# ID this movie please! \[Black man kills white man to avoid him burning to death\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 14, 2018, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573 "2018-03-14T21:01:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2018, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/1 "2018-03-14T21:01:26Z")
There was a movie I watched back in high school, in which a white man got trapped in a fire and couldn’t get out-- but somehow, he was still able to call out to people. He asks his son to shoot him so that he doesn’t have to suffer the pain of burning to death, but the son is reticent. A nearby black man has no such restraint, though, and he shoots and kills the white man who was in the fire. Naturally, there were other white people nearby to immediately try to punish the black man for shooting and killing the white man. (Rule of Acquisition #285: No good deed ever goes unpunished.) Can anyone ID this movie? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/2 "2018-03-15T03:26:50Z")
What year did you watch it? ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/3 "2018-03-15T03:33:11Z")
It’s really weird, this thread is giving me major de-ja-vu even though I can’t definitively say whether I’ve actually seen the movie in question. I can picture it in my mind’s eye. I wish I knew the answer. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/4 "2018-03-15T14:21:48Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > It’s really weird, this thread is giving me major de-ja-vu even though I can’t definitively say whether I’ve actually seen the movie in question. I can picture it in my mind’s eye. I wish I knew the answer. In your mind’s eye, what’s the setting? (19th Century or 20th? Farm, or city, or ship? Etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/5 "2018-03-15T14:30:37Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > What year did you watch it? His profile says that he is 36, so say 1998, give or take 2 years. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/6 "2018-03-15T14:36:34Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > It’s really weird, this thread is giving me major de-ja-vu even though I can’t definitively say whether I’ve actually seen the movie in question. I can picture it in my mind’s eye. I wish I knew the answer. [Deja vu all over again.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=289696) maybe they made a movie about the thread? Don’t fight the hypothetical! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/7 "2018-03-15T17:04:39Z")
I remember seeing a movie about the British Raj. An Indian widow was going to be burned alive on her husband’s funeral pyre (this was a tradition called suti) and a British soldier shot her from a distance so she wouldn’t suffer being burned alive. (The Brit might have been the lover of the Indian woman; I can’t remember.) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/8 "2018-03-15T17:28:29Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > maybe they made a movie about the thread? Yeah, I was going to say, “In my mind’s eye, he’s wedged under a car dashboard and covered in acid glue.” ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/9 "2018-03-15T17:43:09Z")
This sort of scene is so familiar it is probably a movie trope. In The Last of the Mohicans the woman Cora is sentenced to be burned alive, but Major Heyward takes her place. When Hawkeye, the women and a couple others get far enough away Hawkeye shoots the Major to end his suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/10 "2018-03-15T18:03:13Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I remember seeing a movie about the British Raj. An Indian widow was going to be burned alive on her husband’s funeral pyre (this was a tradition called suti) and a British soldier shot her from a distance so she wouldn’t suffer being burned alive. (The Brit might have been the lover of the Indian woman; I can’t remember.) Not a movie but a TV mini-series, [The Far Pavillions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Pavilions#Film,_TV_and_theatrical_adaptations). The person being shot was Shushila, the evil sister of the hero’s love, Anjuli. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/11 "2018-03-15T18:18:07Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > This sort of scene is so familiar it is probably a movie trope. [It is](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MercyKill). I looked there earlier but couldn’t find anything that seemed to match. (The first one that comes to mind to me–_Comic Book Villains-_-wasn’t there either.) ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/12 "2018-03-15T19:07:33Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > This sort of scene is so familiar it is probably a movie trope. > > In The Last of the Mohicans the woman Cora is sentenced to be burned alive, but Major Heyward takes her place. When Hawkeye, the women and a couple others get far enough away Hawkeye shoots the Major to end his suffering. It was used on _Game of Thrones_ too. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-this-movie-please-black-man-kills-white-man-to-avoid-him-burning-to-death/810573/13 "2018-03-15T19:17:04Z")
I recall a scene in “The Great Waldo Pepper” with a guy trapped in the burning wreckage of a plane and Waldo tried but failed to free him. He may have whacked him with a wrench or something, not sure. Not that that helps answer the OP’s question…