Through most of the undistinguished history of films about American presidents, concern for truth has been in short supply. From "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939) to "Wilson" (1944) to "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960) to "The Missiles of October" (1974), to the many other, often cheap and cheesy films that populate cable television and direct-to-video products, the purpose of these movies has mostly been hagiography, propaganda or both. "Young Mr. Lincoln" (with Lincoln played by Henry Fonda) portrayed a saintly lawyerengaged in an idealized and implausible battle for justice. "Wilson" is a mediocre and now justly forgotten film that won five Academy Awards because of its usefulness to the debate over the aftermath of World War II. "Sunrise," drawn from a Broadway play, was a tribute to Franklin Roosevelt's courageous conquest of polio (a conquest that in reality never occurred) and a portrayal of a "great American love story" that was in fact the story of a broken marriage never repaired.
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