Young Mr. Lincoln

Infobox_Film
name = Young Mr. Lincoln


caption =
director = John Ford
producer = Darryl F. Zanuck
writer = Lamar Trotti
starring = Henry Fonda Alice Brady Marjorie Weaver Richard Cromwell Donald Meek Eddie Quillan Ward Bond
music = Alfred Newman David Buttolph Edward B. Powell Louis Silvers Paul Van Loan
cinematography = Bert Glennon Arthur C. Miller
editing = Walter Thompson
distributor = Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
released = May 30, 1939
runtime = 100 min.
language = English
budget = $1,500,000 (estimated)
amg_id = 1:55997
imdb_id = 0032155|

"Young Mr. Lincoln" is a 1939 fictionalized biography/drama film about the early life of President Abraham Lincoln, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda. Ford and producer Darryl F. Zanuck fought for control of the film, to the point where Ford destroyed unwanted takes for fear the studio would use them in the movie. Screenwriter Lamar Trotti was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing/Original Story.

In 2003, "Young Mr. Lincoln" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

A family traveling through New Salem in their wagon need groceries from Lincoln's store and the only thing of value they have that he'll take in exchange is a law book. After thoroughly reading the book, Abe opts for the law after receiving encouragement from his early, ill-fated love, Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore). Too poor to own even a horse, he arrives in Springfield on a mule and soon establishes a law practice with friend John Stuart (Edwin Maxwell). At a July 4th celebration, a man is murdered in a brawl, and the accused are two brothers of a family that Lincoln knows. He stops the lynching of the two accused at the jail by telling the angry mob he really needs these clients for his first real case. The only witness to the crime is someone who claimed to have seen it under the light of a full moon. Admiring his courage, Mary Todd (Marjorie Weaver) invites him to her sister's soiree and expresses an intense interest in his future.

Lincoln eventually gets the two brothers off by finding out who the real killer was and then decides to head on out of Springfield and move on.

Movie facts

* Henry Fonda originally didn't want the part, stating that he didn't feel right playing such a great man, but changed his mind when he was asked to see what he would look like in makeup and liked the results so much that he said once in an interview that it was like if he had portrayed Christ on film.
* The film also began the career of one of Hollywood's great character actors, Ward Bond.
* The film has as its basis the murder case involving William "Duff" Armstrong, which took place in Springfield in 1857.
* A scene cut from the film involved Lincoln meeting a very young John Wilkes Booth, his future assassin.
* This film was an inspiration for Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein and his film "Ivan the Terrible".

External links

*imdb title|id=0032155|title=Young Mr. Lincoln
* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=320&eid=464&section=essay Criterion Collection essay by Geoffrey O'Brien]