Interview: Allan Durand (2012 Nicholl Winner) — Part 2

Allan Durand’s original screenplay “Willie Francis Must Die Again” is an amazing real-life story and a script that won Allan a 2012 Nicholl fellowship. However the story behind the story is also quite remarkable, one I’m happy to share with you through this interview.

I will be posting the whole interview over the course of this week, and for those of you who think the only people who break into Hollywood as screenwriters are young USC or NYU grads, Allan’s saga will dispel that myth quite nicely.

Today in Part 2, Allan provides background about “Willie Francis Must Die Again” and his unique connection to the real-life story.

Scott: Let’s go back to the roots of the story for “Willie Francis Must Die Again.” It’s set in Louisiana in 1946‑1947 and based on a true story, including the protagonist, a lawyer named Bertrand, to whom you’re actually related in real life. Could you fill us in on those details?

Allan: Yeah, he was my grandmother’s youngest brother. Their grandfather had been a Justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court. He was a lawyer, and at the trial, Willy was represented by two court‑appointed attorneys who didn’t make an opening argument, didn’t ask any questions, didn’t offer any evidence, didn’t cross‑examine any witnesses, waived closing argument. They did as much good as a nice potted plant would’ve done. I don’t know, maybe you would’ve gotten some shade out of a potted plant so they did less than a potted plant. Surprise, surprise, he got convicted.

After this first unsuccessful execution, his father went looking for somebody to try to save Willy’s life and that’s when he went to my uncle. My uncle agreed to take the case and ended up getting paid a grand total of 2 pounds of sweet potatoes.

Scott: How did you hear that story? Was this the lore amongst your family or did you know your great uncle?

Allan: Both. Actually, nobody in my family ever talked about it. Not in a negative sense. I was born and raised and still living in St. Martinville so it was something that I grew up with my whole life. As I got older, especially as I got interested in film making, I knew I was never going to get my hands on a better story than this, or at least I was pretty sure I wasn’t. My great uncle didn’t like to talk about it, but as he got older, he became a little more open to it, started sharing some things with me that I was able to put into the film.

Scott: Other than your personal connection, what about the story made you think this would make a great movie?

Allan: Primarily, it was something that had happened only once in the history of the United States. Since we’re the only country in the world that had electrocution as a method of capital punishment, it only happened once in the history of the world and something that could never, ever, ever happen again. It was plenty unique. Then you add in the fact that he was innocent, that it goes to the Supreme Court, and not only he was innocent, but they knew who did it. It was a deputy sheriff. It goes to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court votes five to four to allow a second execution, and then Justice Frankfurter, who cast the deciding vote. He goes to work behind the scenes trying to get it commuted to life in prison, after he has cast the deciding vote.

That is the only time in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court that there’s any evidence of a justice of the Court working behind the scenes to try to undo a decision that he cast the deciding vote on. And then, once I stumbled across Arthur Miller’s book about it ‑‑ not the playwright Arthur Miller, it’s a law professor at Georgetown. I think he and an associate professor went into all of the private papers of Frankfurter and all of the other justices at the time.

It turns out that there was this huge, raging battle behind the scenes in the Supreme Court where they were trading votes right and left. They had started off six to three in favor of allowing a second execution. Then a month later, there’s only two votes in favor of it. So the Chief Justice jumps in there, it gets tied at four to 4.

After that, with Frankfurter being the swing vote, then nobody can pull Frankfurter over to their side, and Frankfurter finally falls off the fence. After they had decided to allow a second execution, the week before the second execution, my uncle’s having coffee with a friend of his, who tells him, which I put in the book, word for word the way it happened.

He said, “Well, it’s terrible about that kid you defended.” He said, “Yeah, I’ve shot all my bullets out. I can’t think of anything else to do.” He said, “Oh yeah, that’s terrible. What I’m talking about is the two executioners being drunk.”

My uncle said, “What in the hell are you talking about?” He said, “You didn’t know?” He said, “Yes, the two executioners were so drunk they could hardly stand up.” My uncle gets the affidavit, borrows money from my grandma, flies back to the Supreme Court. They won’t stop it, but they put in motion the language telling the District Court to stop it.

He goes there and Willie tells him, “No, they’re going to kill me anyway. I can’t keep doing this to my mother, and it’s going to kill her, and my uncle…that he’ll regret it for the rest of his life.”

There’s all those twists and turns in there, and another thing that appealed to me was there were no clichés. There wasn’t this town full of rednecks screaming for blood. World War II had just ended, people had been backing the government, and here was the government saying, “This guy is guilty and we’ve got to execute him.” Except for the victim’s family, there was really nobody in St. Martinville that really thought it was a good idea.

But there’s no mechanism in place to stop the machinery of government when it starts rolling. And so, you had this one guy with his thumb in the dyke, my uncle, hoping and praying he could stop it, and it just seemed to me to have numerous elements of the story that you don’t run across very often.

Scott: That’s amazing. It sounds, then, from what you’re suggesting, that much of the story that’s in the screenplay is based on historical fact. How much creative license did you take to shape it in terms of the narrative?

Allan: Well, I think I took a lot of creative license, but I won’t tell anybody where it is. Every time I pitch it I pretend like it’s all true. Don’t tell anybody. But no, I mean, what I think are all the significant elements are true. Obviously, I don’t know what everybody said to everybody at every step of the road, so I took some license in there. But a lot of the stuff is just like walking along and taking dictation. It’s what really happened.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Allan talks about the challenges of adapting a real-life story into a screenplay.

Please stop by comments to thank Allan for taking the time for the interview and post any follow-up questions you may have.

Allan is repped by WME and Madhouse Entertainment.

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