Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People Supported by a grant from the American Film Institute in association with the National Endowment for the Arts, Good Country People is a superb 34 minute film adaptation of the classic Flannery O'Connor short story by independent filmmaker Jeffrey F. Jackson. In this clip, the climax of the plot is mercilessly revealed. Don't worry, it should do more to inspire seeing the film in its entirety than any other clip. CAST & CREW Shirley Slater as Hulga Hopewell June Whitley Taylor as Mrs. Hopewell Sue Marrow as Mrs. Freeman Johnnie Collins III as the Bible salesman Anderson G. House Producer Daniel Lee Holland Associate Producer, Assistant Editor, Production Manager Jeffrey F. Jackson Writer, Director, Editor Veronica Lee Johnston Costumes, Make-up, Titles Mike Walker Script Supervisor Stuart Neuville Director of Light Jack Epps Jr. Camera Jeff Smith Assistant Camera Nate Kauffman Sound Tom Crockett Boom Man Tim & Jackie Vieth Set Design Mike Everett Gaffer Dale R. Derda Banjo, Guitar, Voice Tony Walters Violin, Mandolin, Voice Annie Rothstein Guitar, Voice Robert Wise Technical Advisor Paul Leimbach Technical Advisor Dr. T.F. Jackson D.V.M.: Executive Producer Lois Jackson: Executive Producer

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THIS IS MY PLACE /   [...] The most successfully humorous short film of O'Connor's work is Good Country People [...] of all the films, this one falls most clearly into the comic grotesque tradition of the middle Georgia humor, whose structure, different from the other narrative patterns, exploits the surprise ending format to its full comic dimensions. profaning the sacred in order to ridicule hypocrisy..." — "THIS IS MY PLACE": The Short Films Made From Flannery O'Connor's Short Fiction by Jane Elizabeth Archer MEDIA MIX /   Only a reader familar with with the worlds of Ms. O'Connor could read a plot summary of Good Country People and understand it is not a short story from the paraplegic edition of Modern Romances. Hulga is a sullen, 36-year-old woman with a Ph.D. in philosophy, a bad heart from a childhood hunting accident, a wooden leg, and a view of life gained entirely from books. She lives on a farm with her mother and seems to have no interest in life. But along comes a bumbling Bible salesman who endears himself to Hulga's mother by explaining "I'm just a country boy" and reassuring the farm lady that "good country people are the salt of the earth." Hulga and the salesman hate each other but are able to form a strange bond (in the world of O'Connor, all personal relationships are "strange") based on the shared belief they both might die. He invites her on a "picnic walk in the woods," and Hulga accepts, being too naive to realize the Bible salesman is a con man out to take advantage of her by rules other than those in the Bible. They climb into a hayloft, he slobbers her with kisses and insists she admit she loves him. About love Hulga explains, "It's not a word I use, I don't have illusions. I'm one of those persons who sees through to nothing. We are all damned. Some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see there is nothing to see—it's a kind of salvation." In Hulga's economy it is the Bible salesman who is damned and she who is saved. Perhaps it is out of pity that she allows him to kiss her and admits finally that she loves him "in a sense." He asks "prove it" and wants to see her artificial leg because "it's what makes you different." She shows him her limb; he takes it off, hugs it, and hides it in his suitcase along with his pornographic playing cards, whisky, and parts of other people. As he explains, "I once time got a woman's glass eye this way." He abandons Hulga in the hayloft, legless, and emptied even of her emptiness. His parting line after the ultimate con is "Hulga, you ain't so smart. I've been believing in nothing ever since I was born." Good Country People features excellent casting and acting and is well directed by Jeffrey F. Jackson. — Media Mix