Der junge Mr. Lincoln

In his otherwise excellent book, Lincoln in American Memory, the historian Merrill Peterson calls Young Mr.Lincoln a "boring, dreadful, film". This amazingly wrongheaded analysis simply proves that great historians are rarely fine film critics. I am working on a doctoral dissertation on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. As part of my preparation for writing the dissertation, I made a careful analysis of this film, and of Tag Gallaghers brilliant interpretation of it in his seminal book on Ford. Young Mr. Lincoln comes out that culminating year of the first phase of Ford's cinematic authorship, 1939.In that greatest of Hollywood years, Ford directed three superb, still not fully appreciated films: Drums Along the Mohawk, Stagecoach,and Young Mr.Lincoln. It might seem odd to say that Stagecoach is not fully appreciated, all but the most purblind of critics must perceive that it is one of of the greatest Westerns, and perhaps even one of the hundred greatest films of all time. However, what is NOT fully appreciated is that these three films work together as a kind of trilogy-a triptych, in fact. Ford is creating a sort of mythic history of America on screen. Drums Along the Mohawk is the Revolutionary War. Young Mr.Lincoln is pre-Civil War America.Finally, Stagecoach is Post Civil War America. What the three films have in common is that they are an extended meditation on the American Adam and his "errand into the Wilderness". What are the Psychic and social costs of American manifest destiny, as America strives to build a new human city in the wilderness?Lincoln symbolizes Americas journey, as he seeks to reconcile the civilizational inmpulse (law), with the freedom of the wilderness.Young Mr.Lincoln is not history, ( It is full of historical "howlers'-as both Ford and Trotti were well aware), but myth. This is Lincoln, the symbol of justice and mercy, Lincoln, the man of the wilderness, striving to found a civilization within himself, and to become the "remarkable lawgiver' of young America. Young Mr. Lincoln is not history-like James Agee's long forgotten teleplay about Lincoln, and like Sandburgs biography, it is an epic poem...a very beautiful epic poem.

Henry Fonda brilliantly captures what we have long believed Abraham Lincoln was like. It is a fooler. Through Fonda's performance we are led to believe (on the surface) that Abraham Lincoln was a country bumpkin. But, through his confrontation with the lynch mob and especially during the court proceedings, you can see that beneath the exterior posturings is a brilliant man who has a very good command of what is going on around him and how to influence the people around him.

In this movie Henry Fonda shows that he has a very good grasp of how to present humor. It is an aspect of him that has been lost over the years. When he is telling stories and jokes he has the timing down perfect. There is a sequence in the trial that had me laughing quite hard. He shows this gift again in The Lady Eve in 1940.

The ending by John Ford is absolutely brilliant with Henry Fonda going to the top of a hill and in the distance a tremendous storm symbolic of the Civil War. He goes forward into history. The movie is fiction but the insight into Lincoln is tremendous. Definitely worth seeing again.

Why does this movie get so little attention? Maybe because it came out in that overstuffed great-movie year, 1939 (Wizard of Oz, Dark Victory, Grand Illusion, GWTW [which I can't stand]). But I really think it's because YML is a transitional film for Ford -- it's stuck between his early expressionistic period ("The Informer") and his classic Western period, with one stylistic foot in each. And it's unabashedly patriotic, only hinting at the dark reimagining of the American experience that the Master would come to in "The Searchers" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" -- but still hinting at it enough to turn off the McVeighs among us.

Maybe that's why I love it. You can see Ford coming to terms with the grand, Griffithesque vision of America through its most complicated avatar, Lincoln. Ford's love for his country was more like Lincoln's than Griffith's, anyway: like Lincoln, he acknowledged the genius of the democratic experiment, but he was also aware of its dangers: mob rule and self-satisfaction. YML's greatest scenes are all about this.

First, there's the local parade Abe attends, surrounded by yahoos whom he loves but also sees for what they are. (We see him in another scene accepting a legal case from one of these -- and warily biting the coin offered him for a retainer.) Veterans of the recent War of 1812 and Indian Wars march through; the crowd is wild for them, Abe merely respectful.Then a agon of old men in tricorners is pulled through the parade route. No one seems to know who they are. Lincoln quietly informs his friends that they are veterans of the War for Independence -- and gravely doffs his stovepipe hat. His friends, mildly ashamed (it appears) of their prevous jingoistic glee, follow suit, and stand silent and hatless as the old men pass.

Then the mildly ludicrous plot -- about two brothers accused of another man's murder -- kicks in, and Abe goes to work. The scene where he confronts a lynch mob, putting his foot up against the log they're using for a battering-ram against the jailhouse door, is a classic by any standard. But note how Abe talks to the mob on its own level while remaining, in spirit, resolutely on his own higher plane. After appealing to their macho impulses by offering to "lick any man here," he delivers a house-divided speech that soothes their savagery and leaves them confused and irresolute. "Dontcha wanna put that log down now, boys?" he asks when they have been flummoxed by his eloquence. "Ain't it gettin' a mite heavy?"

Throughout Ford indulges in shameless historical foreshadowings that would have made Stephen Vincent Benet blush. Abe meets Mary Todd and Stephen Douglas; he rides down a dirt road with a bumpkin who's playing a new tune called "Dixie" on a jaw-harp. "Kinda makes you feel like marchin'!" says the bumpkin, as he and Abe ride through a muddy patch in the road.

The ending is impossible to describe without inviting derision, but I swear to you, it works. Having won his case, Lincoln allows as how he might take a walk -- "maybe to the top of that hill." As he trudges on, the skies send down rain and lightning -- and Abe seems to know what this is a prelude to.

I acknowledge the superiority of the great Ford films that came after, but I will always have a special place in my heart for "Young Mr. Lincoln." Independence Day (the federal day of observance, not the movie) is coming; you could do far worse than to watch this great film before the barbecue.

Amazingly, I have just seen this film for the first time. I was not expecting such a wonderful portrayal by Mr. Fonda and the accuracy (within Hollywood limits of the time) by Mr. Ford. I am no Lincoln historian, but I have read enough about him that I recognize the truth in the spirit of this film. A number of details could certainly be noted as historically inaccurate; on the other hand, the image of Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer who cares for people, truth, and mercy is quite accurate. One reviewer writes that Mr. Lincoln is made to appear as a country bumpkin, using humor when he is unable to use anything useful. To the contrary, Mr. Lincoln was realistic about his country origins; he used humor to convince, drive home an important point, and win people to his view; he was self-effacing. The manner in which Mr. Fonda portrays him in this film does homage to the man. The film may conflate history for entertainment purposes (it is, after all, a Hollywood production), but it is not as unhistorical as many believe. While sentimental (as to be expected of a 1939 film about an American icon), Young Mr. Lincoln is an admirable presentation of the spirit of the man.

This film was not only one of John Ford's own personal favorites but also numbered directors Sergei M. Eisenstein and Bertrand Tavernier among its high-profile admirers. Ironically, I've just caught up with it myself via Criterion's recent 2-Disc Set after missing out on a couple of original language screenings of it on Italian TV many years ago and again a few times on TV while in Hollywood!

The film marked Ford's first of nine collaborations with Henry Fonda and is also a quintessential example of Ford's folksy Americana vein. A beautifully made and pictorially quite poetic piece of work, the courtroom sequences (and eventual revelation) in its second half still pack quite a wallop, apart from giving stalwart character actor Donald Meek a memorably meaty role as the prosecuting attorney.

Fonda is, of course, perfectly cast as a bashful, inexperienced but rigorous and humanistic lawyer who was destined to become President; Fonda would go on to portray other fictitious politicians on film - most notably in Franklin J. Schaffner's THE BEST MAN (1964) and Sidney Lumet's FAIL-SAFE (1964) - and it's surprising now to learn that he was reluctant at the time about accepting the role of Lincoln since, in his view, that was "like playing God"!

It is interesting to note here that Ford had previously tackled Abraham Lincoln (tangentially) in THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (1936), a superb but perhaps little-known gem which has, luckily, just been released as a Special Edition DVD by the UK's veritable Criterion stand-in, Eureka's "Masters Of Cinema" label. Besides, I also have two more Abraham Lincoln films in my DVD collection which I've yet to watch and, incidentally, both were directed by D. W. Griffith - THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) and ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1930) - and, had I not just received a bunch of films I've never watched before just now, I would have gladly given them a spin based on my highly-satisfying viewing experience with YOUNG MR. LINCOLN.