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Exploring Clarence Brown's Story, From Knoxville to Hollywood

  Photographer and writer Reed Massengill is knee-deep in the research for a new book about film director Clarence Brown. One of Brown’s silent films, Smouldering Fires, will be shown on Saturday, August 20, as part of the East Tennessee History Fair.

Massengill’s path to the pioneering filmmaker’s story began twenty years ago, when he was writing a book about Byron de la Beckwith, the Mississippi man that murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

"The material I was dealing with was very depressing," Massengill told WUOT's Brandon Hollingsworth. "So one day, I said to the [librarian], you know, 'Just bring me something that I can spend an hour with that will distract me from this nightmare.'"

The librarian brought him a box full of memorabilia and documents from Clarence Brown's film work. That day was the beginning of a two-decade-long interest in studying Brown's career. It also kindled Massengill's desire to share that story with a broader audience.

His research is still underway; the University of Tennessee Press will publish Massengill's book, likely in the next couple of years. In the meantime, he spoke with Brandon Hollingsworth about Clarence Brown's pioneering work in early Hollywood, his notoriety in Knoxville and the rarity of his work today.