The Conspirator

November 14, 2011

Nice day at home yesterday. Rained off and on all morning. Built a fire in the fireplace and watched "The Conspirator," the Robert Redford directed film about Mary Surratt, the first woman to be hanged. It all stemmed from the Lincoln assassination when the government, led by the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, basically overreacted and rounded up hundreds of Rebel sympathizers, and held them without bail, then swiftly tried them before a military commission. One aspect of the historical record did not make it into the movie and that is the fact that on the gallows, one of the doomed men, Lewis Powell, shouted, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent and doesn't deserve to die with us." But she did. in spite of the drop, it took more than five minutes for the last of them to die.

Robin Wright (Penn) was quite good as were several others, including Tom Wilkinson and Kevin Kline. Really enjoyed the attention to detail on the costuming. Couple of great hats, which I'll rave about later.

I'm sorry I didn't support the flick when it came out last year. Watched Redford and crew on several TV shows trying desperately to drum up interest in the period piece, but of course, guys like me did not go out to the theater and I assume it died like Lincoln did. It's a shame. A very good movie and the company that made it was supposed to finance and produce other movies based on the history of America. We need to support these projects more and I promise to do better in the future.

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
—Old Infantile Saying