tcshelly.tv

Jackie Robinson plays himself in this true story of the man who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier.

Romantic rivals get caught in the battle to stop abolitionist John Brown. American Western directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan and Alan Hale. There are several major inaccuracies with the several of the characters and timeline depicted in the film. First, Stuart, Custer, and Sheridan (among other notable Civil War officers) are all depicted as classmates in the same graduating class at West Point and all stationed in the Kansas territory at the same time. In reality the three graduated at different times–in 1854, 1861, and 1853, respectively. This depiction of these future Union and Confederate officers adds an element of foreshadowing predicting the coming Civil War conflict, in which former American officers would be forced to choose sides following Southern secession. Second, future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce in 1854 (the time set at the beginning of the film), was not in this Cabinet position by the time of John Brown's raid of Harper's Ferry in 1859. By then, the position was being held by John B. Floyd, a member of the Buchanan administration.

An episodic biography of the 16th President of the United States. The film covers some little-known aspects of Lincoln's early life, such as his romance with Ann Rutledge, his depression and feared suicidal tendencies after her death, and his unexplained breaking off of his engagement with Mary Todd (although the film surmises that this was due to unresolved feelings over Ann Rutledge and adds a dramatic scene where Lincoln stands Mary up on their scheduled wedding day. In reality Abe did break off the engagement, but it was before the wedding day. He would later regret his decision, and return to ask Mary's hand in marriage once again, this time following through, as it happens in the film). While the early scenes of Lincoln's life are remarkably accurate, much of the later scenes contain historical inaccuracies. The Lincoln-Douglas debates, in addition to the historically accurate topic of the extension of slavery, are turned into an argument about secession. Lincoln was an underdog for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1860; in the film it is suggested he is the sole nominee as a result of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The outbreak of the Civil War seems to be the Union firing on Charleston, South Carolina from Fort Sumter, rather than the other way around. Also, early in hostilities, General Winfield Scott is depicted as being overconfident of a quick victory (and something of a buffoon), when in reality he was one of the voices in the minority claiming the war would be long, costly, and bloody. Lincoln receives a report from the Secret Service that some copperheads in the North have issued threats against him. The Secret Service was not created until two months after Lincoln's death. Finally, in the climax of the film, Lincoln delivers a conflation of the words of the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865 – just moments before being assassinated. This was Griffith's second portrayal of Lincoln's assassination, the first being in The Birth of a Nation.