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List Price: $5.98 | | Label: Hbo Home Video
Salesrank: 9339
Released: January 8, 2002 |
| Our Price: $3.35 |
| Used Price: $3.07 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Based on the shocking true story, Miss Evers' Boys exposes a 40-year government backed medical research effort on humans which led to tragic consequences. It is 1932 when loyal, devoted Nurse Eunice Evers (Alfre Woodard) is invited to work with Dr. Brodus (Joe Morton) and Dr. Douglas (Craig Sheffer) on a federally funded program to treat syphilis patients in Alabama. Free treatment is offered to those who test positive for the disease included Caleb Humphries (Laurence Fishburne) and Willie Johnson (Obba Babatunde). But when the government withdraws its funding, money is offered for what will become known as "The Tuskegee Experiment", a study of the effects of syphilis on patients who don't receive treatment. Now the men must be led to believe they are being cared for, when in fact they are being denied the medicine that could cure them. Miss Evers is faced with a terrible dilemma-to abandon the experiment and tell her patients, or to remain silent and offer only comfort. IT is a life or death decision that will dictate the course of not only her life, but the lives of all of Miss Evers' Boys.
Description of Miss Evers' Boys:
Laurence Fishburne helped shepherd this Emmy Award-winning exposé from American medical history books to the small screen. Anchored in the 1973 Senate inquiry into the infamous Tuskegee Study, the film uses a flashback structure to take us back 40 years as Nurse Eunice Evers (played with honest conviction by Alfre Woodard, who also earned an acting Emmy for her powerful performance) describes how a program designed to treat syphilis among blacks in the South was twisted into an inhuman study. Evers's conscience is torn between leaving her position on principle or remaining to give the dying men what comfort she can while they are systematically refused life-saving medicine at every turn. Fishburne costars as Caleb, a easygoing but ambitious young fieldhand who discovers the cold reality of the study while courting Miss Evers. Adapted by Walter Bernstein from a play by David Feldshuh, the film rises above the TV Movie of the Week mold with a complex moral structure that eschews (if you'll pardon the expression) black and white polarities for shades of gray as the doctors' initial compromises become a lifetime of lies. Ultimately that tone becomes the most disturbing facet of the drama: doctors and nurses so enmeshed in what is tantamount to a conspiracy they can find no way out, and a government that searches for scapegoats for its own cold-blooded research. --Sean Axmaker
Miss Evers' Boys Reviews:
Interesting Movie 
2009-05-05 - A very interesting movie. It is thought provoking and is well made. Not my usual type of movie, but I enjoyed watching it a few times.
Shocking 
2008-12-15 - I had to buy this movie to watch it for school. I was shocked by the real-life story that this movie depicts. It's a great movie to watch, especially for those in healthcare to see how research trials with human subjects were conducted.
informative 
2008-09-24 - it's a great movie that allows you to see how the tuskegee study actually came about and how it took many years later for something to be done. its sad but informative. i loved it.
great! 
2008-05-09 - I was impressed and pleased with the speed of delivery and the quality of the product.
Miss Evers Boys 
2008-04-09 - I enjoyed it tremendously. (You'll have to watch out that it doesn't depress you). However, I found it to be noteworthy as it was historical and shed a bit of light on a situation that maybe some did not know ever existed. I would have liked it if the story would have dealt more with the government's ivolvement with the Tuskegee Project in preventing medicine to be given to the black men that were unknowingly used for this experiment. This story focused more on Miss Ever's commitment to the men, instead of the government's decision that these human beings were expendable. Excellent acting by Alfred Woodard & Laurence Fisburne.