| U.S. Grant has
been depicted in the movies with a consistently inaccurate image. He's a
short, rough, course man, usually scowling. The gruff demeanor is
emphasized by a large cigar and by the implication that he's never too
far from the bottle.
When he appears in a scene, he is rarely the main focus of the story being told. Rather, he seems thrust into the screenplay to serve as a supporting player, enhancing the seemingly more interesting lives of such real figures as Abraham Lincoln and General William T. Sherman, or such fictitious characters as the Lone Ranger or James West. Throughout his life, the historical Grant was a man whose values and character avoided the pitfalls that often face those who are given military and political blood, and was painfully alive to every form of human suffering." Other than perhaps a handful of early films that depicted the General, none of the over 75 large- and small-screen depictions of Grant displayed these traits. The first movie that featured Ulysses S. Grant as a character is believed to be The Days Of '61, a 15-minute melodrama produced by Thomas Edison in 1908, less than a quarter century after Grant's death. In this film, the General has a brief scene in which he refuses to hear the pleas of the sister of a condemned Confederate soldier. A year later, the 12-minute The Old Soldier's Story featured a Confederate veteran recalling how he tricked General Grant into carrying a secret message to a Confederate general in Fredericksburg. Grant is shown sparing the life of a Confederate spy in Lt. Grey (1911) and in a similar vein commutes the death sentence of a Southern soldier in The Littlest Rebel (1914). In A Question Of Courage (1914), Grant again magnanimously issues a pardon, this time to a civilian mistakenly imprisoned for cowardice. The first serious portrayal of Grant in a movie came in D. W. Griffiths' landmark but controversial epic, The Birth Of A Nation (1915). Grant was portrayed by Hollywood fixture and later Oscar winner Donald Crisp. In a brief scene depicting the surrender at Appomattox, an excessively casual Grant is seen arrogantly walking around the room, puffing a cigar as a grim but dignified Robert E. Lee mournfully signs the terms of surrender. The historical Grant treated Appomattox with the utmost dignity and sensitivity toward his defeated foe. None of that was evident in Griffiths' film, which was most notorious for its overt racism.
In Abraham Lincoln (1930), Griffiths' first sound film (a project he later described as “a nightmare of the mind and nerves"), the general was portrayed by E. Alyn Warren, who also essayed Grant a year later in a Richard Dix vehicle called Secret Service. In Griffith's 1930 film, the initial meeting between Lincoln and Grant is played out in a White House drawing room in which the General emits billows of cigar smoke that upset Mrs. Lincoln. The president appoints Grant supreme commander and asks him to visit him often so he can drive the first lady away with his cigars. In a later scene set just before the end of the war, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman are casually sitting around a table enjoying whisky and cigars. Here Lincoln emerges as an almost angelic figure imparting divine wisdom and magnanimous gestures toward his former enemies. Grant and Sherman become Griffiths' allegorical warmongers who demand severe punishment for Lee and Jefferson Davis. When Lincoln rebukes these suggestions, he illustrates his clemency points by telling a joke that begins, “There once was a drunk…" As Lincoln utters the word “drunk," the camera cuts to a close-up of a nervous-looking Grant. Neither the subtle inference nor the substance of the conversation among the characters bear resemblance to historical fact. |
What
about the appearances of Robin Williams and Fred Thompson as U.S. Grant?
Stay tuned for the next article in this series: Grant in Television.
Grant's
Tomb has had a number of movie cameos over the years, but it has never
been the star. If you watch carefully, however, you will find the monument
in the following films - typically for a few seconds in montages, or
serving as an anonymous backdrop for scenes that assume (or hope) the
viewer will not be able to identify the location. Grant's Tomb provided some good-natured
comedy and a dash of inspiration to Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney's
characters in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940).
On The Town (1949): As part of a
montage of Manhattan sites, sailors Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Jules
Munchin are seen crossing Riverside Drive with the tomb dramatically in
the background (if only for 3 seconds). |
