Tennessee Johnson

"The Senate of the United States, in 1868, sat as a High Court in judgment upon Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as President. In the only great State trial in our history, President Johnson was charged with violation of a law which forbade him to dismiss a member of his Cabinet. In 1926, the Supreme Court pronounced this law unconstitutional - as Johnson had contended it was. The form of our medium compels certain dramatic liberties, but the principal facts of Johnson's own life are based on history. In the Spring of 1830 - in a Tennessee valley - our story begins," states the disclaiming prologue...

There, we meet film subject Van Heflin (as Andrew "Andy" Johnson), in a leg iron. The future President is a runaway apprentice (between free-man and slave, but significantly closer to free). Bound to a tailor, Mr. Heflin has learned the profession and goes about mending figurative fences with local townsfolk. He learns to read and write from attractive Ruth Hussey (as Eliza McCardle), who becomes Heflin's first lady. Reading "The Bill of Rights" gets Heflin interested in expanding US Constitutional rights to include non-property owning "white trash" like himself...

Becoming successful in politics, Heflin's Johnson goes against the Southern grain by supporting some of Abraham Lincoln's platform; they both want to keep the Union whole. After the Civil War, President Lincoln selects Johnson as his Vice-President to help heal war wounds and assist in Reconstruction. Johnson has problems after succession to the top office. Yes, there are "dramatic liberties" (lies, even) taken, as the opening states. Heflin is fine, and makes Johnson a sympathetic character. Lionel Barrymore (as Thaddeus "Tadd" Stevens) and popular "silent" film star William Farnum (as Senator Huyler) have pivotal roles.

****** Tennessee Johnson (12/42) William Dieterle ~ Van Heflin, Lionel Barrymore, Ruth Hussey, William Farnum

The name of this film is called " Tennesse Johnson " and relates the story of the 17th president of the U.S. Van Heflin stars as Andrew Johnson and Lionel Barrymore plays his chief adversary, Thaddeus Stevens. Having studied the life of Andrew Johnson and then watching this Black and White film, I found it to be a shoddy and haphazard biography of Lincoln's successor when the great man was assassinated in 1865. Still Van Heflin's performance produced a superior piece allowing the audience to glean a more sympathetic view of the often fiery and very vocal V.P. Ruth Hussey and Marjorie Main as well as Noah Berry Sr. add to this historical and memorable film. Although a bit flawed, the movie is worth viewing by anyone interested in studying the 17th President of the U.S. ****

That letter Lincoln was supposed to have sent Johnson has kind of puzzled me. After all, it is read out loud twice. It SOUNDS like Lincoln's prose style, but I'd never heard of any other reference to it. So I posted the question on a Civil War news groups. Here's one of the exchanges.

"Robert Maxwell" wrote> It's generally agreed that at the second inauguration, Andrew Johnson was skunk drunk when he took the oath and tried to make his speech. I just watched the movie, "Tennessee Johnson," and it appears that Johnson was ill during the inauguration and that Lincoln later sent him a letter saying something like, "If you took a drink more often, you would know better than to take brandy on an empty stomach because you are ill. I know you only were there because I asked you to be."

Does anyone know if this letter ever existed?

Reply. "Having worked for three years as an assistant editor with The Papers of Andrew Johnson and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln Association, which is engaged in supporting projects to edit the papers of the sixteenth president, I can safely say that no one I know has ever claimed such a letter to exist."

Anyone interested in the impeachment of Johnson might watch the first 20 minutes of Blight's lecture on the subject, on open courses from Yale. Don't be intimidated by "college" or "Yale". (I went there and it's not that demanding.) Blight gives an informative, objective, and lively presentation of the material -- interrupted briefly by somebody yelling "Let my people go," to which Blight replies, "You're free to leave...I hope that guy doesn't have a gun."

http://academic earth.org/lectures/black-reconstruction-economics-of-land-and-labor

Please eliminate the space between "academic" and "earth". It's only there because IMDb.com doesn't allow words that are too long, like floccinaucinihilipilification.

This highly fictionalized biopic from MGM and director William Dieterle charts the life of Andrew Johnson (Van Heflin) from his days as a near-illiterate tailor in Tennessee to his unlikely education at the hands of Eliza McCardle (Ruth Hussey) who would become his wife, to his entry into politics, eventually becoming Vice President under Abraham Lincoln, succeeding him after his assassination, only to become the first US President to face impeachment. Also featuring Morris Ankrum as Jefferson Davis.

The liberties taken by the screenwriters to make Johnson into a shining patriotic hero were so egregious to some that a protest movement formed against this movie, leading to picket lines and angry print editorials. Strangely enough, the most vocal opponents to the movie were Vincent Price and Zero Mostel! The movie is mostly malarkey, but so were so many "history lessons" coming out of Hollywood, so this one doesn't offend me that much. The purpose was to inspire and celebrate rather than inform or educate. If only it succeeded more at the former the lack of the latter wouldn't be so noticeable. The movie is clunky in its pacing, and can't decide what it really wants to say about its protagonists. Heflin and Hussey do as good a job as they were able given the material, but many of the supporting cast are wasted in nothing roles. The production design is nice, with detailed settings and nice costume work. Running about 105 minutes long, the movie really needed another 30 or so to add more depth and nuance to the players.

OK, so it's not that accurate a portrait of the era and the writers may have fabricated "history" but that's Hollywood. Let's not under estimate Van Heflin. The guy was one of my favorites and terribly underrated. You can see all kinds of emotion in his eyes. He was not a very energetic actor like Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power nor did he have the matinee idol looks of a Robert Taylor but the guy was cerebral. He was brilliant in "Johnny Eager" and all but stole every scene he was in in "Santa Fe Trail". He excelled at complex characters.

I wonder what kind of career he would have had if he had lived longer.

Watch this movie with an open mind and really enjoy Heflin's acting.