The Learning Tree (1969) on Netflix
Newt Winger, a Black teenager in 1920s Cherokee Flats, Kansas, wants to go to college. He and Marcus Savage take apples from a white neighbor's orchard, and Newt tries to make amends.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.2/101,931 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes69%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Winger family lives in Cherokee Flats, Kansas, in the 1920s, and Newt, their teenage son, earns good marks at school and hopes to go to college. One of his white teachers tells him and the other Black students that they will amount to laborers, but the principal encourages his ambition. Marcus Savage, whose widowed father, Booker Savage, is abusive, believes the white world is against him and answers his troubles with violence. Newt and Marcus are among the boys who take fruit from the orchard of Jake Kiner, a white neighbor; when Kiner confronts them, Marcus beats him and goes to jail. Newt takes work with Kiner to make amends, and he falls for Arcella Jefferson, a new girl in town.
Cast
- Kyle Johnsonas Newt
- Alex Clarkeas Marcus
- Mira Watersas Arcella
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Learning Tree (1969)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Gordon Parks's The Learning Tree, bought by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969, became the first film directed by a Black person for a major American film studio.
- Gordon Parks won the job of directing The Learning Tree in a 15-minute meeting with Ken Hyman, president of Seven Arts, who liked Parks's book and knew his photography; Parks said years of prejudice were broken down in 15 minutes.
- Gordon Parks personally chose Kyle Johnson to play Newt after a brief meeting in a Beverly Hills hotel, but gave no sign he wanted him. Johnson kept being called back for screen tests, and after the fourth learned he was hired and the tests were to gauge the other actors.
- Warner Bros. executives often visited the set and sent representatives to check that production was running smoothly, allegedly because director Gordon Parks was an African-American.
- Parks shot the film on location in Fort Scott, Kansas, in the fall of 1968, the town where he had grown up; Fort Scott was also the basis for the story's fictional town of Cherokee Flats.
- In 1989 the film was among the first group of 25 films chosen by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry, for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
