Wow... another "FURY" and "TRY & GET ME"... people have been trying to make something out of this story for years... I know three people who were there and witnessed the whole thing... this is the 3rd or 4th movie that has been made of this incident, plus at least three books written about it that I know of. Robert Conot, the guy who wrote "Judgement at Nuremberg" did a semi-fictional account of the Harts kidnapping & lynching called "Ministers of Vengeance" that never went anywhere. There are some that say the family paid a lot of bucks so that it wouldn't go anywhere, probably due to Conot's portrayal of the family members (think Peyton Place) but you'd have to ask someone from L Hart & Son, Inc. about that & I doubt you'd ever get an answer. What I am sure of is this... that "4 guys in a car" theory is absolute bullshit! They had nothing to do with the facts of the case, that has been proved, but some dingbat reporter got hold of that story and tried to make something out of it. Read the HarryFarrell book, "Swift Justice" too, it was somewhat accurate but still only got about half of the facts straight. One of my friends 95 years young & sharp as a tack, was a student at Santa Clara during this time.Some guy got up at a rally, a friend or roommate of Brooke Hart,he believes, and just incited the crowd of 700 to 1000 students to an absolute frenzy while the Jesuit brothers all stood in back smiling with their arms folded, nodding in approval as the screams of the mob echoed for miles... "KILL THEM! LYNCH THE MURDERERS!" TheCalifornia national guard regiment barracked at the Presidio in SF, or state militia as it was known back then, was dispatched that morning from San Francisco but took a 6- hour coffee break at Murphy's Corners (Sunnyvale today) and didn't arrive until the wee small hours of the next morning, by then Thurmond had been cut down & re- hung inside the building... he had to be taken back outside & re- strung so the newspapers could get all the pictures. My friend says he was one of over 6,000 men is attendance, by his count. He said it took his mother a month to wash the tear gas & smoky smell off his clothes. Josef Goebbels used the film and pictures shot that day in his anti-American spiel.
3 Reviews
Only verified eyewitness account of Brooke Hart kidnapping
jdmilesm1 November 2007
The eyewitness accounts of kidnap victim Brooke Hart with five men in a car that had been seen repeatedly outside his family Department Store over the ten days prior to his kidnapping, but not after wards, is not a theory. Contained in the Brooke Hart FBI file is a detailed description of how both the Santa Clara County sheriff and the FBI verified the eyewitness accounts of a mother and her daughter who both saw Brooke Hart's Studenbaker President with two men in it one half hour after he had gone missing. Their physical description of a slender blond-haired young man matched the physical description of Brooke Hart. Almost immediately, a long-hooded dark sedan with four men in it pulled up next to Hart's Studebaker, and Hart was placed in the larger car. Hart was driven off with the four men, and another man followed that car in Hart's Studebaker. Later that night, a man who lived a mile and a half away from where the mother and daughter witnessed Brooke Hart being placed in the large car, reported that a Studebaker President convertible roadster was left abandoned near his home with its lights on.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Reed Vetterli wired J. Edgar Hoover that "five men in a large sedan with California plates" had kidnapped Brooke Hart. He then prepared a detailed summary of the interrogation of the mother and daughter in which he concluded that they were telling the truth. This eyewitness account was kept confidential until the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco made reference to it, and the press descended on the farm.
Despite having verified these eyewitness accounts, both the sheriff and the FBI denigrated the accounts of the two women to the press, and said they were of no value.
Between the time when the eyewitness accounts were verified and the U.S. Attorney announced their existence, two local San Jose men were arrested for the kidnapping of Brooke Hart. Following lengthy interrogation without legal representation, each of the men confessed to the kidnapping and the murder of Brooke Hart. Each man blamed the other for the crime. Absent evidence corroborating statements in these two confessions, neither was admissible in a court of law.
Although the two men had been taken for safekeeping to San Francisco, when the U.S. marshals tried to take them into custody after being indicted for mail fraud by a federal grand jury, the Santa Clara County sheriff returned them to San Jose, allegedly for arraignment. They were never indicted, arraigned, tried, or sentenced before their lynching, four days later, by a mob estimated by newspapers to be between 5000 to 15000 men women and children.
The car that accused men confessed to using for the kidnapping, murder, and extortion of ransom was a two door Chevrolet coupe, not a dark, long-hooded, four door (Buick or Dodge), identified by the two eyewitnesses on the night of the kidnapping, and by Hart store employees parked in the alley next to the store over the ten days prior to the kidnapping, but not after.
The non-fiction book JURY RIGGING IN THE COURT OF PUBLIC opinion factually documents the innocence of the two men lynched for this kidnapping and murder.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Reed Vetterli wired J. Edgar Hoover that "five men in a large sedan with California plates" had kidnapped Brooke Hart. He then prepared a detailed summary of the interrogation of the mother and daughter in which he concluded that they were telling the truth. This eyewitness account was kept confidential until the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco made reference to it, and the press descended on the farm.
Despite having verified these eyewitness accounts, both the sheriff and the FBI denigrated the accounts of the two women to the press, and said they were of no value.
Between the time when the eyewitness accounts were verified and the U.S. Attorney announced their existence, two local San Jose men were arrested for the kidnapping of Brooke Hart. Following lengthy interrogation without legal representation, each of the men confessed to the kidnapping and the murder of Brooke Hart. Each man blamed the other for the crime. Absent evidence corroborating statements in these two confessions, neither was admissible in a court of law.
Although the two men had been taken for safekeeping to San Francisco, when the U.S. marshals tried to take them into custody after being indicted for mail fraud by a federal grand jury, the Santa Clara County sheriff returned them to San Jose, allegedly for arraignment. They were never indicted, arraigned, tried, or sentenced before their lynching, four days later, by a mob estimated by newspapers to be between 5000 to 15000 men women and children.
The car that accused men confessed to using for the kidnapping, murder, and extortion of ransom was a two door Chevrolet coupe, not a dark, long-hooded, four door (Buick or Dodge), identified by the two eyewitnesses on the night of the kidnapping, and by Hart store employees parked in the alley next to the store over the ten days prior to the kidnapping, but not after.
The non-fiction book JURY RIGGING IN THE COURT OF PUBLIC opinion factually documents the innocence of the two men lynched for this kidnapping and murder.
Great film!
Jake14327 October 2007
Saw film at yesterday's theater opening and was very impressed! The cinematography and acting were what I would expect for a high budget Hollywood picture. The noir style lighting and atmosphere made the whole experience very believable. Pete Postelthwaite gives his usual amazing performance (he's got to be one of the best character actors in the biz!) and I thought Gabriel Mann did a fine job too....I'm sure we'll see lots of him in future films. I hope Valley gets a nationwide release so my friends and family in other cities can see it too! This is one film that needs to be seen on the big screen to be fully appreciated.
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