With all due respect to Henry Fonda, Walter Huston, and a myriad of other cinematic Lincolns, Raymond Massey is the Abe to end all Abes. His moving and mesmerizing performance gives us the real Mr. Lincoln in all his complexity. Alongside the warmth, compassion and humor for which we love and revere Mr. Lincoln, we see in Massey the dark side as well: the doubts, fears, indecision and deep melancholia with which Abraham Lincoln struggled his whole life, and which clashed with his fierce ambition. Ruth Gordon is superb as Lincoln's equally ambitious wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. No hagiography, this movie lets us see the Lincolns as human beings with real "issues", rather than mere heroes of history.
Besides all this, we have Massey's astonishing physical resemblance to Lincoln.
What's most amazing is that the spirit of this most quintessentially American of our American heroes should be so wonderfully captured and portrayed by.... a Canadian!
Besides all this, we have Massey's astonishing physical resemblance to Lincoln.
What's most amazing is that the spirit of this most quintessentially American of our American heroes should be so wonderfully captured and portrayed by.... a Canadian!