Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

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BACKGROUND

 

Young Mr. Lincoln manages to bring the legendary figure down to Earth as the “Jack legged lawyer” that he was, even though he is also depicted as distinct from those around him. Although Francis Ford had depicted Lincoln himself many times as an actor, it was the younger Ford who helped define the Great Emancipator for the modern film going public with an intimacy and understanding yet to be matched. 

 

The film also represents the peak of Ford’s collaboration with screenwriter Lamar Trotti who received an Academy Award nomination for the script. Zanuck and Ford had such an unpleasant tug-of-war over the film that Ford destroyed any takes he deemed to be unfit in order to make sure the meddlesome producer would not ruin his masterpiece. 

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PLOT SUMMARY

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Two men are falsely accused of murder in a famous case that helped launch Lincoln’s political career and gave Steven Douglass a sense of the rivalry to come.

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