CS Film Club II

Cool, I’ll do Lucia or Hunger, most likely.

For you

The Killing of Two Lovers
Revanche
Green for Danger
The Passenger
Love at First Fight
Woman at War
The Housemaid

Everyone needs at least one gasp inducing hot take.

Oh I love Fail-Safe, it's just unusual for it to be rated higher than Strangelove. My equivalent would probably be placing The Thin Red Line over Saving Private Ryan.

I'll hopefully have your list tonight. Still catching back up after the most recent vacation

PG, why so cruel?

Will do either The Night Comes for Us or The Drop.

From last round.


Young Mr. Lincoln

Directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda, Young Mr. Lincoln is an American classic I have overlooked up until now. As the title would imply, YML is focused on the early years of the 16th President of the United States, well before he earns this title. Opening with a quote from Rosemary Benét's poem Nancy Hanks (about Honest Abe's mother), this helps set the tone of what YML aspires to be about, and it give you a good idea, as a reminder, of what we think Abe to be all these years later.

YML begins in the early 1830's in New Salem, Illinois, and we see Abe, introduced through his friend John Stuart (No, not that one), announcing his candidacy for the legislature. Here, for the first time, we see Abe, as Ford cuts from Stuart to Abe, sitting outside a wooden cabin, waiting for his chance to address the small crowd. It's a great opening, as Ford keeps you away from Fonda just long enough, and introduces him in a quiet, yet memorable fashion. After seeing a poor family recently arrive in New Salem, we see Lincoln help provide them with some groceries in favor of some books in the back of their carriage, which includes some Law material. As we eventually see, and what we know about Lincoln's life, this is a big moment for him, as we eventually fast forward to 1837 when Lincoln and Stuart establish their own law firm in Springfield, Illinois. 

Once in Springfield, the real crux of the film happens after an Independence Day celebration goes wrong. A small fight turns deadly when three men of the town get into a scuffle, and Skrub White, who attempts to pull out a gun, is apparently killed by the other two men, who are brothers. Again, this another expertly crafted scene from Ford, as it cuts between the fight between the men, and the brothers mom, who catches wind of the attack. While the film wants you to think one of the brothers is guilty, Ford never shows you how White dies. You know a gun goes off, and you know that White dies, but you never see it, you just hear it, along with the reaction of the two boys mother. Eventually this leads to more townspeople coming to the sound of the gun, and before you know it, a mob is ready to lynch the two brothers, until that is, our friend Abe shows up.

This leads to a lot of interesting dilemmas and conflicts for the final hour or so of the movie. We do eventually get to see Lincoln in court, and we get to see his interactions with Mary Todd, as a result of Abe's courage to stand up and question the mob. Though different in a number of ways, by the time we get to the back section of YML, I couldn't help but think of another film in Fonda's oeuvre, 12 Angry Men. There's a similar sense of fighting for what's right that run's through not only both films, but both of Fonda's performances. Fonda had a history of playing these types of earnest, well to do characters, and he typically does a great job in bringing out their humanity in situations where people are often at their worst, or most complex. When everyone else around him gets heated, he seems to remain calm in the face of adversity. It did take me sometime to adjust to the prosthetics or makeup required to make him look like Abe, particularly around the nose. But that's also nitpicking. 

Overall this a strong film from Lincoln and Fonda, who only a year later teamed up for The Grapes of Wrath. I've been doing a lot of Ford watching since the Pandemic, so as always, I love to see his collaboration with Ward Bond, who always ends up in somewhere in Ford's films.

Moon Bright

8.5/10

I definitely feel more strongly about it than you do, but still, glad you liked it.

5 days left.

Dracula - donny
PhantomKight - IanTheCool
PG Cooper - thebtskink

Sorry to hear that, hope everything is going alright.