TENNESSEE JOHNSON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 228, 5 November 1943, Page 15

TENNESSEE JOHNSON

(M.G.M.)

‘THis is a very worthwhile film, in my opinion-an opinion apparently not shared by everybody else, since it ran for only one week at its

release in Wellington. Ferhaps one could hardly expect New Zealand picturegoers to be interested in the biography of a comparatively obscure American president and in a rather involved chapter of American political history: but those who are will find themselves rewarded by some excellent character acting from Van Heflin and Lionel Barrymore), well-written dialogue, intelligent direction (by William Dieterle), and by a story of political intrigues and conflicting ideals which is surprisingly, almost daringly, relevant to the present. They may even come to the conclusion that they are seeing one of the best and most adult films of its type since Emile Zola and Louis Pasteur. In addition, they will have the unusual experience of seeing an historical film which sticks with remarkable closeness to the facts. The facts, of course, were made for the films: seldom can Hollywood have been so conveniently served by history. For in this case anyway, the truth was at least as strange as fiction. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln, was impeached by a_ hostile Congress while he was still President. That in itself was a good dramatic basis for any film, but even the most enterprising scriptwriter might have hesitated to go further and make Johnson survive impeachment by the bare vote necessary, if history had not got in first and made it happen that way. Again, Johnson’s chief opponent was the redoubtable Thaddeus Stevens, who bitterly opposed the president’s policy (inherited from Lincoln) of conciliating the South after the Civil War. The records describe Stevens as old, lame, and irascible-and there was Lionel Barrymore under contract to M.G.M.! I did not think of Dr. Gillespie while I watched Barrymore, on erutches or in a wheel-chair, browbeating Congressmen; but next time I see Dr. Gillespie browbeating his hospital staff, I am sure I shall think of Thaddeus Stevens. Again, we have with some justification grown rather cynical about Hollywood’s flair for discovering that, in the background of almost every great man of history, there was some quiet, good

woman who moulded his destiny. There is, however, no need to be cynical about the role of Eliza McCardle (quietly and admirably played by Ruth Hussey), the village librarian who took the uncouth young Johnson under her wing,. educated him, married ‘him, fired his ambition, and helped him to advance from sheriff to Governor, to Senator, and then to vice-President (Lincoln’s assassination made him President). For the text-books confirm that Eliza McCardle deserves a good deal of the credit for turning a "poor white" into the first citizen of the United States. There are also authorities to support the film in first presenting Johnson as a runaway tailor’s apprentice. With such aid from fact, and with a brilliantly discerning portrait of Johnson by Van Heflin, which does not omit the man’s uncouthness and fiery temper, or even the suggestion that he sometimes drank too much, Tennessee Johnson presents an engrossing drama for adult audiences. One scene at least is wholly memorable: Jefferson Davis’s emotion-charged announcement of the South’s decision to secede from the Union, and the withdrawal of all the Southern senators from the Chamberall except Johnson of Tennessee, who stood by Lincoln. But Tennessee Johnson is more than merely engrossing. It is also provocative. There is one present-day parallel in Johnson’s warning that a _ disunited Union might in years to come be the prey of rapacious foes from outside. Even more relevant and pointed, however, is the theme of conflict between Johnson and Thaddeus Stevens over Johnson’s belief that reconciliation is to be preferred to retaliation: that peace is to be found not in revenge and in keeping defeated enemies in prolonged subjection, but in the spirit of Lincoln’s "With malice towards none... ." So Johnson pardoned the rebel Southerners and worked to reinstate them as equals, while Stevens, with a fanaticism that was at least equally sincere, believed that this weak generosity would cause another war. Hollywood does not attempt to draw any conclusions from this conflict. That, again, is left to history.