving past his house, I turned my car around and drove back to Mr. Bryant's house. I stopped my car about 15 yards away from Roy Bryant. I pretended that I was lost and I called out to him. I wanted to see him up close to make sure he was the same Roy Bryant who had murdered Emmett Till. He approached our car and I asked him how to get to some street (which I knew was located close to his street). He looked exactly like he did in the photos from Life Magazine (just older). He had aged but it was definitely him. He leaned down to talk to me and his face was less than a foot from my wife's face. I thanked him for the directions and we drove away. Of course there were things I was dying to ask him, but I was fairly certain he wouldn't answer my questions and I also wasn't willing to let my curiosity and search for truth put my wife's life in danger. From about a distance of 80 yards from Mr. Bryant's house, I took a photo of him and we drove off. I took the photo only because I wanted to prove to author Stephen Whitfield that what he wrote in his book "A Death in the Delta" was inaccurate and that Mr. Bryant could easily be found. Authors have a responsibility to write accurate information and I was disappointed by this obvious error. Mr.Whitfield lost a lot of credibility with me. I never sent Mr. Whitfield the photo but I did call him when I returned from Mississippi and I told him what I did and what I found out. Stephen Whitfield was an extremely nice man and he wasn't at all defensive about what I had discovered. I greatly enjoyed his book in spite of the one innacuracy regarding Roy Bryant. Mr. Whitfield told me that his wife would never be willing to make the trip to Money, Mississippi and he was amazed that my wife was willing to go there during precious vacation time. I was disappointed that Stephen Whitfield never travelled to Money, Mississippi before writing his book. I never understood how one could write a book on Emmett Till without going to Money, Mississippi. It's like writing a book on the New York Yankees without having ever been to Yankee Stadium or New York. I've been to Money, Mississippi twice. The first time (May of 1991), it was in the evening and the people at the gas station next to Bryant's grocery store were giving my wife and I really dirty looks. I don't think it was just because she was Asian and I was white. They knew why we were there and they resented us for being there. The second time (May 1996)I was there with my wife and my daughter (who was just a few weeks shy of her third birthday). The three of us met a local man at the Money, Mississippi post office who said he had been a juror on the Till case when he was young man. He was a very nice man as well, and I just couldn't understand how he could have allowed Roy Bryant and Big Milam to go unpunished. Bryant's grocery store had deteriorated significantly in the five years since I had last been there. I've always tried to find the exact location of the tar paper shack from which a confused Emmett Till was taken in the middle of the night in late August of 1955. The shack was destroyed years ago but I wanted to know where it once stood. I hope someday I can go back and somebody can show me where it once stood.
Summary of The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till
In August 1955, Mamie Till-Mobley of Chicago sent her only child, 14 year-old Emmett Louis Till, to visit relatives in the Mississippi Delta. Little did she know that only 8 days later, Emmett would be abducted from his Great-Uncle's home, brutally beaten and murdered by one of the oldest Southern taboos: whistling at a white woman in public. The murderers were soon arrested but later acquitted of murder by an all-white, all-male jury.Keith Beauchamp's groundbreaking film is the result of a 10-year journey to uncover the truth behind the nightmarish murder of an innocent African-American teenager. Emmett's brutal murder - and his family's brave actions in the horrifying aftermath- served as a major impetus for America's civil rights movement and led to Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to make decisions that changed the course of history.
Discover for yourself why the Chicago Tribune wrote, "If you don't believe film can change the world, you haven't seen The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till."
Simple yet riveting, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till articulates the madness of racism in the South of the 1950s. Combining archival photos and footage with deeply felt interviews, this documentary tells the harrowing story of what happened when a mischievous 14 year old black boy from Chicago, visiting his relatives in Mississippi, whistled at a white woman in the street. The lynching that followed was so gruesome that a media circus surrounded the trial--and what stunned the nation was not only the crime, but the blithe unconcern the citizens of a small Mississippi town felt toward the brutal murder of a black teenager. The interviews suspensefully unveil the story, moving from the viewpoint of Till's mother to the perspective of his Southern cousins to actual film of Till's uncle, who had the astonishing courage to accuse the two killers in court. Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, addressed the entire country in news footage, begging that something be done so that her son did not die in vain. The awkward, un-media-savvy quality of the 1950s interviews may seem to come from another world, but the harsh truth of what happened sprang all too clearly from America's still unresolved racial conflicts. A passionate, compelling documentary. --Bret Fetzer
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