SO GREAT A MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 122, 24 October 1941, Page 16

SO GREAT A MAN

(R.K.0.-Radio)

To praise without qualification is a luxury in which the conscientious film critic can rarely indulge. In fact it is one in which, in the

interests of the cinema itself, he should conscientiously refrain from indulging. But he will on rare-occasions encounter a production which will make any criticism sound captious. Of such quality is So Great a Man. ; Knowing something of Raymond Massey’s calibre as an actor, I anticipated that his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln would be worth seeing, but I will admit without qualification that it exceeded my most sanguine expectations. Massey does not play Lincoln, he simply is Lincoln, even more, I am tempted to say, than Arliss was Disraeli or Laughton was Henry VIII. And that submergence in the part seems to be characteristic of the entire cast. There are several factors which I think contribute to the all-round excellence of this picture. The first is that it is based on Robert Sherwood’s Pulitzer Prize play, Abe Lincoln in Illinois. In itself that would not be sufficient to ‘guarantee quality, Many good plays are "adapted" so successfully for the screen that their original fire and vigour is completely ironed out of them. The second factor contributing to success in

the present instance, however, is that the adapting was done by Sherwood himself, and he has managed . not merely to conserve the quality of the original but also to make fine dramatic use of the additional elbow-room the screen gives him. Thirdly, the principal parts are filled by the original stage cast, and there is no question but that an actor with good stage experience has an advantage over the purely screen player. But despite the fact that So Great a Man has all-round excellence-of acting, of direction, and of dialogue-it will, I am sure, be regarded as a oneman show by the film public. This is, perhaps as it should be. It is the story of Lincoln’s rise; and the great American must perforce occupy the centre of the picture. What is remarkable about Massey’s performance is that Lincoln holds the centre of the stage whether he is visible or not. Almost one might say he holds the attention as Lincoln himself might have done. I am not versed in Lincolniana. I do not know whether Honest Abe’s honesty made him a poor store-keeper or not, whether his wife’s vaulting ambition was ambition for herself, for her husband, or for the -good of the American nation, but Massey showed me Lincoln as I had always imagined him: gauche and ungainly, warm-hearted, and pawkily humorous, but mistrustful of himself and latterly agonised by the need to decide whether the ideals in which he believed justified him in challenging the horrible threat of civil war. Other. actors, with the help of the make-up man, might have been able to look as like Lincoln as Massey did, but few I believe could so surely have caught his spirit. There are others in the cast to whom I should pay tribute. To Ruth Gordon for superbly handling the part of Lincoln’s wife-as difficult and exacting an assignment in places as Massey’s, and to Gene Lockhart who, as Lincoln’s shrewd political opponent Stephen Douglas, ably revived a political type dead these many years. I should remember, too, the minor players in the cast-new faces many of them, which I hope will become more familiar, and the camera-men whose work: materially enhanced the drama of many scenes, And that the director, John Cromwell, (Continued on next page)

FILM REVIEWS (Continued from previous page) deserves praise goes without saying. But when all is said and all praise given, it is still Massey’s picture, and I hope when Academy awards come to be handed out it will be recognised that to an Englishman America owes the greatest screen portrayal of one who was perhaps the greatest of all Americans. .