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This dissertation is a historical and theoretical study of the southern imaginary at the intersec... more This dissertation is a historical and theoretical study of the southern imaginary at the intersection of mass and regional culture. The focus is on two cinematic treatments of significant violent crimes in the region during the 1950s: firstly, the assassination of Albert Patterson, which prompted the clean of the “wide open” town of Phenix City, Alabama; and secondly, the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, which played a critical role in accelerating the African American freedom struggle. The Phenix City Story (Allied Artists, 1955), and Crisis in the Deep South, an unproduced 1956 screenplay written by Crane Wilbur, were both products of the media frenzy surrounding these actual events and they each involved investigation and research into local circumstances as part of their development and production. Rooted in film studies, history and cultural studies, the method of this thesis is to look backward to the foundational elements of the texts in question (e.g., the ‘raw material...
This dissertation is a historical and theoretical study of the southern imaginary at the intersec... more This dissertation is a historical and theoretical study of the southern imaginary at the intersection of mass and regional culture. The focus is on two cinematic treatments of significant violent crimes in the region during the 1950s: firstly, the assassination of Albert Patterson, which prompted the clean of the “wide open” town of Phenix City, Alabama; and secondly, the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, which played a critical role in accelerating the African American freedom struggle. The Phenix City Story (Allied Artists, 1955), and Crisis in the Deep South, an unproduced 1956 screenplay written by Crane Wilbur, were both products of the media frenzy surrounding these actual events and they each involved investigation and research into local circumstances as part of their development and production. Rooted in film studies, history and cultural studies, the method of this thesis is to look backward to the foundational elements of the texts in question (e.g., the ‘raw material...