Books, Arts & Manners: The Frenzied and the Frozen

Some movies, however defective, have success built into them. A picture such as Mississippi Burning, provided only that it does not shy away from violence—which, Lord knows, it doesn’t—cannot but make a killing. To see sheeted or unsheeted rednecks beating, burning, and lynching away is irresistible to viewers outside the South (and perhaps also inside), and pyromaniacs should get their money’s worth from the plethora of burning homes, schools, and churches crumbling rafter by lingeredon rafter. And then there is the cops- and-robbers story of how Ward, a prim FBI agent, and Anderson, a hearty former Mississippi sheriff, crack the murder case of three (here unnamed) civil-rights workers: the black James Chaney and the white Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

The film can be judged on three levels: as a thriller, as history, and as a human-interest story, what with the stiff Northerner Ward going strictly by the book and the easy-going downhome Anderson proceeding by folksy, unorthodox methods, as—once again! —two mismatched buddies come to respect and care about each other. For added human interest, there is even a platonic flirtation between Anderson and Mrs. Pell, a beautician and wife of Deputy Sheriff Pell, one of the men who murdered the civil-rights workers. It is Mrs. Pell who—at grave risk to herself, but because Anderson treats her so much better than her scurvy husband does—reveals the whereabouts of the three corpses, and so makes possible the victory of justice.

JS

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John Simon

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Some movies, however defective, have success built into them. A picture such as Mississippi Burning, provided only that it does not shy away from violence—which, Lord knows, it doesn’t—cannot but make a killing. To see sheeted or unsheeted rednecks beating, burning, and lynching away is irresistible to viewers outside the South (and perhaps also inside), and pyromaniacs should get their money’s worth from the plethora of burning homes, schools, and churches crumbling rafter by lingeredon rafter. And then there is the cops- and-robbers story of how Ward, a prim FBI agent, and Anderson, a hearty former Mississippi sheriff, crack the murder case of three (here unnamed) civil-rights workers: the black James Chaney and the white Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

The film can be judged on three levels: as a thriller, as history, and as a human-interest story, what with the stiff Northerner Ward going strictly by the book and the easy-going downhome Anderson proceeding by folksy, unorthodox methods, as—once again! —two mismatched buddies come to respect and care about each other. For added human interest, there is even a platonic flirtation between Anderson and Mrs. Pell, a beautician and wife of Deputy Sheriff Pell, one of the men who murdered the civil-rights workers. It is Mrs. Pell who—at grave risk to herself, but because Anderson treats her so much better than her scurvy husband does—reveals the whereabouts of the three corpses, and so makes possible the victory of justice.