1939: Young Mr. Lincoln

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939, Ford) 8/10

The cinema of John Ford is often the cinema of American mythography. Despite his Irish Catholic roots, there is perhaps no other director who has repeatedly attempted to capture the historical American essence on celluloid as much or as well as John Ford. Young Mr. Lincoln is a minor masterpiece of Ford's idyllic poems to American populist folk history and its sense of character. While Ford is best known for his Monument Valley westerns such as Stagecoach and The Searchers, Ford's filmography displays a variety of important (yet today often overlooked) historical (Young Mr. Lincoln/Prisoner of Shark Island/Drums Along the Mohawk) and contemporary (Last Hurrah/Grapes of Wrath) attempts to define the American spirit.

Young Mr. Lincoln is one of Ford's earliest forays into this historiographical era, which produced early highlight The Prisoner of Shark Island documenting the miscarriage of justice when Dr. Samuel Mudd (Warren Baxter) was incarcerated to the Shark Island penal colony for his supposed involvement in the Lincoln assassination: Curtiz' The Sea Hawk taken from Sabatini's book is a much more famous and frivolous example of a figure wrongly accused, which takes on a much more epic and lively form. Young Mr. Lincoln made three years after The Prisoner of Shark Island also examines democracy, justice, liberty and other American values during the fragmented pre-Civil War period. Much like his Drums Along the Mohawk made the same year (1939 also saw Ford direct Stagecoach) as Young Mr. Lincoln, Ford attempts to find the historiographical roots of Americana.


Young Mr. Lincoln is not a historical accurate account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, nor is it meant to be. Rather it is an examination of ideals and community built around the romanticized actions of Lincoln, who is considered to be one of the great American champions of these cultural standards. It is crucial for modern audiences to understand the historical period under which Ford's film was created in which the world was yet again on the verge of war and extremist ideals at either of the spectrum reigned unchecked. Thus, Ford's film becomes a gentle patriotic reminder to American audiences about the importance of maintaining an American identity and history in a turbulent era of revolution and totalitarianism. Critics such as Karl Williams have often referred to the picture as a "hagiographical" account of Lincoln's formative years rather than a complete biography: a film designed to swell the myths surrounding the cult of Lincoln giving the "Great Emancipator" an almost God-like status: made more pertinent by Fonda's assertions that the role was akin to playing Jesus. Yet, such critical voices tend to forget the timeframe under which the film was created, as well as the conditions under which films were made during the period. Any attempt to create a multi-faceted film about Lincoln's life would appear as blasphemous to censors and audiences alike. Allowing the spread of populism during such an ominous period outweighed the need for historical checks and balances.

Although a staunch social conservative, the ideals Ford stresses in the picture belong to classic liberalism: rejecting big government in favour of increased civil and economic liberties. These liberalist tendencies fit within the classic American perception of how a democratic society should operate. It is this ideological preference which has resulted in Ford's filmography being often misinterpreted and misunderstood. Whereas openly racist pictures such as Griffith's Birth of a Nation, although integral to any understanding of cinematic history at a technical level, continue to garner acclaim; Ford continues to be relegated based on his awkward and antiquated attempts at addressing racial or social issues: in a period which repeatedly failed to explore them publically and despite the social continuance of the populist ideals he explored. Thus typical Ford comedies such as Donovan's Reef have become neglected, as have Ford's more expansive attempts at addressing racism and sexism such as Fort Apache, Cheyenne Autumn, Sergeant Rutledge and Seven Women. Even The Searchers-today often the most lauded Ford film- strives to examine the source of racism, despite its rather hackneyed and hasty embrace between racist Ethan Edwards and his niece.


Young Mr. Lincoln is not a Ford picture designed to address these social problems, instead it focuses on the society that would establish and preserve the validity of such ethical choices until the Civil Rights movement in the late Sixties. An often barely recognizable and brilliant Henry Fonda transforms Lincoln from a mythical figure to a humble and hard-working lad who rides a mule because he cannot afford a stately horse. Ford's Lincoln is an idealist and a champion of American liberty, truth, education and justice. He aids a pioneer family in return for a collection of law books (Blackstone's Commentaries), which the illiterate clan have no use for and reads them in fascinated solitude by a river to decipher their spirit and definitions. The often repeated image of the river is part of Ford's sophisticated lens and becomes an important symbol for change, progress and the future.Throughout the film, Ford (as in many of his other films) examines the spirit and values of the American community through the participation in town festivals, sports, games, contests and parades. Here notions of fairness, tradition and vitality become sewed into Ford's American historical fabric.

Yet, the social workings of the film's first half give way to a more political and legal commentary on American society.The film's centerpiece trial continues Ford's mythographical look at Lincoln. The trial itself was not based on any case tried by Lincoln, but rather on a trial witnessed by screenwriter Lamar Trotti. Yet, it is the film's key moment, which creates the greatest insights into the characteristics of the Fordian Lincoln. The community fondness toward lynching the Clay brothers (suspects to a murder during a town festival) is akin to that in Fritz Lang's first American film, the superb anti-lynching drama Fury made three years prior and demonstrates Ford's desire to stress patriotic American democratic values: access to a fair trial, equal justice and liberty to the innocent.

The communal fury over the prospects of a trial and the denied calls for the suspects to be lynched demonstrates Ford's reassertion of democratic justice over vigilante justice in a time when Fascist thuggery and Orwellian pre-emptive trials were prevalent in Germany, Italy and Stalinist Russia. Lincoln's active participation in the trial and his effect on the community reinforce American values in a society, which is in danger of losing them to fear, blind justice, political coercion and irrational judgments. The thunderous cloud which represents the oncoming storm of the Civil War simultaneously stresses the future storm far away from American soil in Europe; yet also the possible danger lurking in the hinterlands of a corruption of American values, which can be avoided through following the disciplined example of Abraham Lincoln and his correlation to American ethical, social and moral codes.

* Young Mr Lincoln is available through Criterion

Copyright 2006 8 ½ Cinematheque.