Half enjoyable in a rickety old-fasioned way; half chillingly offensive

Rating: 6/10 (9 September 1999)

The movie's first half is enjoyable as a straightforward reconstruction - with the intertitles occasionally quaintly citing the source material underlying the recreations - the mushy family stories and strenuous historical tableaux don't really mesh, but it rattles along well enough. In the second half, it takes on an offensiveness that mere changing times can't excuse. The titles refer approvingly to the KKK as quelling the force of negro anarchy; the movie consistently seeks out degrading images of blacks - the grotesquely posturing mulatto;the blacks drinking and taking their shoes off in the legislature; the black who harasses the young woman into jumping off a cliff to her death; the scheming lieutenant governor...and on and on - contrasted with the piousness of the prevailing tone and the ludicrous would-be stirring patriotic aspect of the project, it adds up to a chilling spectacle. Students of early film could no doubt point out the things this film did before any others, but that aside the staging is mainly static and ponderous; the most distinctive images are also the most dated. It's most intriguing when capable of being viewed as a pure curio - as with the assassination of Lincoln or the surrender of Lee, dramatized like some rickety local theater costume party.