Quote Originally Posted by Detroitnerd View Post
Thanks for that article, Marsha! Great stuff. Another thing about Turpin was that he was an absolute baseball nut. I imagine any fast-talking person would try to get an angry Turpin onto the subject of baseball, or give up some tickets, to avoid a beating.
Detroitnerd, that wasn't me who posted that article, that was Neilr, I think. But as I said, he was legendary to many Detroit residents. I didn't know he was a baseball nut too.

My movie list would be:

A movie about Cadillac's arrival on the Detroit River - and the native American response, and the settling of this land.

A movie involving Fort Wayne

A movie about Underground Railroad

A movie about the racetrack times on the eastside of Detroit, precusor to Henry Ford's auto company.

A movie about the late Claude Harvard, African American inventor who worked with Henry Ford and made many automotive inventions, but was not properly credited due to prejudice. He was a fascinating man, and my neighbor when growing up in Highland Park.

A movie about the Dr. Ossian Sweet Case [[already mentioned); whites mobbed the home where a black doctor and his wife were moving into the block on the near East Side; one of his party inside the house who was defending the home shot one of the men in the mob outside and killed him.

The insuing trials were a sensation, and Clarence Darrow was the defense attorney. Frank Murphy [[as in the downtown criminal court, Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, later named after him) was the presiding judge in the case, and an all white, male jury acquitted the black defendents, though they had difficult lives afterwards. Base the movie on the stunning book by Kevin Boyle, called Arc of Justice.


A move about Dr. Melvin Hollowell, who faced profound descrimination as a black surgeon in Detroit, who was not allowed to practise medicine on white patients. He was instrumental in forming and practicing in the black hospitals of the time. A cinematic story of those hospitals and medical professionals in Detroit's segregated medical system is well deserved.

A movie about the visit of Bobby Kennedy to Detroit, when he drove down 12th street in a calvalcade and learned about the city.

A movie about the "Kerceval Incident" a precusor to the '67 Riots.

A movie about the founding of Conant Gardens, and the role of the abolitionist Shubael Conant who refused to have "restrictive covenants" on homes built on his property, which created the first community of black home building and ownership in Detroit.

A movie about the Irish woman in Corktown [[can't remember her name) who successfully fought to stop the razing of a significant segment of that community, that remains today, unlike what happened with Black Bottom.

A movie about the life of Coleman Young.

A movie about the life of General Baker, radical labor leader of DRUM [[not counting the movie already made, Finally Got the News).

A movie about the life of Ken Cockrel [[Sr.).

A movie about the still beautiful homes and blocks of Detroit.

A movie about Paradise Valley/Sugar Hill and all of the A list black artists who came to play and stay there.

A movie about Miller High School on the Near East Side, and the amazing talent that came from that institution.

A movie about the "Downtown Synagogue" on Griswold. Much interesting history there.

A movie about Soupie Sales. Period.

A movie about Maxine Powell, and her "charm school" for Motown acts.

A movie about the various ethnic minorities [[Greeks, Germans, Jews, Irish, Middle Easterners, etc. and their lives in Detroit.

A movie made from the book "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson, about the Great Migration of blacks from the South to the North [[I believe, the greatest migration in history, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

A movie about the XGames/Assembly guys and their milieu here in Detroit.

A movie about Gilda Radner [[was there one)

A movie about Mitch Ryder.

A movie about Sonny Elliot, a very interesting guy. I used to talk to him when he lived in Lafayette Park, about his upbringing on and love for Hastings St. and the blues/jazz scene.

A movie about Mies van der Rohe and Lafayette Park.

A movie about the Olympia Theatre and it's many important acts down through the years.

A movie about the 1943 Riots in Detroit.

The story of my own father, Joe Von Battle, and his Hastings Street and 12th Street record shops; from the 1943 Riots to the 1967 Riots - my current project, for which my film partner and I were finalists in the recent Knights Challenge [[didn't get it, but continue to seek funding). We will begin shooting next year.

Ok, that's off the top of my head at the moment. Of course they don't all have to be full-length feature films, even short docs would be nice; but there are a lot of great, compelling stories in this city.