King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis is a 1970 documentary feature co-directed by Sidney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Ely Landau.
It is a documentary of the career of, obviously, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.. The film does not have common documentary tropes such as a Narrator or Talking Heads giving interviews. Instead, it is a collection of stock footage and news coverage of King's career—essentially, a "filmed record" of his public career, with absolutely nothing about his early life or private life. After an intro of clips obviously filmed in the 1960s, the documentary starts with the time when King rose to national prominence, with the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. From there, King's role in the Civil Rights Movement plays out: the Freedom Riders, the March on Washington, the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, King's later shift into anti-poverty activism, and finally his murder in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968.
The documentary footage is occasionally interrupted throughout by dramatic monologues. A variety of Hollywood types—some people active in the Civil Rights Movement like Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee, and others like Paul Newman—appear in front of the camera to deliver dramatic readings of poetry about the African-American struggle.
Tropes:
- Born in the Theater: This film was originally screen as a special one-night-only show in theaters all over the country. The intermission includes a title card saying that "This Evening in Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr." was made possible by the MPAA and theater owners, and thanks "the owner of this theater" for running the film.
- The Cameo: Actors reciting dramatic monologues and reading poetry. The full list: Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ben Gazzara, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Quinn, and Clarence Williams III.
- Contrast Montage: The film opens with a montage in which Martin Luther King, advocating for his own system of non-violence, is contrasted with a series of Angry Black Men advocating the more militant Black Power politics that came into vogue in the 1960s. One clip shows King reminding his audience that there are white people who also believe in civil rights, and some who died for it, like the two young white volunteers murdered in Mississippi, or Rev. James Reeb
, beaten to death in Alabama. The film then cuts to H. Rap Brown telling an audience that "The time for talking is over, brothers. It's time for war," and saying that black people need to get guns. Cut to another clip of Martin Luther King saying that he will always advocate non-violence as a tactic. - Curse Cut Short: One clip has a reporter interviewing Sheriff Jim Clark, a brutal, vicious racist. Clark, watching the Selma marchers, says that it's mostly outsiders, saying that "We were able to count five local nig—uh, Negroes in the whole march."
- Deliberately Monochrome: The entire film is in black and white. Much of it, of course, is footage that was actually shot in black and white. However, events that were filmed in color, like King's immortal "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech the day before he was murdered, are also presented in black and white in this film.
- Documentary: Of the public life and career of Martin Luther King, Jr.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: A series of tolling church bells, with live-action shots of each steeple, is used to introduce the segment about King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The open letter was addressed to white church ministers, who themselves had written a open letter saying that "outsiders" (namely, MLK) should not be causing disruption in Alabama and that compromise and the courts were the answer.
- Intermission: The film has one, as three-hour movies used to do. The intermission is accompanied by a title card thanking theater owners for exhibiting the film.
- The Ken Burns Effect: Lightly used because most of the film is live footage, but there is a zoom into and a zoom out from a Freedom Rider bus on fire. Later, the clip of Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act ends on a freeze-frame of LBJ shaking Martin Luther King's hand, and then a zoom in on their clasped hands. This is then followed by a clip of a black man registering to vote, with a similar freeze-frame and zoom out as he leaves the courthouse.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Symbolically. The section of the film about the Freedom Riders has a man singing a protest song with a chorus that goes "I'm fighting for my rights, yes, I'm fighting for my rights." Then the song is interrupted at "yes I'm fi—", for a shot of a Freedom Rider bus on fire.
- One-Woman Wail: A single woman vocalizing over the soundtrack introduces the segment about the infamous 1963 Birmingham church bombing, in which four little girls were killed by a bomb planted by white terrorists.
- Stock Footage: The entire film, with the exception of the dramatic monologues.
