Great Film, but... Part Deux
There are two points I want to make here; well, one point and one complaint. The first is this...To answer whichever reader it was who posted a review of ALincoln in Illinois on the main page, in which he mentioned the furor over just what AL's voice actually sounded like. He said that Lincoln's son heard Massey's voice and said that Massey got his father's voice down pat.
But which son would it be that heard Massey? Robert Todd was born in 1843, so he would have been 97 to have passed judgment on Massey, but he died at age 82 in 1929, Edward was born in 1846 and died in Springfield just over 3 years old, William Wallace was born in 1850, which would have made him 90 in 1940, had they not lost him, his death nearly the final tragedy to crush the man's spirit when he died at age 11 in 1862. It was a blessing for Lincoln that he did not know of the death of the last son, Thomas "Tad" at age 18 in 1871. Tad may have been the only thing that kept him from losing his mind after Willie's death, and he certainly doted on him after the loss of William.
As to the complaint, it comes down to what happened the morning AL left Springfield. The sculptor Thomas Jones wrote that "It was a dark, gloomy, misty morning, boding rain. The people assembled early.." so that could, in part, explain the dark look of the scene, but that's not my complaint. After I read Sandburg's book, Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years and The War Years, and read how very brief AL's remarks were from the train platform, I went back and watched the film with those words in my mind. I was shocked to find that, for the sake of whatever the screenwriters or producers or whomever wanted it to be for, the words coming out of Massey's mouth bore scant resemblance to what was actually said. Oh sure, they wrote in "Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man." but then they veer off course and paste in bits of other, recognizable Lincoln speechwork, until what has become known to history simply as the Farewell Address became this awful mess of hack screenplay writing.
President Lincoln spoke for perhaps 2 or 3 minutes from that platform, depending on his emotional state. You read those scant 9 sentences that comprise the speech and tell me if you can make any more of it. Yet the writers of ALII dewcided to turn it into a 4 or 5, maybe 6 minute piece of maudlin tripe with excess verbiage that had no right to be there.
And if Raymond Massey willingly spoke those lines without kicking over it, then shame on him! He had them over the barrel, he was their film, he could have stood on principle and told them he would not speak those lines as they were written.
Here are the words Abraham Lincoln spoke that mornming..
"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/sites/depot.htm