Plot
In Hawaii in 1937, four young men find a white woman, beaten nearly to death, and take her to a hospital, only to be charged later with her rape and assault. During their trial, the woman's husband, a lieutenant in the US Navy, fatally shoots one of them and later stands trial himself. The trial brings into stark relief the racial tensions that tear at the social fabric of Territorial Hawaii in the years prior to World War II.
Socialite Hester Ashley Murdoch leaves an officers' dinner party at the US naval base in Honolulu in the company of a man who is not her husband, Lieutenant Lloyd Murdoch, but rather Murdoch's best friend. The friend coldly announces that he is terminating their relationship, though Hester is carrying his child. Outraged, she announces that she will tell her husband and the commanding admiral on the station. In retaliation, the friend beats her savagely and leaves her where she lies.
Four young men find her and take her to a hospital, although they fear being blamed for her beating because she is haole (white) and they are variously of Hawaiian or Asian descent. At the hospital, Hester's mother Doris assumes that the four are to blame, but Hester says, "It's nobody's fault; I was the pregnant one!" The shocked Doris tells her daughter that she must cooperate in Doris's campaign to blame the young men, saying that Hester must think of Doris's "position" in high society. Accordingly, the four are charged with rape and assault.
Most of the law-enforcement officers involved, including those of the Honolulu Police Department and the Navy Shore Patrol, assume that the young men are guilty, but Detective Captain Curt Maddox is unconvinced. Meanwhile, the defendants get a court-appointed attorney who strives valiantly to show that the four must be innocent of the crime because of time-line conflicts with the best estimate of when the beating took place. The trial of the four ends abruptly when Lieutenant Murdoch, at the height of an at-the-bench discussion between the judge and the two opposing counsels, abruptly draws his service automatic and shoots the lead defendant twice in the head, killing him.
Now Murdoch must stand trial (in a civilian court) for murder in the first degree. Doris hires famed criminal attorney Walter Bergmann to defend him. The pretrial investigation is complicated by an affair between Detective Maddox and Bergmann's wife Leonore.
The case is further complicated when some Navy petty officers, all friends of Murdoch, kidnap the three remaining defendants, tie them in spread-eagle fashion to an improvised rack, and beat them to get them to confess. The Navy men repeatedly use the word "bilge", which, according to the film, is common Navy slang for useless information or known falsehood. The defense lawyer interviews the three after they are taken to a hospital. There, they finally blurt out, "They said, 'Bilge!'" This gives the lawyer the vital clue he needs. Maddox follows up the clue and has the three arrested.
Murdoch's trial climaxes with Bergmann summing up by claiming that Murdoch's action was excusable: "Those animals beat her!" Then Hester, plagued by her conscience, blurts out, "They're innocent! They're innocent!" Although Bergmann roughly escorts her from the courtroom, the damage is done: Murdoch is convicted.
Subsequently, Doris hires an interior decorator to redecorate her home. In the middle of her interview with the decorator, Detective Maddox arrives with a warrant for the arrests of Doris and Hester. Hester, crushed, rushes to her bathroom and hangs herself from the shower head. Doris discovers Hester's body and cries out in anguish.
USS Bennington was a member of the Yorktown class of steel-hulled, twin-screw gunboats in the United States Navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was the first U.S. Navy ship named in honor of the town of Bennington, Vermont, site of the Battle of Bennington in the American Revolutionary War.
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
Admiral Charles William de la Poer Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford,, styled Lord Charles Beresford between 1859 and 1916, was a British admiral and Member of Parliament.
The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, headquartered in the Alapa'i Police Headquarters in Honolulu CDP.
Abigail Wahiʻikaʻahuʻula Campbell Kawānanakoa was a politician and Princess of Hawaii.
The Massie Trial, for what was known as the Massie Affair, was a 1932 criminal trial that took place in Honolulu, Hawaii Territory. Socialite Grace Fortescue, along with several accomplices, was charged with the murder of the well-known local prizefighter Joseph Kahahawai. Fortescue was the mother of Thalia Massie, who had brought charges that Kahahawai was one of a group of men who had raped her.
Thalia Fortescue Massie was a member of a socially prominent U.S. family involved in a series of heavily publicized trials in Hawaii.
Grace Hubbard Fortescue,, was a New York City socialite who murdered a man, later proven innocent, who was accused of raping her daughter. After being convicted of manslaughter at a sensational trial, her ten-year sentence was commuted to a single hour by Hawaii's Territorial Governor Lawrence Judd.
Galen Fox is a former Hawaii State Representative of the Republican Party who resigned from the Hawaii legislature on December 1, 2005, after being convicted of misdemeanor sex abuse charges.
Steve McGarrett is a fictional character who is the protagonist of CBS' Hawaii Five-O created by Leonard Freeman. McGarrett is a former United States Navy officer and the leader of a special state police task force, which is called Five-O. McGarrett was portrayed by actor Jack Lord in the original show from 1968 to 1980, and later by Alex O'Loughlin in the series' remake from 2010 to 2020. Throughout the show, McGarrett is partner to Detective Danny "Danno" Williams.
The Wilcox rebellion of 1889 was a revolt led by Robert Wilcox to force King Kalākaua of Hawaii to reenact the Hawaiian Constitution of 1864 from the Constitution of 1887.
Jill Naomi Tokuda is an American small business owner and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Hawaiʻi's 2nd congressional district since 2023.
Rolando Cruz is an American man known for having been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, along with co-defendant Alejandro Hernandez, for the 1983 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County, Illinois. The police had no substantive physical evidence linking the two men to the crime. Their first trial was jointly in 1987, and their statements were used against each other and a third defendant.
Erika Bergmann was a German Nazi concentration camp guard at two labor camps during World War II. She was known as the "Bestie in Menschenhaut" for her cruel treatment of prisoners during her tenure as a warden at Ravensbrück concentration camp, according to a 1990 edition of the East German magazine Für Dich.
Hawaii Five-0 is an American action police procedural television series that centers around a special police major crimes task force operating at the behest of the governor of Hawaii. It is a reboot of the 1968–1980 series Hawaii Five-O, which also aired on CBS. The series was produced by K/O Paper Products and 101st Street Television, initially in association with CBS Television Studios. The show received praise for its modern take on the original series.
1920 Politics also referred to as "Jim Crow" circa 1930, was a Democratic political strategy to reassert the authority of the white race and promote American Anglo-Saxon values, in what was then the US Territory of Hawaii.
John Edward Bush, also known as John Edwin Bush, was a politician and newspaper publisher in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Joseph Kahahawai Jr. was a Native Hawaiian prizefighter accused of the rape of Thalia Massie. He was abducted and killed after an inconclusive court case ended with a hung jury mistrial.
Helen Lake Kanahele was an American labor organizer. She was president of the Women's Auxiliary of the International Longshoreman's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) and worked with the United Public Workers union. Due to her labor organizing and opposition to the death penalty, Kanahele was subpoenaed by the Territorial Committee on Subversive Activities in the 1950s.
