The book wasn't perfect but could have, in the hands of a skillful screenwriter, been transformed into a terrific movie. After all, this was a real, true-life courtroom drama set in an exotic American locale, with many colorful personalities to weave around the main tale. But the writer of this mess was no weaver, inexplicably adding his own new characters and events and gutting the drama of the crime and its subsequent legal and social effects. He didn't think it even worth mentioning, much less emphasizing, that Mr. Williams was subjected to FOUR trials, finally achieving an acquittal not in Savannah, where the case and the players were notorious, but upon a change of venue to Augusta, where no one cared. What a wonderful film this could have been about Savannah culture and society in general, and Mr. Williams in particular, as played out against the backdrop of the Georgia legal system. Even as a travelogue, it doesn't work, since not enough of Savannah is shown and described. A total bomb, in my humble opinion, but I gave it a 2 for effort.