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Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Bryan Kluger D.W. Griffith's 'Abraham Lincoln' is one hell of a film still today as it was back in the 30s. It sure is fitting that Kino decided to release this particular film now, what with the recent election and Spielberg's big budget 'Lincoln' film still in theaters. Not too mention that since the 2012 election, we are seeing several states trying to secede from the union, a very real scenario back when Lincoln was president as well. What might set this particular film aside from the rest of the Abraham Lincoln centered films besides this one being one of the first films to be solely about the 16th president is that Griffith's 'Abraham Lincoln' covers the entire life from birth to death of the legendary president.Plus, Griffith's 'Abraham Lincoln' is an opposing look to his previous film 'The Birth of Nation', the latter being a very racially charged film being released in 1915. 'Abraham Lincoln' jumps around quite a bit as we have to get the full span of Lincoln's life in under 100 minutes. The film starts off on a slave ship and cuts to a log cabin where Lincoln is born and given his name. We immediately jump to a young twenty -something Lincoln (Walter Huston) having fun with some friends in a bar as he lifts a giant barrel of alcohol to drink. We also get to see a young Abraham become smitten with his first love, Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel), win a wrestling match, and being a fun loving, charming, and powerful young man. It's great to see our 16th president be a normal guy as he studies law and is always ready and willing to be intimate with his girl.However, Ann becomes ill and passes away. Abraham becomes a broken man and even resorts to lying down on top of her grave because he misses her so much. But since the film's run-time is short, we swiftly move into Lincoln meeting his wife Mary Todd (Kay Hammond) as we see Abraham dive into his early political career then onto his presidency, where we get the epic beard.As this film is more of a dialogue driven film, rather than epic battle sequences, we don't see a lot of action during the Civil War. This movie focuses more on the emotional and psychological state of Lincoln. It was great to see how the name Honest Abe became about and how frustrated and sadden Lincoln is during this war time. But when Lincoln isn't bogged down by the important serious issues, he is actually a fun and silly guy, one you might want to hang out with.This is one of Griffith's last movies he made and it is a pretty straight forward film without a lot of creative art direction. And we all know that the Gettysburg Address was one of Lincoln's biggest moments, however that whole speech was not given any screen time. I was hoping for an extra on this disc that discussed why, but unfortunately, there is none. However, there are a several key moments in the film that lead up to the murder of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth (Ian Keith).If it wasn't for Huston's performance as Lincoln, I'd say this was a pretty lackluster attempt at making a film about our 16th president. That being said, I think this is worth a look if you haven't seen it, especially on blu-ray.

AW_RATLIFFHxC After seeing the modern movie versions of Abe Lincoln I was curious to see what this one was like. Personally when it comes to movies portraying historical characters I'm most concerned with the facts then with anything else. In that regard the movie didn't seem to run away with an artistic license , but did manage to focus on what Lincoln was trying to achieve " to preserve the union". A line repeated several times through out the the movie. The movie was more like a snap-shot of the life of Lincoln piecing together highlights of Lincoln's life. And maybe it was better this way , filling in the gaps with fiction doesn't serve history very well. Sure you cant be 100% factual when trying to make a movie but have some kind integrity. The film is defiantly a product of its time- film quality , acting , but if you can over look that it isn't that terrible.

Michael_Elliott Abraham Lincoln (1930) ** 1/2 (out of 4) D.W. Griffith's film about Abraham Lincoln (Walter Huston) who we see from his early days through the hearbreak of Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel) and his rise to be the President of the United States.It's surprising to watch ABRAHAM LINCOLN today and know that back in the day most of the major critics called it a great film with many of them including it as one of the year's best films. It was hailed by critics as Griffith's major comeback but it didn't result in box office numbers and the legendary director would only make one more film. It's interesting to note that some of the Lincoln story-line was used in the director's THE BIRTH OF A NATION and that film was re-released in a sound version the same year this here was released. You have to wonder if more people went to that over this new film.The biggest problem that I had with this film was the story itself and the way it was told. I'm not going to bash the fake parts of the story too much as these bio films are often full of re-written history. The problem with me is that the narrative was all over the place and there really wasn't a good flow to any of it. It seems like bits and pieces were just picked from the story, filmed and then thrown together without Griffith trying to make a complete story or any type of flow to the material.It's really too bad that the story is all over the place because we do get some nice performances including Huston in the lead role. It's funny and rather uncanny how much he looks like Lincoln here and for the most part I thought he did a respectable job in the role. Another problem with the film is the fact that Griffith certainly didn't update his "style" from what you'd see from his early days. He certainly didn't want to go with the times and the film really looks and feel like something from the 1910s and not from 1930.With that said, ABRAHAM LINCOLN does work as a minor film. The performances are good enough to save it and the ending with the assassination is quite good even if it falls well short of what we saw in THE BIRTH OF A NATION.

tonymurphylee D.W. Griffith's ABRAHAM LINCOLN is a decidedly underwhelming film. What it has is excellent, but it doesn't take the next step in showing who the historical and controversial president was. I liked the film as far as it went, but I just felt more could be done to better explain things. I felt like the film got everything right on a technical level, and I definitely got into the character of Abraham Lincoln, but not as much as i wanted to be. Some people were disappointed with Brian DePalma's brilliant mob film, THE UNTOUCHABLES for not showing enough of Al Capone. I loved that film, but i think i understand their pain now that I've watched this. I mean sure, you see plenty of Abraham Lincoln in this, but you don't get enough of a sense of who he is. This film traces his life from his birth through his childhood, and then to his presidency, and then to his assassination. The film doesn't rush through these, but simply feeds these details to the viewer in a very honest and thorough way. I especially enjoyed the middle section of the film where Walter Huston really lets loose with his characterization, and yet personalizes it in such neat ways. I felt the slavery scenes were more tough to sit through then usual, especially for a film made in that decade. I loved the dark, sinister mood of the film and how D.W. Griffith is so able to use human actions to tell a story rather then have the actors spell everything out, but in the end, I wanted more.