Episode 191 – John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln

David, Scott and Trevor sift right from wrong, by jing, as they discuss this classic slice of Americana from 1939.

In this episode, David Blakeslee, Scott Nye and Trevor Berrett discuss John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln, recently reissued by the Criterion Collection in a newly upgraded 4K restoration on Blu-ray and DVD.

Few American historical figures are as revered as Abraham Lincoln, and few director-star collaborations embody classic Hollywood cinema as beautifully as the one between John Ford and Henry Fonda. This film, their first together, was Ford’s equally poetic and significant follow-up to the groundbreaking western Stagecoach, and in it Fonda gives one of the finest performances of his career, as the young president-to-be, a novice lawyer struggling with an incendiary murder case. Photographed in gorgeous black and white by Ford’s frequent collaborator Bert Glennon, Young Mr. Lincoln is a compassionate and assured work and an indelible piece of Americana.

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PURCHASE THE FILM

HENRY FONDA ON YOUNG MR. LINCOLN

EPISODE LINKS

Young Mr. Lincoln – The Criterion Collection
Young Mr. Lincoln: Hero in Waiting – From the Current – The Criterion Collection
New York Times (1939)
Criterion Reflections
CriterionCast Blu-ray Review
Critics Roundup
History on Film
Through the Shattered Lens

EPISODE CREDITS

David Blakeslee (Twitter / Criterion Reflections)
Scott Nye (Twitter / Battleship Pretension)
Trevor Berrett (Twitter / The Mookse and the Gripes)