KING (1978)

Ed McNulty says, “The film gives a fairly full account of the turbulent life of the activist pastor from his courting of Coretta Scott, when he was a nattily dressed theological student and she an aspiring concert singer, through their early days at Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. In response to the protest over the arrest of Rosa Parks the new pastor was almost pushed into leadership of the boycott for the very reason that he was so new and thus had not made any enemies thus far.”

“The film depicts King as very much human, from his cocky student days when he thought of himself as a ladies man, through his reluctance to assume leadership, and once saddled with it, his fear for his family’s safety. At one point, his anxieties led him to purchase a gun despite his pacifist beliefs. The iconic moments are there, including, of course, his “I Have a Dream” speech and, much earlier in Montgomery, his calming the angry crowd of blacks who had flocked to his damaged house after the bomb blast. Equally important, we see King from a prophetic perspective denouncing the Vietnam War, which caused so many of his white supporters to denounce him. Even some of his closest colleagues accused him of harming the Civil Rights Movement by turning President Johnson into an enemy. Even a more staunch enemy was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover: the incident of the tapes of King’s alleged extra-marital affairs is dealt with, though not in much detail.”