They Won't Forget pulls its punches by obscuring the anti-Semitism that was a primary factor in the lynching of Atlanta businessman Leo Frank, but it was nonetheless so powerful an indictment of social injustice that many Southern theaters refused to exhibit the film. As a result, profit-minded studios shied away from other potentially controversial message movies in the future. 25 years would pass before Hollywood would return to Southern racism with To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962. Viewed outside its historical context, They Won't Forget succeeds as a motion picture due to the passion of its director Mervyn LeRoy, and the fine performances of Claude Rains, Edward Norris, and Lana Turner. The film's socially conscious screenwriters, Robert Rossen and Abel Kandel, were hardly rewarded for their efforts: Rossen was among the first people blacklisted in the 1950s, while Kandel spent much of that era writing low-budget horror films under a pseudonym.