Abraham Lincoln

Timed to coincide with the release of Steven Spielberg's feature film Lincoln, this is the Blu-ray debut of a 1930 biographical effort by D.W. Griffith, the first of the two sound films made by the legendary director before his career collapsed. While a few crowd sequences are well composed (although the battle scenes are sloppy), Abraham Lincoln—which suffers from historical inaccuracies that are only exceeded by their dramatic flatness—mostly consists of stilted, stagy tableaux, beginning with Lincoln's birth and ending with his assassination. Walter Huston plays Abe solemnly, with huge, theatrical gestures more suited to silent film than a talkie, and while the rest of the cast—including twittering Una Merkel as Lincoln's first love—aren't nearly as stiff, the acting here is generally old-fashioned. Still, this is an interesting curio, presented with a fine high-def transfer made from a 35mm print remastered by the Museum of Modern Art, complete with excised scenes that have been recovered over the years (many lack the audio track, so are accompanied by title cards). Extras include a two-part conversation between Huston and Griffith in which the director restates both his disdain for Reconstruction and his positive attitude toward the Ku Klux Klan that made his The Birth of a Nation so controversial. For its historical value alone, this should still be considered a strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)