Just perfect...

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The post-Civil War period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) has always been one of the most controversial periods of American history; to some extent, it remains so today. At its core was the question of whether federal or state authority was to be paramount; variations on this basic argument continue to ring out in modern-day America. Yet this question has come to be overshadowed by an even more vexing problem: the lack of consensus on Reconstruction's basic morality as well as its constitutionality. Whenever Reconstruction is discussed today, a very prickly quandary must be raised: were the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives really sympathetic to the civil rights of the freed slaves, or did they only desire to wreak vengeance upon the ex-Confederates in the South? Up until about the mid-1950s, most historians proposed the latter view. It is therefore something of a credit to William Dieterle, the director of this 1942 movie, that he broke somewhat with what was then conventional wisdom. Whereas the contemporary custom would have been to paint the Radical Republicans (and Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens in particular) as deranged and villainous, this film shows some restraint in condemning their actions and acknowledges the noble motives behind them. At the same time, Dieterle clearly rejects the late-20th/early-21st century portrait of President Andrew Johnson as bitter, raging white supremacist.True, both Johnson's and Stevens's less positive traits are played up: Johnson's alcoholism and violent temper, Stevens's smug pomposity. Yet both men come across ultimately as admirable, if only for the iron force of their wills in trying to achieve what each of them believed to be just - goals that happened to be mutually exclusive. They both allow their stubbornness and self-righteousness to drive them at each other's throats.Van Heflin is commanding as the President, while Lionel Barrymore manages to mine some humanity from the crusty Stevens. Best of all, perhaps, is the utterly convincing makeup used to "age" Andrew Johnson and his wife Eliza.

VAN HEFLIN as Andrew Johnson and RUTH HUSSEY as his wife both give earnest performances and the screenplay, while fictionalizing certain points for dramatic license, is a good one. But, as usual, history buffs are going to nitpick the inaccuracies to the point of dismissing the film as fiction. Not true. What it does do is make anyone who watches it want to consult the history books--and that's a good thing if you want to know the whole story behind Johnson being the first president in history against whom impeachment charges were made.As his adversary in the impeachment process, LIONEL BARRYMORE delivers another one of his more restrained performances without overdoing the ham. He and Heflin share some pretty dramatically effective moments, both of them in fine form. Heflin takes the character of Johnson from his humble beginnings as a tailor to his marriage to Hussey and his gradual emergence as a spokesmen for the people of Tennessee. For the sake of running time, it skips most of the years leading up to the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, compressing all of those events and managing to keep the screenplay a tightly knit focus on the impeachment process itself. Only quibble is it fails to make clear the strongest point of the impeachment.VAN HEFLIN plays most of his role in appropriate age make-up (as does Hussey) and they're both terrific. In lesser roles, MARJORIE MAIN, REGIS TOOMEY and CHARLES DINGLE provide colorful support.Summing up: May not be a complete history lesson, but it will certainly cause viewers to probe more deeply into the detailed background of historical interest. And it does serve to remind us what a fine actor Van Heflin was in a demanding role.

Never heard of this film until yesterday 7/15/03..and I am a film buff Thanks agaim to TCM... not sure of the historical 100 % accuracy but the main story is history: re: Andrew Johnsons Impeachment /came up during the Clinton impeachment trial... never knew this was filmed.. Van Heflin is brilliant..as the maligned president... as is the rest of the cast...Lionel Barrymore is especially excellent as he hams up the screen. Missed the first few minutes..cant wait till TCM schedules again!! Lost in the shuffle of great films released in late 30s early 40s ! Not to be missed

The story of the first US president to be impeached gets the Hollywood treatment. It is superbly acted although glossed up quite a bit. Some of Johnson's flaws are exposed, but not nearly as many as are excused. Barrymore's Stevens is terrifyingly brilliant. This is an art that Hollywood used to excel at -- telling history in an interesting and mostly factual matter without the need to flaunt the director's abject cynicism.