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Tyler: Hey, Jerry!  Got any britches that need fixin’?  Because, by gum, do I have a disgraceful former President of The United States for you.

Jerry: Oh, I think I may be familiar with this tailor turned chief executive.

And what a journey it was for him to get there, which was twisted and contorted in the movie we’re discussing.

Tyler: That movie, then, is a 1942 biographical motion picture called Tennessee Johnson.  J, you know you’re in for a wild ride when a film’s introductory cards include the caveat “The form of our medium compels certain dramatic liberties.”

I mean, what a slice of exquisite nonsense.

Jerry: So I will admit that I am a huge fan of classic movies. I am part of TCM’s target audience. Part of what attracts me to classic movies is the cultural anthropology that happens in my mind simultaneously to my suspending disbelief to take in what is, at times, a ludicrous plot line. Speaking of, yes, Tennessee Johnson.

Tyler: I suppose we should make clear that this “Tennessee Johnson” is, in harsh reality, Lincoln successor and noted impeachment survivor Andrew Johnson.

Jerry: And, it should be noted, the first president to be impeached.

Also, I should go ahead and admit that he is the last president to date to be born in the state from which I call home – North Carolina. I would not call him our favorite son, however.

More the son that we’d like to go ahead and give to Tennessee – yes, you can claim him, friends.

Tyler: I dunno, Jerry.  “Carolina Johnson” has a real ring to it.

Jerry: No, no, the movie is called “Tennessee Johnson,” so there you go.

Tyler: Fine, fine.

Another very ominous element of those title cards is this defensive paragraph:

In the only great State trial in our history, President Johnson was charged with violation of a law which forbade him to dismiss a member of his Cabinet.  In 1926, the Supreme Court pronounced this law unconstitutional—as Johnson had contended it was.

I mean, easy, filmmakers.  We just finished up the opening credits.

Jerry: To be fair to Johnson, he was right about this. Basically, the Tenure of Office Act was put into place during Johnson’s presidency to, best case scenario, keep Republican office holders in place in the Cabinet and, worst case scenario, trap Johnson into an impeachable offense. However, there was already a precedent established back to Washington’s time that the president could fire Cabinet members. That said, it doesn’t change the fact that Johnson was an awful president, a fact that was not presented in this movie. The movie also didn’t really make it clear that this was the reason why he was impeached when it got to that part of the narrative, but I digress.

The movie starts with him as a simple tailor, not a president.

Tyler: What an opening.

I mean, not that Johnson wasn’t a tailor.  More that his skill with thread and needle so thoroughly wows the hilariously-stereotyped Tennessee bumpkins into whose company he stumbles.

Jerry: One of the lines that I noted was “A man that can sew like you can soon buy some land.” Can you? Really?

Tyler: Right?  Also, all of this hullabaloo is based on these folks watching Johnson—from quite a distance—stitch up the cuff of some tattered pants.  Give that man an acre!

And, truly, so many references to britches.

Jerry: They’re all about those britches. One of the points that is factual about Johnson’s life that the movie addresses is the fact that he escaped from his apprenticeship back in Raleigh. The iron leg binding was a overly dramatic touch, however. There was a notice put into the newspapers with a reward for his return about his running out of his apprenticeship, but it shouldn’t be equated with the realities of enslavement at the time.

But yes, the movie version of Johnson becomes the hit of the town in Tennessee because he can sew those britches.

Tyler: SMH.

I mean, I’ll give the movie credit—it does make the removal of that leg binding quite harrowing. How could anybody shackle a fellow human being like that!

Jerry: And it definitely happened to way too many folks in our history. I’m just not sure that Tennessee Johnson was one of those folks.

Tyler: Let’s not forget that Johnson’s abstinence from alcohol—rather an important plot point to come—is established in these early goings, before the successful, bloody attempt to chisel off his binding.  Keeping the stereotypes hopping, the film includes a boozy old bitty who keeps a bottle conveniently on her person, and seemingly does not age a day in the decades between Johnson’s arrival and his election to the Senate in 1860.

Jerry: It’s amazing how those folks in Greeneville never change.

Tyler: Now, you’re a TCM guy and I have a cherished, worthless degree in film and media.  If we didn’t know that these “liberties” were bursting off of the screen, you might feel a sympathy for Johnson. The cinematic presentation here is thoroughly competent.  Credit where credit is due.  In the tiniest, tiniest dose.

Jerry: Oh, absolutely – this film is set up deliberately to have the audience sympathetic to Johnson, which, considering that this was a film made while World War II was going on and the entire nation was being rallied to the war effort by a Democratic president from the North, this movie was obviously an attempt to conciliate the South at the time.

And that’s part of the reason for the contortion of Johnson’s story in this movie because the historical Johnson is not a figure for national unity.

Tyler: You mean he didn’t nobly mention the Constitution every other moment?

Jerry: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was an exaggeration on the filmmakers’ part.

Tyler: It is so crucial, the timing of the film’s release. 1942, in the months immediately following Pearl Harbor.  A real rush-job.

Jerry: This may be a good point to mention some of the acting talent that was involved in this movie as it actually had some rather big names for the time.

Van Heflin who played Johnson would become a big name in Western movie circles while Ruth Hussey who played Eliza Johnson had played an Oscar-nominated role in a film released just two years prior.

Tyler: Heflin shows off a bit of range throughout the proceedings.  I’m loathe to admit it, given that the range comes at the service of a broad characterization of Johnson’s transformation from illiterate fugitive to ennobled and studied public servant, but the guy’s got chops.

Hussey, while effective, doesn’t have much to do.  “Andrew, I was so afraid there would be violence!”  She says “Andrew” a lot.

Jerry: After fulfilling her role in the myth that she taught an illiterate Andrew to read and write (she played an important role in his education, but not to that extreme it seems), she did fade into the background for the most part in the movie.

Tyler: Let’s not forget, too, Lionel Barrymore, a kind of Hollywood royalty.  He plays Congressional lion Thaddeus Stevens, and just crushes the role.  He’s a blast.

Jerry: What was fascinating to me about Barrymore’s performance is that I recognized him as soon as he came on screen…as Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life, which came out a few years after this movie. It almost feels like this movie was the pilot version of what became the villain, Mr. Potter.

Tyler: I know him too from You Can’t Take It With You, a sublime film I watched while successfully winning a bet to see all Best Picture winners.

Better than a lot of those winners: Tennessee Johnson.  No lie!

I mean, not politically.  Just in terms of watchability and competence.

I would much rather have a bemused chuckle watching poppycock like TJ than suffer again through the self-serious horror that is predator Paul Haggis’s Crash.  But now I digress.

Jerry: In order to contort Johnson’s story as they did, of course Thaddeus Stevens had to be the villain, but this was a man who fought for the rights of Black Americans – not just their liberation from enslavement but their integration into the socio-economic milieu. He became more radical as time went on. He grew. Tennessee Johnson, though…

Tyler: Notice, also, that the only speaking Black role in the movie is a indefensible Aunt Jemima-kinda maid…of Stevens’s.

Jerry: Which it seems that the “maid” may have been Stevens’s partner, something reflected in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

Tyler: Tennessee Johnson can’t just let its title character appear heroic.  They have to portray his progressive rival as the only character with Black servants.

Jerry: Oh but of course. It’s not like Andrew Johnson enslaved individuals…oh, wait…

Tyler: Remarkable.  This movie is a joke.

I’ve seen it twice now and the absolute—really, I believe the absence is total—lack of African Americans in antebellum Tennessee?  Hilarious and grim.

Jerry: Unfortunately, that whitewashed version of history is rather of a reality of not just golden age Hollywood but well into the modern era and still something that we’re fighting against in terms of representation in the historical narrative.

Tyler: Yeah, that’s not so hilarious.

At least golden age Hollywood had structural limits.  Modern media allows immediate, global passage of insidious bastardizations and outright lies.

Jerry: It is laughable the extremes that the filmmakers went to in order to contort history, and we haven’t even gotten to the impeachment yet, which, as portrayed in the movie, is because he wanted to reconcile with the South as Lincoln wanted. The reality is that it was based around the Tenure of Office Act which the movie acknowledges at the beginning but then forgets towards the end.

Tyler: How convenient!

Jerry: But one thing to be said about golden age Hollywood is that it was in some instances the only message being shared. In the present day, we have an overwhelming amount of sources from which to choose, and we have to determine what is valid and what we need to think critically about.

Hence why something like the Lost Cause narrative which fed into our subject here, Tennessee Johnson, was able to proliferate. There were only so many sources of information, and if folks with a certain viewpoint controlled those, then that was presented as reality and the gospel truth.

Tyler: Now, Jerry, you’re a self-built historian with a Britannica-esque knowledge of the American presidency.  How did Lincoln’s reconstruction ideas match up to Johnson’s “reconciliation” inclination?

Jerry: That’s a big “what if” in historical speculation. It seems like Lincoln was wanting to bring the South back into the fold sooner rather than later and not along the lines of what became dubbed Radical Reconstruction. However, I also think that he had some absolutes in mind that had to be met and that he was willing to fight for much more so than Johnson. Johnson gave in to the people that he at other points in his life and career seemed to have detested. It was personal for Johnson whereas Lincoln seems to have thought more of others and removed his interests from the decision-making situation.

Which also makes the calm portrayal of Johnson that Van Heflin delivers in this movie laughable. According to primary resources, Johnson had a much more volatile personality than he was portrayed in Tennessee Johnson.

Tyler: Oh, Heflin’s cool as a cucumber in those negotiations with Barrymore.  Only once does he crack, blathering about tossing “cripple” Stevens out onto the lawn, an outburst that Barrymore niftily acts into a dressing-down of Johnson’s “temper.”

Can I pivot for one moment to highlight the moment of Senatorial secession, when Jefferson Davis walks into a devoutely-hushed chamber and delivers a farewell speech like something out of Shakespeare?

Jerry: Which, granted, back in the day, they loved that lofty oratory, and some of that likely happened. However, they would have mentioned slavery, which this movie skirted around.

Tyler: Slavery in this movie isn’t quite an afterthought, but it’s sure close.

Incidentally, I learned today that chess pie is also known as “Jefferson Davis pie.”  I responded by profanely muttering.

Jerry: Unfortunately, having grown up in the South, I can attest that there are folks who will attach Jefferson Davis’s name to anything, even without knowing much of anything about him. If it makes you feel better, Wikipedia differentiates between chess pie and Jefferson Davis pie.

I think it’s important to put this movie into the context of classic Hollywood and note that Gone With the Wind came out a few years before this movie. Slavery featured more in that movie, but it was definitely propaganda for the Lost Cause narrative.

Tyler: Not too hard for a picture as foolhardy as Tennessee Johnson to gain traction in the wake of Gone With The Wind.

Jerry: It definitely fit into a cinematic trend of the time.

And then, of course, we get to the penultimate scene of the impeachment trial. The very historically inaccurate scene of the impeachment trial.

Tyler: Oh man.

An impeachment trial Johnson doesn’t attend, encouraged as such by his advisors, as well as a wife whose bizarrely-come-hither move on her husband cools his temper and prevents him from heading to the Capitol.

Stevens, meanwhile, is shown smearing Johnson’s character, as well as doubling back on his private admission that Johnson wasn’t a problem drinker.

Jerry: If Johnson had actually appeared at his impeachment trial, as his Swing Around the Circle tour evidenced, he would not have been nearly as cool, calm, and collected.

Tyler: He’s so noble in the movie!

Jerry: Stevens the villain and Johnson the victim. That was firmly set up in the film.

Tyler: We cannot leave out the letter from Honest Abe to Johnson, written and sent in the wake of Johnson’s drunken inaugural moment as Vice President.  What does Lincoln call him.  “You ornery old cuss?”  Something absurd like that.  And of course Johnson busts it out on the floor of the Senate.

Jerry: Of course he did, as Johnson was not averse to riding on Lincoln’s coattails.

Tyler: Now, you know from Presidential correspondence.  Was that letter a reality?  This affectionate ribbing from President to inept Vice President?

Jerry: I’m fairly certain that was a fabrication. While Lincoln may have called someone an “ornery old cuss” in person, from what I’ve read in primary documents, he tried to present himself better in ink, especially with folks he didn’t know all that well.

Tyler: So, another shameless fiction from this movie.  Sweet!

They really lean into Stevens-as-heavy as the impeachment vote comes down.  Ranting about civil war, as well as Johnson’s probable acquittal, which he describes as one of the worst injustices in history.  Another moment where, as a halfway-informed viewer, I’m thinking “That Stevens sure was onto something.”

All while he’s being banished from the chamber, carried by those Black servants.  Not a good look!  Sigh.

Jerry: Meanwhile Johnson is portrayed as the hero and is especially given a redeeming role at the end when he’s returned to the Senate in his post-presidency. No agenda with this movie. At all.

Tyler: Oh, and he’s so touched to see all those southern states once again represented on the floor.  Y’know, American utopia.  South and north, reunited!  Whites and Blacks living side-by-side in harmony!  Jim what?  Crow?  Never heard of it.

Jerry: One big happy family. All the problems are solved, now and forever. The end.

Tyler: Phew.

So Jerry, I think we’ve given this comedy all the attention it deserves.  Probably more.

Jerry: Agreed – this movie is a product of its time, and it reveals a great deal more about the time it was produced than it necessarily does about the life of Andrew Johnson.

Tyler: Andy to his friends.

Jerry: Ol’ Andy – he did well on those britches.

Tyler: Oh, mercy.  He mentions stitching them in his introductory speech as Tennessee senator!

Jerry: I mean, that’s required for an incoming senator, right? To talk about your tailoring abilities?

Tyler: Now, Jerry, it’s time to break the fourth wall for a moment and introduce you to loyal Loom readers.  Hi, Jerry!

Jerry: Thank you so much for having me on, Tyler – happy to be here! As you well know, I am always up for talking about presidential history, be it real or, in the case of Tennessee Johnson, imaginary.

Tyler: My man, it’s a pleasure.  Readers, Jerry comes to Loom by way of his tremendous, long-running, delightfully-exhaustive podcast, The Presidencies Of The United States.  The bedrock of his show is an ongoing history of the Presidency, dating to the earliest days of the republic.  He’s been at it for years and is currently working his way through the administration of James Madison, our fourth President.  That said, there’re further branches of Presidencies, including the Seat at the Table episodes, featuring guest commentators and friends of the show, as well as standalone interviews with historians representing all American eras.  It’s an honor to have him here.

Jerry, where can new friends find you online?

Jerry: The website which has past episodes of the podcast as well as links to more information about all of the presidents is available at https://www.presidenciespodcast.com. If you’d like to follow me on social media, I’m available on Facebook, Post, Bluesky, and Mastodon as presidencies, on the formerly known as Twitter at presidencies89, and on Instagram and Threads at presidenciespodcast. New friends on this journey through presidential history that I’ve been on these past few years are always welcome, so I hope you’ll check out Presidencies and learn more about some individuals and events that you may not be familiar with but that helped to shape and reshape what we think of as the presidency, for better or worse.

Tyler: It’s a great listen, all.  Just last night I dipped back to the early days of Presidencies and listened to Jerry’s episode about Washington’s all-too-brief life after his administration.  The material is fascinating and involving, but J’s natural abilities as storyteller and researcher shine through and make the oft-difficult material a nonetheless-comforting listen.  Our guy here is the best history professor none of us have had.

Jerry: I am humbled and honored by your kind words. I do what I can to help to make history relatable and to highlight the humanity that is key to understanding presidential history. These weren’t just marble statues or names and dates to memorize. The folks involved in this history didn’t know how things would go and had fears and anxiety as we do. For me, there’s a strength in knowing that folks in history had some of the same fears we had and found their way through it. May we learn from their missteps and draw strength from their successes.

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