is later almost killed by Marcus, who is then shot in the back by the sheriff while running away. Newt refuses a lift home from the sheriff, and walks away to an uncertain future. Cast Kyle Johnson as Newt Winger Alex Clarke as Marcus Savage Estelle Evans as Sarah Winger Mira Waters as Arcella Jefferson George Mitchell as Jake Kiner Richard Ward as Booker Savage Malcolm Attenbury as Silas Newhall Russell Thorson as Judge Cavanaugh Zooey Hall as Chauncey Cavanaugh Dana Elcar as Sheriff Kirky Felix Nelson as Jack Winger Joel Fluellen as Uncle Rob Background The film The Learning Tree is based on Gordon Parks's 1963 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Parks also wrote the screenplay, and as a result the script for the film did not deviate much from the book, except for featuring fewer characters for the sake of running time. In addition to being the screenwriter, he was also the director, producer, and music composer. Burnett Guffey served as cinematographer, while Parks was assisted by Jack Aldworth and Fred Giles. Parks tried to include as many black technicians as possible on the film. Parks personally chose Kyle Johnson to play the character of Newt, after a brief meeting with him in a Beverly Hills hotel. However, during the meeting, he gave no indication that he wanted to cast Johnson. Johnson kept getting called in for screen tests, and after the fourth test he found out that he had already been hired and the tests were meant to gauge the abilities of the other actors, not him. Johnson characterized the audition process as "not normal". According to Turner Classic Movies, the original name of the film was Learn, Baby, Learn before it was changed to its current name. The current title appears to be taken from a line in the film, one that Sarah Winger tells her son Newt: "Let Cherokee Flats be your learning tree." Film production The Learning Tree was bought by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969 and became the first film directed by a black person for a major American film studio. Parks later said of it: The Learning Tree was shot on location in Fort Scott, Kansas, in the fall of 1968, and the production process was scheduled to take three months. Fort Scott had been where Parks grew up, and it was also the basis for the fictional town of Cherokee