Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

Director:

John Ford

Writer:

Lamar Trotti (screenplay)

Release Date:

9 June 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Tagline:

The story of Abraham Lincoln that has NEVER been told!

Plot:

A fictionalized account of the early life of the American president as a young lawyer facing his greatest court case.

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Illinois | Springfield Illinois | Abraham Lincoln | Lawyer

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 2 wins

Cast

Henry Fonda	...	Abraham Lincoln
Alice Brady	...	Abigail Clay
Marjorie Weaver	...	Mary Todd
Arleen Whelan	...	Sarah Clay
Eddie Collins	...	Efe Turner
Pauline Moore	...	Ann Rutledge
Richard Cromwell	...	Matt Clay
Donald Meek	...	Prosecutor John Felder
Judith Dickens	...	Carrie Sue (credit only)
Eddie Quillan	...	Adam Clay
Spencer Charters	...	Judge Herbert A. Bell
Ward Bond	...	John Palmer Cass
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tiny Jones	...	(scenes deleted) (as Elizabeth Jones)
Eddy Waller	...	Father (scenes deleted)
Clarence Wilson	...	Dr. Mason (scenes deleted)
Ernie Adams	...	Man with Lynch Mob (uncredited)
Sam Ash	...	Extra Dancing at Party (uncredited)
Arthur Aylesworth	...	New Salem Townsman (uncredited)
Dorris Bowdon	...	Carrie Sue (uncredited)
Virginia Brissac	...	Peach Pie Baker (uncredited)
Paul E. Burns	...	Loafer (uncredited)
George Chandler	...	Loafer (uncredited)
Cliff Clark	...	Sheriff Gil Billings (uncredited)
Frank Dae	...	(uncredited)
Francis Ford	...	Sam Boone (uncredited)
Harold Goodwin	...	Jeremiah Carter (uncredited)
Charles Halton	...	Hawthorne (uncredited)
Herbert Heywood	...	Tug-o'-War Contest Official (uncredited)
Robert Homans	...	Mr. Clay (uncredited)
Dickie Jones	...	Adam Clay as a Boy (uncredited)
Jack Kelly	...	Matt Clay as a Boy (uncredited)
Fred Kohler Jr.	...	Scrub White (uncredited)
Kay Linaker	...	Mrs. Edwards (uncredited)
Robert Lowery	...	Juror Bill Killian (uncredited)
Jim Mason	...	Juror (uncredited)
Louis Mason	...	Court Clerk (uncredited)
Edwin Maxwell	...	John T. Stuart (uncredited)
Sylvia McClure	...	Baby Clay (uncredited)
Ivor McFadden	...	Juror (uncredited)
Tom McGuire	...	Bailiff (uncredited)
Dave Morris	...	Loafer (uncredited)
Frank Orth	...	Loafer (uncredited)
Jack Pennick	...	Big Buck Troop (uncredited)
Steven Randall	...	Juror (uncredited)
Russell Simpson	...	Woolridge (uncredited)
Milburn Stone	...	Stephen A. Douglas (uncredited)
Charles Tannen	...	Ninian Edwards (uncredited)
Harry Tyler	...	Barber (uncredited)
Dorothy Vaughan	...	Apple Pie Baker (uncredited)
Billy Watson	...	Boy on Right of Bean Shooter (uncredited)
Delmar Watson	...	Admiring Boy in New Salem (uncredited)

Directed by
John Ford

Writing credits
Lamar Trotti		(screenplay)

Produced by
Kenneth Macgowan	....	associate producer
Darryl F. Zanuck	....	producer

Original Music by
Alfred Newman

Cinematography by
Bert Glennon
Arthur C. Miller		(uncredited)

Film Editing by
Walter Thompson
Robert Parrish		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Richard Day
Mark-Lee Kirk

Set Decoration by
Thomas Little

Costume Design by
Royer

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Wingate Smith	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Eugene Grossman	....	sound
Roger Heman Sr.	....	sound (as Roger Heman)
Robert Parrish	....	sound effects editor (uncredited)

Stunts
Yakima Canutt	....	stunts (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Sam Benson	....	wardrobe (uncredited)

Music Department
David Buttolph	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Edward B. Powell	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Louis Silvers	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Paul Van Loan	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)

Other crew
Rosemary Benét	....	poet: poem "Nancy Hanks"

Production Companies

• Cosmopolitan Productions (for)
• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Distributors

• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1939) (USA) (theatrical)
• 20th Century Fox (1939) (France) (theatrical) (as Les Productions Fox-Europa)
• Key Video (1988) (USA) (VHS) (pan and scan for CBS/Fox Video)
• Media Cooperation One (MC-One) (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Fox Films (1939) (Argentina) (theatrical)
• CBS/Fox (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• Epoca (????) (Argentina) (VHS)

Also Known As:

"El joven Lincoln" - Argentina (imdb display title), Mexico (imdb display title), Spain
"Der junge Mr. Lincoln" - Austria (TV title), West Germany (imdb display title)
"A Grande Esperança" - Portugal
"A Mocidade de Lincoln" - Brazil (original subtitled version)
"A fiatal Lincoln" - Hungary (imdb display title)
"Alba di gloria" - Italy
"Folkets hjälte" - Sweden
"Kansan sankari" - Finland
"Lincoln, folkets helt" - Denmark
"O nearos kyrios Lincoln" - Greece (imdb display title)
"Vers sa destinée" - France

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Portugal:M/6 (Qualidade) | Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #5216)

Filming Locations:

Sacramento, California, USA

Company:

Cosmopolitan Productions

Trivia:

Henry Fonda originally turned down the role of Lincoln, saying he didn't think he could play such a great man. He changed his mind after John Ford asked him to do a screen test in full makeup. After viewing himself as Lincoln in the test footage, Fonda liked what he saw, and accepted the part. He later told an interviewer, "I felt as if I were portraying Christ himself on film."

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the opening scene, where Lincoln gives his campaign speech for election to the Illinois legislature, he states he adheres to the principles of the Whig Party. The scene takes place in 1832, but the Whig Party wasn't formed until 1836. (In 1832 Lincoln was a National Republican, the Whigs' predecessor party.)

Quotes:

Abe Lincoln:[questioning Cass about Scrub's death] What were you and Scrub arguing about?
John Palmer Cass:I'd rather not say.
Abe Lincoln:Oh, you'd rather not say. Well, Jack, I'd rather you did say.
John Palmer Cass:All right. We was arguin' about politics.
Abe Lincoln:Well, that's something new to argue about.
John Palmer Cass:I've learned some since, but I told Scrub I thought you had at least as much political sense in you as Stephen Douglas. Scrub got as mad as a wet hen and said you didn't!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Mister President (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Yankee Doodle

A Jackleg Prarie Lawyer

Young Mr. Lincoln marks the first film of the director/star collaboration of John Ford and Henry Fonda. I recall years ago Fonda telling that as a young actor he was understandably nervous about playing Abraham Lincoln and scared he wouldn't live up to the challenge.

John Ford before the shooting starts put him at ease by saying he wasn't going to be playing the Great Emancipator, but just a jack-leg prairie lawyer. That being settled Fonda headed a cast that John Ford directed into a classic film.

This is not a biographical film of Lincoln. That had come before in the sound era with Walter Huston and a year after Young Mr. Lincoln, Raymond Massey did the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Robert Sherwood Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Massey still remains the definitive Lincoln.

But as Ford said, Fonda wasn't playing the Great Emancipator just a small town lawyer in Illinois. The film encompasses about 10 years of Lincoln's early life. We see him clerking in a general store, getting some law books from an immigrant pioneer family whose path he would cross again later in the story. And his romance with Ann Rutledge with her early death leaving Lincoln a most melancholy being.

Fast forward about 10 years and Lincoln is now a practicing attorney beginning to get some notice. He's served a couple of terms in the legislature, but he's back in private practice not really sure if politics is for him.

This is where the bulk of the action takes place. The two sons of that family he'd gotten the law books from way back when are accused of murder. He offers to defend them. And not an ordinary murder but one of a deputy sheriff.

The trial itself is fiction, but the gambit used in the defense of Richard Cromwell and Eddie Quillan who played the two sons is based on a real case Lincoln defended. I'll say no more.

Other than the performances, the great strength of Young Mr. Lincoln is the way John Ford captures the mood and atmosphere and setting of a small Illinois prairie town in a Fourth of July celebration. It's almost like you're watching a newsreel. And it was the mood of the country itself, young, vibrant and growing.

Fans of John Ford films will recognize two musical themes here that were repeated in later films. During the romantic interlude at the beginning with Fonda and Pauline Moore who played Ann Rutledge the music in the background is the same theme used in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for Vera Miles. And at a dance, the tune Lovely Susan Brown that Fonda and Marjorie Weaver who plays Mary Todd is the same one Fonda danced with Cathy Downs to, in My Darling Clementine at the dance for the raising of a church in Tombstone.

Lincoln will forever be a favorite subject of biographers and dramatists because of two reasons, I believe. The first is he's the living embodiment of our own American mythology about people rising from the very bottom to the pinnacle of power through their own efforts. In fact Young Mr. Lincoln very graphically shows the background Lincoln came from. And secondly the fact that he was our president during the greatest crisis in American history and that he made a singularly good and moral decision to free slaves during the Civil War, albeit for some necessary political reasons. His assassination assured his place in history.

Besides Fonda and others I've mentioned special praise should also go to Fred Kohler, Jr. and Ward Bond, the two town louts, Kohler being the murder victim and Bond the chief accuser. Also Donald Meek as the prosecuting attorney and Alice Brady in what turned out to be her last film as the pioneer mother of Cromwell and Quillan. And a very nice performance by Spencer Charters who specialized in rustic characters as the judge.

For a film that captures the drama and romance of the time it's set in, you can't do better than Young Mr. Lincoln.