MOVIES : ‘Thin Blue Line’: Advocate for a Killer

NEW YORK —  Will a new movie succeed in getting convicted murderer Randall Dale Adams freed from prison?

Director Errol Morris and Miramax, the distributor of “The Thin Blue Line,” frankly acknowledge that they hope the answer is yes.

Adams is serving a life sentence--commuted from a death sentence--for the killing of patrolman Robert Wood on a deserted Dallas roadway on a cold November night in 1976. But Morris’ film re-enacts and appears to solve the case before the viewers’ eyes--exonerating Adams, and finding another man, David Harris, now imprisoned in Texas for another murder, guilty of the crime. Adams has steadfastly maintained his innocence.

The film, which consists of highly stylized re-enactments of the 1976 murder and revealing, on-camera interviews with central figures in the case, including Adams and Harris. The film climaxes with an audio recording of Harris, who named Adams as the murderer at the time, proclaiming Adams’ innocence.

In reviewing the film at the time of its premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival in March, the trade paper Variety likened it to “a cinematic equivalent of Truman Capote’s literary achievement in ‘In Cold Blood,’ ” and called the film “a mesmerizing reconstruction and investigation of a senseless murder.”

The film opened here over the weekend and is scheduled to open in Los Angeles on Friday and in selected U.S. cities throughout September. Morris and the film’s distributor, Miramax, seem determined to use the film to advance the cause “of saving an innocent man.”

“I find that I’ve become a kind of director-detective,” said Morris (the director of “Gates of Heaven”) in explaining how he stumbled onto the Adams case and how what started out three years ago as another documentary film project has turned into a near-obsession with a still-unfolding real-life drama. “I’ve worked very hard to clear Randall Adams, and I’m still working hard. I will not give up until he’s freed or exonerated,” Morris said.

“If it doesn’t get him out of jail, at least it may get him a fair trial,” said Mark Lipsky, vice president for distribution and marketing for Miramax, in expressing the company’s feeling of “direct and strong responsibility” for Adams. “Literally, a man’s life lies in the balance,” said Lipsky.

Lipsky described a campaign strategy intended to, in the words of the T-shirt being distributed to promote the film, free Randall Adams. According to Lipsky, plans call for:

--Distribution of flyers in theaters, detailing the Adams case, and appealing to theatergoers to write letters on Adams’ behalf to Texas’ governor, attorney general and Board of Pardons.

--Petitions, for theatergoers to sign, appealing to Texas Gov. William Clements Jr. to grant Adams a new trial.

--Establishment of a Randall Adams Defense Fund, to be financed by benefit openings of Morris’ film around the country, starting with one scheduled on the closing night of the Boston Film Festival, Sept. 22.

Lipsky also cited a public relations strategy to pitch hard-news stories about the Adams case, in addition to the usual film stories.

The Dallas press has been rife with such stories, reviving local interest in the 12-year-old case, since the film was screened in Dallas at the USA Film Festival in May. About two weeks after the Dallas premiere, a federal magistrate denied Adams’ appeal for a new trial on grounds of insufficient evidence. Morris testified at the hearing.

Dallas District Attorney John Vance told the Dallas Times Herald on Aug. 14, that he has no intention of allowing Adams to be granted a new trial. Vance did not respond to The Times’ requests for further comment.

“It’s true that up until now the film has made no real impact on Adams’ situation,” said the original defense attorney in the case, Dennis White. “But Morris is responsible for turning up new evidence in the case and for getting (David) Harris to talk,” said White, who said he no longer practices law because the Adams case resulted in his “disgust” of how the legal justice system worked. Said White: “If anything’s going to get Randall Adams freed now, it’s going to be Errol Morris and this film.”

Morris did not start out as an advocate for Adams: “I’m not an advocate for Randall Adams; I’m an advocate for the truth. After all I now know about this case, it would be irresponsible for me to stop acting on his behalf.”

The director initially traveled to Dallas in 1985 to research a documentary film about Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist and frequent prosecution witness nicknamed “Dr. Death” because of testimony that helped prosecutors win death sentences. In the course of his research, Morris said he interviewed nearly 30 prisoners sentenced to death, one of whom was Randall Adams.

“As far as I was concerned, he was just another convicted murderer, and I assumed he was guilty,” said Morris, seated in a musty, messy Broadway office that would double as a set for a 1940s detective movie. This initial 15-minute interview with Adams led to “digging and digging” into the case and to an interview with Harris that turned Morris’ interest away from the “Dr. Death” documentary (he still plans to make that film) and toward the film that has become “The Thin Blue Line.”

Morris, 41, was not new to criminology. A one-time graduate student in philosophy, Morris planned a doctoral dissertation on the moral implications of the insanity plea. He also went to work as a private investigator here, after his first two highly acclaimed films, “Gates of Heaven” (1979), about two California pet cemeteries, and “Vernon, Florida” (1981), about the residents of a backwater Florida town, failed “to lead to film employment.”

“I have an endless list of ideas for film projects, but nobody was willing to give me any money,” said Morris, who said he has developed unproduced fiction film scripts for Hollywood producers. He eventually got a public broadcasting grant to research and start production on the film that has turned out as “The Thin Blue Line.” And he got additional funds to complete the $1.1-million film from PBS’ “American Playhouse” series and Britain’s Channel 4.

Noting that he finds most of his subjects in articles, including the idea for Dr. Death, which he discovered in the New York Times, Morris said he always has been “very much interested in murder, because it focuses in the extreme on the reason people do things.”

At the same time, Morris said: “I don’t consider myself a reporter or a journalist, and I’ve no interest making a standard kind of investigative documentary film.” But he also proved to be a stickler for detail in discussing the Adams case and stridently academic on legal issues. “Are you sure you don’t want to use a tape recorder? . . . Are you getting all this?” he would ask a reporter, in a professorial manner.

The Adams case is complicated.

Adams was arrested and eventually convicted on the basis of testimony given the Dallas police by Harris, a 16-year-old with an extensive criminal record at the time of the 1976 shooting. Arrested for another crime five weeks into the unsolved Dallas investigation, Harris told police he had picked up Adams hitchhiking and that the two were together in Harris’ car when Adams shot and killed the Dallas police officer. The ensuing murder trial brought forth “mystery” witnesses who corroborated Harris’ testimony. Grigson also testified.

It was when he found “a lot of unanswered questions” in the trial transcript that Morris decided to pursue the case and, eventually, Harris, who recently had been paroled from San Quentin.

“Within 10 minutes of giving his parole officer my phone number, Harris called me and arranged a meeting,” said Morris. “It was late at night, in an isolated, lonely bar in a swampy area between Vidor and Beaumont (Texas). Unprompted, he started talking about the Adams case, and then, out of nowhere, he said, ‘I’ll never forget the look in that cop’s eyes.’ This struck me as very strange, since Harris had testified that he was hunched down in the passenger seat when Adams shot the officer.”

Morris’ pursuit led to what he termed “unending amounts of new evidence,” including admissions by the trial’s three surprise witnesses that they had lied at the 1977 trial, and, of course, the film’s climactic interview with Harris on audiotape--Morris said he ran out of film.

The transcripts and videotapes from Morris’ interviews with nearly 200 people (20 of them are in the finished film) were submitted as evidence in a 1986 hearing held in response to a writ of habeas corpus filed by Adams. Morris also testified at the hearing. But the writ was dismissed last year.

Morris’ film clearly presents the case for Adams, as well as for Harris’ guilt in the shooting. And Morris makes no apologies for his impartiality. But he also insisted that he omitted much of his new evidence from the film, “because I wasn’t intending to make that kind of investigative documentary. I’m more interested in character and in these characters.

“But on the other hand I’ve done more than just make a movie. I’ve uncovered much new evidence, I’ve gotten Harris to confess, I’ve been a witness in court, I’ve given all my material to Adams’ attorneys.

“The movie doesn’t have to prove Adams’ guilt or innocence, but as a movie it does bring a case to national attention when the legal system failed to.”

While continuing to work for Adams’ release, Morris is at work on another murder mystery and courtroom drama, “The Trial of King Boots,” a true story about a prominent American show dog held responsible for the death of its owner’s 87-year-old mother. The dog was jailed under a 1919 Michigan statute and a trial was held in the early ‘80s.

Meanwhile, David Harris is on death row in Texas, as the result of his conviction for another murder. And Randall Dale Adams is awaiting the release of “The Thin Blue Line.”