The Klansman (1974) on Netflix
Sheriff Track Bascomb works to keep the peace in his Alabama town, where the Klan numbers his own deputy. When the Klan turns on Garth's friend, Garth swears revenge.
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- Netflix1.9/5
- IMDb5.3/102,025 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes22%
Trailer
Plot summary
A crowd of white men is molesting a black woman when Sheriff Track Bascomb breaks it up. He arrests no one, because he owes his election to the town's power structure and he wants to keep the peace in the place he grew up in. His closest friend since boyhood is Breck Stancill, a wealthy landowner who sides with the Civil Rights movement. Then Nancy Poteet, a young white woman, is attacked and beaten by a black man. Bascomb hunts the attacker while Klansmen, including Bascomb's deputy Butt Cutt Cates, drive to a rural bar used by black customers and chase two men outside. Henry is caught; Garth gets away, and vows vengeance. Loretta Sykes comes home, and Civil Rights workers try to draw Breck in.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Klansman (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Richard Burton drank so heavily during the shoot that many of his scenes had to be filmed with him seated or lying down because he could not stand, and he later said he could not remember making the film. Lee Marvin, also a heavy drinker then, was credited by Burton with saving his life.
- During Richard Burton's death scene as Breck Stancill, director Terence Young thought the make-up artist had prepared him, but the artist had done nothing; a doctor found Burton dying and he was rushed to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica with a 104 F temperature and both kidneys near collapse, staying six weeks.
- The novel's film rights were first bought by the Robert Leder Company for $100,000, with TV director Don Stewart set to direct and Chuck Connors to star as Sheriff Track Bascomb, before a black producer, William D. Alexander, took over the project.
- Terence Young hired Luciana Paluzzi, who had played Bond villain Fiona Volpe in Thunderball, as Trixie, and the studio had American Joanna Moore dub Paluzzi's lines; producer Bill Schiffrin said he had wanted Moore for the role and never thought an Italian should play a Southern girl.
- During editing at Samuel Goldwyn Studio, the building caught fire. An investor failed to deliver money at the last minute, so Lee Marvin and Richard Burton were not paid in full and Paramount put a lien on the film.
- Richard Burton gave Kim Dinucci, a young woman in town, a $450 diamond ring and got her a small walk-on part as Bascomb's daughter. This made national news.
- Lee Marvin said his character Bascomb was meant to be a war hero with a son, Alan, who refused to go to West Point, and a subplot had Stancill siding with Alan; all of it was cut from the final film, and Marvin was never paid a final $50,000 owed him.
- Samuel Fuller wrote the first draft of the script, which Millard Kaufman rewrote; Fuller claimed Paramount had a prior commitment with Italian partners as payback for an earlier deal, and when Terence Young came on as director Fuller walked off the project.
