Wallace

Sinise's portrayal of Wallace is astonishing, but I was most impressed by Mare Winningham's perfect performance as Lurleen. Like any Southerner, I'm more than accustomed to actors' ham-handed, mangled versions of Southern intonation and dialect, but Winningham was amazing. She BECAME Lurleen Wallace. At times you can be fooled into thinking that Winningham is lip-synching over an archival recording of Lurleen's speeches. Everything about her performance is superb.

George Wallace is a wonderful piece of cinema portraying the life of the politician who became Governor of the state of Alabama. The film starts with a campaign and ends with repentance, showing how suffering can change a man. Intertwined with news features from the time and capturing moments like the Selma march and Martin Luther King and his "dream" speech, the film portrays life in this turbulent period of American history to perfection. For lovers of political dramas this is an excellent film, starring the excellent Gary Sinise as Wallace for which he won an Emmy and directed by John Frankenheimer. The film also stars Angelina Jolie and Joe Don Baker.

Gary Sinise delivers a superb performance in the biographical television film George Wallace. I well remember Wallace from back in the sixties and Sinise is so good in the part you think you're seeing home movies of Wallace, albeit a slightly skinnier version.

No southern politician since Huey Long had the impact of Wallace on the national scene. He was a product of the white backlash to the Brown vs. Board of Education School integration decision of the Supreme Court. Wallace, previously a moderate who lost a gubernatorial primary in 1958, courted the die-hard segregationist vote in 1962 and won the first of several terms as Governor of Alabama. It was a platform that he used to rattle both the Democratic and Republican parties for several years.

He unleashed a lot of dark and evil forces beyond even what he knew and maybe he never realized the full extent of them even after the attempted assassination of him at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland in 1972. But he had to come to grips with pain and suffering as he never did before and maybe he caught a bit of empathy for those of the disenfranchised he'd demagogued against previously.

It is a fact that the former poster boy for race segregation got a large amount of black support in his final race for Governor in 1986.

Sinise is aided and abetted by good performances by Clarence Williams, III who serves as a kind of Greek Chorus, a fictional black servant at the Governor's mansion who is Wallace's sounding board as neither his two wives became.

Mare Winningham who is the small town girl Lurleen who he married and who just wanted a normal home life. She became part of his ambitions when she was elected Governor herself in a ploy to get around Alabama's term limit law. Winningham is as I remember Lurleen Wallace and conceive of what she was like in her private life.

Angelina Jolie in a break out role for her plays Wallace's second wife Cornelia who was the niece of former Governor Jim Folsom played her ably by Joe Don Baker. After Wallace was shot and paralyzed and lost the control of a number of lower body functions, she tries as best she can to adjust. A whole lot is against it though in both her's and his personalities.

George Wallace is a much better than average made for TV product, it probably should have gotten a theatrical release. It's a portrait of some dark corners of America and shouldn't be missed.

They don't always give Oscars to the right person. But in this case, they definitely got it right. Gary Sinese's portrayal of the extremely controversial man. He showed us the human side of this man who went through one of the most amazing transitions ever seen in public. We don't often get to see someone change to this degree. I followed this man's life as he lived it in the news. But unless you looked deeper you would have never gotten to see his transformation. He was much more than a one-dimensional racist. This is an excellent film that draws you in with tight writing. And amazing performances by everyone. But Sinese stood out. It's a shame this film didn't greater theatrical success. There're several lessons in this film. But one of the big ones was near the end when he went into the Dexter Ave. church. The people in that church. LISTENED. They didn't shout him down or interrupt in any way. We've gotten away from that in the 21st century. Even if we just "think" we don't agree with a speaker. We don't show basic decency like the people in that church did. I found it enlightening. See what you think. Give it a chance.

The late John Frankenheimer was one of our truly great directors. He cut his teeth in the early days of television, directing over 100 tv shows and then he went on the direct Birdman Of Alcatraz, Seven Days In May, The Train and his masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate. He had a long dry spell after that where Hollywood more or less forgot about him, but in the early 90s he was able to make an amazing comeback with a series of tv films like Against The Wall, The Burning Season, Andersonville and this film. This is a man who directed actors like Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Edmond O'Brien, and yet he said Gary Sinise was one of the finest actors he ever worked with. Sinise is probably best remembered for his role as Lieutenant Dan in the Forrest Gump movie (one of the most depressing films that I ever saw I HATED IT!!!). He did a wonderful job as Harry Truman and he equally rises to the occasion as George Wallace. George Wallace was one of the truly controversial figures of our time. In 1958, he ran for Alabma's governor as someone who favored cival rights and lost. According to friends he vowed that he would never be "out niggered" again (excuse my language I'm just quoting what he said) and he won. He voweed in his inagural address "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!" If ever a man symbolized the horrors of racism in the 1960's it was certainly George Wallace. Sinise brilliantly portrays Wallace's ruthless ambition and drive for power, but then there is the 1972 assassination attempt that left him paralyzed. There is a sad scene in the film where a doctor tells him that he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, that he will be impotent and not even able to control bladder or bowel and that he will never have another day without pain. It's maybe because of this that Wallace sought not power but forgiveness in the last years of his life. He apologized to those he had hurt like the Freedom Riders. Sinise is wonderful in his role as is Angelina Jolie as his wife Cornelia. Forget her tatooes and her eccentricities, she is a fine actress who always delivers. Joe Don Baker also gives as Jim Folsom, Wallace's protege. Actually, it was only thru luck that Wallace became governor in 1962. Jim Folsom was a very popular Alabama politican who had been elected Governor twice before (1947-51,1955,59). In 1962, he ran against Wallace and had a good chance at a third term until he appeared drunk on a tv show on the eve of the election. Folsom forgot the names of his children and gave an extended imitation of a cuckoo clock. The performance cost him the election and ended his career as an important politician in Alabama.