The Long Walk Home (1990)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

To me, this movie is perfection.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

I was in the final crowd scene of this film and made the big mistake of repeating my line of dialogue the next day at work. Since it contained the "n" word, not something I would normally say. I thought the director at the end was John Frankenheimer, father of Michael Bey but maybe not? I was perceived to be a "friend of John's," screenwriter John Cork who did not and don't know. I remember thinking Ms Spacek looked every inch a star, even at 40, and led the applause as she departed the set. She had almost no interaction with Whoopi Goldberg that night until they held hands at the end. I think the film holds up pretty well, as I doubt my hometown of Montgomery has changed in the years since. Couple of things I notice, when her family gifts Odessa with a coat, it looks a lot like her old one and when the Cosby Show's Erika Alexander tries to escape rape in a park, she's taller than they are and maybe even than the black man who saves her. RIP my uncle Carl Stephens who does 2 WSFA TV broadcasts, on bus boycott and on the whereabouts of Santa Claus Christmas eve on radar.

Just rewatched this movie on YouTube. Taking place during the bus boycott of 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, maid Odessa Cotter (Whoopi Goldberg) resolves to walk but her employer Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek) decides to drive her for at least a couple of days of the week to her house. I'll stop there and just say this was quite an inspiring, if intense, drama about how oppressive it could be during that time if you were not only the wrong color but also the wrong gender, that is, if you weren't a white male. I mean, the way Miriam's husband Norman (Dwight Schultz) and his younger brother Tunker (Dylan Baker) felt threatened by the whole thing makes one wonder. And the way Odessa's teen kids, Selma (Erika Alexander) and Theodore (Richard Habersham) were almost completely defeated by those white teen boys definitely gave me a pause. Not to mention how openly bigoted Miriam's mother (Gleaves Azar) said her opinion in front of the help was so blatantly appalling to see. What gives one hope is not only the way Miriam and Odessa communicate with each other, but also the way the narration of the grown Thompson daughter Mary Catherine (voice of Mary Steenburgen, Lexi Randall as a child) assures us how poignantly inspiring the whole time was. So on that note, The Long Walk Home gets a high recommendation from me. P.S. Ving Rhames-several years before his star-making turn in Pulp Fiction-portrays Odessa's husband Herbert with hair. Richard Habersham was Eddie in Do the Right Thing the year before. Younger brother Franklin was played by Jason Weaver who would later be the singing voice of Young Simba in The Lion King. He's also, like me, a Chicago native. And Erika Alexander would become Cousin Pam on "The Cosby Show" after making this.

Whoopi Goldberg pulls off another amazing character with this film, she keeps you in full cycle of her role all the way through.I saw this movie on a movie channel today after been sick off work, it really got me hooked and gave me a good insight of what life was like back then and the big difference of white/black people. I have always been bought up in mixed society and looked at everyone the same but to see this movie and see how people were treated was a real shock to the system.Direction/acting was all spot on and you really do feel for the cast in a lot of the scenes.Probably would not recommend this film to everyone, however i would class it as a worth see if you flick past it on the TV.

This movie should be shown to every White person over the age of 16! The reason I say that is because it tells the cold, hard truth of what Blacks had to go through back in the 60's and it's not sugarcoated at all. It's not being said to make people feel guilty over something that they probably never took part in, but to educate people in what most public school systems DON'T teach about. As someone of primarily Native American descent who considers themselves pretty educated about Black history, I myself was very shocked and saddened at the brutality that Black Americans had to face (and still do at times). A picture (or movie) is worth a thousand words. This movie would be educational to everyone who views it. I would definitely recommend this movie to others.