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Binding: DVD
Format: NTSC
Running Time: 100 minutes
Theatrical Release Date: June 09, 1939
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
Has Young Mr. Lincoln--the first cardinal masterpiece of director John Ford's career, and the finest film of that epochal Hollywood year 1939--been neglected because people fear it's a stodgy history lesson? Even Henry Fonda, drafted to play the title role, was reluctant till Ford testily explained, 'This isn't 'The Great Emancipator,' for God's sake--it's a movie about this jackleg lawyer....' And so it is: a small, slow-gathering village tale about a young man whose biggest moments--such as losing the love of his life--occur between scenes, and whose emergence as a historic figure is decades away. Yet the essential Lincoln is being forged in luminous scenes that unfold with the simplicity of fable, only no one knows it's a fable yet. The French title for the movie says it beautifully: Toward His Destiny.
The script, by Lamar Trotti, introduces Lincoln as a frontier storekeeper and drolly inadequate politician. In an early scene, we see Abe receiving his first books of law in a casual transaction with a pioneer family on their way to make a new home in the wilderness. But was it Trotti or the director who decided that this same family should circle back into Abe's life years later for the dramatic heart of the film, a murder trial in which his wit, ingenuity, and bedrock decency shape Lincoln's first public triumph--and that neither Lincoln nor the family recognize they have met before? That's typical of the movie, in which what is most important, most definitive, most valuable, is always outside the frame, out of reach, beyond naming. Even triumph is imbued with a heartbreaking sense of loss.
This transcendently beautiful film was a modest production, without the Pulitzer Prize cachet of Abe Lincoln in Illinois (not a Ford picture) the following year. Fonda, in his first of six collaborations with Ford, is the only marquee name in the cast, though Alice Brady is radiant as the pioneer matriarch (her final performance), and Ford stalwart Ward Bond has a key role. Sergei Eisenstein, no less, wrote a lucid and impassioned appreciation of the film, hailing it as 'a movie I would like to have made'--and proved it by stealing a few visual tropes for his own Ivan the Terrible! This is a great, great motion picture, eminently deserving of the Criterion treatment on DVD. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A great movie, and a classic of Hollywood
During a 4th of July celebration in Springfield, a man is killed during a fight. Two brothers are found over the body, and it's pretty clear that one of them murdered the man - so clear that the men of the town prepare to lynch the two. But, one man steps up and talks some sense into the crowd - that man is a young lawyer named Abe Lincoln. The family is in a tough spot, and will need a miracle. What they need is Abraham Lincoln.
This 1939 movie is an absolute masterpiece, a work of ... Read More
Rating: - John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1N81Y1TDI9HRR
Rating:  - Good condition. Lousy delivery time, it took over 12 days to recieve it!
The DVD was in good condition, packaging was good, but delivery was lousy! It took this seller more than 14 days to get this product to me and that is not fair considering what you get charged for delivery! For me, timeliness in delivery counts! Otherwise, I take my money elsewhere!
Franck Strongbow
Rating:  - Fonda's Unerring Performance Dominates a Modest Look at Lincoln's Early Years
Long on mythology and short on actual historical facts, John Ford's seminal 1939 film about Abraham Lincoln's early days is made singularly memorable by Henry Fonda's sterling performance in the eponymous role. With a prosthetic nose, lanky build, and his voice in measured tones, the actor manages to capture with palpable sincerity and conviction the future President's endless curiosity had as a young man about life and the law in 1830's Illinois. He evokes a folksy, self-deprecating persona befitting ... Read More
Rating: - Favorite John Ford Film
This is the best movie about a historical character that I have ever seen.
It may not be accurate, but it's close enough for me. Anyways, it's the integrity of Abe Lincoln that it be portrayed in the movie that's important. And it was. This is one of my favorite, if not the favorite, old movie.
I greatly love the music in it too. I have been trying to find out if they have a soundtrack out yet, but I don't think they do. They need to though! It's great music. If anyone knows where I ... Read More
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