Angelou has said that she wanted to film I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in order to "get some things on television that reflect more of the marrow of the black American life than the shallow fingernail clippings we now have." The two-hour television version, filmed in Vicksburg, Mississippi, stars Esther Rolle as Momma Henderson, Diahann Carroll and Roger Mosley as Vivian and Bailey Johnson, Ruby Dee as Grandmother Baxter, Sonny Gaines as Uncle Willie, Paul Benjamin as Mr. Freeman, John M. Driver II as Bailey junior, and Constance Good as Maya. The production, touted in the national press as a major effort, appeared on CBS-TV as a Saturday Night Movie on April 28, 1979. According to a sprinkling of critics, the screen version, co-authored by Maya Angelou and Leonora Thuna and directed by Fielder Cook, lacked the intense yearning and lyrical introspection of the book. Stultified by television's all-too-predictable rhythms, the movie lacked the fire and spirit, warmth and sensibility that permeated her memoir and suffered from a trite ending.
The majority of critical voices, however, used words like seamless, stirring, humane, unflinchingly truthful, and intimate. In one notable review, New Yorker reviewer Michael J. Arlen lauded the production for its honesty, which details "the pain of the character and the pathos of the situation." Dick Sheppard, writing for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, summed up the overall effect of seeing young Maya challenge overwhelming odds as a "crescendo of power," moving viewers to a tearful consideration of the plight of a young, innocent black girl coping nobly with fearful, chaotic events.
