The People v. Leo Frank (Educational Version)

Gr 11 Up—Leo Frank's 1913 trial for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan was a miscarriage of justice which ended in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging. In 1915, after the Georgia Governor commuted his death sentence to life in prison, an angry mob kidnapped Frank from the state prison and lynched him. Sensational tabloid newspaper coverage made the Atlanta factory manager's real crime appear to be that he was an upper middle class Jew born in New York. The chief consultant for this suspenseful docudrama was Steve Oney, author of And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (Pantheon, 2003). The action opens with Frank (Will Janowitz) in a jail cell and flashes back through events in chronological order that led to his incarceration. The film's narrator is William Smith (Jayson Warner Smith), the lawyer for suspect Jim Conley (Seth Gilliam), whose defense dissolves into doubt of Conley's innocence. Visuals mix the dramatic scenes with dialogue taken verbatim from letters and transcripts, period film and photographs, and recent interviews with descendants of trial participants and historians. The teacher's guide is divided into four sections—"Anti-Semitism," "Racism and Race Relations," "Regional and Class Tensions," and "The Power of the Press"—that include discussion questions, primary source material, and more. Since the film includes photos of lynchings and KKK gatherings, racially sensitive language, and references to inappropriate sexual conduct, secondary teachers will need to decide if this fascinating true-crime drama is appropriate for advanced high school classes.—Sally Ray, Plano Senior High School, TX