The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd

Dennis Weaver plays the lead role of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the killing.

[1] In 1979, during the filming of the movie on Monterey Square in Savannah, Georgia, preservationist and antiques dealer Jim Williams hung a flag of Nazi Germany outside of a window at his Mercer House home in an attempt to disrupt the shoot, after the film company declined to make a donation to the local humane society, as Williams had requested.

[2][3] Williams was later the main subject of John Berendt's 1994 book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

At the end of the film a written message appears stating that President Jimmy Carter "exonerated [Mudd] of all guilt in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln".

[4][5] A response from the film's producers noted that Time magazine had also summarized events by remarking that "President Carter has exonerated [Mudd] of guilt".