If Jesse Helms and Pat Buchanan made movies...

Rating: 6/10 (16 October 1998)

Oh. My. God! I rented this movie out of curiosity; I honestly thought it would be so dated that it couldn't be truly offensive. The blacks in this movie are portrayed as simple-minded, violent children. There is not one sympathetic black character. The movie tells the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the point of view of the white supremacists. The disenfranchised whites suddenly find themselves at the mercy of the black voters, jurors, legislators and business owners running the show. Lillian Gish plays the daughter of a white politician who is the "leader" of the blacks, a "Radical" who believes not only that blacks and whites are equal but also that blacks will and should take over from the whites, using violence if necessary. Gish's fiance forms the Ku Klux Klan to end the anarchy, and when she finds out what he does she ends their engagement (though she won't "tell" on him 'cause she's a lady and a good daughter of the South). Later she is at the mercy of her father's mulatto henchman, an evil character with political ambitions of his own, who gets drunk and tries to persuade her to marry him and be the "queen" of his black nation, while dozens of blacks riot outside. Of course her fiance, along with dozens of other Klansmen, ride triumphantly to her rescue and trounce the rioters. Then the blacks are intimidated into giving up their political power and peace is restored, and Gish and her fiance marry and live happily ever after. Just appallingly offensive stuff. Yeah, it's historically significant and it's well-made (it's kind of long, and tends to be slow until the second half of the story), but WOW.
Ultimately it's just so sad in the way it's so matter-of-fact. Sure, the idea of a population of uneducated, unsophisticated people being in charge is worrisome, but this movie jumps to conclusions about how their society would immediately collapse into anarchy, and that all blacks (and mulattoes) are dangerous, violent people with political agendas. You want to write a big check to the NAACP or the Southern Poverty Law Center (they fight the Klan) after seeing this movie.
Lillian Gish never married; she said the only man she ever loved was D.W. Griffith. After I saw this movie I lost all respect for her.