Young Mr. Lincoln

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre drama Starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver, Arleen Whelan, Eddie Collins, Pauline Moore Directed by John Ford Publisher Criterion Collection External Links Criterion Collection

There's an oft-repeated story about Henry Fonda's casting in the title role of John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Fonda was so terrified of playing the young man who would go on to become the sixteenth president that he turned down the role. "God damn it, Fonda," came Ford's customarily terse reply. "You're thinking of him as a great president. Here he's just a hick Illinois lawyer." With this new perspective, Fonda took the role that would eventually define his persona to the American public.

It's a good story and probably even true. Like most similar stories, though, it only tells a small part of the tale.

At this stage of the critical game, it is almost a knee-jerk reaction to call John Ford the greatest of all American filmmakers. The distinction, though, does bear some examination. Some believe that this should go to Hitchcock but admit that his career began in his native England and therefore one could never truly call him an "American director." Others hold out for Orson Welles yet have to acknowledge that his films are drawn more from a polyglot tradition of Russian, French and German influences than solely the aesthetic movements of his homeland.

The distinction of being "American" is fundamental to any definition of Ford. Ford was the great chronicler of the American experience. Probably more important, at least in terms of art, he was our mythologist, the man who gave us our cinematic self-image. Whatever faults one may find with his facts or his vision, no one has ever been able to deny that our view of the Old West is focused through his lens. Is it any wonder that the most famous - and typical - line uttered in a Ford film is "When a legend becomes a fact, print the legend" (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962)?

Young Mr. Lincoln is a prime example of Ford's ability to capture our shared dream of the American past then presenting it as fact. More hagiography than biography, Young Mr. Lincoln is a resolutely poetic look at Lincoln's formative years as a lawyer. This Lincoln is a man who may have been unknown at the time of this story but he is clearly on his way to legend. And therein lies the real tale of Fonda's casting.

Fonda's interpretation of the soon-to-be Great Emancipator is drawn from Ford's comment at their meeting. Our protagonist is humble, well-liked and possessed of the same sense of humor that we've always associated with the myth of young Mr. Lincoln. Fonda does add one element not generally applied but one which makes supreme sense in light of Lincoln's future. Quiet though he may be, this Abe is ambitious and clearly loves the limelight. The obvious delight that he takes when fortune places him in front of a crowd is both palpable and infectious.

Although Ford coaches Fonda to this human scale performance, his direction of the overall film reveals a far smarter approach than just a ploy to make his actor comfortable. Beyond Fonda's characterization, all the elements of Young Mr. Lincoln are aimed at subtly mythologizing the man. By consistently shooting Fonda from a low angle, separating him from the group in crowd shots, and, most impressively, framing him against natural elements like trees and clouds, Ford creates a mythic figure while Fonda creates a human one. The result is that we are given the tension of a common man who must ultimately submit to fate. In a beautiful closing image, Lincoln can be seen walking into a coming rainstorm, the hero going off to bravely face the troubled times ahead.

So powerful is Ford's manipulation of this tension that it is impossible even at this late date to separate the reality of Henry Fonda from his mythic self. Like those played by John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, two other great icons of the western, the characters played by Fonda have been so consistent in their revelation of a our desired image of our nation's past that we automatically assume them to be the same way off the screen. In Young Mr. Lincoln, Ford and Fonda clear the path for all later interpretations of this actor's work. Here they reveal the stalwart idealist with a secure sense of self-worth that they will reframe and retool in the coming years in The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, and Mr. Roberts. On his own, Fonda will take this persona into Twelve Angry Men, Advise and Consent, i and dozens of other fine films.

Like most hagiography, Young Mr. Lincoln is not above trivializing the real story in favor of creating its own legend. Nowadays, one cannot help but roll one's eyes at the halfhearted plot invention of turning future presidential opponent Stephen Douglas into Lincoln's rival for the affections of Mary Todd. And the occasional name drops are no less clunky here than they are in any other historical film of this period. At the same time, none of these seriously detract from the overall pleasure of Young Mr. Lincoln. If not a major Ford work, it is certainly one which reveals his great facilities for sentiment, humor, and that shared vision of our past that he has authored.

Criterion Collection has released Young Mr. Lincoln with a generally good black and white transfer. There are some straight-line creases in the first few minutes but otherwise the print quality is excellent. The double-disk includes a nice booklet with pieces by Geoffrey O'Brien and no less a Ford fan than Sergei Eisenstein as well several filmed and audio supplements. Two of these deserve special mention. A 1979 BBC interview with Fonda is thorough seagoing delight, one which reminds me of how much I miss his presence in our world. Another BBC piece, a 1991 "Omnibus" documentary by filmmaker Lindsay Anderson, details the early career of John Ford. This is the first part of a two part series. In the past, Criterion has released series episodes on filmmakers with corresponding films then completed the series on later DVD releases of works by that director. Does this mean we can look forward to another Ford masterwork in the coming months?