Leave it to PBS to counterpoint all this network stunting for the May ratings-intensive "sweeps" period (cheesy example: NBC's "Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story") with a creepy two-hour documentary guaranteed to be unlike anything you've seen.
That is, unless you caught "My Brother's Keeper" in a movie theater last year, where it made a quick but successful pass through the cinema system.(Editor's note: "Brother's Keeper" - the "My" has been removed for its television screening - will be broadcast on "American Playhouse" at 8 p.m. tonight on KUED, Ch. 7.)
Of course, "successful" for a modest documentary is different than, say, "successful" like "Ernest Goes to Camp," so odds are Monday night is your first opportunity to see this strange production, inappropriately presented as an "American Playhouse" feature.
It involves a 1991 trial for a murder, allegedly committed in the central New York town of Munns-ville, population about 500.
Or 499, after the death of Bill Ward, who was found in bed by his three brothers: All were dairy farmers, all bachelors, all living in a little ramshackle shack. Youngest brother Delbert Ward, then 59, was indicted in Bill's killing. Officials say Delbert admitted to smothering Bill by placing his hand over Bill's mouth and nose.
Delbert says he did no such thing, that Bill died in his sleep, and he only signed a confession he couldn't read because he was told it would make things go easier for him. "But they didn't," Delbert says.
Eldest brother Roscoe and middle brother Lyman back Delbert, though police say Lyman told them that Delbert killed Bill to put him out of his misery. That misery, we gather, was due to headaches, an upset stomach, a sore foot, and having once been cut with a chain saw.
It is difficult to describe the Ward brothers, who are still referred to by the people of Munns-ville as "the boys," though Roscoe is 74 now. Suffice it to say the closest Hollywood has gotten to the character may have been in the movie "Deliverance" - the actor who encouraged Ned Beatty to "squeal like a pig."
Suffice it also to say that soap and cologne salesmen have made little money off the Ward boys. And to say their shack could use regular maid service would be an understatement. Once seen, the Ward boys will not soon be forgotten.
None of this, however, convinced the people of Munnsville - who had hitherto pretty much ignored the Ward boys - that always-gentle Delbert Ward was a killer. That the state police hadn't, for some reason, concocted their flimsy case, railroading an uneducated hayseed. No real motive is given for such deviousness, though, aside from an abstract suggestion that some state policemen may have wanted to buy the Wards' dairy farm.
Still, in a single day, the people of Munnsville raised $10,000 for Delbert's bail, and held dances and bake sales to pay his legal fees. In "Brother's Keeper," we get to know the Ward boys and the Munnsville citizenry quite well.
Too well, really. New York City filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, who spent nine months filming the documentary, have about 90 minutes of fascinating material in this two-hour movie. The first half drags, and the interviews go on far too long. But once we get to trial, "Brother's Keeper" pays off. Watching the nervous, obviously disturbed Lyman have a breakdown on the witness stand is just agonizing, but it is also fascinating.
Much of "Brother's Keeper" is pretty distasteful, but it is also a glimpse into a world that few of us have visited in person, and fewer still would really want to.
Did Delbert Ward kill his brother? Regardless of what the jury said - I won't tip their verdict here - we don't know. That is to the credit of filmmakers Berlinger and Sinofsky, who don't try to make a case, just tell a story.