Beat Sheet of
Free At Last
A Period Drama
WGAw Reg.# 1835935
Original Screenplay by Bruce Macintyre
Opening Image (1)
Free At Last
A Period Drama
WGAw Reg.# 1835935
Original Screenplay by Bruce Macintyre
Opening Image (1)
- In a gathering of slaves on a southern plantation, a woman, Teeka, wails “Marcus!” as her husband and father of their two-year-old daughter, Rajeen, is chained to the back of a wagon by the snarling plantation owner and Marcus is led away down the drive.
- The scene dissolves to “Seven years later,” Marcus working in the blacksmith shed of a different plantation watching as a carriage pulls up to the manor house and a woman rushes inside.
- A house slave comes to bring Marcus into the house where he learns that the owner of the plantation is wounded and hiding nearby, the lady of the house asking that Marcus go and fetch him in the wagon.
- Marcus finds the owner, Derrick Blake, and hides him in the wagon to bring him back to the plantation. On the way, some mounted Union troops stop him and their leader tells him that he’s a slave no longer, free to do as he likes, scornful when Marcus says he’s returning to his plantation.
- Marcus helps Derrick into the house, giving and getting respect from the kindly plantation owners.
- Marcus talks with another slave about them all being free now, Marcus thinking of his wife and daughter.
- Derrick addresses a gathering of the slaves, telling them slavery is over and proposing a new working relationship for those who want it.
- Marcus speaks to Derrick afterwards and tells him that while they’ve been very good to him, teaching him blacksmithing along with reading and writing, he can’t stay, that he has to go to find his family.
- Marcus asks to use the Blake name as his own, Derrick replying it would make him proud.
- Derrick helps Marcus by giving him a horse and directions to the plantation where he was dragged from seven years earlier. He departs with everyone seeing him off.
- Stopping for the night, Marcus is accosted by a farmer who tries to steal his horse and assaults him, Marcus knocking him out and hurrying on his way.
- Marcus finds the big manor house of the old plantation burned down, the slaves working the land for themselves. He learns that his wife and daughter were sold to a slave trader from Charleston five years earlier.
- He obtains a photograph showing his wife and daughter.
- Marcus sets out into the unknown to find his family.
- Marcus reaches Charleston where a celebration of freedom by blacks is taking place. He finds the former slave trader who won’t help him.
- Marcus breaks into the slave trader’s offices and finds in the files the paper showing the sale of Teeka and Rajeen to a slave trader in New Orleans five years earlier.
- Heading for New Orleans, he meets a pair of blacks who steal his horse in the night.
- Marcus trudges into Mobile, stopping at a blacksmith shop to enquire about finding some temporary work to get money. The man tells him his cousin needs help fishing and Marcus meets the man. They agree that in return for his help, the man will pay him and deliver him in his boat to New Orleans.
- At sea, the man pulls a gun on Marcus and forces him to chain himself up, telling him he’s going to sell him in Cuba where slavery is still legal.
- In a storm, Marcus manages to throw the man overboard and then drifts helplessly in the crippled boat, unable to free himself from his chains.
- He’s rescued by a sailing ship heading for Galveston, the captain dropping him at the mouth of the Mississippi in the fishing boat so Marcus can row to the city.
- In bustling New Orleans, Marcus finds the address of the slave trader but it’s now a printing shop. He goes to the landlord to ask about the slave trader who’d had the premises before and learns the man died several years earlier, no records remaining.
- Asking again at the printing shop, he becomes friendly with the owner, Andrew Dreesen, who gives him a job and a place to stay, printing up fliers for Marcus telling of his search for his family to give out along with the advertisements for his print business.
- Marcus meets a woman, DOLLY, who invites him to a church function.
- Dolly tells him his search is admirable; but if he can’t find his family, he needs to go on with his life.
- Marcus understands what she’s saying, but his search is far from over.
- Andrew introduces Marcus to a man who buys his boat.
- Marcus attends the church dinner and when they hear his story decide to start advertising in their church paper for people searching for loved ones. Afterwards , Marcus walks Dolly home.
- From the sign about Marcus’s search in the window of the print company, a free black who’d dealt in the slave trade with the company that had been there comes in to tell Marcus the man dealt slaves mostly in the West, but nothing specific about Teeka and Rajeen.
- Marcus attends a church service then walks and has lunch with Dolly.
- Marcus talks with Andrew about leaving New Orleans to continue his search in the west where the man said the slave trader mostly dealt.
- Andrew tells him he’ll help by printing fliers and taking in any information that may come from them and contacting Marcus in his travels.
- The police come into the shop along with the man who bought the boat and the cousin of the kidnapper who accuses Marcus of murdering his innocent cousin.
- Marcus tells his story, supported by Andrew, but the police take him into custody.
- He’s remanded to jail to await a hearing.
- Andrew, Dolly, and the church members search for the ship captain, Evan as Marcus remembers, to testify that what Marcus claims is the truth; but they can’t find him.
- Marcus meets an inmate who was a slave to the New Orleans trader along with Teeka and Rajeen, telling Marcus they were sold to the Cherokee Indians, taken to the Cherokee Nation which is independent of the United States and slavery is still being practiced there.
- A lawyer from the church represents Marcus in a writ of habeus corpus hearing to see if her should be tried.
- There’s nothing supporting Marcus’s claim until Andrew arrives with the captain, named Niven, not Evan.
- The captain has the chains they cut from Marcus in the drifting fishing boat.
- At a dinner, Marcus thanks all his new friends for what they’ve done for him; but he has to leave to find his wife and daughter.
- Marcus travels by train north in Arkansas to a small town where he renovates a broken-down wagon and purchases an old horse.
- He arrives in Fort Smith on the edge of the Cherokee Nation.
- Despite there being many slaves escaped from the Cherokee, Marcus gets no response to his fliers for several weeks.
- Finally, an escaped slave from the Cherokee tells Marcus that he was with Teeka and Rajeen on the plantation of the leader of the Cherokee for the confederacy, Stand Watie (the last confederate general to surrender).
- Marcus gets directions to Watie’s plantation which is being revived after the decimation of the war.
- He sneaks into the Cherokee Nation, traveling at night to escape detection.
- He locates Teeka and Rajeen and they have an emotional reunion, Rajeen meeting the father she just barely remembers.
- In the night, they escape trying to reach safety in Arkansas before the Cherokee can catch them.
- They almost make it, but Watie and some other warriors catch them just miles from the border.
- Marcus is defiant though unarmed, telling Watie they will all die before being taken back into slavery.
- Watie is impressed by Marcus’s bravery, and amused at the defiance of the nine-year-old Rajeen, saying that his fifteen-year-old son has just died and he must return to Texas to bury the boy.
- Teeka says they’re sorry for his loss and will pray that he rest with Jesus.
- Watie remarks that there’s been a lot of burying in the past few years.
- In Cherokee, he orders that the warriors turn around and leave, the slaves go free.
- Watie tells Marcus, Teeka and Rajeen that his son wishes them well and that they’ll meet again someday in the presence of the spirits.
- The Cherokee depart, and Marcus, Teeka and Rajeen embrace, Free At Last.
- Teeka and Rajeen are amazed at the beauty they are seeing. The camera pulls back to show the family in their wagon on the edge of the prairie, the majestic Rocky Mountains rising ahead of them.
- Marcus says, “Free forever.”
