Young Mr. Lincoln

The early days of Abraham Lincoln get the full treatment in this film by Ford, who simultaneously makes Lincoln both a man and a myth. The film opens with a poem familiar to most: "If Nancy Hanks/came back as a ghost/seeking news/of what she loved most/She'd ask first/`Where's my son?/What's happened to Abe?/What's he done?"' This sets the tone for the rest of the film, in which these questions are answered, but only in the context of what Lincoln (played by Fonda) had done by 1837. The film's first scene has Fonda making a speech to a convention of the Whig party in 1832, in which the first words from his mouth are "You all know me." In that same year he talks wit...