Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) on Netflix
John Kelso, a New York magazine reporter, travels to Savannah to write about Jim Williams's Christmas party. A shooting at Williams's home keeps him in town for the trial.
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- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
John Kelso, a New York magazine reporter with one book to his name, flies to Savannah to write a feature on Jim Williams's Christmas party at Mercer House. Williams is an antiques dealer and art collector, and his parties at Mercer House were highlights of the social calendar for many people. During the evening, Billy Hanson, Williams's young lover, lets himself in through the servants' entrance and demands money; Williams refuses, and Hanson threatens him with a broken bottle before storming out. Kelso stays on to cover the trial that follows, meeting Savannah's eccentrics along the way: Chablis Deveau, a drag entertainer; Luther Driggers, who keeps flies on strings on his lapels; and Minerva, a spiritualist who performs midnight rituals in a graveyard.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The trial's real defense attorney, Seiler, was originally cast as a juror in the film, but director Eastwood talked him into playing the judge instead.
- Uga V, the English bulldog live mascot of the University of Georgia, appears in the film's dog-walking scenes playing his own father, Uga IV, and died two years after filming.
- The film's marketing landed in legal trouble after Warner Bros. used photographer Jack Leigh's famous photograph in its posters without getting permission to use it.
- Spacey personally donated $200,000 toward restoring Savannah's historic Lucas Theatre, built in 1921, in honor of Williams, the real man his character in the film was based on.
- The name of a real hospital, Candler, is pronounced as Chandler throughout the entire finished film, an error that runs from the first mention to the last.
