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Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.,
Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.,
Robert Jan Van Pelt,
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Errol Morris,
Errol Morris
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: 
: Universal Studios
: Documentary, Biographies
: 90 min.
: English
: English, Spanish
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This title is currently out of print.
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Throughout his work, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has sought out characters lost in their own eccentric worlds, and he has managed to convey their sense of wonder with their passion, be it a topiary gardener arguing the merits of hand shears in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) or astrophysicist Stephen Hawking discussing the origin of the universe in A Brief History of Time (1992). In his most provocative work since The Thin Blue Line (1988), Morris details what happens when this interior dreamscape collides with the hard facts of history. As a young man accompanying his father to work at a state prison, Fred A. Leuchter, a bespectacled mouse of a man, learned how inefficient and inhumane most executions were, and he set out to design and build a better electric chair. Soon he began getting offers from state institutions throughout the country to redesign their electric chairs, along with gas chambers, gallows, and lethal injection machines. He quickly became a renowned expert in capital punishment. When the notorious Nazi sympathizer Ernest Zündel was arrested in Canada, he needed an expert witness to corroborate his assertion that the Holocaust was a hoax; and Leuchter soon found himself chiseling chunks from the gas chamber walls in Auschwitz -- on his honeymoon. His illegal samples showed no significant residue of cyanide, so he concluded that the Holocaust did not happen. He soon became a celebrity of the neo-Nazi set: he testified on behalf of Zündel, gave lectures around the world, and published the Holocaust revisionist tract Leuchter Report. Much to his surprise, his death-machine business began to flounder, his marriage collapsed, and he found himself pursued by Jewish organizations and creditors. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
We have limited quantities of this out of print title, please be patient when it is checked out.
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| Interesting character study
by Umbrah
December 22, 2008 - 5:03 AM PST
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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| A decent documentary, I find it sad. The main character comes across as the textbook definition of a man who is very smart but not very wise at all. As an engineer, I have actually met people like Fred and it always depresses me. What's worse (in my opinion) is that this poor simpleton was attacked and his life ruined simply because he tried to defend the undefendable, however inadvertent and amateurish that defense might have been. It should serve as a cautionary tale about being thorough in approach when going against the grain and being open to the possibility you could be wrong..... |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.31)
207 Votes
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