Featherson's Freedomites: A Portrait in Evil
A still of both Chief Assault Leader Harold "Harry" Henderson and his superior Group Leader Richard Paulson near the Confederate-Union Border discussing the upcoming Operation Blackbeard.
Featherson's Freedomites was a made for TV movie produced mainly in Europe in the mid-1980s. The plot follows two brothers Carl (played by John Shea) and Harold (played by Bill Nighy) Henderson as they take different paths during the rule of the Freedom Party from it's rise to it's fall. The film starts with Carl attending a Freedom Party meeting in his hometown of Macon, Georgia in 1931, where Willy Knight was giving a speech, which we learn that Carl had intentions of joining the Freedom Party. The film then would introduce us to the rest of his family, who is Harold or "Harry," who at home from attending University in Atlanta, the parents named Albert (Robery Urquhart) and Genette (Carroll Baker) and his new brother named John Wesley (Peter Marquis, also played by Jodie Andrews, and Caspian Bartorv), in that sequence, we also get introduced to Uncle Willie (Stratford Johns) and Maisie Temple (Lucy Gutteridge) in a saloon where a fight between some of the patrons and some stalwarts occur. After leaving the saloon, they go to a restaurant where they meet Harry's mentor named Laurence Ross, a socialist university professor, in which he warns Carl that there is going to be a "A high price for this new order."
The film fast-forwards to Atlanta in 1933, where during a match of fencing, Harry meets Richard Paulson (David Warner), a prominent member of the Freedom Party who is also a bigshot within the party. At the same time, Carl would get a job as a mechanic working at a service garage, where he and his employer named Raymond Lambert (Ivor Roberts) were having a discussion about politics where Lambert said "If your friend Featherson ever got what he was after, there would not be any unions, socialist or otherwise." Back in Atlanta, following a round of fencing, Paulson would convince Harry to join the Freedom Party and would take him with to Richmond, to which he witnessed a meeting between the high-ranking officials of the party.
Paulson and Harry observing the members of the meeting in Richmond.
The film then fast-forwards to Christmas of 1933, where there was an argument between Carl and Harry about the Freedom Party Guards, in which Harry would tell his brother that "Those crazy idealists like your stalwart friend Knight wouldn't even begin to know how." In a later scene taking place in 1936, we witness the stalwarts attack a Labor Union and badly maim his boss Lambert. Distressed over the whole ordeal, Carl would try and get justice for Lambert, but the case would not gain any ground. At some point in the film, his superior (Paul Brooke), would ask him about how felt about "The Party making the Stalwarts the Party's garbage collectors." It all takes a down turn for Carl following a fight between a Freedom Party Stalwarts and the Guards in 1938 during the coup attempt by Willy Knight. Carl would be arrested and interned at Camp Dependable, which would broke the camel's back for his sympathy with the Freedom Party (especially after seeing Uncle Willy dying at the camp.)
Meanwhile, Harry would work directly with Paulson, and would be part of the planning for the Confederacy's Plans for war against the United States and also in the Population Reduction. Meanwhile, Carl would get out of the concentration camp would attempt at getting justice for Lambert against the Stalwarts who injured him at the local police station. The policeman would warn Carl about the Freedom Party Guards with the words "They won't like your story, and they won't like either." But Carl insisted on going forward with his case anyways, which Carl would get arrested. To avoid being sent back to Camp Dependable, Carl would be conscripted into the Confederate Army as a Private, and would take part in Operation Blackbeard. Following the start of Operation Blackbeard, Harry would be part of the Reduction of the African-Confederates, which he would shown the films of the elimination of those people. By 1942, Harry would be made a Standard Assault Leader, and his boss, Paulson would be redeployed to Ohio, where he was taking command of anti-partisan operations there. His fellow Guardsman named Baker (Warren Clarke), would wisely tell him "You better hope Koenig has a job for you, or you'll find yourself fighting Yankees." Later in 1942, Paulson would be assassinated by Union partisans, in which Harry (now a Standard Leader) would assist of Koenig's planning of a mass retaliation against the villages who harbored Paulson's killers.
As the war progressed, Harry would be doing paperwork dealing with the deportations of the Black Populace to Camp Determination. During the Battle of Pittsburgh, Carl (now a Lieutenant) witnessed killings of not only the local blacks by the Freedom Party Guards, but also of captured Union soldiers. After recovering from wounds he sustained at Pittsburgh, Carl would desert from the Confederate Army and would travel around the Confederacy using false identity papers. Which in Richmond in early 1944, Harry would witness the torture of his mentor Professor Ross, who was detained for making an "inflammable comment." In April of 1944, while sifting through the rubble of his house in Macon, Carl would learn that his brother John was in Richmond as part of the National Assault Force. There in Richmond, Carl would encounter his brother Harry, and after some talking, would convince Harry to try and get John out of the NAF, and would also convince Harry to desert from the Freedom Party Guards after learning the fate of his parents. Despite the efforts of Harry, John would remain in the NAF and call his oldest brother "A coward and a traitor." Harry would then desert from the Guards and tried to flee from Richmond, but was shot and executed when he was caught by a Guards patrol. The final scene would show both Carl and Maisie looking on to the ruins of Macon with an uncertain future ahead of them.
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This is the movie, Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil re-imagined in the TL-191 universe.