A black funeral home director in a small Tennessee town seeks a divorce from his wife, a sexy young thing who's cheating on him with a white policeman; she's contesting the divorce to get as much money out of her husband as possible, which would mean bringing the interracial affair with the cop into the courtroom. Heated racial melodrama directed by William Wyler, in his final bow, is a world away from his previous film, "Funny Girl". Screenwriter Jesse Hill Ford, adapting his novel "The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones", plugs the scenario with narrative, which Wyler is surprisingly ineffective at handling (the picture feels disjointed or, at times, constipated). Many fine actors pop up in the cast, though their drawlin' Suth'n performances are as over-scaled as the plot. *1/2 from ****
Review of The Liberation of L.B. Jones
The Liberation of L.B. Jones
(1970)
"Dumb stupid cops! I've seen better heads on cabbage!"
15 June 2021