Crisis at Central High

Crisis at Central High
Directed by Lamont Johnson
Produced by Robert Papazian
Written by Elizabeth Huckaby (memoir)
Richard Levinson
William Link
Starring Joanne Woodward
Charles Durning
Henderson Forsythe
Calvin Levels
William Russ
Tamu Blackwell
Shannon John
Bonnie Pemberton
Music by Billy Goldenberg
Cinematography Donald M. Morgan
Edited by John Wright
Distributed by CBS
Release dates
  • February 4, 1981 (1981-02-04)
Running time
 125 min.
Country United States
Language English

Crisis at Central High is a 1981 made-for-television movie about the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957, based on a draft of the memoir by the same name by former assistant principal Elizabeth Huckaby.[1]

William Link and Richard Levinson wrote the screenplay and were executive producers together with David Susskind of Time-Life Productions.[2] The film starred Joanne Woodward as Huckaby and told the events from that character's point of view, although one obituary at the time of Huckaby's death cited her as saying the TV-movie enlarged her role.[3] Woodward was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special and a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV, in 1981 and 1982 respectively.[4]

Critical reception

Reviewer John O'Connor of The New York Times observed, "In the end, of course, the real heroes of this piece are the nine black students," whom O'Connor described as "played to quiet perfection." Actors highlighted for their portrayals included Calvin Levels as Ernest Green (the only senior in the group) and Regina Taylor as Minnijean Brown, launching that actress' professional career.[5] Other principal actors in the film included Charles Durning as the principal and Henderson Forsythe as Huckaby's husband, Glenn.

Composite characters

Like many docudramas, Crisis included some composite characters; at least one reviewer (O'Connor) criticizes the vague disclaimer to that effect, arguing that in a piece about such controversial events, alterations to the truth should be identified more specifically.[2] In addition to the creative license already mentioned with regard to her role in the crisis, Huckaby was reported to have said the film showed some events are out of sequence and slightly altered others.[3]

Filming locations

The movie was filmed on location in Little Rock[6] and at Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, Texas. Many local Dallas actors had featured roles in the film, including radio personality Suzie Humphreys, TV and theater actor Jerry Haynes, teacher and actress Irma P. Hall, and Theater Three director Norma Young, as well as Taylor, a native Dallasite who was attending Southern Methodist University at the time the film was being cast.

See also

References

  1. ↑ News Releases, 40th Anniversary web Site
  2. 1 2 John O'Connor. TV: Little Rock, 1957: 'Crisis at Central High,' The New York Times (review), Feb. 4, 1981
  3. 1 2 Linda S. Caillouet.Central High crisis diarist dies, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 20, 1999 (retrieved November 3, 2006)
  4. ↑ Awards and Nominations for Crisis at Central High (1981) on Internet Movie Database
  5. ↑ Regina Taylor at Hollywood.com
  6. ↑ Elizabeth Paisley Huckaby (1905–1999), Encyclopedia of Arkansas

Additional references

Huckaby, Elizabeth. Crisis at Central High, Little Rock, 1957–58. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.

External links

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