Abraham Lincoln (1930)

You never know what you will find searching through the bargain bins at your local department store. Not really in the market for anything but I noticed Abraham Lincoln, directed by DW Griffith and starring Walter Huston. Although I liked the subject, I figured it was a silent film and was about to pass it by, but when I found it was a talkie, made in 1930, the birth of the sound era in films, I needed no further inducements.

DW Griffith is one of the great directors of the silent era. I’ve sat through a few silent films but have found they are not my cup of tea. While Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, Gance’s Napoleon, or Dreyer‘s Passion of Joan of Arc may have glowing reviews by famous critics, they frankly do not do a lot for me. The lack of sound combined with the horrible state of preservation of most surviving prints make most silent films unwatchable for me. I will point out that Griffith et al did establish a lot of the techniques that have since become the common language of film, including the scene changing wipe, fade, iris, and so on.

Abraham Lincoln is Griffith’s first sound film. As such it has the usual staginess associated with early talkies like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Blue Angel, and so on. This is because the equipment of the time did not have the flexibility to allow much movement by the actors. The sound levels are usually high and have lots of hiss like an old vinyl record.

Despite these problems with the sound, Abraham Lincoln is quite interesting, boasting a screenplay by Stephen Vincent Benet (The Devil and Daniel Webster) and starring Walter Huston (Dodsworth, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), one of the great film actors, as the title character.

Abraham Lincoln is episodic, covering the high points of Lincoln’s life from birth to assassination so it comes across as a series of vignettes that illustrate the character of Lincoln. This may be seen as a problem by some viewers as considerable time elapses between each vignette. From Lincoln’s birth the story immediately jumps to his young manhood, clerking in a frontier trading post. He then is shown splitting rails and courting Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel), the love of his life, who tragically died young. Next he is shown grieving over her death, practicing law, and debating Stephen Douglas (E. Alyn Warren). His courtship of the bossy Mary Todd is also shown.

Griffith spent most of his focus on the Civil War years, showing the problems Abe had with negative public opinion, generals that wouldn’t fight, and his less than blissful domestic life with Mary Todd Lincoln (Kay Hammond). Before the Civil War crisis, however, Griffith had shown how Lincoln developed his resilience - weathering hard times and personal tragedy - making him the right man for the time.

Walter Huston makes probably the most realistic Abe Lincoln I’ve seen, beating out Henry Fonda and Raymond Massey who both made films about him. Huston transforms himself into almost a dead ringer for the “old railsplitter” who worked his way from the Illinois frontier to the White House. Quite a bit of Lincoln’s humor comes through in Huston’s performance during the various scenes. Lincoln promoting US Grant to the commander of the armies amid clouds of cigar smoke is one such memorable scene. The exchanges are quite humorous with Grant, a noted drinker, telling Lincoln, “A lot of people disapprove of me,” with Lincoln, thinking of his sinking public opinion ratings, rejoining, “A lot of people disapprove of me, too.”

The supporting cast is well chosen and provides a good framework for the story of Lincoln. General Grant (Fred Warren) and General Lee (Hobart Bosworth) were outstanding, with Jason Robards (the familiar one’s father) as Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner.

The film runs 90 minutes, in black and white, and since the film has slipped into the public domain, it is available on bargain priced DVDs. As a bona fide antique and a fine piece of hagiography in its own right, Abraham Lincoln will be interesting to history buffs or fans of Walter Huston.

Thanks for reading!

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day