The Klansman

The Klansman is a 1974 American motion picture drama based on the book of the same name by William Bradford Huie. It was directed by Terence Young and starred Lee Marvin, Richard Burton, O.J. Simpson, Lola Falana and Linda Evans.

Plot

The Klansman recounts what happens to an African American man in a small town in the South after a young white woman (Linda Evans) is sexually assaulted and beaten. Events spiral out of control when a sniper shoots a Ku Klux Klan member at a funeral.

Cast

Production difficulties

Richard Burton allegedly drank so much alcohol during the making of this film that many of his scenes had to be shot with him seated or lying down, due to his inability to stand. In some scenes, he appears to slur his words or speak incoherently.

And I

"And I" is a song written by American R&B singer Ciara, and produced by Adonis Shropshire for Ciara's first album, Goodies (2004). It was released as the album's fourth and final single on August 30, 2005 (see 2005 in music) in North America.

The song was originally the third choice for the fourth single. Ciara has mentioned in an interview that "Thug Style", "Hotline" or "Pick up the Phone" would be the fourth single, but when Ciara suggested "And I" to executives at her previous record label LaFace, they were unhappy because they wanted "Next to You" to be the fourth single.

Chart performance

At the time of the U.S. release of "And I", Ciara's collaboration with Bow Wow, "Like You", and her collaboration with Missy Elliott, "Lose Control", were at the height of their popularity. "And I" peaked at 96 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and 27 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, which were poor positions compared to those attained by the first three singles from the album Goodies. It was not released outside North America because of this, and it is Ciara's least successful single.

The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan is a novel published in 1905. It was the second work in the Ku Klux Klan trilogy by Thomas F. Dixon, Jr. that included The Leopard's Spots and The Traitor. It was influential in providing the ideology that helped support the revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK or The Klan). The novel was twice notably adapted, immediately by its author as a play entitled The Clansman (1905), and a decade later by D. W. Griffith in the groundbreaking 1915 silent movie The Birth of a Nation.

The play, being concerned with the KKK and Reconstruction, is adapted by the second half of The Birth of a Nation. According to Professor Russell Merritt, key differences between the play and film are said to include that Dixon was more sympathetic to Southerners' pursuing education and modern professions, whereas Griffith stressed ownership of plantations.

Dixon wrote The Clansman as a message to Northerners to maintain racial segregation, as the work claimed that blacks when free would turn savage and violent, committing crimes such as murder, rape and robbery far out of proportion to their percentage of the population. He claimed to write for 18,000,000 southerners who supported his beliefs, though that many never joined the Klan. Dixon portrays the speaker of the house, Austin Stoneman, as a negro-loving legislator mad with power and eaten up with hate. His goal is to punish the Southern whites for their revolution against an oppressive government by turning the former slaves against the White Southerners and use the iron fist of the Union occupation troops to make them the new masters. The Klan's job is to protect the White Southerners from the carpetbaggers and their allies, Black and White.

Richard Burton

Richard Burton, CBE (/ˈbɜːrtən/; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh stage and cinema actor noted for his mellifluous baritone voice and his acting talent.

Establishing himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, with a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964, Burton was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic and dramaturg Kenneth Tynan. An alcoholic, Burton's failure to live up to those expectations disappointed critics and colleagues and fueled his legend as a great thespian wastrel.

Burton was nominated seven times for an Academy Award without ever winning. He was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. In the mid-1960s Burton ascended into the ranks of the top box office stars, and by the late 1960s was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts.

Burton remains closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. The couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news.

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), or simply "the Klan", is the name of three distinct past and present movements in the United States that have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism aimed at groups or individuals whom they opposed. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society, and all are considered right wing extremist organizations.

The first Ku Klux Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South during the Reconstruction Era, especially by using violence against African American leaders. With numerous chapters across the South, it was suppressed around 1871, through federal enforcement. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be terrifying, and to hide their identities.