Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Gettysburg Address in Movies

"Mr Smith Goes to Washington" 1939 at Lincoln Memorial

"Ruggles of Red Gap" 1935

"Charles Laughton. His soup-to-nuts recitation of the celebrated speech is the unexpected highlight of Ruggles of Red Gap, a 1935 screwball Western that time has relegated to the semi-shadows. It’s a beautifully understated performance that manages to illuminate the meaning of each and every word. (It also makes me more forgiving of the film’s early minutes, when Laughton’s portrayal of a very proper English butler succumbs to a silver-candelabra-up-the-heiner level of broadness.)
Just as impressive is director Leo McCarey‘s decision to set the scene atop a giddy vaudeville routine featuring a saloon full of clueless cowboys and barkeeps. It’s a ton of fun."

http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/behold_charles_laughton_delivering_the_gettysburg_address_in_its_entirety_in_iruggles_of_red_gapi.html

And at the new Steven Spielberg Movie " Lincoln" 2012 at a theater near your.

In each case it is not done by an actor portraying Lincoln but by someone deeply influenced by it.