Tennessee Johnson

Ruth Hussey and Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson

William Dieterle's Tennessee Johnson, from 1942, is a mediocre biopic of the 17th President of the United States, Andrew Johnson. MGM hoped the picture would find the same success that Dieterle had achieved with his biopics at Warner Brothers, most of which starred Paul Muni, but, despite attractive production values, Tennessee Johnson was a commercial and critical bomb. The first third of the film, which pictures Johnson's early struggles as a tailor in Greenville, has the same sort of regional Americana flavor that Dieterle captured well in The Devil and Daniel Webster. Marjorie Main and Grant Withers make entertaining contributions, though Ruth Hussey is anodyne throughout. Once the Civil War begins, the picture descends into an inert and humorless talk fest featuring numerous political confabs and speeches, culminating in Johnson's impeachment trial. Dieterle's direction is tasteful, ponderous, and dull. 

What little interest the film offers today lies in its mangled view of history. As I noted in my review of The True Story of Jesse James, Hollywood films before the Civil Rights era bent over backwards in an effort to placate viewers in the Southern market. Nearly all films which addressed Reconstruction took their historical point of view of the Dunning School. The scholars of the Dunning School viewed the Radical Republicans Reconstruction efforts as a calamity. As in The Birth of a Nation (where he was dubbed 'Austin Stoneman'), the villain of Tennessee Johnson is one of the leaders of the Radical Republicans, Thaddeus Stevens. As embodied by Lionel Barrymore, Stevens is bent on punishing the South for the rebellion at the cost of national unity. America, at the time of the production of this film, was participating in  a world wide conflict and the stressing of national unity was foremost on the minds of the crafters of what Parker Tyler dubbed The Hollywood Hallucination.

Therefore, the screenwriters had the task of turning one of our worst Presidents into a heroic figure. This proved difficult. There was much behind the scenes wrangling and major scenes were excised before the film was released. Van Heflin suffered an attack of appendicitis. The finished film boasts four credited writers. Its relation to the historical facts is scanty. Its preface titles include the line, "The form of our medium compels certain dramatic liberties".  The most egregious falsehood is Johnson's climactic speech at the impeachment trial, which did not occur, but there are a litany of other fabrications. Edwin Stanton disappears from history, though his famous quote on the death of Lincoln is included. ("Now he belongs to the ages") African-Americans are invisible except for a few dutiful servants and the issue of slavery is mostly avoided. Johnson's status as a Jacksonian Democrat and a champion of the franchise for rural landless whites is trumpeted. His racism and that of the citizenry is absent.

As with The Birth of a Nation, Tennessee Johnson inspired protests. Progressive figures (including Vincent Price, Zero Mostel, and Ben Hecht) petitioned the Office of War Information to suppress the film. Manny Farber demurred, writing "Censorship is a disgrace, whether done by the Hays office and pressure groups, or by liberals and the OWI."💧The controversy did not help the box office and the film's lack of success hindered Van Heflin's efforts to become a top rank star. He labors mightily and largely succeeds in channeling his character's anger and class resentment. His verbal fencing with Barrymore occasionally perks up the second half of the film. Barrymore makes no attempt to portray the actual Stevens. He is entertaining enough plying the stock villainy he also displays in It's A Wonderful Life. His version of Stevens is not quite as rancid as Mr. Potter, at least he is kind to Johnson's grandchildren. Despite a few grace notes, Tennessee Johnson is slow going indeed. 

💧 The New Republic, January 25th, 1943, pg. 119