Stream On: ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’—the un-filmable book

It might take thirteen hours to read the novel. Clint Eastwood made a two-hour film from it.

In historic Savannah, Georgia, John Berendt’s 1994 “nonfiction novel” Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is referred to as “The Book.” Usually called a murder mystery, it’s really an anecdotal travelogue of the city and its denizens. The longest anecdote is that of antiques dealer Jim Williams and his four trials for the murder of his employee Danny Hansford.

It might take thirteen hours to read its 400 dense pages. Director Clint Eastwood made a two-hour film from it.

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

/Streaming /Amazon /😎51%😌65% /Trailer /1997 /R

Now the anecdotes that comprise the book are exquisitely detailed, about some of the colorful characters that live in the city, a city that Berendt says “[looks] inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large.”

Berendt first came to Savannah, Georgia, four years after the events he writes about took place, mainly the shooting of Danny Hansford and the trial of local self-made man Jim Williams. Berendt interviewed many locals, including Williams, but in the book he makes it seem like he had had relationships with them by the time the shooting took place.

“The only fictional character in the book is the narrator, me, until I catch up with myself midway through the book,” Berendt said in 1995. “I felt that was a legitimate license to take. The book is 99 percent true and 1 percent exaggeration.”

Before the shooting of Danny Hansford, the book recounts the detailed stories of Joe Odom, an attorney turned musician, who serially occupied several Atlanta mansions, usually without paying rent, and kept parties going nonstop; The Lady Chablis, who because of the novel became one of the first transvestite performers to be introduced to a wide audience—and portrayed herself in the movie; and Luther Driggers, an eccentric inventor who keeps live flies attached to strings on his lapels and threatens daily to poison the water supply with a vial he keeps handy.

There’s also Miss Minerva, a Vodou root doctor who takes a part in Williams’ trials (at his request) by casting spells and the like.

The movie opens, in fact, with a quick flying-camera tour of the graveyard (where songwriter Johnny Mercer is buried—Williams lived in a house that belonged to Mercer, who wrote, among many others, the theme song to Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and lands momentarily on Minerva (Irma P. Hall), who is, for all we know at first, a large untidy Black lady on a park bench feeding a squirrel—and talking to it.

John Kelso (played by John Cusack; Kelso is a stand-in for the book’s author John Berendt), a writer for Town & Country Magazine, arrives to do “a five-hundred-word piece” on one of Williams’ famous Christmas parties, which were highlights of Savannah’s social season, and begins meeting the locals, including Williams (Kevin Spacey) Billy Hanson (Jude Law—he represents the book’s Danny Hansford), Joe Odom (Paul Hipp), and Chablis.

Maybe thirty percent of the book makes it into the film, a passable courtroom drama with lots of local color. The film reminded me of nothing so much as Andy Griffith’s love letter to his home here in Dare County, his Matlock double episode “The Hunting Party” (1989), in which a lot of Andy’s friends and neighbors played themselves: Three Savannahians, including Chablis, play themselves in Midnight, which was also filmed on location, including inside Williams’ actual house. Williams’ lawyer, Sonny Seiler, plays Judge Samuel L. White. Several real-life locals appear in the movie, including Williams’ sister, Dorothy Kingery, and nieces Susan and Amanda, as well as Georgia senator John R. Riley.

The film is a lesser but tolerable Eastwood effort. Screenwriter John Lee Hancock did all he could paring down the book and creating a watchable drama. I would suggest, if you didn’t read the book first, go ahead and watch the movie. If you have read it, you’re on your own.

Sources include Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED).

Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.