MUSINGS FOR JUNE, 2025

Mary was brutally battered and shot twice in a Georgetown park (probably because she knew too much) 11 months after JFK was killed in Dallas. Right away, a poor young black man, Raymond Crump, was arrested and charged with the crime. But, Dovey Roundtree, the famous Civil Rights attorney, visited him at the DC Jail, and she was so convinced of his innocence, that she offered to defend him for one dollar. It wasn’t just the lack of evidence against him; it was that he just didn’t seem capable of doing it. There were dubious eye-witnesses who said that they saw him at the scene but no forensic evidence against him at all. Also, he was physically small and shorter than the victim. Plus, he was mentally handicapped.  And there were elements of the crime that certainly made it appear to be a professional hit.

 DOVEY’S PROMISE is, at heart, a courtroom drama because I estimate that about 2/3 of the film is the trial. There are other scenes, to set the stage for the trial, and to develop Dovey’s character, to create intimacy between her and the audience, but the crux of the film is the trial, and that is where Joy White as Dovey Roundtree shines as a legal warrior. The way she extracted, from the prosecutor’s witnesses, the admissions that led to reasonable doubt was amazing- she was so astute and effective. And you get the sense all along that this is Dovey Roundtree against the system. You realize that it’s not a typical murder trial, and it seems like Dovey is going up against the whole government, which makes her seem like a modern-day Joan of Arc. That is the context in which this great courtroom drama unfolds.

I thought the acting was good, but the young man who played the defendant Raymond Crump was especially impressive to me. His name is Terrence Mombrun, and I found him to be totally credible the way he seemed so vulnerable and overwhelmed and dependent on Dovey.  If the idea was to make us feel sympathy for Raymond Crump, then Terrence Mombrun succeeded masterfully.

And why on the night of her murder, did the CIA try to get, and did get, Mary’s diary? The film included the fact that James Jesus Angleton, the head of counterintelligence at the CIA, recruited Ben Bradley, Mary’s brother-in-law, to help him break into her place to search for and seize her diary.  The position of the filmmaker Ralph Cinque is clear, that Mary’s killing was a CIA hit, and it was damage control after the CIA killed JFK. However, the politically correct position, to this day, is that Raymond Crump did it and the jury erred in acquitting him. This must be why Hollywood has continued to protect the real facts by never filming and releasing this great story to the theaters.

And you needn’t be concerned about knowing the outcome in advance because there is high drama at the end anyway. There is a twist at the end that will keep you glued to your seat.

This courtroom drama is very well done, but what makes the film a must-see, in my opinion, is that it is an important piece of history, and it is suppressed history. The mainstream tiptoes around this. Tributes to Dovey Roundtree focus on her famous Civil Rights cases, and they usually don’t mention the Towpath Murder Trial, even though it was her biggest case. Dovey’s Promise is a film that only Ralph Cinque- or another independent filmmaker like him- could make. The story is too inflammatory for Hollywood.  But, in this case, I think that even those who are quick to denounce anything that challenges official doctrines as “conspiracy theories” will have to admit that this film was well done. I say it is excellent story-telling; excellent mano-a-mano courtroom jostling, and excellent in its overall presentation, despite having a small production budget.

I am one of those people who has largely given up on movies, but I enjoyed this one very much. It held my interest throughout, and it left me with much to ponder.  What more can you expect from a movie?