Product Details

• Actors: William L. Thorne, Lucille La Verne, Helen Freeman, Otto Hoffman, Walter Huston
• Directors: D.W. Griffith
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Silent
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Tapeworm
• DVD Release Date: April 19, 2005
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009H72X2
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #71,966 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel, allegedly cast because of her resemblance to Griffith favorite Lillian Gish), his lawyer days in Illinois, his contentious marriage to Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), his heartbreaking decision to declare war upon the South, his pardoning of a condemned sentry during the Civil War, and his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth (expansively portrayed by Ian Keith). This was D.W. Griffith's first talkie, and the master does his best with the somewhat pedantic dialogue sequences; but as always, Griffith's forte was spectacle and montage, as witness the cross-cut scenes of Yankees and Rebels marching off to war and the pulse-pounding ride of General Sheridan (Frank Campeau) through the Shenandoah Valley. Thanks to the wizardry of production designer William Cameron Menzies, many of the scenes appear far more elaborate than they really were; Menzies can also be credited with the unforgettable finale, as Honest Abe's Kentucky log cabin dissolves to the Lincoln Memorial. As Abraham Lincoln, Walter Huston is a tower of strength, making even the most florid of speeches sound human and credible; only during the protracted death scene of Ann Rutledge does Huston falter, and then the fault is as much Griffith's as his. Road-shown at nearly two hours (including a prologue showing slaves being brought to America), Abraham Lincoln was pared down to 97 minutes by United Artists, and in that length it proved a box-office success, boding well for D.W. Griffith's future in talkies (alas, it proved to be his next-to-last film; Griffith's final effort, The Struggle was a financial disaster). --Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Product Description

Brief vignettes about Lincoln's early life include his birth, early jobs, (unsubstantiated) affair with Ann Rutledge, courtship of Mary Todd, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates; his presidency and the Civil War are followed in somewhat more detail, though without actual battle scenes; film concludes with the assassination. Written by Rod Crawford {[e-mail]}

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not A Documentary, April 27, 2006

By	Bart (Montpellier, France) - See all my reviews

I've ordered a few things from this company and most of them were historical documentaries so I sorta thought that this would be as well.

It's not - but that's not a bad thing. It's a work of historical fiction and its fairly well done. You get to see an interesting fictional interpretation of Lincoln - without a l ot of modern narative baggage.

The film is older - and looks it - but in some ways that adds to it's charm.

This is like the original version of the History Channel.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This classic historical film, fully restored on DVD by A2ZCDS, May 2, 2006

By	Cassandra P. Breckenridge "Cassandra P. Breck... (Barre, VERMONT) - See all my reviews

"After watching this classic rendition of Abraham Lincoln's most important years (Abraham Lincoln from A2ZCDS), I know for sure that such a life has not been before and will not be again. He WAS a man - a real man who felt love, joy, despair and hurt just like you and I do. This is more than a historical film - this is an immortal tribute to this country's greatest statesman..."