Group3: Politics and Politicians: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Abe Lincoln in Illinois. 1939. – The Young Abraham Lincoln. Raymond Massey. This movie has been highly praised for a long time as the best portrayal of Abraham Lincoln ever done on film. Although Lincoln grew in character and modified his views after becoming president—how could he not have been changed by the Civil War and his overwhelming responsibilities?—his basic character was well established before he left Illinois for the last time. “Lincoln” by David Herbert Donald has a claim to being the best biography of Lincoln and is well worth a read.
All the President's Men. 1976. — Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein help break the Watergate case. Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman. Watergate was all consuming while it was going on—one member of my family was “wallowing in Watergate and loving every minute of it!” (She was not a Nixon fan.) This story of the Post reporters who helped bring down a president got a lot of young people interested in journalism. Since that time the profession has taken a few turns, not all of them favorable.
Citizen Cohn. 1992. — McCarthyism in the 1950s. James Woods. This is a really ugly movie about a truly ugly character. But McCarthyism was a blight on the American political landscape and should be understood. McCarthy himself os made out to be something of a buffoon, which from my recollections is pretty close to dead on. The famous scene in which Army lawyer Joseph Welch calls McCarthy out for what he was is well done.
Truman. 1995. — Biography of the 33rd President of the United States based on David McCullough’s book. Gary Sinise, Diana Scarwid. With substantial help from the makeup people, Gary Sinise makes a very convincing Truman. Based on the book by David McCullough, it shows Senator Harry Truman being bullied into taking the Vice President spot in the 1944 election and then being left high and dry by the dying President Roosevelt. Truman was completely unaware of the Atomic Bomb project until after he was sworn in—an event at which they didn't even get his name right. This is one of three portraits of Truman among these films, all of them fairly convincing.
Guilty by Suspicion. 1991. A 1940s film director finds his life turned upside down by the McCarthyist Communist hearings. Robert DeNiro, Annette Bening. Fiction, but based on the all-too-real events of those times. The events depicted here actually preceded the rise of Joe McCarthy, but it shows that McCarthy was plowing some pretty fertile ground. Many lives were ruined by these anti-Communist witch hunts.
Sunrise at Campobello. 1960. Ralph Bellamy. Greer Garson. Franklin D. Roosevelt battles the ravages of poliomyelitis and makes a political comeback. One of the great portrayals of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt—of which there have been many. Most historians and biographers agree that his bout with polio actually strengthened Roosevelt for the coming challenges of his remarkable political career.