An Entertaining Interview With Henry Fonda
My favorite extra in the Young Mr. Lincoln DVD set is a 49-minute 1975 appearance Henry Fonda, then 70 years old, made on the BBC television talk show Parkinson. Fonda discusses many topics, including starting out as a stage actor, working with Zanuck and Ford, his relationship with his daughter Jane and his son Peter, and playing a heavy for Sergio Leone. Fonda turns out to be a compelling raconteur. For example, he describes a lynching he witnessed in Omaha when he was 11 or 12. And Fonda can be very amusing. While acknowledging he owes much of his fame to starring in Westerns, he goes on to say, "Cowboy—forget it! I don't like horses. I don't like riding. They had to pay me a lot of money to get me on the horse."
Three Audio Bonus Materials and a Booklet With Two Essays
The DVD set contains three audio bonus materials that are mildly interesting. One of these is a 30-minute 1946 radio adaptation of Young Mr. Lincoln starring Henry Fonda and Ward Bond. This is downloadable as an MP3 file. The other two audio extras are short interviews Dan Ford, grandson of John Ford, conducted in the 1970s in preparation for his book Pappy: The Life of John Ford (1998). One interview is with Fonda, the other with John Ford.
Packaged with the DVD set is a 28-page booklet that contains two essays. One of these is an insightful analysis of Young Mr. Lincoln by film writer Geoffrey O'Brien. The other is a 1945 homage to Ford by celebrated Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.
DVD Details:
Below I've listed the details for the Criterion Collection two-disc DVD set containing Young Mr. Lincoln.
Release Date: February 14, 2006
Number of Discs: 2
1.33:1 Aspect Ratio, Black-and-White
Feature Film Run Time: 1 Hour 40 Minutes
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
English Monaural
English Subtitles
Omnibus: John Ford, Part One (42 min.)
Parkinson: "Meets Henry Fonda" (49 min.)
Radio Drama: "Young Mr. Lincoln" (30 min.)
Audio Interview of John Ford (7 1/2 min.)
Audio Interview of Henry Fonda (4 1/2 min.)
Gallery of Production Documents
28-Page Booklet Containing 2 Essays
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