The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009) on Netflix
NR20091h 26mDocumentary
Over a year in Boone County, West Virginia, the White family speaks about its mountain dancing and its run-ins with the law. Jesco White, subject of Dancing Outlaw, is among them.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.1/105,627 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Four generations of the White family of Boone County, West Virginia, appear in interviews over the course of a year. Jesco White, a mountain dancer known from Dancing Outlaw, is one of six of D. Ray and Bertie Mae White's thirteen children who take part, along with grandchildren and cousins. Bertie Mae, called The Miracle Woman by locals for the abandoned children she raised, is ill. Family members appear in jail cells, courtrooms and hospital beds, while Boone County professionals speak of the Whites as a bad influence. Generations of coal mining, including the scrip payment era, shaped the family's fatalistic attitude, and D. Ray signed his children up in adolescence for monthly government checks based on alleged psychiatric disability.
Cast
- Hank Williams IIIas Self
- J. Parker Bazzle IIas Himself
- Ponty's Camperas Themselves
- Derek Wayne Castleas Himself
- Francis M. Curnutte IIIas Himself
- Charles Greenas Himself
- Billy Hastingsas Himself
- Peter Hendricksas Himself
- Jay Hillas Himself
- Kentucky Headhuntersas Themselves
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The documentary was an immediate success, knocking Best Picture Oscar winner The Hurt Locker from Amazon's top video-on-demand spot.
- Mamie explains how D. Ray's frustration with his employers' corrupt practices led him to "outsmarting the system": he legally signed each of his children up for "crazy checks" during their early adolescence.
- It was the first non-Jackass project made by producers Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine, the pair best known for that franchise.
- Director Nitzberg spent eighteen months embedded with the family to gather footage of their history as dancers, criminals, and their collisions with the law.
