Criminal Adaptations

This week we conclude our bonus episodes on Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024). Similar to last week, we casually talk about the remainder of the season, episodes 4-8, and how accurately the show stuck to the real-life events that laid the stage for Capote’s addiction and eventual death.

You can stream the full season of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans on FX and Hulu.

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One month after our season 1 finale on Truman Capote, TV mastermind Ryan Murphy  premiered season two of his anthology series Feud, centering on famous celebrity conflicts. The next two weeks we take a break from our usual content to discuss each episode of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024) and how accurately the show stuck to the real-life events that laid the stage for Capote’s addiction and eventual death. This week we tackle episodes 1-3 of the series, which is chalked full of some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

You can stream the full season of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans on FX and Hulu.

A Visit with Truman Capote (1966)

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Aaron Sorkin made his directorial debut with Molly’s Game (2017), the true story of world-class mogul skier turned poker princess, Molly Bloom. In just a few short years, Molly went from having $2,000 to her name to being worth multi-million dollars, all by running underground poker games filled with some of the most famous and influential people in the world, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, Nelly, and Alex Rodriguez. Listen now to find out how Sorkin, with the help of an all-star cast led by Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba, depicted Bloom’s rise and dramatic downfall.

Primary Source:
Bloom, Molly. Molly’s Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World. Dey Street Books, 2015.

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Bernhardt “Bernie” Tiede II was a beloved mortician in Carthage, Texas who always went out of his way to lend a helping hand. Marjorie Nugent was a wealthy widow with few confidants, until she befriended Tiede, a man 40 years her senior, who oversaw her husband’s funeral. Through this friendship, Bernie went from living a modest lifestyle to jet setting around the world and being next in line to Nugent’s multi-million estate…until her body was found stuffed in a freezer nine months after she was last seen. This week we are back with another Jack Black true-crime comedy, Richard Linklater’s Bernie (2011). Tune in to find out how accurate the movie depicts the murder of Marjorie Nugent, and to learn about the wild sequence of events that unfolded after the film’s release.

Primary Sources:
Texas Monthly – Midnight in the Garden of East Texas
Texas Monthly – Bernie in Hell
Texas Monthly – Lights, Camera, Carthage!
Investigation Discovery
The Austin Chronicle

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The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a 2005 film directed by Scott Derrickson, in which a lawyerb(Laura Linney) takes on a negligent homicide case involving a priest (Tom Wilkinson) who performed an exorcism on a young girl (Jennifer Carpenter). Based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a young German woman who suffered a similar fate, but just how closely does this supernatural horror film stick to the real life horrific events? Listen now and find out...

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Primary Source:

Glatzer, Jenna & Markowitz, Susan. My Stolen Son: The Nick Markowitz Story. Berkley, 2010.

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“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.” Most people in the United States are familiar with the Miranda Warning, but few can tell you how it came to be. This remarkable story is portrayed for the first time in Michelle Danner’s Miranda’s Victim (2023), staring Abigail Breslin, Luke Wilson, and Ryan Phillippe.

Primary Source: 

Moore, Timothy & Lohr, Clark. Mirandized Nation: The Inside Story of Ernesto Miranda and the Phoenix Police Department. Phoenix Sleith, LLC, 2015.

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)

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Just a few days after ringing in the 2008 year, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was shot and killed by a transit officer. The viral footage, captured by bystanders’ cell phones, sparked protests across the nation. Before he rose to fame with blockbusters like Creed and Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan portrayed Grant in Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station (2013). 

Primary Source:

Chimurenga, Thandisizwe. No Doubt: The Murder(s) of Oscar Grant. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.

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To many, Larry Flynt was nothing but a controversial pornographer responsible for the publication of Hustler magazine. However, he was also a defender of our constitutional right to freedom of speech, the attempted murder victim of a convicted serial killer, and involved in setting legal precedent protecting parody under the First Amendment. His fascinating and proactive life was detailed in Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) starring Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.

Primary Sources:

Flynt, Larry & Ross, Kenneth. Unseemly Man. Dove Books, 1996.

New York Times

Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770 (1984)

Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1998)

CNN

FOX

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From 1972 to 1983 serial killer and bakery owner Robert Hansen abducted, raped, and murdered at least 17 women, many of whom he hunted after releasing them into the wilderness. 13 years after Hansen was apprehended, Scott Walker, with the help of Nicolas Cage and John Cusack, brought this story to the big screen in The Frozen Ground (2013).

Primary Sources: 

Smith, Jack. The Butcher Baker: Life of Serial Killer Robert Christian Hansen. Maplewood Publishing, 2017.

Alaska Department of Public Safety

Crime Library

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