What about "The Hurricane" movie?

See also:

What Director Norm Jewison did not know about "Hurricane" Carter and the Lafayette Grill murders.

Go to Cal Deal's site for more comments on the falsehoods in
the movie

Official movie site

Movie script

Carter's boxing career

Carter's credibility problem

Did the killers drive a Polara or a Monaco? How the movie got it wrong.

What about the "Hurricane" movie?

The "Hurricane" movie is full of distortions
and falsehoods.

Yes, it's just a movie -- but it's being used as a teaching tool in schools around the world to illustrate the "true" story of how a man was framed for murder by corrupt and deceitful racists.

The following incidents from the movie are not true -
and this is just a partial list:

The biggest and most crucial distortion the movie serves up is that one evil, racist Paterson lieutenant had it in for Carter. There was a lead detective in the Lafayette Grill case, by the name of Vincent DeSimone. He had nothing to do with Carter's earlier convictions.
The Canadians (a group of people who devoted themselves to freeing Carter, in the early 80s) did not find evidence that proves Carter is innocent or that Carter was framed, and neither has anybody else. His release had nothing to do with proving the case was built on "forgeries and lies," as the lawyers for Carter claim in the final courtroom scene.
Evil detectives did not threaten the Canadians on the street and did not tamper with their car. It bears repeating: the Canadians were not the victims of an attempted murder by New Jersey law enforcement.
Carter was not 11 when he and a group of his friends encountered a middle-aged white man, depicted as a maniacal pedophile in the movie, at the Great Falls. He was 14 when he was convicted for clubbing the man over the head with a bottle and robbing a watch worth $55 dollars. It was Carter's fourth juvenile offence. Carter was an experienced and savage street fighter, the leader of a gang called the Apaches. Anyone would have thought twice before tangling with him, let alone trying to proposition him. Does this assault sound like a case of self-defence?
Carter did not leave the Army wearing a uniform covered with good conduct and service ribbons. The record shows he was discharged, with the designation "unfit," after four courts-martial for: "disobeying a lawful order (three times), failure to make reveille, disrespectful in language to a non-commissioned officer and treating his superior officer with contempt."
Carter was returned to prison after he left the Army to finish his juvenile term, but the movie completely omits another four-year stint in prison, for mugging three people. Carter was twice denied parole because of his hostility and aggression. The detective who arrested Carter for the mugging couldn't have been motivated by racism - the detective was black.
Carter's world championship bout in 1964 with Joey Giardello was not a slam-dunk case of racist "fixing." Giardello sued the producers of the movie for their portrayal of the fight and settled out of court.
When the police stopped Carter and Artis on the night of the shooting, Carter was not sitting up front beside Artis, he was lying down in the back seat. Plus there was another man in the car, sitting opposite Artis in the front seat.
excerpted from "The Hurricane Hoax"

for the complete article, go to www.crimemagazine.com/hurricane

More things the movie left out:

Carter was accused of viciously beating a female supporter
The police found live ammunition in his car on the night of the murders
At the second trial, his alibi witnesses said they had lied for him at the first trial

The movie maligns the reputation
of a hard-working police detective

"In real life, the Della Pesca character—whose real name was Vince DeSimone — died in 1979. There is no record that he ever did a single one of the evil acts attributed to him in the movie. Not only that, he wasn't a racist or a thug, according to those who knew him. About the only thing the movie got right is that the actor who plays him is made up to have an unattractive face. DeSimone had a handsome face before World War II, but then a German bullet went through it. Nineteen plastic surgeries couldn't fix it. That's Hollywood for you. The disgraceful military career of Carter is made to look honorable and the war wound of a true hero is made to look dishonorable." Paul Mulshine

Jewison and the scriptwriters bludgeon us
over the head with their message

"The Hurricane is slightly old-fashioned and reminiscent of earlier Hollywood attempts to deal with racism in that it smacks of a well-intentioned but guilt-ridden liberalism.

In Jewison's manufactured world of The Hurricane the white racist police investigator is the epitome of evil, but the two key black characters are pure, noble and good.

By ignoring the complexities and making Carter into an almost model citizen, The Hurricane reduces the boxer to a simplistic symbol of racial injustice that white America finds palatable.

By playing with the truth, the film runs the danger of perpetuating patronising myths about black Americans which are just as negative as some old-fashioned Hollywood stereotypes."

Tom Brook, BBC

"That [Carter] should have been sent to reform school until he was 21 [for stabbing the pedophile] seems a monstrous injustice and entirely the result of Della Pesca's irrational hatred. But where does that hatred come from? Very well, it is racism, but why this little black boy rather than some other? The next time we see Rubin he is home on leave from the army. His first day back he is arrested, again by Della Pesca... More racism, I guess.....

His [boxing] successes are only marred by a title bout.... which he clearly won, though the judges gave it to the other man. More racism.
Meanwhile, someone is hurling bricks through his windows at night. Who? Why? We aren't told. But it doesn't matter, presumably, because if it's not Della Pesca or a Philly fight judge it's bound to be some other racist. Finally comes the shooting in the Lafayette Bar and Grill.

Soon [Della Pesca] is browbeating and blackmailing witnesses to finger Rubin as the guilty man. Away goes Rubin to prison for the rest of his natural life. That old debbil racism strikes again."

James Bowman

One of The Hurricane's screenwriters, Dan Gordon, knew that he was writing fiction, not a true story. As he put it:

"As someone who has made a living for over thirty years by taking certain facts and ignoring others in order to create dramatic myths on film, I know propaganda when I see it. When I engage in it as a screenwriter it is to write a movie whose first job is to entertain. When I write a screenplay, I start out with an agenda. I decide who my hero is first, and who the villain. Then I fashion scenes to build my dramatic case and make it believable."

(Note: this is the beginning of an article about inaccurate war reporting. Gordon complains that the war reporters are not being factual, but are propagandizing -- just like one of his movies.)

One teacher who places honesty over mythmaking in our
public schools, wrote:

"In February, the school decided to show Norman Jewison's, The Hurricane, a movie about an African American boxer who was wrongly convicted by a racist judicial system. The movie was, without a doubt, a great movie. However, after careful research, I must doubt the appropriateness of using this movie as a tool to honor African-American achievements and contributions in history."

[ Jewison's comments | Cal Deal's movie page ]