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With all due respect to the more modern blockbusters under review, (and I treasure the memory of seeing all three BACK TO THE FUTURE movies on the big Cinerama Dome screen the day that III premiered and discovering how the whole of the trilogy was more than the sum of its three excellent parts), I'm most interested here in the WONDERFUL LIFE steelbook and the two MGMs from WB. Jimmy Stewart in one of his many appearances on Johnny Carson related how people in 1940 used to praise his skillful skiing in the climactic chase of THE MORTAL STORM which he then would have to tell them was entirely the work of stunt doubles. But then, as years went on, when the fans complimented him he found himself saying to them, "Well, I only did a shot or two, it was mostly the stunt men." And then with the passage of even more years he started saying, "I did get some help from the stunt men, but it was mostly me." And then finally, he ended up saying, "Thanks, you know how it is when you learn to ski as a boy, you never lose it." He then admitted to Johnny, "And do you know, to this day, I find it hard to believe that I didn't do at least some of the skiing in that picture." I've never seen TENNESSEE JOHNSON, but as a fan of Dieterle's best pictures, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER and the Laughton HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, I'd like to take a look at it. If nothing else, I'd like to see the portrayal of Jefferson Davis by Morris Ankrum which James Agee praised above anything else in the film, writing, "He looks like a daguerreotype, not an impersonation." I'm not surprised to read that MGM "(took) "some liberties with history", in fact I expect that would be putting it mildly. I can't imagine MGM starring Van Heflin in a movie as a rabid racist who did everything he could during Reconstruction to un-do Lincoln's legacy.
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