"Roots: The Next Generations" (1979) TV mini-series

Directors:

Georg Stanford Brown
Charles S. Dubin

Writers:

Sydney A. Glass (writer)
Alex Haley (book)

Release Date:

18 February 1979 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Plot:

The dramatization of Alex Haley's family line from post Civil War America to the writer's search for his roots.

Plot Keywords:

Roots | Civil War | American Civil War | Generation Gap | Cockfighting

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 2 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Georg Stanford Brown	...	Tom Harvey
Olivia de Havilland	...	Mrs. Warner
Henry Fonda	...	Colonel Frederick Warner
Paul Koslo	...	Earl Crowther
Avon Long	...	Chicken George Moore
Lynne Moody	...	Irene Harvey
Greg Morris	...	Beeman Jones
Marc Singer	...	Andy Warner
Richard Thomas	...	Jim Warner
Fay Hauser	...	Carrie Barden
Brian Stokes Mitchell	...	John Dolan (as Brian Mitchell)
Debbi Morgan	...	Elizabeth Harvey
Kathleen Doyle	...	Lucy Damson
Ja'net DuBois	...	Sally Harvey
Slim Gaillard	...	Sam Wesley

Runtime:

840 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Mandingo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Golden Oak Ranch - 19802 Placerita Canyon Road, Newhall, California, USA

Company:

David L. Wolper Productions

Trivia:

Marlon Brando 's sequence was only made out of one day of shooting.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Brando (2007) (TV)

The Great American Saga Continues

ROOTS:THE NEXT GENERATIONS-Produced by Wolper Productions for the ABC Television Network. Producer:Stan Margulies. Based on the novel "Roots" written by Alex Haley. Executive Producer: David L. Wolper,and adapted for television by William Blinn. Shown as a mini-series for ABC-TV that ran from 1979-1981.

First Telecast of the Mini-Series: February 18,1979 Last Telecast of the Mini-Series: July 12,1981 NOTE: During the February 1979 broadcast,it ran each night for seven days,and was repeated as a weekly series from May of 1981 to July,1981.

Two years after Alex Haley's "Roots" made television history,this sequel to one of the most highly watched programs of all time continued the saga,again attracting large audiences in which no one,not even ABC was expecting such a brilliant success. And again it was the talk of the town during the night of the Emmy Awards,winning more Emmys than any other show imaginable in the history of television. The story picks up where the first one left off,where it resumed from last time. The story begins in 1882,by which time Tom Harvey,the great-grandson of Kunta Kinte had established a marginal existence as a blacksmith in Henning,Tennessee. Relations between the races were strained,but the old prejudices and racial hatred of the past survived. Tom Harvey(George Stanford-Brown)forbade his daughter's marriage to a light-skinned negro because he is "too white";and town patriarch Colonel Warner(Henry Fonda)disowned his own son Jim(Richard Thomas)when he dared to marry a black schoolteacher. Before long "literacy tests" were being used to deny blacks their recently won the right to vote,and lynch law had reappeared. This was during the reconstruction period,and this was years after the Civil War and the story continues onward towards the beginning of the 20th Century.

Tom's younger daughter,Cynthia(Bever-Leigh Banfield),married a hard working young man named Will Palmer(Stan Shaw),who,despite the oppression,had risen ownership of the local lumberyard. In time Will would succeed Tom as the leader of the black community,as the terror and violence of the Ku Klux Klan swept the South. Will and Cynthia's daughter,Bertha(Irene Cara),became the first descendant of Kunta Kinte to enter college. There,in 1912,she met an ambitious young Simon Haley (Dorian Harewood),son of a sharecropper,whose education was being sponsored by a philanthropic white man. After serving in a segregated combat unit during World War I,Simon returned to marry Bertha and began teaching agriculture at a black college in Tuskegee,Alabama. This was otherwise known as Tuskegee Institute also known as Tuskegee University. It was from there that the foundations of family lore were discoved by Simon's son Alex(played by Kristoff St. John as a child; Damon Evans as a young man,and James Earl Jones as a adult)who soaked up the family legacy that was told to him from the older generation about the stories and family history about the ancestors of Kunta Kinte.

As the beginning of World War II approached,Alex enlisted in the Coast Guard,where he spent the next 20 years. When he retired in 1960 he turned to writing,interviewing such national figures as Malcolm X,whose autobiography he helped write. Haley also had candid interviews with American Nazi Leader George Lincoln Rockwell,and also was good friends with Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. But it was a visit to his boyhood home in Henning,Tennesee that reignited his interest in his family's past,all the way back to the "Old African" Kunta Kinte,and started him on a journey to Africa where the origins of his ancestors came from and from there begin his most greatest work of all time.

"Roots:The Next Generation",just like the first one,had a lot of brilliant talents which featured a superb who's who of African-American actors of their day,along with Hollywood heavyweights like Henry Fonda,Olivia DeHavilland,Harry Morgan and Marlon Brando is unusual role as a Aryan Leader of a Nazi Organization,whom Haley interviews. The "Roots" sagas are usually shown during Black History Month,but it is a must to see this special in all its glory to one of the most highly acclaimed specials of all time.