''Heavens Fall'' is a 2006 American film based on the
Scottsboro Boys incident of 1931.
Plot
In the film, two young white women (portrayed by
Leelee Sobieski and
Azura Skye) accuse nine black youths of rape in the
segregated South.
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He is the List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees#Youngest winners 4, youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he ...
stars as criminal defense attorney
Samuel Leibowitz.
The film begins after the first trial of the nine in the bustling city of Scottsboro, Alabama. Samuel Leibowitz, a successful Jewish lawyer from New York is called down past the
Mason–Dixon line
The Mason–Dixon line, sometimes referred to as Mason and Dixon's Line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia. It was Surveying, surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason ...
to defend the nine black youths.
Cast
*
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He is the List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees#Youngest winners 4, youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he ...
...
Samuel Leibowitz
*
David Strathairn ... Judge James E. Horton
*
Leelee Sobieski ... Victoria Price
*
Anthony Mackie ... William Lee
*
Bill Sage ...
Thomas Knight, Jr.
*
Azura Skye ... Ruby Bates
*
James Tolkan ... Thomas Knight, Sr.
*
Bill Smitrovich ... George Chamlee
*
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin (July 27, 1949 – July 27, 2010) was an American-Canadian actor. Described as "one of the most recognizable faces in Canadian cinema," he was best known for his portrayal of Rex Stout's detective Nero Wolfe on the televi ...
... Lyle Harris
*
Joseph Lyle Taylor ... Joseph Brodsky
*
B. J. Britt ... Haywood Patterson
*
Francie Swift ... Belle Leibowitz
Production
A train from the
Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum was used in the filming.
Release
''Heavens Fall'' was released on DVD in the US in 2007.
See also
*
Timeline of the civil rights movement
External links
*
*
2006 films
2006 crime drama films
American crime drama films
Films about miscarriage of justice
Crime films based on actual events
Films set in Alabama
Films set in 1931
Films about racism in the United States
African-American drama films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
English-language crime drama films
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