The Lincoln Conspiracy

I saw this movie in 1977 when it aired on television. It's year 2000 now, whether my opinion might be different if I saw it now I don't know. I'd read the book by Jim Bishop (I think that's correct) that the movie is based on, and this seemed a very well-done, interesting enactment and narration of the details of the book regarding the conspiracy of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

The claim that Lincoln admirer Edwin Stanton and other high government officials had anything to do with the President's murder is based on ludicrous retyped versions of "lost" manuscripts; as history it would be silly if it did not discredit great heroes. To credit such drivel by making a movie based on it is pandering of the worst sort. What next? Something charming on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? The conspiracy to fake a landing on the moon? Its bad enough that history is taught so little; its outlandish that movies of blatantly false reports are made. The far more interesting story is how Lincoln -- widely viewed, by Stanton among others -- as foolish, repulsive looking, and ill-educated -- won over enemies by his wit, intensity, intelligence, and humor.

I remember seeing The Lincoln Conspiracy back when it first came out and then it seems to have faded from sight. Does anyone know if it is to be on television or a DVD to come out?

This film gained a bit of currency when it came out at the time that Frank Church's Committee in the Senate was investigating our CIA and its involvement in foreign assassination plots over the years. In that sense The Lincoln Conspiracy found an audience which gave it more than a skeptical view.

Four reliable character actors and no box office names carried this picture. Robert Middleton as Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Bradford Dillman as John Wilkes Booth and John Anderson as Abraham Lincoln filled these roles out admirably and fitted my conception of these characters.

John Dehner who was always one of the most reliable character actors around plays the elusive and mysterious Union spymaster Lafayette C. Baker. He's the prime mover of the events and alternate history you see portrayed here. Dehner is properly sinister and mysterious as he directs events from behind the scenes. Our best historians of the Civil War era have never really assigned a proper place for Baker, but John Dehner got a career role from him.

If this film ever sees the light of day again, by all means check it out.

The only woman charged in the alleged conspiracy; she was hanged like most of her male counterparts.

The hoods you see in one of the opening scenes were not made of fabric, however, but leather. The prisoners, of course had no A/C, and their faces swelled up with the contained sweat, so it was not just the shock of newly admitted light that caused pain to their rapidly contracting pupils that we see in this film. Their faces looked like prunes. The hoods restricted their breathing! This was only one of the forms of torture their captors used against them.

Mary Surratt, as a woman in those times, was spared this extreme form of punishment. She still swung in the end.

If anyone knows where to watch "The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd," I'd sure appreciate it. It, too, is supposed to be a fairly authentic account of what happened.

After almost 5 years of looking, I have finally found a VHS copy of this film on e-bay, the auction place, and it only cost $31.00. I also just 2 weeks ago went on a tour of the escape route that Booth took after killing Lincoln, and HIGHLY reccommend that too (Call the Surratt Society)and it re-inforced my 34 year old opinion that Lincoln was murdered in a government conspiracy involving Edwin M. Stanton, and that Booth WAS NOT killed in Garrett's farm, but died a suicide in 1903 in Enid Oklahoma. The man shot at Garrett's farm was a confederate prisoner name Boyd-but I'm rambling-See this movie-It's GREAT!!