Young Mr. Lincoln (DVD)

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There is a wonderful scene (presented here in slightly abridged form) in "Young Mr. Lincoln" in which young lawyer Abe Lincoln cross-examines a prosecution witness:

"You say your name is J. Palmer Cass? What´s the J. stand for?"

"John."

"Anybody ever call you Jack?"

"Yeah."

"Why J. Palmer Cass? Why not John P. Cass? Anything the matter with John P.?"

"No, but…"

"Then what do you part your name in the middle for?"

"I got a right to call myself anything I please as long as it´s my own name!"

"Well, if it´s all the same to you, I´ll just call you Jack Cass."



Say the last line out loud if you don´t get it yet.

Moments like this capture the charm of John Ford´s "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939). Young Mr. Lincoln is played by young Henry Fonda, just 34 years old, who was not yet a star but already displayed the easy mastery and instant likeability that made him one of the silver screen´s most loved icons. Fonda´s aw-shucks-apple-pie-simple-country-folk performance could easily have worn out its welcome by the end of the first reel, but the gentleness and sincerity he pours into the part makes it one of the most endearing roles of his career.

Lamar Trotti´s witty and sensitive screenplay doesn´t fall into the standard Hollywood trap of stretching a biopic into a sprawling and bloated epic. The film sticks to its narrow focus, covering only the period of time in Lincoln´s life (the 1830s) from when he begins to study law to his first major court case. Until the final scene when the opening strands of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" swell up, there is hardly a hint given of the fate which awaits him. Honest Abe Lincoln is just a country lawyer looking to build up his practice.

Lincoln´s first case is a doozy. Matt Clay (Richard Cromwell) and Adam Clay (Eddie Quillan) are two brothers accused of killing a local ruffian named Scrub White whose only friend (if we can call him that) is the Jack Cass previously mentioned (Cass is played by the great character actor Ward Bond). The Clay family is as poor as poor can be: they own nothing but a broken-down farm and can barely afford to pay Lincoln for his services. He doesn´t mind, mostly because he comes to identify so closely with Abigail Clay (Alice Brady) who reminds him of his own mother. The whole town is convinced of the boys´ guilt (at one point Lincoln has to dissuade an angry mob from lynching the accused), and the lawyer for the prosecution is a college-trained veteran, but the quietly confident Lincoln remains undaunted.

The second half of the film unfolds mostly in the courtroom, normally the place where good movies go to die. Trotti´s script and Fonda´s earnest performance, however, imbue the typical scenes of examination and cross-examination with a goofy energy that sustains the picture. Lincoln´s dogged determination and razor-sharp wit propel him to eventual victory despite numerous obstacles. The underdog country lawyer act has since been repeated often on both the big screen and the small screen, from Matlock to "My Cousin Vinny," but we won´t blame Ford and company for that.