Word: mann
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...docudramas, of course, have often drawn fire for their uneasy melding of fact and fiction. But rarely has one come along that so clearly demonstrates the potential abuses of the form. The Atlanta Child Murders, written and co- produced by Abby Mann (Judgment at Nuremberg, King), unearths no significant new evidence; it merely sifts through the record to reconstruct the defense's case. The film's kangaroo court then convicts the Atlanta police of incompetence, the city's black leadership of insensitivity and the criminal- justice system of railroading a suspect on the flimsiest evidence...
Writer-Producer Mann, who researched the movie by talking to most of the principals, insists that his version is fair and accurate. "I bent over backward to be objective," he says. "This goes beyond whether Wayne Williams is guilty or innocent. The case raises tremendous issues: about the use of fiber evidence, about the use of pattern (the admission of evidence from other $ killings besides the two for which Williams was charged), about the closing of the cases so quickly after the conviction." Some in Atlanta agree that the movie will, at the very least, renew calls to reopen...
Segments of "The Atlanta Child Murders" were shown to the audience, and Abby Mann, author of the docudrama, defended himself against growing nationwide charges that his admittedly "fictionalized" account of the trial is skewed towards Williams' defense...
...Mann, the self-proclaimed "Father of the Docudrama," said. "If I erred at all, it was on the other side," He added. "The picture wasn't done to attack the status...
...night the mountain blazes cast an eerie red glow in the sky to the north of Helena, reminding residents of one of the region's worst forest fires, the Mann Gulch fire of 1949, which cost the lives of 13 fire fighters. "It looks like someone dropped the Bomb somewhere," said one resident. There were no precise estimates of the value of destroyed property and timber, but the damage totaled millions of dollars. Near Libby, in the northwest corner of the state, 16 barns and other farm buildings were consumed by a blaze along Houghton Creek in the Kootenai...