One of the movie's posters, using the alternative English subtitle.
Guyana: Crime of the Century (also known by the alternative name Guyana: Cult of the Damned), is an Exploitation Film directed by Mexican filmmaker and actor René Cardona Jr., and distributed by Universal. It was released in September 1979 in Mexico, and January 1980 in the United States.
Its story is based on the mass murder-suicide that occured in 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana, caused by reverend Jim Jones and preceded by the murder of US congressman Leo Ryan. However, several names have been altered, including those of the aforementioned people (Jim Jones is portrayed as "James Johnson", Leo Ryan is portrayed as "Lee O'Brien", and the commune where the massacre took place is called "Johnsontown"). Even the religious group's name has changed, from People's Temple to "Johnson's Temple".
The film provides examples of:
- And Starring: Joseph Cotten gets a "special appearance by" credit.
- Angst Coma: Tony Thompson reaches a state of catatonia after a severe long-term punishment. When his mother goes to Johnsontown to see him, she breaks into tears due to the state of his son.
- Artistic License – History: While the movie attempts to follow to the letter the recounting of the events that led to the real-life Jonestown massacre, several liberties were taken (this doesn't count the changed names of the involved people, which was done due to Roman à Clef):
- The congregation at the opening sermon is overwhelmingly white, as is the eventual population of Johnsontown. In Real Life, the majority of Peoples Temple followers were of color (around two-thirds).
- The film opens in 1977 with Johnson suddenly telling his followers that he's obtained some land in Guyana and they're all moving there. Jones actually secured the land in late 1973, and a few "pioneer" families were sent there in early 1974 to start building the community, while the Temple leadership and the majority of its members stayed in the US until the summer of '77 when Jones had them move en masse.
- The party that ends up visiting Johnsontown is limited to O'Brien and a couple of reporters. In reality, there were almost 20 people who accompanied Ryan
, including 8 reporters,note Ryan's aide Jackie Speier, four relatives of Jonestown residents, and diplomats from both the US and Guyana. - The speech O'Brien gives in front of the commune's inhabitants to say that he's told that living in it has been the greatest thing ever for its inhabitants takes place during the day. In Real Life, Leo Ryan gave that speech during night.
- The reverend's portrayal as a preacher against the corruption of society leans towards showing him as a Jerkass since the beginning. In Real Life, while Jim Jones was already a very controversial person before moving to Jonestown, he was known for using his charisma and sense of assurance to win over his followers, and only showed publicly his troublesome attitude after moving to Guyana. Relatedly, other than a few dialogue lines, the movie surprisingly underplays Johnson's socialist motivations regarding his church as well as its multiracial embrace, despite the real-life Jim Jones having those two concepts as the driving forces for his religious movement.
- After O'Brien dodges a knife attack from a Temple follower and leaves alongside the defectors who side with him, Johnson says in front of the remaining people that O'Brien's plane must be brought down (an euphemism referring to his eventual murder). In Real Life, nobody at Jonestown outside Jones and his inner circle even knew what happened in Port Kaituma until Jones himself informed everybody about Leo Ryan's death during the evening when the murder-suicide took place.
- Susan Ames (the fictionalized version of Sharon Amos) is shown being murdered alongside her children. In Real Life, following the orders of Jim Jones, Sharon killed her youngest children and then asked the eldest one to kill her and then commit suicide.
- Artistic License – Religion: Johnson is portrayed as a Fundamentalist, denouncing the sinfulness of the modern world and frequently invoking God's name. Jones had basically abandoned Christianity by 1978 and was preaching an idiosyncratic form of socialism.
- Awful Truth: During the morning of the day when the murder-suicide happens, the two reporters who have acompanied O'Brien during his visit to Johnsontown try to enter a building that is being guarded by an armed man (who, under Johnson's orders, threatens to kill anyone who tries to enter). A third party persuades the armed man to let the reporters in; once inside, they see several people in bunk beds coughing and suffering in pain. This makes them realize that the reception party Johnson had plotted to make them and O'Brien think everything was fine in the commune was a facade, and the rumors about abuse and tortures were true all along.
- Bastardly Speech: The movie begins as Johnson burningly denounces the sins and corruption of the modern world, and how the United States fell into a spiral of downturn. Near the end of the sermon, he unveils a map of Guyana, pointing at the destination of their promised land (Johnsontown, located north of Port Kaituma) with the shadow of his right index finger. After telling his listeners to begin praying, he turns back and shows an eerie smile.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Johnson goes to great lengths to ensure that no defamatory words are spoken against him, whether inside Johnsontown or outside, and to this end he swears to inspect the letters written by the relatives of the people being held captive in the commune.
- Blatant Lies: When O'Brien asks Johnson about the allegations of abuse and violence the former received from the families and friends of the people living in Johnsontown, Johnson assures him that he hates violence and no such incidents have ever happened; he also disregards the reports of a woman being whipped as punishment, saying that physical punishment was dropped two months ("maybe a year [ago]", he later says) prior to O'Brien's arrival to Guyana. By this point, the movie has made clear that Johnson's claims are all false.
- Cassandra Truth: At first, O'Brien is skeptical over the possibility that Johnson's cult was abusing its members, let alone murdering defectors (as it likely happened to the son of a man who was warning O'Brien about the sect's dangers), and insists that Johnson is just a man spreading the word of God. In November 1978, he travels to Guyana to visit Johnsontown in the hopes that nothing wrong is going on. After what seems to be a non-violent tenure in the commune, he gets killed on his way out in Port Kaituma.
- Come Alone: After a lot of hesitation (attributed to his paranoia and distrust towards the US and its politicians), Johnson allows O'Brien to visit Johnsontown, but without the company of anybody else except a couple reporters (one of the barred others in particular, Drassler, is explicitly banned due to his ties with CIA).
- Commie Land: While Guyana by itself isn't portrayed as an evil country in the movie, the socialist alignment of its government is referenced with a negative connotation by the son of one of the reporters assigned to travel there with O'Brien (Ron Harvey), during the specific moment when Ron's daughter is describing the country's geography (this is justified in-universe due to the movie taking place in 1977-78, back when the political climate in the US was very tense in Real Life due to the ongoing events involving the country and other socialist nations like Cuba and the Soviet Union). Johnson himself also makes a passing reference to Guyana being a "fine socialist country" in his opening sermon.
- Composite Character: Despite the thin fictionalizations of the main characters, a few secondary characters count, most obviously Anna Kazan, who was based on two of Jones' mistresses/right-hand women (Carolyn Layton and Maria Katsaris).
- Corporal Punishment: Those who disobey the rules imposed by James Johnson are met with physical retaliation. A young man who tries to run away from work is caught and then slashed with a whip several times. And one of the kids caught stealing food to escape is punished with taser torture aimed as his testicles.
- Crapsack World: Johnsontown devolves into this over time. At the start of the movie, Johnson talks about the area of Guyana they're heading to as a paradise free from the corruption which, according to him, has crept onto the modern society. However, Johnsontown itself turns out to be a ruinous regime where anyone who disagrees with Johnson is seen as a traitor and is punished, even the smallest infractions are punished severely (and children don't get any sort of leeway when they're the culprits), and the used-to-be preaches of optimism and assurance are replaced with sermons fueled with paranoia and a culture of fear.
- Cult Defector: During the start of the movie, Congressman O'Brien is expressing condolences to a man whose son had defected from Johnson's sect and was killed by them the day after.
- Custody Battle: Johnson receives news from Susan that one of the children whom he adopted, John Paul Stern, has gotten his custody won back by his biological parents thanks to the state court of California, and the case has been brought to the US embassy in Georgetown. Johnson reacts furiously, and says that Johnsontown is his land and his jurisdiction. He blames the CIA and the US Government for this issue, citing it as a means to conspire against him and his church.
- Descent into Addiction: Halfway during the movie, Johnson complains to his local doctor that the meds intended to suppress his internal pains aren't working, and in fact the pains have grown stronger due to what he suspects to be pancreatic cancer. As of the last third of the movie (following O'Brien's arrival to Johnsontown), he continues consuming them regardless even when drinking something (like coffee).
- Determinator: O'Brien tells Susan Ames and the US ambassador in Georgetown that he's determined to enter Johnsontown to find answers about what's going on there, despite Susan showing him a notebook with the signatures of over a hundred people from Johnsontown rejecting his visit, the ambassador reminding him that Guyana is a socialist country with ties with the Soviet Union, and the latter also reminding him about the armed guards who work for Johnson. O'Brien succeeds in entering, but ends up losing his life on his way out.
- Downer Ending: After the death of O'Brien and other people in Port Kaituma, and knowing that the Guyana Defense Force would arrive at Johnsontown, Johnson announces that the only way to escape punishment from them is to commit suicide, which leads to the then-inevitable tragedy. Also, Susan Ames and her children are murdered in Georgetown by two of Johnson's henchmen.
- Egopolis: The commune in Guyana where Johnson takes his followers is called Johnsontown. This trope is taken even further in the film than it happened with the real Jim Jones in Real Life, because the name of the religious group (Peoples Temple) has changed in this film to Johnson's Temple).
- Electric Torture: One of the children who were caught stealing food to escape Johnsontown is punished by being tortured with a taser. For extra cruelty, the punisher aims at his testicles.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: Lee O'Brien and the news reporters who were traveling with him get gunned down in Port Kaituma, and all inhabitants in the problematic commune of Johnsontown are forced to commit suicide. Even Susan Ames and her children fail to escape death despite being in Georgetown, since they're murdered.
- Exploitation Film: This film was made quickly to capitalize on the Jonestown tragedy, with a focus on the more titillating aspects of the story (violence, Jones' cruel treatment of his followers and his massive hypocrisy, the suffering of the families of the cult members, and depictions of several deaths), albeit with several names of the affected people changed.
- False Prophet: Johnson states in front of his followers that he will protect them with whatever means necessary, and that they will prevail when Judgement Day comes. His fanatical personality leads him to take extreme measures, and turns him into the kind of enemy he swore to destroy.
- Gut Feeling: One of the reporters assigned to travel with O'Brien, Cliff Robson, is intercepted by his father when he aims to leave his house for the fateful duty. The father tells him that he's got a bad feeling about the whole matter, but Cliff assures him that he'll be fine. Unfortunately, he won't.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Johnson imposes that no signs of dissent or upsetting shall be tolerated. When relatives of the people living in Johnsontown demand knowledge about how their beloved ones are faring, Johnson tells a group of children to pose for a photo shot while smiling, and then tells the same to a larger group of adults (with two of them holding a large bunch of bananas to make them pretend that they're performing a rich harvest, as do other three children).
- The Hero Dies: The day when the massacre occurs, O'Brien aims to take all the people who accepted to leave Johnsontown to Port Kaituma to travel to Georgetown and then then United States. However, at Johnson's orders, a group of henchmen reach the airstrip and begin shooting at the people who try to leave. O'Brien ends up being one of the casualties.
- How We Got Here: A very strange example, since the film begins with with a graphic depiction of a man shooting himself in the head in a bathroom in 1979 without really explaining who he is, then cuts to James Johnson's 1977 sermon. It was actually a brief dramatization of the death of former Temple insider Michael Prokes, who held a press conference about four months after the tragedy at a motel in Modesto, California, then killed himself afterwards.
- Hypocrite: During a night, Johnson is told about a man and a woman having extramarital sex beneath some bushes, and goes directly to the scene to call them out for it and then expose them in front of the commune's population (and do so with them still naked, for further shaming); the man even tries to tell Johnson that they were going to ask him to officiate their wedding the next day, but Johnson doesn't buy it. This is the same James Johnson who has had affairs with a woman other than his wife (Anna Kazan), even sleeping with her recurringly.
- Ironic Echo: The motto of Johnson's Temple is borrowed from George Santayana: "Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it". At one point, Anna reminds Johnson of it during one of their intimate talks. During the movie's ending, after the murder-suicide of all the followers, the camera points at the billboard in the pavillion where the motto is written, indicating that the while tragedy is an unfortunate example of what happens when nobody heeds it.
- Large Ham: Stuart Whitman absolutely chews up the entire republic of Guyana as Johnson, alternating between Cold Ham and Suddenly Shouting.
- Malicious Slander: This is how Johnson and his inner circle view the letters sent to Secretary of State by the concerned 75+ relatives of the people who live in Johnsontown and aren't allowed to leave (and many such relatives think that there are concentration camps for forced labour and punishments.
- Martyrdom Culture: Johnson devises the suicide rehearsals (the White Nights) for this reason. He states that, at one point in the future, all the people living in Johnsontown will have to face the reality of giving away their lives if that's the only reason to achieve spiritual peace if they cannot find it in the physical world. During one of his late-night speeches, he asks those ready to die with him to raise their hands.
- Mr. Exposition: Johnson's opening sermon is entirely devoted to setting up the premise of his group's move to South America, complete with Johnson unveiling a map of Guyana to show them (and the film's audience) where they're headed.
- Murder by Suicide: At the end of the movie, following the murder of Lee O'Brien, Johnson orders his people to drink poisoned juice to die. While some of the people drink it willingly, others are forced to do so.
- Never My Fault: Johnson always attributes his mistakes to the lies spread by defectors, US politicians, the relatives of the members asking for their beloved ones' return, and critics of his church in general. This attitude is also shared with many people within his inner circle.
- On Second Thought: Played for Drama when a couple is talking during night on their bed about whether or not it was a good idea to come to Johnsontown to live.
- Poverty Food: As time passes, food in Johnsontown becomes more mundane and less appetizing. A man complains that, despite having to work 13 hours a day, they're not getting any meat just as he and the rest of the population is being served with rice and gravy (yet again, according to a girl and her mother who are next to him). And this occurs right before the scene where Johnson tells his closest circle that they'll have to cut expenses and food rations in favor of investing further in local safety (and also because many people have defected, resulting in financial constraints).
- Race Lift: The majority of Johnson's Temple members are portrayed in the movie by white actors. In Real Life, 68% of the population who was part of Peoples Temple were African-Americans.
- Resignations Not Accepted: One of the news reporters with whom O'Brien has a meeting prior to his travel to Guyana has gotten reports that the people at Johnsontown aren't allowed to leave and, legally speaking, unable to because Johnson seized their passports.
- Ripped from the Headlines:
- The movie was released around 9 months after the Jonestown deaths, and much of its recounting of the facts that led to the Jonestown massacre is reliant on the public's then-limited grasp of what happened and how, resulting in many factual inaccuracies.
- One notable detail related to how quickly this movie was made is that only a few printed excerpts of the "death tape" recorded at the final meeting had been made public by that point, so the filmmakers had to fictionalize the remainder of the details and dialogue, placing things far more into the realm of Horror and Melodrama. By contrast, Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones took almost all of Jones' final sermon directly from the "death tape" and portrays things in a much more restrained way.
- River of Insanity: What seems to be a peaceful travel to Guyana to find answers about Johnsontown and the people living in it, ends in tragedy when O'Brien and some of the people who accompany him (reporters and people from the commune wanting to leave with him) are killed in Port Kaituma by Johnson's henchmen.
- Roman à Clef: For several characters who portray real-life characters in the film, names were changed to almost comically obvious slight variations (the movie was made just months after the Jonestown tragedy, so the producers likely intended to prevent a lawsuit). The opening text flat-out says that names were changed "to protect the innocent".
- Rev. James Johnson=Rev. Jim Jones
- Congressman Lee O'Brien=Congressman Leo Ryan
- Marilyn Johnson=Marceline Jones (the reverend's wife)
- Dave Cole and Richard Gable=Mark Lane and Charles Garry (two of Jones' legal advisers who tried to act as intermediaries during the Ryan visit, only to be detained by Jones as the suicides happened without being made aware of them)
- Susan Ames=Sharon Amos (Jones' aide in Georgetown)
- Dr. Gary Shaw=Dr. Larry Schacht (Jonestown's doctor)
- John Paul Stern=John Victor Stoen (young boy at the center of a custody dispute between Jones and two of his ex-followers)
- Shown Their Work: One relevant detail that the film gets correct—the final meeting is shown taking place at night, which it really did (it began right around sunset).
- Slut-Shaming: After exposing a couple in front of the commune's population for having extramarital sex, Johnson decrees as punishment that the exposed woman will have sex with a man of Johnson's choice in front of everybody. The punishment for the exposed man? To have sex in front of everybody... with another man.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: At one point in the movie, stimulants are dosed into food, with the proportions doubled for sandwiches and soft drinks, under Johnson's orders.
- Witch Hunt: A lawyer in California accuses O'Brien for his long-term interest in Johnson and his commune, likening it to a political witch hunt and warning him that it might put the US into embarrassment if he keeps investigating him. O'Brien assures him that no prosecution or witch-hunting is intended, and he only wants to learn about the safety of the Americans (especially the children) who are living with Johnson in Guyana.
- With Us or Against Us:
- Johnson claims that, despite Johnsontown having become a paradise, there are still people spreading lies and infamy about him and his church, and preemptively considers anyone who doesn't support them as their threats. He even says that those people must "die in shame and sin" and "feel the mighty blow of God's wrath".
- A number of people on the day of the massacre choose to leave Johnsontown with O'Brien. Johnson calls them traitors and say they have backstabbed him, ordering them to leave the place immediately.
- Would Hurt a Child: When three children are caught stealing food during late night, Johnson calls the whole population of the commune to the pavillion to expose the culprits. Their respective parents agree that they need to be punished, and the rest of the adults echo the sentiment. Johnson then orders his henchmen to pour snakes onto one of the children, to submerge another one up and down in a well, and electrocute the remaining one from the testicles. They're then jailed in a warehouse, while still being naked, and are only freed in the next day's morning when Johnson comes to see them.
