Separate But Equal

This movie was really good, but it was really draggy and it could have been finished in one video instead of two. There were a lot of unnecessary talking and scenes, but it was still a very educational movie. 2½ stars out of 5.

Sidney Poitier was the perfect actor to play Thurgood Marshall as an attorney for the NAACP in the fifties. Burt Lancaster gives a final performance but one of his best as legal legend, John W. Davis. The supporting cast is excellent. This mini series is about the legal process that can be long, tedious, and time consuming for years. This case starts off when a small town African American minister, teacher, and principal seeks a school bus for his students. When the superintendent blows off the request, the minister goes forward and seeks counsel. The minister and the plaintiffs experience hostility, threats, violence, and more hatred. This film has to be shown in schools to understand American history, a shameful chapter in history.

It is educational...and as someone that works in history, I can see a teacher wanting to be lazy and using "Separate But Equal" as an excuse for it...

...but I doubt I'd ever do it. I'd want my students to form an interest in movies based on historical events.

I don't know what Poitier was thinking. Watching the mini-series anyone that read the script should have instantly gotten that "made for TV crap" vibe off it.

I gave it 5 stars. I mean, I can sit down and watch and enjoy it...but I can also read and enjoy Herzen's autobiography. I am a freak of nature that can enjoy some horribly dull things.

It's not only impossible to shake that made-for-TV vibe...but on top of it, it feels like you're watching a Lifetime Original Movie.

If you can deal with that, it's worth a watch. Otherwise there are Civil Rights movies that actually know how to make such a dramatic part of American History actually dramatic on the screen.

Separate but Equal is a great movie depicting the tragedy of the time of racial segregation in schools and the steps which these men from the NAACP took to correct it. The movie has great acting and intense speech emotion but sinks into the wordiness and vocabulary which lawyers and judges use and leaves the audience scratching their heads or reading the dictionary. Nevertheless, the movie has great speeches and facts as well as events suitable in a history-documentary. Great movie to sit by and try to teach yourself to be a lawyer.

It's the dramatization of the case Brown v. Board of Education. It starts with a need for a bus and ends with the finish of segregation. This is a two-part series totalling three hours of television. Sidney Poitier plays NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall who would go on to become a Supreme Court judge.

I am not always a fan of courtroom dramas especially when the result is already known. The court case part may be informative but not the most dramatic. It is everything around the court case that is truly fascinating. The plaintiffs' stories are interesting. Nowadays, this case is taken as a given, but it's not a given at the time. This is educational and sometimes compelling TV.