First off, I'm not going to waste my time in a movie review debunking the revisionist history of an American incident that has already been studied and researched properly for all to read for themselves. I will, however, tell you that the whole basis of the Lincoln Conspiracy myth comes almost entirely from the papers of Andrew G. Potter, the name of a nonexistent person who allegedly served in the National Detective Agency and whose existence has never been confirmed anywhere in the archives of the NDP much less in public census records. Just who this man really was will never be solved, but his so-called research is so filled with obvious mistakes, fictional characters and misinformation that its provenance, further muddled by the accusations of Otto Eisenschiml and Finis Bates, can hardly be considered reputable. It is from this slanted alternate history that the "Lincoln Conspiracy" is based. Narrated by Brad Crandall, the authoritative and seemingly omniscient voice of several Sunn Classic films like "In Search of Noah's Ark" and "The Bermuda Triangle," the movie centers on the last years of the Civil War, and Lincoln's optimistic plan to welcome the Confederacy back without malice, something that irks his supporters. Lincoln is played by veteran actor John Anderson, who has played Lincoln several times, but while he looks good in the role, he lacks all of the personality or charisma actors like Daniel Day Lewis or Lance Henriksen have created. Character actor Bradford Dillman plays John Wilkes Booth flatly and wooden, taking moments to play up the role in a stereotypical Snidely Whiplash manner. The plot suggests Stanton has been helping Booth support the South with secret codes and maps with Colonel Lafayette Baker as Booth's handler. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. Most of the movie is centered around Baker played by John Dehner, another well-known character actor from the Sixties, and despite the ludicrous plot, he does a fairly straight job of it with an extended cast of the movie includes several well-known actors of the 60s and 70s, such as Whit Bissell from "Time Tunnel," Ben Jones and Sonny Shroyer from "The Dukes of Hazzard," Fred Grandy from "The Love Boat" and Ken Kercheval of "Dallas." Under Stanton's guidance, the motley band intends to help Booth kidnap Lincoln so he'll be out of the way for a hostile take- over of the South, a plan circumvented when Stanton frees a Confederate soldier named James William Boyd. History takes over briefly afterward with important details contradictory to the conspiracy myth either ignored or dropped to shorten the length of the movie, like the fact the assassination is reduced to a gunshot heard behind the scenes and screams of "They shot the President!" Ignored is the attack on Seward, huge emotional sorrow, the huge outcry and the frenzy that followed in the search for Lincoln's assassin we've seen in movies like "Killing Lincoln" and "The Day Lincoln was Shot." Inaccuracies pour outward in this supposedly true account like the fictional Potter brothers searching for Booth. It's bad enough the movie passes off these incidents as true, but the preposterous levels of disbelief happening here are beyond insane. Even Mudd's involvement is insultingly reduced to a mere cameo in a hurry to force this false history down our throats. There is a reason Conspiracists have never found proof of this myth; it doesn't exist. "The Lincoln Conspiracy" is a cheaply made movie with fine actors playing weak to credible characters in less than believable scenes in a preposterous plot that it wants us to believe actually happened, but if anything, it makes the myth look that much more unbelievable. It's better as alternate history than a dramatic recreation, but even then, the level of absurdity and cheapness in this film makes it difficult to accept seriously. This is without a doubt the worst movie about Abraham Lincoln that anyone could see.
Review of The Lincoln Conspiracy
