Wilson (1944)

I love this movie so much

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Beautiful, moving film.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Having finished watching "Wilson," I decided to compare it with other biopics of American presidents. I was surprised how few presidents have had movies made based on their lives. Abraham Lincoln gets the award for having the most, and he is the only president so featured prior to "Wilson" save Andrew Johnson. After "Wilson," there is a movie about Andrew Jackson in the early 1950s, and that is just about it until we get to the 1960s when American culture underwent radical change with the movies following suit. And needless to say, movies about presidents after Nixon and the Watergate scandal would never be the same.Regarding the pre-1960s biopics of American presidents, it is clear why they are so few in number. They are insufferable, being both boring and cloying. Notwithstanding all the money that was spent on the elaborate sets in making the movie about Woodrow Wilson, it is completely lacking in entertainment value. Nothing bad about Wilson is depicted. For example, we don't find out anything about what a racist he was. But those who produced this movie were not content simply to omit anything even slightly negative in his character. Like those who made movies about Lincoln during this period, they felt compelled to go way beyond mere omission and make the case that Wilson was no mere ordinary mortal, but rather was too good for this world, on a moral and spiritual plane high above his contemporaries, all but canonizing him for sainthood.

As was mentioned elsewhere, this was perhaps one of the first "big films" to win and compete for so many Academy Awards and be a flop at the box office. Now the divide between box office and critical acclaim is largely a predictable abyss, but it was still novelty in 1944.This was Darryl F. Zanuck's personal project, created after he returned from his service in WWII. Zanuck supervised every phase of production, and wanted to give Americans a film about an American that personified the ideals they were fighting for in Europe and in the Pacific - those of the equality of all men, and that Americans value peace but will fight if confronted and when they do fight, they pull out all the stops. In 1944, if one was to make a biopic about such a man, the obvious choice would be Woodrow Wilson. FDR might be a more obvious choice today, and his legacy has largely eclipsed that of Wilson, but at the time FDR was still alive and the sitting President, so portraying him in a biopic would be inappropriate.Alexander Knox was a perfect choice to play Wilson, looking, moving, and even talking just like him. Most might find this rather long at two and a half hours, and the Technicolor will not impress in the year 2013, and Wilson's views on race have been conveniently omitted, but I think it's time well spent to remember a President, a film, and an actor not often remembered today. As a special treat, you even get to hear Charles Coburn sing!

Wilson was always known as a propaganda piece, not regarding World War II, but about an otherwise excellent filmmaker's personal political agenda. Only the second Democrat since the Civil War to be elected president, Woodrew Wilson was a mess; definitely not deserving of a respected place in history.With the recent death of Senator Byrd (D) of West Virginia, it became kind of cute to wink at politicians who were in the Ku Klux Klan. Why? Because it's downright inconvenient to liberals to focus on their KKK members. Wilson's encouragement of the KKK was fully credible in light of his dark past, all but eradicated in most history books.Wilson re-segregated the Navy, and quickly disposed of most Black employees of the government. Those who remained were sectioned off into separate buildings; if not separate office space. "Colored" rest rooms and drinking fountains were introduced in the federal workplace. If you doubt this, just Google something like "Woodrow Wilson Black Government Employees." I dare Liberals to check this, but bet 10 to 1 they won't.Wilson was also a false image of a peacemaker. He used our armed forces liberally to fight our Latin American neighbors. And just who, by the way, would follow this man into the League of Nations -- considering his racial ideas were an open book in his lifetime, not the dark secret they've become via dishonest historical spin.

This movie was a hit with Hollyweird and the rich liberal movie industry but it fell flat with the public and I can see why. It's like when Reagan soundly defeated the other southern democratic peace liberal Jimmy Carter It showed that the public only likes real democrats not the liberal kind. Because FDR who was a real democrat had already been in for two terms when this movie was made the public had known full well what a genuine democratic president was and what he could do. This stupid movie was a product of rich jealous liberal movie industry moguls who didn't like FDR's socialist changes and thought they could brainwash the public with a piece of Hollywood fluff. It is good for a laugh though with over the top sentimentality and extravagant wardrobe and scenery.