Erweiterte Suche

How African Americans created the upbeat musical form that started out as gospel quartet music and became rock and roll.

In the mob-controlled town of Phenix City, Alabama in the 1950s, a crusading lawyer is assassinated after he is elected attorney general on a platform of 'Man Against Crime'. His son reluctantly takes his place, vowing to clean up Phenix City and find his father's killers. Later he uses the race issue to be elected governor so that he can continue his fight against the mob. But his stand as a segregationist leads to tragic results.

Alabama's blues tradition may be less well-known than Mississippi's, but it records the folklore of a state that has been long the epicenter of the struggle for Civil Rights. The film explores the rich and vibrant blues music tradition in Alabama stretching back to the early 20th century. It goes to pop-up juke joints like Dutt's in Panola, Alabama, situated in a doublewide trailer in a region of many trailers. It goes to the hard-to find Red Wolf Lounge on a back street near the Bessemer line in Birmingham, where a mostly Black audience parties once a week with a chicken fry outside and blues and Southern soul music inside. It goes to the trailer in Old Memphis, Alabama, where the late Willie King -- who gave away most of the money he made in concerts to his neighbors -- chose to live. The blues is still thriving, says one character in the film, because the color line still exists; that's why singers keep singing about it.

In Sink the Alabama, the Confederate "pirate ship" Alabama wreaks havoc on Union commercial vessels in the Civil war, evading capture on five oceans as U.S. Naval Secretary Gideon Welles tries to track it down. Despite its neutrality and opposition to slavery, Britain fails to stop the Alabama and other ships from being built and launched in its ports. A fifth column of Confederate sympathizers and a well-financed propaganda campaign convinces the British public that the American civil war is not about slavery but about Southern independence. Semmes is called a "pirate" by the Northern press as he burns Union ships after their passengers have been removed along with provisions and valuables stolen by the crew. Semmes become famous worldwide as he escapes capture time after time. He goes as far as Singapore and the Indian Ocean, but with his crew near mutiny and his ship needing repair, Semmes puts in to Cherbourg France and is trapped there by the USS Kearsarge. Semmes decides to do battle rather than surrender and the Alabama is sunk after a battle off the French coast, with large number of spectators lining the shore..

Four baby boomers living in New York City in the 1970s deal with the loss of old ideals and an obsession with material possessions. Nick and Karen argue over a classic car she own which is their connection to the past, while their friend Stephanie abandons her marriage and seeks their advice about having an abortion. Stephanie's husband Sammy shelters upstate and tells Nick his problem is he's been "eaten up" by New York. When Karen returns from Bermuda where she's been with a new boyfriend, she and Nick help Stephanie arrange an abortion. At the clinic she tells Nick the Thunderbird is gone, she has sold it.