Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln

[grabit1]

I suggest that you watch more John Ford. He might not even disgree.

But he'll always know that he made a masterpiece. You can go on now.

[agatematt]

Henry Fonda twice tried to back out of taking on the role of playing Lincoln because he did not consider himself good enough to play the 16th president. Finally, he was sent to Director John Ford who soon set the young actor straight. "Who do you think you are going to play up there on the screen --- the Great Emancipator? You're going to be playing a young rough and tumble jackleg lawyer," Fonda gave in and played to role just that way.

[MStrat1106]

One of John Ford's most memorable films, and not at all the tedious bummer that the title suggests. Fonda is funny and poignant as the drawling, awkward young lawyer, and this scene is one of the best in the film. I rather think Harper Lee borrowed the idea for Atticus Finch's jailhouse standoff in To Kill a Mockingbird from this scene. Marvelous throughout!

[grabit1]

Abe Lincoln in Illinois was a fine film, but I think you haven't watched this enough. I once thought as you, but I now think this is an American Masterpiece.

John Ford only made about 25 or 30 of them, after all. Masterpieces, that is.

[neldonlavino]

Fonda made a great Lincoln. A wonderful almost sad movie.

[jpowell180]

Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a much better film than this one...this one seems dumbed down by comparison, and Raymond Massey made a much better Lincoln (even one of Lincoln's sons said he sounded just like the man)..

[maxpowers518]

@jpowell180 You sure about that? Robert T. Lincoln died many years before the play and both movies.

[jpowell180]

@maxpowers518

Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) would have to have seen Massey in his younger years on the stage....he clearly didn't live long enough to have seen the play or this film.

[jpowell180]

@maxpowers518

I obtained this info from Turner Classic Movies' website.

[grabit1]

@jpowell180

Abe Lincoln in Illinois may have been (and probably was) more historically accurate.

Assuming that you vote for closer historically accuracy over poetry, and spirit.

Or think that the facts and the truth must be and are exactly the same thing.

[SSArcher11]

Lincoln told a story about a lynching in which an innocent man was hung by the mob. The mob members visited the man's widow and said, "Mam, is our face red."

By the way, my rebel ancestors were really more victimized by Southern aristocrats thanby Lincoln. Those poor boys had been poorly educated, couldn't afford the poll tax, and still did most of the fighting and dying for slave owners.

[88Willhur]

Abraham Lincoln killed Southerners

[grabit1]

@88Willhur

Kind of a harsh thing to say 150 years later. Did Lincoln fire on Fort Sumter himself?

[grabit1]

@88Willhur If he did, then I suspect Abe didn't like it.

Just like I suspect that Jeff Davis didn't really like shooting at bluebellies, either.

I haven't read what else you may have posted. but 150 years is a long grudge.

[xtremenortherner]

When I posted this I deliberately put freed in quotation marks to better illustrate that Black people today are not being treated as equal to whites. Also there exist whole groups of people being denied fair & equal treatment,the cynics go so far as to de-humanize them.They are now known as "homeless",illegal aliens",or "a fetus", insead of people. Are YOU going to stand up to this great injustice(as Abe and others like him);or are you going to cop-out with that "hate sin not sinner" platitude?

[rubbav1]

It's not that easy my friend. You have to understand that not everyone has the same values of right and wrong like they do in old films. There is subjectivity truth in there. Its not simply a matter of good and evil. No, the conscience of every man is different. What you might think is important may not be that important to another. That's why there's so many customs in the world. There is no right and wrong, only the things that our consciences allow us to do and what society allows us to do.

[xtremenortherner]

Very well put,comrade, but if had ancestors who were once slaves,or the victime of Jim Crow laws...,I would look at things quit differently

[rubbav1]

I'm sorry to once again contradict your point, but I do. My father was a black man from New Jersey, lived in poverty his whole life until he joined the military. While my mother is a black woman from California, who's mother suffered from racism first hand.

Now we all see where you're coming from but it has one fatal flaw in it. And that is you assume that those racist knew what right was and chose not to be it. To their minds they were right, just as much as you or I know we're right.

[xtremenortherner]

The only thing mythic about Abe Lincoln was that he was like these modern day cynics...,he was just a man,put in difficult circumstances(none of which was his doing). He held the nation together,"freed" a group of citizenry whose rights were already guaranteed by the Constitution. Read some of his writings,you'll get a different picture of him.Don't let others form your opinions for you.

[grabit1]

Show me the Constitution as it was in 1863, and then show me who's rights it already guaranteed.

I don't think we're on different pages, just different paragraphs.

[MisterGage77]

we hate the sin not the sinner, we all are sinners

[Uncle65788]

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy-none more inspiring than the inspired word.

[DrWebflaxFLOO]

Mythic Lincoln. Still a brilliant movie.

[Lingerfoot]

Ron Paul - 2012

[Dllshockk]

One of the best movies ever made. Any generation will love this movie if they sit down to watch it. The director did an amazing job portraying Lincoln.

[grabit1]

That "director" won more Oscars than any other (when they mattered), and for whom the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award was invented. And, of course, the first winner.

The poet laureate of American Films. (Hope I spelled that right!)

Ask Orsen Welles how many times he watched "Stagecoach" before he shot "Citizen Kane."

[Lingerfoot]

Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura - 2012

[manyanovo]

at first i thought it was another video of a'pro-america" crowd at a sarah palin rally.

[hiiamrick]

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Good one. The crowd is the Republican Convention.

[RobGoth100]

Classic scene.

[grabit1]

Indeed. Ford had other scenes like this in JUDGE PRIEST and THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT, and then of course the similar scene in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was wonderful also, and differed in that a little girl was able to shame the lynchers.

It's enormously hard to believe that lynchings happened in America, until within my lifetime. Then again, maybe not. Fear, the unknown and lack of understanding will always exist, I suppose.