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An early Hollywood attempt to paint the deep south in a glowing light regarding slavery. Unfortunately despite Keitel saying he was moved to tears when he read the script, and the Los Angeles Times describing it as a 'Flawless, deeply felt, yet buoyant and gracefull' film; with the advantage of hindsight one can only describe it as a mixed up patronising piece of Hollywood sentimentality, something both members of the coloured races might find disingenuous, even though it was probably made with genuine sincerity. Set in the ninteen thirties, 99 year old former slave Shadrack, returns home after walking six hundred miles back to the Dabney plantation where he was once a slave, to meet his maker and be buried there. Vernon Dabney (Keitel)who has nothing left from his ancestors rich estate, except a lot of children and a beer swilling frisky wife Trixie(Andie MacDowell), shows too much sympathy for the old slave to be a southern 'red neck' which the film purports him to be, and Trixie, and all her children, and the little rich boy who comes to stay with them, are so kind and considerate towards the old man, one wonders if those historic postcards in the library of congress showing negroes hanging from trees surrounded by gloating 'white folks' taken during Dabneys life time when the Ku Klux Clan roamed the southern states, were really genuine? For all its swearing, hints of incest, illicit rye whisky stills, ramshakle shanty house atmosphere, 'mean' Sheriff, steroytypes, Shadrack is the wrong vehicle for jerking tears. On the other hand Andie MacDowell does makes a georgeous southern peach.Read full review