TENNESSEE JOHNSON

 In the UK this was called "The Man on America's Conscience", a title guaranteed to put off the Saturday night crowd but then would the Brits really be interested in the biography of the first American President to be impeached? Andrew Johnson was the President who succeeded Lincoln but despite his impeachment he's not really one of the 'famous' presidents. In "Tennessee Johnson", to give the film its US title, he's played by a young Van Heflin, fresh from his Oscar-winning success in "Johnny Eager", and he's actually very good, heading a cast that includes Ruth Hussey, Lionel Barrymore, (outstanding), Marjorie Main and Regis Toomey.

The director was William Dieterle, a dab hand at this kind of folksy Americana, and if this isn't one of his great films it's certainly one of his most entertaining and certainly one of his most underrated even if Heflin is a tad miscast, (he ages from young buck to grandfather overnight). It's certainly a handsome looking history lesson and a surprisingly intelligent one even if the Lincoln movies were always the ones to get the better press.