The Crisis

In considering this movie, the work to measure it against is Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION and it comes across as a mixed competitor. Running in time from the Lincoln-Douglas debates through the death of Abraham Lincoln, it lacks the Ku Klux Klan adulation that makes the other movie so divisive; its setting in Missouri offers a useful microcosm of the issues, both real and mealy-mouthed that set the nation ablaze.

True, Colin Campbell was was not the director that Griffith was; his offering of the Battle of Vicksburg, while it offers honors to both sides, lacks the flourishes that we recall from BOAN. Its story is far more usual and conventional: two friends love one woman, and the war divides all three of them due to their sympathies. In the end, it is the death of judge George Fawcett and the earnest kindness of Sam Drane as Abraham Lincoln that permits a reconciliation.

In summation, this is a good if not great movie made to take advantage of a current trend in popular movies. It takes no chances, except to spend some money on the battle sequences, risks no failures, and excites no debate. That is why it has spent more than a century in obscurity, while BOAN remains a great and terrible piece of film-making.