Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) tonight!!!!!!!!!!

[roverrocks]

Very much looking forward to watching YOUNG MR. LINCOLN tonight. Haven't seen it in a long, long time I believe. I think I can talk my good wife into watching as well as she has never seen this fine film. The great Henry Fonda, what else need be said plus such a wonderful supporting cast. 1939!!!!!!!!! What a year of movies.

[FredCDobbs]

This is indeed a fine film.

 

The more I've watched it over the years, the more it makes me think that Abraham Lincoln, as presented in old Hollywood movies like this, is usually presented very much like the way Jesus is presented in old Hollywood movies.

 

Even some of the music in these films, which is stuppose to be about Lincoln, is actually about Jesus:

 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,

He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,

So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah.

Our God is marching on.

[FredCDobbs]

This is really a great TCM night, with YOUNG MR. LINCOLN and DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK.

[Dargo2]

>This is indeed a fine film.

 

Agreed. I've always enjoyed this film, myself.

 

>The more I've watched it over the years, the more it makes me think that Abraham Lincoln, as presented in old Hollywood movies like this, is usually presented very much like the way Jesus is presented in old Hollywood movies.

 

Agreed again, however, this might be exactly the "problem" with studio era biopics, as they tended to make the subject of the piece a little too reverential in tone by the whitewashing away of some of their more unattractive personality traits.

 

(...and thus why the phrase: "Don't get your History from the Movies" makes such a valid point)

[DownGoesFrazier]

Could you give me an example of some of Lincoln's unattractive personality traits? Always interrupting? Told "fish" stories? Too many mother-in-law jokes?

[roverrocks]

Dargo- I get my history from numerous history books. I watch movies for entertainment and the stars in them. I really like YOUNG MR.LINCOLN. Do I think much of it is fictionalized movie lore like many movies? Of course but that does not undermine the movie's greatness or value. I heartily commend Fonda for wearing his massive Jimmy Durante nose prosthesis. All 150,000,000,000 humans who have ever lived are all mixtures of good traits and bad traits. Lincoln was no different. Am I going to disparage this fine movie like you? Absolutely not. We are all waiting for your list of Lincoln's bad personality traits that you will and can personally attest to. I don't doubt he had many like all do. YOU don't happen to hail from a Southern State do you?

[Arturo]

I always liked the story of how John Ford convinced Henry Fonda to play Lincoln. Fonda was not too sure that he should attempt this iconic, larger than life, American hero. Ford told him that he would not be playing the Great Emancipator, rather just a small-town midwestern lawyer. It obviously worked, and we have this great movie.

[Dargo2]

Do I hail from a "southern state" you ask, RR? Well, ONLY if you'd count "southern" California as one of 'em......duuuuuude!

 

Nope RR, I believe you might have misread the intent of my post below there, though I'm glad you at least appear to have caught the major point I was attempting to make...the one about Hollywood's tendencies to "go lightly" upon a biopic's subject, and especially if the subject is one considered "a great person in history", such as in this case, ol' Honest Abe.

 

And now regarding Abe's "flaws", I think Sam Waterston did a fairly good job of covering this line of thought in the 1988 TV movie "Lincoln" in which he portrayed the title character. As just one example, In this portrayal of the great American president, Waterston presented Lincoln's occasional exasperation with his role in history, occasionally by losing his temper. And yet in "Young Mr. Lincoln", Fonda's Lincoln seems to always be "one cool character", and MAYBE just a little "too cool" for me to believe Lincoln actually was.

 

This above is pretty much all I meant earlier, and was primarily spurred to write because of FredCDobbs seemingly equating Lincoln with Jesus Christ.

 

And no, I'm not some "Holy Roller" here who might have taken offense at somebody comparing Jesus to ANY human living or dead, either. Once again I was just expressing the point that as much as I TOO have always liked watching "Young Mr. Lincoln" and Henry Fonda's portrayal of the man in it, one should probably best consider it "a drama loosely based in history and historic fact, and very entertainingly done"...and as most if not all biopics that Hollywood has ever produced...especially during the studio era.

[roverrocks]

Maybe the actual "Young Mr. Lincoln" when a simple Illinois unmarried small town man and aspiring lawyer with few obligations ("too cool" in your words) was a much much much less highly stressed, exasperated, put-upon, prone-to-anger man than he became/morphed-into during the most tumultuous and violent Presidency in American history. Extreme Civil Wars/Near-National-Dissolution and 700,000 battle/disease/total-war soldier deaths combined on both sides will do that. Maybe losing two young sons to disease and having a wife suffering mental illness and being pulled a thousand different ways will take your "too cool" away. Just a thought. Who knows for sure? I don't. Lincoln's life became extremely pressurized from the simple Illinois life of his youth to the violent war-torn presidency of his last 5 years.

[Dargo2]

A reasonable enough point to be considered I'd say, RR. Thanks for your reply.

 

Btw, I don't think you ever replied to my reply to you of a few weeks ago about the thought I expressed about a possible remake of playwright Sherwood's "The Petrified Forest" and after you also expressed differing views from mine in that one.

 

(...I was hoping you would have replied in that one, also)

[roverrocks]

I absolutely want no remake of the great original "The Petrified Forest". A remake would be a crime against humanity. The movie is one for the ages so let's just leave it there with no high tech, no story, no bad acting, no blood and guts spraying remake.

[Dargo2]

Sorry to say here RR, but after your rather insightful reply to my thoughts regarding "Young Mr. Lincoln", and presented without any hyperbole at all, you seem to have "reverted to form" AGAIN after I asked you about some possible remake of that Archie Mayo-directed(and somewhat stage-bound) production of "The Petrified Forest".

 

I mean, "a crime against humanity"?...REALLY???!!!

 

(...and so, DID you read my reasons for this "wish" of mine a few weeks back or NOT?)

[roverrocks]

No I did not read your post but I will go back and find it. Remakes unless they are retellings/reinterpretations of Shakespeare, Dickens, Shelley, and other literary gods/goddesses seldom if ever float my boat though.

[FredCDobbs]

>I absolutely want no remake of the great original "The Petrified Forest". A remake would be a crime against humanity. The movie is one for the ages so let's just leave it there with no high tech, no story, no bad acting, no blood and guts spraying remake.

 

Rover,

 

I agree. I've been in many of those remote gas station diners out here in the Southwest, and some of the ones around the Petrified Forest, which I've been to several times. The one in the film is right on target, with the building, the lay-out of everything inside and out. And all the mixed characters. And, most importantly, the people who are stuck in such remote places, with the older ones not caring very much, but with the younger ones yearning to escape and get out.

[Dargo2]

WEEEELLL, I sure wish Fred here didn't have me on this "Ignore" function, as I'd sorely love to ask him how all his reminiscing about the Southwest(and where I currently resist, myself) has any bearing upon my idea that an updated "The Petrified Forest" COULD be very well done, AND possibly even BETTER done that the somewhat stage-bound 1936 version of it.

 

And like I mentioned in my reply to RR a few weeks back in other thread about this, and which I HOPE he's now read, noted in my opinion in that thread that "True Grit"'s remake AND "The Maltese Falcon"'s remake in fact BEING superior to the original. And thus, that remakes aren't always inferior to the original...whether or NOT they starred Bogie or John Wayne.

 

(...yep, it suuuuure is once again a shame that good ol' Fred has me on his "Ignore" function, alright...eeeh, he'd just probably think I was "pickin' on him" again by disageein' with him, and so maybe it's NOT such a shame after all)

[roverrocks]

No Dargo I haven't tried to go back and find your week's ago post. Too lazy by half. I agree completely with Mr. Fred's reasoning as I have also wandered far and wide over the Southwest and the 1936 version of The Petrified Forest completely covers the times and people and dying little crossroads plus was acted by the Golden Gods and Goddesses of 1936. In fact I stayed in the little half dead hamlet of small and isolated Hanksville, Utah last week for several days and in January it is dead and nearly closed up including one out of two cafes.

The modern True Grit remake though was in fact much superior to Wayne's original probably because I am not much of a Wayne fan. I did not know there had been a Maltese Falcon remake and as Bogart is close to Godhood in my opinion I don't want to see it. Anything with Wayne except for Red River, The Searchers, The Quiet Man, and Stagecoach are fair game for any remake with me. Tell you what though as the Cohn Brothers are absolute geniuses today then I would be up for seeing any remake that they would do of ANY old classic since they are the Einsteins of modern movie making and them alone.

[Dargo2]

>I did not know there had been a Maltese Falcon remake and as Bogart is close to Godhood in my opinion I don't want to see it.

 

Actually RR, I was referring to the superiority of the Bogart remake as Sam Spade and in comparison to the '31 Ricardo Cortez starring version.

 

But...hmmmmm...a Coen Bros' version of "The Petrified Forest" DOES sound like a rather interesting idea, as I also think they're pretty much geniuses. However, knowing their movies and how they CAN sometimes be "a little" over-the-top, I have to say this idea of yours somewhat surprised me, because as I recall in that other thread, you listed examples of "over-the-top-ness" in modern movie-making as the very reasons you'd hate to see a remake of "TPF".

 

(...in other words, I'm gettin' mixed signals from ya here, my friend...please elaborate)

[lzcutter]

>The modern True Grit remake though was in fact much superior to Wayne's original probably because I am not much of a Wayne fan

 

You can be a Wayne fan and still love the recent remake of *True Grit*, well, at least I can. I found much to love about the remake but it doesn't take away from my fondness for the original.

 

Jeff Bridges plays a very different Rooster Cogburn and probably much more like his character would have been in real life.

 

Hallie Stenfield can act rings around Kim Darby and finally gives the story the Mattie Ross of the novel.

 

Roger Deakins cinematography is absolutely gorgeous (how after ten times at bat, including this film and *Skyfall* ) has that man not won an Oscar?).

 

The music is elegiac powered by the hymn that helps propel the story, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms .

 

And the homages to various classic films throughout the film helps remind us that not all remakes stink (I was going to use a harsher word but didn't want to get censored). and the Coen brothers really know their film history.

[roverrocks]

I simply think the Cohn Brothers are one of the greatest movies makers of all time bar none and over-the-top or not at times I trust their makes, remakes, ideas, and utter genius to astound, horrify me (No Country For Old Men), educate me, and convey great stories of tremendous psychological drama. They are NOT mainstream BS Hollywood directors and screenwriters of filth and violence and bad language and degenerate shock. The Cohns' are the true modern descendants of Hitchcock and Hitchcockian film making. In The Cohn Brothers I trust and nobody else today.

[mrroberts]

I know one John Wayne movie that most definitely should not be remade, *The Shootist* . It was on just the other night (another network) and it was one of his best films, and a very special one as we all know. I would agree that if any remakes of films are made, the Coen bros are the best bet for the task.

[Dargo2]

Well, GOOD then! It appears we have a consensus about this in that case.

 

A Coen Bros' production of "The Petrified Forest" has now been seconded and passed by all hands,

 

(...anybody know Joel and Ethan's home phone numbers???)

[DownGoesFrazier]

They don't seem to be the type of guys that still have land lines.

[Dargo2]

Yeah, I kinda thought the same thing as I typed out the word "home" there.

[JamesJazGuitar]

A remake of The Petrified Forest would bring attention to the original movie. People that have never seen the original are more likely to check it out after they see a movie made with actors from their generation.

 

Again, The Petrified Forest is my favorite movie of all time, with Howard and Davis being my favorite actor and actress. But I don't fear a remake. A remake doesn't harm the original.

 

So I really don't understand a comment like "it would be a crime against humanity."

 

The STORY is one for the ages. It is possible that someone could update the setting and still retain the core of said STORY. Great plays are 'remade' everyday.