By Maria Saporta

For those of you who don’t mind watching movies on TV, two films that shouldn’t be missed will air early this week.

The first is: “The People v. Leo Frank,” which will air at 9 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 2 on PBS — Georgia Public Broadcasting — which is also Channel 8.

And the second movie is: “By the People, the Election of Barack Obama.” Fittingly, it will air on Election night — Tuesday, Nov. 3 — from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on HBO. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since the historic election.

I’ve had the good fortune to see both movies, and I can enthusiastically recommend both.

A preview of “The People v. Leo Frank” was shown at the Cobb Energy Center on April 30th of this year — just a few miles from where the famous lynching of Leo Frank took place.

The movie depicts one of the most controversial murder cases in American history — the killing of Mary Phagan, a child laborer who worked in an Atlanta pencil factory. Her supervisor was Leo Frank, a Jew, who was accused of her murder.

Click here to read what I wrote the night that I saw the movie.

“By the People: the Election of Barack Obama,” was previewed at the Carter Center Oct. 22 and introduced by the two filmmakers — Amy Rice and Alicia Sams. They spent nearly two years shadowing Obama and his campaign staff — providing incredible behind-the-scenes footage of the nation-changing campaign.

Mike Klein, my guest columnist for this week, wrote a wonderful review of the movie, and it is better than anything I could write. So here is a link to Mike Klein’s review.

Maria Saporta, executive editor, is a longtime Atlanta business, civic and urban affairs journalist with a deep knowledge of our city, our region and state. From 2008 to 2020, she wrote weekly columns...

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