From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Young Mr. Lincoln
DVD cover
Directed by	John Ford
Produced by	Darryl F. Zanuck
Written by	Lamar Trotti
Starring	Henry Fonda Alice Brady Marjorie Weaver Richard Cromwell Donald Meek Eddie Quillan Ward Bond
Music by	Alfred Newman David Buttolph Edward B. Powell Louis Silvers Paul Van Loan
Cinematography	Bert Glennon Arthur C. Miller
Editing by	Walter Thompson
Distributed by	Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Release date(s)	May 30, 1939
Running time	100 min.
Language	English
Budget	$1,500,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Young Mr. Lincoln is a 1939 fictionalized biography/drama film about the early life of President Abraham Lincoln, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda. Ford and producer Darryl F. Zanuck fought for control of the film, to the point where Ford destroyed unwanted takes for fear the studio would use them in the movie. Screenwriter Lamar Trotti was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing/Original Story.

In 2003, Young Mr. Lincoln was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

A family traveling through New Salem in their covered wagon need groceries from Lincoln's store and the only thing of value they have that he'll take in exchange is a law book. After thoroughly reading the book, Abe opts for the law after receiving encouragement from his early, ill-fated love, Anne Rutledge (Pauline Moore). Too poor to own even a horse, he arrives in Springfield on a mule and soon establishes a law practice with friend John Stuart (Edwin Maxwell). At a July 4th celebration, a man is murdered in a brawl, and the accused are two brothers of a family that Lincoln knows. He stops the lynching of the two accused at the jail by telling the angry mob he really needs these clients for his first real case. The only witness to the crime is someone who claimed to have seen it under the light of a full moon. Admiring his courage, Mary Todd (Marjorie Weaver) invites him to her sister's soiree and expresses an intense interest in his future.

Lincoln eventually gets the two brothers off by finding out who the real killer was and then decides to head on out of Springfield and move on.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Henry Fonda originally didn't want the part, stating that he didn't feel right playing such a great man, but changed his mind when he was asked to see what he would look like in makeup and liked the results so much that he said once in an interview that it was like if he had portrayed Christ on film.
• The film also began the career of one of Hollywood's great character actors, Ward Bond.
• The film has as its basis the murder case involving William "Duff" Armstrong, which took place in Springfield in 1857.
• A scene cut from the film involved Lincoln meeting a very young John Wilkes Booth, his future assassin.
• Ironically, this film was an inspiration for Soviet filmmaker and propagandist Sergei Eisenstein and his film Ivan the Terrible.

• Young Mr. Lincoln at the Internet Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by Geoffrey O'Brien

This 1930s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.