AllMovie

In 1978, African American Charlie Smith was 134 years old. So far as anyone could determine, this Florida nursing home resident was the oldest man living on Earth. As such, the nonplussed Smith found himself the subject of several magazine spreads and documentaries. Playwright Charlie Johnson's Charlie Smith and the Fritter Tree is a "dramatized biography", putting Smith's reminiscences in context with the sweeping social changes in the black American experience. Charlie Smith and the Fritter Tree was produced as a 90-minute installment of the PBS anthology series Visions.