Based on?
The movie write up says it was based on true events...anyone know what those events were, or who they involved? Please and thanks!
shareI do.
I was a senior in high school, two months from graduation, when these events took place.
Now, to be clear, there is a great deal of artistic license in the film, but the events I speak of are those which are the basis for the plot of the movie.
On March 23, 1981 a sophomore in my tiny country school disappeared. He was dating the daughter of a notoriously short tempered alcoholic (who, as it turns out, is a distant cousin of mine) and the girl was manipulating the young man by pretending to carry on a relationship with his best friend to provoke jealousy (the friend was pretty much being used at this point).
On that day, the two boys had been "hunting" (which just consists of shooting at stuff) and three witnesses claimed to have seen the boy who would turn out to be missing AFTER the hunting trip.
The young man was missing for a LONG time (I forget exactly how long before they found the body) and there was much speculation that the girl's father had killed him (one guess was she had had an abortion and her dad found out). There was also considerable speculation that the victim had "seen something he shouldn't have" which threatened the some well off individual and had been therefore done away with.
Eventually, a body was found (albeit under some questionable circumstances) and the friend was accused and convicted, though he had his sentence reduced on appeal.
If you are interested in an exhaustive story about the case, here's a blurb about the magazine article that inspired the screenplay:
The most exciting project of the year, however, was unquestionably our December cover story, “Sad Song from the Hills,” W. Hampton Sides’ compelling account of a dramatic teenage homicide case revolving around a murder that took place in Falkner, Mississippi. A real-life tale with as many twists and turns as an Agatha Christie mystery novel, “Sad Song from the Hills” was the kind of magazine story that comes along only once a decade; for that reason, we ran the full 26,000-word version, ranking it still as the longest story ever to have appeared in Memphis. “Sad Song” also pulled off a rare awards double in the next year’s City and Regional Magazine Association competition, winning gold medals for both investigative reporting and writing excellence.
http://www.memphismagazine.com/backissues/april2001/feature.htm
If you can come up with a December 1985 issue of Memphis magazine you can get all the details.
share
[deleted]
Thanks so much for the info. I have found some info on the case now. Just trying to get a copy of that magazine, but they have not emailed me back yet.
what all ahve u found about the case?
shareHere is the link to my blog entries on it:
http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/movies-based-on-true-stories-desperate-for-love/
and
http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/this-day-in-history-steven-vance-brown-murder-32381-falkner-ms/
Alex - Steve Brown
Clif - Mike Miskelly
Tammy - Tammy Glissen Nance
Last Movie: Shrek Forever
Fav. Movies this year: Alice In Wonderland
The link for the magazine article is no longer valid. I have searched and can find nothing at all about the case. I am interested in knowing more. Have you any info you can share? Did you ever hear back from the magazine?
sharewill-rainey
Thanks for the info - it was an interesting story line, and I'm always curious how close based on true events really come to the actual events.