ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS

ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS
1940 110mins. Director: John Cromwell
Cast:
Raymond Massey…………………………..Abraham Lincoln
Ruth Gordon……………………………….Mary Todd Lincoln
Gene Lockhart……………………………..Stephen Douglas
Mary Howard……………………………...Ann Rutledge
Minor Watson……………………………..Joshua Speed
Harvey Stephens…………………………..Ninian Edwards

At least, the opening shots of Abe Lincoln in Illinois promise that it will transcend its stage origins. It begins with good atmosphere, recreating early 19th Century America. However, this beginning also hints that the movie may fall into the trap of so many other biopics of reverend figures, and turn a sermon. We hope that the movie will not be as pious as the music indicates.
Although the movie still skirts a little close to idolatry, the start runs smoothly. Raymond Massey (who was 6’1’ playing the 6’4” Lincoln) is both physically and (according to documents) verbally uncanny as Abraham Lincoln, justifying the Best Actor nomination. Massey embodies his role in a way that seems as if the spirit of Lincoln has taken over him. It’s easy to forget that it is a performance. Massey’s performance is not only a spectacle in itself, but what the movie does with it is equally astonishing. Although it treated urban slums as the cradle bed for gangsters, Hollywood was once sympathetic to rural poverty and Lincoln’s log cabin origins in Kentucky are treated with kind humility. Maybe Hollywood had its heart in the right place and was judging the person and not the birthplace. In fact, the scenes depicting Lincoln’s youth, such as the chasing after hogs when the raft falls apart on his way to a business trip in New Orleans, are very charming.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois erases any doubt we may have had soon after. Massey plays Lincoln as a good-natured hick; bashful but optimistic. This was pretty courageous given the tendency and expectation to revere a figure who has achieved a reputation just short of sainthood in American history. In this regard, Abe Lincoln in Illinois is braver than Pride of the Yankees. Lincoln’s initial depiction is hardly that of a conventional hero. He doesn’t want to stick his nose in politics and has to constantly be corrected on his grammar.
The movie loves this rustic environment that bred Lincoln. Each shot tries to make the most of the atmosphere. This is not to say that the movie is always interesting. At times, it looks all too much like a filmed play (rather than a film adapted from a play, which is what it was). It never turns corny or blindsided, however, and is good at what it does. Not only is it honest about young Abe’s humility and social awkwardness, but it actually celebrates his folksy upbringing.
Even more courageous are the film’s glimpses of Lincoln’s friends menacing citizens into voting for him once he is roped into the dirty game of politics. Not all was clean with Lincoln, and this movie knows it. Abe Lincoln in Illinois is at its best, in fact, when it stays close to Lincoln’s human imperfections and vulnerabilities. There is a tender moment when his first love falls sick and dies, and the pain on Massey’s face says more than the history books ever could.
Surprisingly, the movie’s up frontness extends to Lincoln’s inner conflict regarding slavery. He opposed it but hesitated about dividing the nation to abolish it. The movie makes no secret of the fact that Lincoln opposed interracial marriage and makes no attempt to make him a progressive champion, not that it would have felt pressured to in 1940. The movie plays candidly, depicting Lincoln as a good man for his time, but not as free of racial prejudice as some would think. One blunder that tries to hard for effect is an obvious superimposition of Black faces against a newspaper article reporting the illegal assisting of slaves by the Northern states.
Abraham Lincoln’s complexities and enigmatic philosophies make him a greater man than any manicured image or the Lincoln Memorial itself ever could. As well as a great politician, he was a shrewd military commander. His defeat of Stephen Douglas at the polls caused South Carolina to secede from the Union leaving Fort Sumter in a Dixie Line limbo, being under Union command while on Confederate territory. To illustrate Lincoln’s strategic reasoning, it is worth looking at his response to South Carolina’s government when Fort Sumter was running out of supplies. South Carolina said that any Union ship approaching the fort would be taken as a sign of war. Lincoln sent a memo to South Carolina clarifying that an act of war would more accurately be an attack on a ship that was simply delivering food.
The ending does feel mythical, depicting a great hero departing for a higher calling but, overall, Abe Lincoln in Illinois resists lionizing the man and stops at due admiration. It succeeds as an accurate, touching, and honest biography.