Vernon, Florida (1981)

Lack of good storyline.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I collect and watch weird movies. Not just "B" movies, mind you. Those are fun, but most of them have acquired "B" status by merely having been made decades ago with low budgets, compared to today's multi-million dollar blockbusters. But it's the movies that are made with interesting back stories that catch my eye. So it was that while perusing Netflix's recommended movies, that I came across an obscure movie made in 1981 called Vernon, Florida. Now I've seen other documentaries made decades ago about old Florida towns, and having grown up here, I could always relate to the people and places, including the unmistakable wood frame houses surrounded by endless acres of sandy roads, Florida scrub and stands of palmettos. Vernon, Florida looked like such a movie, and with a running time of an hour, I decided to sit down and watch it.Sure enough it showed a small Florida town, located in the panhandle of Florida and included numerous interviews from the people there, where they just rambled about the town, giving anecdotal accounts of things that happened to them in their lives. I instantly related these folks to the countless small town Floridians I had known over the years and with whom I had spent so much time talking and hearing similar stories. The deep southern drawls were quite intelligible since I had grown up here, and I wondered how much trouble others would have understanding. I also wondered how weird the movie would seem to those not from the south. Certainly to them it would be a comedy, but in reality that's the way things were and still are in some places here. But it wasn't until the movie abruptly an hour later that I did a little research and found out the interesting back story to this movie, and to the town known affectionately back then as "Nub City." "Nub City," I thought. That's a strange nick-name. After a little more research, I found out where the name came from. Apparently, during the 1950s and 1960s, the Florida panhandle area accounted for ⅔ of the insurance claims in the whole country for people who had lost limbs and body parts due to accidents, and Vernon, Florida was apparently the epicenter. One insurance agent's list of clients included the following: a man who sawed off his left hand at work, a man who shot off his foot while protecting chickens, a man who lost his hand while trying to shoot a hawk, a man who somehow lost two limbs in an accident involving a rifle and a tractor, and a man who bought a policy and then, less than 12 hours later, shot off his foot while aiming at a squirrel. Nearly 50 men in Vernon and surrounding areas collected insurance for these "accidents" and none were ever convicted of fraud. An insurance investigator later reported, "to sit in your car on a sweltering summer evening on the main street of Nub City, watching anywhere from eight to a dozen cripples walking along the street, gives the place a ghoulish, eerie atmosphere." Suddenly, it made sense. This is what director, Errol Morris intended to do a documentary on when he rolled into town in 1981. The problem was that his subjects threatened to murder him if he reported their secret. So in response, he retooled his film to be merely a documentary full of interviews of local residents.Today, Vernon, like many of Florida's small towns, is facing the challenges of growth and urban sprawl. It's main street has been widened into a four-lane road and many of its historic buildings have been demolished. Most of those with peg legs or claw hands are gone as well, as commercial chains worm their way in, transforming Vernon into the stereotypical "Anytown, USA" that is so prevalent across our country today. But alas, thanks to the contributions of directors who seek out the weird, and those subjects who are happy to share their stories, at least one more small town is recorded on film for history to remember her by. If you have a Netflix account, you can either get the DVD or watch it instantly. Knowing the back story, it will be much more interesting, I promise you!

Errol Morris's 1982 documentary Vernon, Florida, is rife with a great backstory; one that is interesting as the quirky townsfolk it portrays, This was Morris's second stab at the documentary form- after his earlier Gates Of Heaven, and it detailed the ramblings of a number of wacky folk from the town. Initially, the legend goes, Morris was drawn to Vernon- a Panhandle town, because, over the prior quarter century dozens of residents had taken up the bizarre practice of cutting off assorted limbs of theirs to collect large insurance payments. The working title of the film was Nub City, but Morris changed the title and focus once several people threatened his life. Morris is said to have chimed in, 'They literally became a fraction of themselves to become whole financially.' Yet, the truth is that the sorts of wacky folk portrayed live all over America, and the world- I saw them growing up in New York City, I've seen them in Midwestern suburbs and Great Lakes fishing towns, as well as the heart of Texas. Thus, the thing that I found the most interesting was that this 56 minute long film was not originally a theatrical release, but made for WNET, the New York City public television station. Given how formulaic most PBS documentaries have become in the quarter century since this film's release, that, alone, is a fact worth pondering.

I am not sure what to think about this movie. To me, it was just some people talking about their daily, original thoughts. I know people like this. I might be someone like this one day. I guess I don't see the point in it. I felt like the filmmaker was trying to prove something - but what? I couldn't figure it out.And did anyone notice there are NO WOMEN who tell stories in Vernon, (except the wife at the end)? Why is this? Was the filmmaker only trying to make a movie about old men? Or did the women of Vernon have boring stories to tell? I suppose this could be compared to a folklore collection. The rural folks, telling their stories, with or without a point. I love reading rural folklore because it often seems abstract, simple and enlightening at the same time. Even if you didn't live in that time period or under those circumstances, you can relate it to your life. I am sure I would have loved to talk to these old men about their lives. I could have easily sat at the bench with the opossum/turtle guy for hours hearing his stories. I would have been touched to ride on the boat with the man who talked about God, and he probably would have made some good points. It's not a big deal.Yes, he cracked me up when he said "I was the only person he knew that knows what to do with a opossum!" and then he held it by the tail and watched it try to walk away, and nothing else. Yes, I laughed when the preacher talked about the word "therefore" forever because it seemed sort of pointless. But, I am just thinking - so what? What's new? Also, what is the filmmaker trying to prove here? am I supposed to be laughing? There are people like this everywhere, and there always has been. Pick up any oral folklore book and you will find this film isn't an idea worth calling "brilliant".Go outside, talk to people. There are folks like this everywhere. Not just in Vernon, Florida. Maybe the reason people like it so much is that it captures this kind of personality in a raw and visual way. But you could do the same thing if you went outside your city limits and had some conversations with strangers. These people aren't freaks, they aren't even that weird, comparatively. They live their lives and they are happy, for the most part. Isn't that what everyone wants? I just don't think it's that weird and wacky. It's life.I don't get it. Also, I would have liked to see more women in Vernon. 5/10.

This is the genuine reality TV: old Floridian men telling you how it is in 1981. The ultra-slow pacing of this film, the incredible humor -- but also the respect and very American pride -- have made it my new favorite film. I only own 20 movies, but this will be one of them, because it's a treasure. I am quoting this movie more than Napoleon Dynamite, and I'm just sorry that there aren't more folks around who've seen it to pick up on the jokes. Fans of the Mockumentary wave will immediately recognize that all the great mockumentary makers MUST have seen this movie. Ultimately it shows a compassionate portrait of how funny and beautiful reality really is.