According to John Ford's lyrically shot, fictional biopic of Abraham Lincoln's life his greatest faults may have been an obtuseness with woman and an ability to dance in "the worst way." Ford's camera has only praising views to reveal of Mr. Lincoln's early life. But for what the film lacks in character complexities it makes up for in beauty and depth of vision. Uncharacteristically beautiful compositions of early film, what could have been a series of gorgeous still frames, Ford has a unique eye for telling a story. The film sings of the life of a hopeful young man. Henry Fonda plays the contemplative and spontaneously clever Lincoln to a tee, one of his best roles.
The film concerns two young men, brothers, on trial for a murder that both claim to have committed. In classic angry mob style, the town decides to take justice into their own hands and lynch the pair of them, until honest Abe steps into the fray. He charms them with his humor, telling them not to rob him of his first big case, and that they are as good as lynched with him as the boys lawyer. What follows seems to become the outline for all courtroom- murder-dramas thereafter, as Abe cunningly interrogates witnesses to the delight and humor of the judge, jury and town before he stumbles upon the missing links.
The film plays out like many John Ford movies do: a tablespoon of Americana, a dash of moderate predictability, a hint of sarcasm that you aren't sure if you put in the recipe or if Ford did it himself. Despite the overtly 'Hollywood' feel of the film, and overly patriotic banter alluding to Lincoln's future presidency, the film is entirely enjoyable and enjoyably well constructed, if you can take your drama with a grain of salt.

Blood Legacy starts with the arrival of lawyer Tom Drake (Norman Bartold) to the Dean estate formerly owned by the now deceased Christopher Dean (John Carradine), upon his arrival he is greeted by Mr. Dean's four children, Gregory (Jeff Morrow) & his wife Laura (Merry Anders), Victoria (Faith Domergue), Johnny (Richard Davalos) plus Leslie (Brooke Mills) & her fella Carl Isenberg (John Smith). Drake plays a tape recording of they're late Father's wishes after his death, the estate worth 136 million dollars is to be split equally between his four children, if any should die then the money would be split equally between the rest & if all were to die the freaky servants Elga (Ivy Bethune), Igor (Buck Kartalian) & the more mundanely named Frank (John Russell) would pocket the lot. Well, not satisfied with a quarter share of $136 million (which is still almost $35 million back in 1971 which doesn't sound too bad to me) someone decides they want it all for themselves & it's not long before decapitated heads are turning up in the fridge...
Co-written, produced & directed by Roy Monson Blood Legacy disappointed me on two accounts. For starters this film's alternate & much more common title is Legacy of Blood which is also the title of an obscure horror film directed by Andy Milliagn back in '78 which I've always wanted to see, both films are regularly mixed up as both have similar stories & when I checked my on screen cable TV guide for Legacy of Blood I was excited because it said it was the Milligan film & even listed him as director so when I actually sat down to watch it & I heard John Carradine's voice & I then knew it wasn't the Milligan film that I had wanted to see, my heart sank. Then, of course, there's the simple yet undeniably straight forward fact that Blood Legacy is a total utter piece of crap that is literally painful to watch at times. The script by Monson & Eric Norden is slow, boring & extremely predictable. The character's are absolutely bizarre in an annoying way, the freak of a servant who ask's his sister (?) to cane him, the strange set of Brother's & Sisters who are just downright unlikeable & so far removed from reality that any tension or mystery that the simplistic whodunit story could have achieved is sorely missing & then there's the awful twist ending that you can guess within the first 10 minutes. It's boring to watch, it's poorly paced & it's just a chore to even think about it. Please, someone save me as this is really bad stuff. I could go on all day about how bad Blood Legacy is, I really could.
Director Monson was either working with a none existent budget or judging by this he shouldn't have even been directing traffic. The entire film looks ugly, it's poorly photographed & there is no atmosphere or scares. The blood & gore is tame, there's an axe in a head, a decapitated head, a scene when someone is stung to death by wasp's & the best murder when someone's face is eaten by piranha. However there are question marks over this scene, so there's the victim, right. There's the tank of piranha, right. Victims head is placed in piranha tank, right. Pirahna eat victims face, right. Water remains crystal clear despite said victim having his face eaten, erm where's the blood?
Technically Blood Legacy is terrible, it looks awful, the sound was obviously shot live & it's muffled & hard to hear which considering the terrible dialogue is maybe a blessing in disguise. The acting was not going to win anyone any awards that's for sure, the least said about it the better.
Blood Legacy is an awful film, there really isn't a single positive aspect to it or if there is I can't think of it. Do yourself a favour & don't bother with this one, there are much better films out there.