Class News
Frank Hotchkiss ’64 reviews “Manhunter” featuring Hannibal Lecter
May 28, 2022
Frank Hotchkiss writes a weekly movie column for the Savannah Morning News (GA).
Today, Frank reviewed a remake of the 1986 film “Manhunter,” featuring Hannibal Lecter.
The film industry in Georgia is the largest in the U.S. for production of feature films by number of films produced, as of 2016. Georgia-filmed productions received nearly 50 total 2020 Emmy Award nominations. It’s no wonder that Frank Hotchkiss left Hollywood!
“Manhunter” brings the terrifying Hannibal Lecter to variety of Atlanta spots
Savannah Morning News: “Filmed in Georgia”
by Frank Hotchkiss
May 28, 2022
“Filmed in Georgia” is a weekly column by Frank Hotchkiss. Contact Frank with recommendations at online@savannahnow.com.
Thomas Harris’s “Manhunter” is the first and arguably the most terrifying of this remarkable writer’s celluloid presentations featuring the deranged Hannibal Lecter.
When first released in 1986, it fell flat on its face, but slowly accrued a cult following which led to the wildly popular "Silence of the Lambs," "Hannibal," and "Red Dragon."
And, yes, it was filmed in part in Georgia — specifically the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, with a room made up to be Lecter’s cell. Additionally, investigator Will Graham stays at the 50-story Marriott Marquis Hotel on Peachtree Center Avenue in Atlanta. Other locations include Washington, DC for the FBI office shoot, St. Louis, Missouri for the airport shots, and North Carolina for the beach scenes.
First, the plot: A retired FBI agent named Will Graham specializes in understanding the minds of those who commit horrible serial murders, in order to catch future perpetrators.
Graham reluctantly returns to active duty to track down a madman who has begun randomly and mercilessly slaughtering wonderful families, young children, and all. Graham has less than a month before the killer strikes again, because his attacks are timed with the full moon and are typified by bloody mayhem including placing shards of mirrors post-mortem in the eyes of the dead.
Who but the crazy could make sense of this?
But Thomas Harris does, in the course of this psychological thriller which reveals how a madman thinks. Graham slowly realizes that the murderer is trying to fulfill himself through the eyes of others (and to himself), beginning with the dead, because he feels he is horribly flawed. It is not by chance that he has a scarred face, thanks to being born with a hare lip.
Enter Hannibal Lektor — later spelled Lecter in the subsequent Oscar-winning performance by Anthony Hopkins. Here Lecter is played by British actor Brian Cox in his first U.S. film role, a chilling portrayal of devious horror that is wholly clever and convincing.
Graham asks Lecter to help him find the killer, dubbed “The Tooth Fairy” for his practice of leaving bite marks on his victims. Lecter agrees, only to secretly send a message in a tabloid he suspects is a favorite of the killer. The message includes Graham’s home address. “Kill them all,” Lecter says in his message to The Tooth Fairy.
And from there the plot thickens as Graham and the FBI home in on the way the killer finds his victims. If they can determine that, they can find the killer. The only thing the murdered families — one in Atlanta, the other in Birmingham — have in common is home movies showing their happy — and doomed — lives.
Can that be the key to unlock the door to The Tooth Fairy’s identity?
To tell more would remove the excitement you will have following the twists and turns of the good-vs-evil masterpiece. The cast is wonderful — William Petersen as Graham, Dennis Farina as his FBI boss, Joan Allen as a blind colleague to the killer, and introducing unknown Yale Drama School graduate Tom Noonan in the role of the monster who wants to resurrect himself.
"Manhunter" is available on streaming on Amazon Prime and available to rent from YouTube, Apple TV, and Google Play Movies. The film is also available locally on DVD at Savannah-area libraries.
This is the first column about films made in Georgia. It aims weekly to review movies of note like “My Cousin Vinny” and “Manhunter” (the first and possibly best Hannibal Lecter film) which were shot in Georgia.