The Leo Frank story is one that should be told, but it deserves more than this TV melodrama delivers. Frank is the only Jew lynched in the South where Jews had been living since the 17th century. Some served in the Civil War on the side of the Confederate army and some owned slaves. In 1800 more Jews lived in Charleston, SC than any other city in the country; by the time Frank moved to Atlanta, there were 3,000 Jews living there. Frank, however, was a Northerner and an industrialist. He was part of a wave of Jewish transplants that came South to run factories like the one in this film. Those factories paid their workers (mostly children, mostly girls) less than 1/5th the wage paid workers in the North.
Once Frank fell victim to the hysteria in his community, his defense team went after Jim Conley and Frank's personal statement at the end of his trial included racist comments that this production chose to gloss over. There is little doubt of Conley's guilt (even his lawyer said later that he thought he was guilty) but this story is more complicated and deserved a more complex treatment than it got here.
A final note, Frank's conviction and subsequent commutation gave birth to two very different movements: the rebirth oft the Ku Klux Klan (this time with antisemitism) and the birth of the Anti-Defamation League.
I wish the Murder Of Mary Phagan had gone a little deeper into these waters, but I am glad that the waters have been disturbed, even if just from skipping a stone along the surface.