TENNESSEE JOHNSON: Blu-ray (MGM, 1942) Warner Archive

 In reviewing director, William Dieterle’s Tennessee Johnson (1942) I am rather ironically reminded of a quick quip from Rouben Mamoulian’s Silk Stockings (1957) in which producer, Richard Canfield (Fred Astaire) suggests the picture he is attempting to produce will add prestige to profit. “You know what prestige is?” Canfield asks his ditzy aquatic starlet, Peggy Dayton (Janis Paige). “Sure,” she glibly replies, “Pictures that don’t make money!” Another word for these would be ‘turkey’. And while Tennessee Johnson has great aspirations to tell the tale of one man’s triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds, it nevertheless winds up being a sort of Cole’s Notes biopic of the life of its subject – President Andrew Johnson, devolving into just another political potboiler with above average performances from stars, Van Heflin and Ruth Hussey. The picture was one of MGM’s ‘prestige’ projects for the year, and, running true to the aforementioned adage, reported a loss on their ledgers of $637,000 in its initial release. It isn’t difficult to understand the reasons why. Setting aside the controversy stirred by liberals at the time, who thought Dieterle had sugar-coated Johnson's intuitive prejudice against Blacks, the chief misfire here is not to be had in that revisionist’s take of Johnson’s acumen and platform on which he ran – and survived an impeachment, lest we forget – but rather, the ill-fated awkwardness in John L. Balderston and Wells Root’s short-shrift screenplay, based on a story by Milton Gunzburg and Alvin Meyers. We run through a series of loosely strung together vignettes depicting Johnson’s rise to power, from an illiterate ‘white rabble’ escapee from a bond of servitude, to a fiery militia man with a conscience, to an introspective congressman, learned enough to be considered by ‘honest Abe’ as his first pick for the hallowed vice presidency under Lincoln’s ill-fated second term, cut short by the assassin’s bullet of John Wilkes Booth.

Again, Tennessee Johnson would like to be an epic; except that at a paltry 103-minutes, despite being imbued with Metro’s usual elegance and production values, it possesses neither the run time nor even the dramatic arc to ensure anything beyond a quaint cavalcade of pitstops along this road to a life well-lived, though only superficially glossed over herein. The picture does not even allow for a valiant moment of realization immediately following Johnson’s exoneration from impeachment. Instead, as the great man is carried along on the ether of well-wishers we suddenly dissolve to a moment in the distant future when Johnson marked his return to the House of Representatives for the great state of Tennessee. The Balderston/Root’ screenplay is big on speeches. There are many. And Van Heflin, then something of a rising Turk in Metro’s star-filled steno pool, is deft in his master class recitations as though to be merely speaking off the cuff, rather than preaching scripted words to the choir. But Johnson’s tenure in the White House after Lincoln’s murder is barely covered. And, truth to tell, the picture crackles to life only in the presence of co-star, Lionel Barrymore, as the ruthless and embittered Thaddeus Stevens. It’s Barrymore who ignites the screen with Stevens’ distasteful and blind-sided hatred of Johnson, the only man in Washington who cannot be bought by special interests. As Johnson will never entertain Stevens venomous notions to hobble the South by imprisoning its one-time aristocracy and war heroes, this leads to all manner of caustic confrontation.  Even chair-bound from crippling arthritis, Barrymore commands a room and the screen – a one-of-a-kind, incredible torrent of talent, impossible to resist, despite the oft disreputable nature of his fictional alter egos. Here is a man we absolutely can love to hate – and do, with as much relish as Barrymore pours into Stevens’ convictions for an overthrow of the government. Are we seeing any parallels yet between this movie and the most recent U.S. election? But I digress.

Tennessee Johnson is genuinely affecting when it pauses with occasional sincerity, if only briefly, to allow Van Heflin’s awkwardly bloated and prematurely aged sage to draw in a punctuated breath and pontificate about the past. And indeed, the gigantic shadow cast by Lincoln (who we never see in close-up) looms ever-present from the peripheries of the screen. Even in death, the entire last act of Tennessee Johnson is predicated on Johnson’s own self-doubting contributions to a legacy he only inherited, constantly asking himself ‘what would Abe do?’ and even more self-evaluation to suggest whatever his decision, it somehow pales to what Lincoln would have done, had he lived. Our story begins in earnest as half-starved, runaway tailor’s apprentice, Andrew Johnson wanders into Greeneville, Tennessee. Almost immediately, he is befriended by local blacksmith, Mordecai Milligan (Grant Withers), Mrs. Maude Fisher (Marjorie Maine) and Blackstone McDaniel (Regis Toomey) – disenfranchised members of the ‘great unwashed’ eager to have a competent tailor in their midst. Having crossed state lines, Johnson is persuaded to take up residence as a free man in Greeneville. This decision is made more easily after Johnson meets librarian, Eliza McCardle (Ruth Hussey), kind-hearted and immediately attracted to Johnson, despite his rough exterior. When she commissions him to perform alterations on a dress, but finds the work as yet to be completed, Johnson confesses he could not read her instructions, never having learned to read in the first place.

Eliza takes pity on Johnson and, in exchange for doing the work, she offers to teach him to read and write. The two are eventually wed, though this chapter in Johnson’s life, as well as most of their courtship is completely skipped over. Disgruntled by the injustice of the monopoly landowners possess, and, encouraged by Eliza and his friends to withstand the hypocrisies of his time, Johnson begins organizing a peaceful opposition, staging political rallies to stir the rabble to the cause of liberty. However, when Sheriff Cass (Noah Beery) arrives to infer trouble if Johnson persists in his efforts, the defiant Johnson directly disobeys the order to disband. A violent clash between Johnson and his loyalists, and, the ensconced power structure ensues. But this only stirs Johnson’s resolve. He runs for the office of Sheriff and wins. Again, a pregnant pause and omission of all that follows. After a brief title card, announcing 1860, we find Johnson a senator, appropriately aged and giving a speech in his home town – surrounded by friends. While Johnson is as optimistic as ever, his faith in a peaceable union is shaken when fellow senator, Jefferson Davis (Morris Ankrum) arrives on the floor to declare the Southern states have seceded, thus making Civil War a reality. At the outbreak, Johnson defies his state and remains loyal to the Union. Again, a title card; this one, to inform us that as a general, Johnson has been victorious in defending Nashville against the siege.

A letter from the White House arrives. Lincoln desires Johnson as his vice president, as they similarly respect a view on reconciling the South with the Union, unlike Congressman Thaddeus Stevens who would see the South demoralized. Johnson takes his oath from Chief Justice Chase (Montagu Love), seemingly under the influence of strong drink, causing a minor kerfuffle on the floor of the senate. Later, we learn – again via a letter from Lincoln – Johnson was actually quite ill at the time of his appointment, but chose to take the oath while ailing in order to prevent any scrutiny from the opposition. More fast-tracking – to New Year’s Eve. Now, it is Eliza who has fallen ill. Returning to his hotel suite after some revelry, Johnson is given the calling card of John Wilkes Booth at the front desk, discarding it as just another ‘introduction’ from a special interest seeking an audience with the president. As drunken revelers gather beneath Johnson’s window to sing his praises, we are informed Lincoln has gone to the theater. A scene later, Johnson is informed Lincoln has been shot; also, his own assassination was afoot but mercifully, has only just been foiled. Arriving at the morgue, Johnson finds the president mortally wounded.  

Succeeding Lincoln will not be an easy task. Indeed, almost immediately Stevens and his cronies, Senator Jim Waters (Charles Dingle) and Congressman Hargrove (Carl Benton Reid) arrive to barter a truce on their terms. The South must be brought to heel. Alas, Johnson is determined to see through Lincoln’s vision of its reconstruction. And thus, Stevens threatens to impeach the president. In reply, Johnson issues a proclamation to free all Southern political prisoners of the war – an act of defiance that forces Stevens’ hand to commit to the trial. Deliberately, Johnson stays away from these proceedings, as is his right, believing the dignity of his presidency will best be represented by his counsel; also, a select group of loyalists, ready to testify on his behalf. Regrettably, Stevens is successful at quashing any and all testimony from Johnson’s cabinet members – determined to force Johnson to appear on his own behalf and, as Stevens predicts, he will disgrace himself in a flurry of rage. Given no alternative, Johnson does appear before the senate. However, after receiving his share of boos from the gallery, he nevertheless manages to deliver a measured and eloquent speech. Aside: this never actually happened. Awaiting the decision, Johnson is acutely aware his fate rests on the vote of Senator Huyler (William Farnum), who is ill and is carried out of chambers before his vote can be tallied. Pensively, Stevens holds court while senators work behind the scenes to revive their colleague in the hopes his ballot will impeach Johnson. Instead, carried back to the senate, Huyler declares ‘not guilty’ – thus, destroying Stevens’ credibility.  Embraced by Eliza and a cohort of his most devout loyalists, Johnson’s moment of victory dissolves into the future, post-presidency, when, as a thoroughly aged representative, he marks a triumphantly return to the senate.

If remembered at all today, Tennessee Johnson is distinguished by the liberal crusade to suppress its release and further condemn it upon release. Fair enough, the movie’s depiction of Johnson as a valiant successor to Lincoln, under siege from spiteful Republicans is a tad one-sided and not altogether truthful. This movie would have us believe in Andrew Johnson as the proverbial underdog, egregiously wronged and under constant threat from rogue elements conspiring for his removal from office. The more widely regarded reality however is Johnson, while vindicated in his impeachment and elected to the Senate in 1875 (the only former president to serve in the Senate), was defiantly opposed to federally guaranteed rights for black Americans. Dying a mere 5-months after taking his seat in the senate, Johnson’s presidency today is disregarded by historians as, at best, a blip on the radar, and, at its worst, one of the most embarrassing chapters in U.S. politics. And there is little doubt Lincoln, in his appointment, was using Johnson to prove a point about the ill-fated decision of the Southern states to secede, hoping Johnson’s own background as a Southerner would be enough to hold the Union together, though never intending it to go much further beyond that. The happenstance of Lincoln’s murder transformed Johnson’s career from an appendage of the Lincoln presidency into its Commander and Chief – an appointment to which Johnson was, arguably, ill-equipped.

Upon taking office, Johnson sought a speedy restoration of the Southern states on the grounds they had never truly left the Union. However, his interest in African-American suffrage was marginal at best.  Initially left to fashion a reconstruction policy, Johnson was forced to grapple with the economic chaos and upheaval the war had created in the South. However, Johnson saw this responsibility as more a governance of state, rather than a federal duty to be administered – a decision, dividing his cabinet loyalties. From this stalemate, there emerged two proclamations. The first, recognized the newly formed state government of Virginia, while the second provided amnesty for all ex-rebels holding less than $20,000 in property. Neither incorporated provisions for black suffrage or freedmen's rights. Tennessee Johnson would have us believe that Johnson – an ‘innocent’ – was being victimized by Stevens and his cohorts. But actually, the real Andrew Johnson helped fuel these flames when, in 1866, he gave an hour-long address, not only negating the importance of Washington’s birthday for which it was intended, but also accusing Stevens, Massachusetts’ Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist, Wendell Phillips as plotters in his assassination. And Tennessee Johnson also neglects to remind us Johnson, sought another term on his own steam, but received only four votes - all from Tennessee, a decidedly epic blow to his conceit.

Hollywood fiction aside, Tennessee Johnson is a rather tepid account of either, the man or his presidency. Van Heflin does his absolute best to sustain a performance, but is generally hampered by a screenplay that only allows him to illustrate Johnson’s fortitude as something of a martyred monument to all lost causes. In keeping with the tradition of political melodramas, this one is staunchly in support of national unity. The flag-waving is rather thinly disguised on this outing, however. And, in attempting to concoct a reputation for Johnson, decidedly out of fashion with the man, the portrait painted is of a visionary whose far-reaching concern for the nation helped heal its open wounds sustained by the Civil War. Nice try. Wrong guy. Andrew Johnson’s failures far outweigh his merits. There is, however, far better news for the Warner Archive’s (WAC) Blu-ray. In fact, wonderful news. Tennessee Johnson’s 4K remaster reveals a sparkling B&W transfer afforded all the bells and whistles we have come to expect from WAC at its best. Gray scale tonality is exceptionally nuanced. Fine detail pops as it should. Shadow delineation is excellent and contrast is superb. Truly, no complaints here. The 1.0 DTS audio is limited by its source, but sounds wonderful as a vintage Westrex sound recording. Extras include a radio broadcast, shorts and theatrical trailer. Bottom line: very solid Blu-ray release of an only ‘so-so’ valiant attempt to rewrite a personal history in Andrew Johnson’s favor. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

1