Filmed in Georgia: Clint Eastwood learned Savannah way from Sonny Seiler filming 'Midnight'

Filmed in Georgia is a column by Frank Hotchkiss, the Savannah author of Playing with Fire at local bookstores and on Amazon. Contact Frank with recommendations for future film reviews at online@savannahnow.com.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a great trumpeter of Savannah. The 1997 film, adapted from the New York Times best-selling novel by John Berendt, brought wonderful attention to a once sleepy southern city, all thanks to the Clint Eastwood-produced and directed film.

What was so special about the film?

It highlighted a completely unique mix of tradition, history, mystery, intrigue, current culture and events that set Savannah apart from any other American city – and perhaps any other city worldwide. It’s been so influential that it has induced people from near and far to visit and even make it their new home, including this writer from California four years ago.

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Where else could you find voodoo, an accepted part of the local scene, communing with the dead, alongside an elite once-moneyed class down on their luck but adhering to the finest manners?

Add to this a Black upper class replete with its annual white-tie cotillion, horses pulling carriages down the street, a jury foreman in a murder trial whose hallmark was horse flies (they were actually large bumble bees without stingers) glued to threads flying around his head and a vial of a concoction supposedly potent enough to eliminate whole city populations? And finally an up-from-nowhere antiques dealer whose Christmas parties were everyone’s envy and sought-after by all. That was Savannah – and it wasn’t fiction!

The film is so thoroughly Savannah that it’s hard to imagine that any of it was filmed elsewhere – but it was. All the court room and jail scenes were in a set at Warner Brothers in Burbank, California.

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Sonny Seiler brings real life Jim Williams case experience to silver screen

Here is some inside information not readily recognizable for initial viewers of the film.

The real attorney for Jim Williams -- the central character in the story who was charged with the murder of his erstwhile helper and occasional partner -- was Sonny Seiler. You may think you don’t know Sonny, but you do because Eastwood convinced him to play presiding Judge White in the film, a role he fit to a tee.

Eastwood’s instruction to Sonny was simple: control the action to ensure that the proceedings portrayed were completely in accord with Georgia law. Sonny upheld this direction, at times improvising when he saw something amiss.

The film’s cast is superb, from Kevin Spacey to John Cusack to Alison Eastwood, Clint’s daughter, who seduces Cusack in the course of the film. Spacey came to Savannah several weeks before filming started to learn its particular southern accent, with its telltale inflections. He didn’t tell anyone he was here. He was sort of in disguise with a beard so no one would recognize him.

Sonny said his secretary called him to say “Kevin Spacey is here to see you. I didn’t know who he was. He looked like something off the street, had a beard and dark clothes, and started telling me why he wanted to chat. He was visiting places where the film was going to be shot.”

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When they decided to shoot in Savannah, protagonist Jim Williams’s sister Dorothy Kingery wouldn’t let them film in his home at Mercer House, where she was still living (and still does today). “We got a call (the Hollywood contingent) were coming to look at my firm, as we owned Armstrong House where some scenes were eventually filmed," Seiler said.

“Clint had heard about Uga and wanted to see him. My wife Cecelia was there with Uga. Clint and some of his staff walked in and he introduced himself to everyone there, as if he needed an introduction. He looked down and there was Uga, and he dropped to his knees, patted Uga on the head and said, “I’m going to make you a celebrity!”

Cecelia quickly explained, “Uga is already a celebrity, Mr. Eastwood,” since he was the Georgia Bulldogs’ mascot and went to every football game. Clint, corrected by her, laughed in appreciation.

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He eventually struck a deal with Kingery to shoot almost everything in Mercer House, except the crime-related scenes – “the unpleasantness” as she called it. Consequently, the Christmas party is in Mercer House, but the magnificent hallway and the den where Billy was shot – and Jim “died” – were all recreations at Warners in Burbank. The same holds true for the courtroom and jail scenes.

Sonny said, “Clint flew me out to California by myself. The jail, the Mercer House hallway, the den where Billy was shot were all Hollywood recreations, as I said. I walked in and felt like I was back in Savannah, they did such a remarkable job....Everybody who had anything to do with Clint thought he was just wonderful. He was so well prepared. And the cast was perfect.”

“I have to say, Jim Williams was a fascinating guy. I had represented him in civil matters for years. Very smart and nice.”

The Lady Chablis was inserted in the film and added a wonderful if bizarre element to it, although her connection to Jim Williams was nil. She only knew the young man who Williams killed, played in the film by Jude Law.

But she was another unique facet of Savannah, and Eastwood recognized it. However, he didn’t give her free rein. In the courtroom scene, once on the witness stand, she started to adlib right and left. Sonny cut her off, he said.

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“You sit down here,” he instructed Chablis indicating the witness seat. ‘I’m running this court room and not you.’ Clint loved that (me correcting her).” Eastwood eventually pulled Chablis aside and told her she was going to be on the next plane back to Savannah if she continued off script. She quickly changed her ways.

Sonny continued, “As for Jack Thompson (the Australian actor who portrayed me in the film) “he got it right.”

Sonny helped Thompson in one particular way. “Clint told me, ‘We put anything on him and you don’t like it (I had to return to practicing law and couldn’t look jazzy or wrong in the film) you come to me and we’ll change it right there.’ That’s the way Clint was.

“I objected to the tie they had him in for closing arguments in the courtroom – bright orange or something. I wanted him to wear the red and black stripe silk tie he ended up wearing in the film. The costume lady protested. I suggested she check with Eastwood, and that was the end of that discussion.”

Truth and Fiction in the Garden of Good and Evil

Williams lived through four trials and came out innocent, thanks to Seiler’s defense.

The film portrayed Williams dying of a heart attack in the room where he had shot Billy Hanson. Not true, Sonny said.

But in a final irony, in 1990, Sonny got a call in his office where he rarely went late in the evening. “Sonny, come quickly, something is wrong. Mr. Jim might be dead.” It was his house boy. “He’s lying down right there in that room where he shot that boy.”

“I said, ‘Have you called anybody but me?”

“No.”

“Well don’t call anybody. For God’s sake don’t call the cops.

“I didn’t want it to get out of hand. I went immediately to Mercer House and found Jim on the floor, half in and half out of the hallway and room where Billy had been shot. I thought he was probably dead. He was in his skivvies.”

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It was right where Billy had pushed over the clock in the hallway, and within reach of the desk where Williams pulled out his pistol and shot Hanson.

Wanting to keep the matter out of the public eye, Sonny summoned the city doctor, who was a friend, and he scheduled an autopsy. Sure enough -- Jim Williams had died of congenital heart failure. He’s buried in Gordon, Georgia, near Macon where he grew up.

You can’t make up stuff like this.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Movies filmed in Georgia: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil