ASSOCIATED PRESS The lead players in the infamous Massie trial were Grace Fortescue, her daughter Thalia Massie and Thalia's husband Tom Massie.

Race, class clash in
sordid isle tale

One approaches the Thalia Massie case the same way one deals with scuttling noises under the sink: The light of day reveals something so unpleasant that the tendency is to keep the doors shut and hope it goes away.

"The Massie Affair" - Plays at 4 p.m. Sunday at Dole Cannery Stadium 18. Tickets are $9 general; $8 for military, students and seniors; and $7 for HIFF Ohana.

But it never does. This story, top to bottom and all points in between, is so repellent that it could have only happened in real life.

Here are the plot points: In 1931, Thalia Massie, the wife of a U.S. Navy officer, wandered away from a Honolulu party and then showed up at home hours later, hysterical, claiming she'd been gang-raped.

By mischance, the same evening, a car full of young toughs had gotten into a drunken altercation and slapped a woman around. Honolulu police picked them up for questioning, but there was scant evidence other than Massie's oft-changing version of events, and it looked like they were going to get off.

Here's where things get ugly. Massie was portrayed as the flower of white womanhood, and the suspects were a smorgasbord of Hawaiian, Chinese and Japanese ancestry. More than that, she was a Navy wife, and the U.S. Navy declared war on the Honolulu legal system. Adm. Yates Stirling, commander of the 14th Naval District, even threatened local businesses with economic ruination.

Enter Massie's mother, the monstrous Grace Fortescue, a penniless blueblood who somehow convinced her son-in-law and a posse of angry sailors to kidnap, beat and murder suspect Joseph Kahahawai. They were caught red-handed, driving around with the corpse in the back of Fortescue's touring car, and charged with murder.

And they were found guilty, despite being defended by the great Clarence Darrow. But under tremendous pressure from the Navy, Gov. Judd commuted their sentences to an hour in his office, drinking tea and chatting.

They got away with murder, with the whole nation listening in, appalled and fascinated by such awful doings in paradise. No matter how you cut it, however, this sordidness is about race hate, not murder; about class warfare, not crimes of passion.

Mark Zwonitzer's "American Experience" retelling of the story rides a current wave of interest in the case, sparked in the 1980s by writer Lois Taylor's series in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Despite the histrionic nature of the case -- it's hard not to get sickened by the simple facts -- Zwonitzer keeps a low-key, solemn aura as the story unravels. There aren't any over-the-top sparks, and the tone is very just-the-facts-ma'am police procedural. This is PBS's version of "Law & Order."

The primary talking heads are David Stannard and Cobey Black, both of whom have published recent, highly readable accounts of the case, plus the university's Haunani Kay Trask, there to explain how the "white elite" is beyond redemption.

When the film airs on PBS, it's bound to cause some sort of buzz because it's one of those tales that grow more horrible with the retelling.

If there's a disappointment, it's that Zwonitzer fails to place the actions of these people in the context of the time period and within their respective communities. The period between the wars was characterized by the swelling of institutionalized racism, seemingly legitimized by quack science and politicized blather, rather than an inherited set of social mores.

Zwonitzer also has no lessons to impart, no epigrams; his documentary simply trails off by noting these awful people got away with murder, while righteously pointing the finger at white racism. That's pretty safe.

Cases like this, however, colored jurisprudence for years to come, and it's difficult to imagine such an event happening today, particularly with active meddling of the U.S. Navy and lily-livered politicians. It's one of the reasons that race hate has become another tool in a defense lawyer's briefcase.

On the other hand, if it happened today, it would be re-enacted every night on E! Maybe things aren't that better now.