Mississippi Burning (1988) on Netflix
FBI agents Rupert Anderson, a former Mississippi sheriff, and Alan Ward investigate three missing civil rights workers in Jessup County. The police are tied to the Klan, and nobody talks.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.8/10128,902 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes79%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1964, three workers registering African American voters go missing in Jessup County, Mississippi. The FBI sends two agents: Rupert Anderson, who once was a sheriff in the state, and Alan Ward, a younger Northerner who works by the book. Questioning the townspeople leads nowhere, since the sheriff and his deputies are tied to a local Klan branch and shape what the public will say. The agents find the workers' burned car in a swamp. Klan members, with police help, burn homes and attack the county's African American residents, while residents black and white alike refuse to give the agents information.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mississippi Burning (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On June 21, 1964 civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, working on the Freedom Summer voter registration campaign, were arrested in Philadelphia, Mississippi by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, held seven hours, then released on bail and followed out of town.
- In spite of the criticism, the film inspired Jerry Mitchell to begin researching suspects; his reporting contributed to the conviction of Edgar Ray Killen for the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, and he later helped convict Bobby Cherry, Sam Bowers and Byron de la Beckwith.
- Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., boycotted the film, asking how long people would have to wait before Hollywood found the courage to tell the stories of the many thousands of black men, women and children who put their lives on the line for equality.
- On February 21, 1989 former Neshoba County sheriff Lawrence Rainey sued Orion Pictures for defamation and invasion of privacy at a United States district court in Meridian, Mississippi, asking for $8 million in damages.
- The abductor of Mayor Tilman was originally written as a Mafia hitman who forces a confession by putting a pistol in Tilman's mouth; Gerolmo took his inspiration from Gregory Scarpa, a mob enforcer allegedly recruited by the FBI during their search for Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner.
- Parker cut the Mafia hitman and created Agent Monk, a black FBI specialist who kidnaps Tilman; the scene in which Frank Bailey beats a news cameraman came from a real news outtake found in research, showing a CBS News cameraman assaulted by a suspect in the 1964 murder case.
- Parker also wrote a sex scene involving Rupert Anderson and Mrs. Pell, but it was omitted during filming after Gene Hackman, who plays Anderson, suggested the relationship between the two characters be more discreet.
- The title comes from the FBI's code name for the investigation, and some of the film's dialogue is drawn directly from the bureau's files.
