Documentary tells story of execution
by Bobbie J. Clark - The Daily Iberian

ST. MARTINVILLE — Willie Francis practiced walking up and down the hallway of the Iberia Parish Jail. He wanted to make sure his legs would be under him when he made the march to the electric chair.

He didn’t want to embarrass his family by having his legs fail him.

Francis was scheduled to be put to death May 3, 1946, for murdering Andrew Thomas in St. Martinville. However, something went wrong, and Francis survived the execution.

A long legal battled ensued, going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled another execution should take place.

Francis was finally executed in May of 1947. He was 18 years old.

Francis’ ordeal has been documented in several books and studied by many legal scholars. It is now the subject of a documentary titled, “Willie Francis Must Die Again,” written and directed by Allan Durand.

Durand lives in St. Martinville and practices law in Lafayette. He graduated from Catholic High School and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He graduated from Louisiana State University Law School.

He moved back to St. Martinville in 1981, and shortly after started making movies.

“I’ve been working on this film on and off for the last five or six years,” he said. “The Willie Francis case is probably the most famous case to come out of the 16th Judicial District. It’s one of the most famous capital punishment cases to go to the Supreme Court. It’s the only time in U.S. history that anyone’s gone to the electric chair twice.”

The lawyer who took Francis’ case was Bertrand DeBlanc, Durand’s great uncle. Durand said Francis’ father paid DeBlanc with two gallons of potatoes.

“Bertrand knew he wasn’t going to get paid,” Durand said. “This offended his sense of fairness to put a kid in the electric chair a second time.”

DeBlanc’s family had kept all the files from the case over the years. Durand used those files, along with some books written about it and articles from The Daily Iberian for his research.

Since the completion of the documentary, Durand has been traveling the film festival circuit. In April, the film was named Best Documentary at the Memphis International Film Festival. At the Santa Barbara Film Festival, it was nominated for the Social Justice Award.

The next stop is the Atlanta Film Festival, where the film was nominated for best documentary short. If it wins, it will be in contention for an Academy Award. Durand was recently honored with the visual arts award at the Ninth Annual Bunkfest Arts, Heritage and Music Awards program.

Durand said his ultimate aspiration for the documentary would be for it to be made into a feature film.

“I’ve tried to pitch it as a feature film for (several) years,” he said. “Everyone says it’s a good story, but has a sad ending. It might have been made by now if it had a happy ending.”

He said Madonna’s film company, Maverick Films, has expressed interest in the film, but added he has not heard from the company about it.

PBS has decided to run the documentary regionally and maybe nationally, which could give it the publicity it needs to be made into a feature film.

“It helps when you’ve got an unusual story,” he said. “At some point, someone will see it.”

Durand knows how the film industry works. He has several projects under his belt, including the film, “Belizaire the Cajun,” staring Armand Assante and Robert Duvall.

He’s recently gotten the green light to do a documentary on a guy from Breaux Bridge who went to New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina and saved 798 people.

“I can’t point out a time where I decided I wanted to make movies,” he said. “It’s just something I grew up always wanting to do.”