Lyndon B. Johnson (Woody Harrelson) gets sworn in after Kennedy’s death.
LBJ
Film Review by Marlene Ardoin
If you were around when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, you may remember that Lyndon B. Johnson was not exactly a welcome replacement.
I witnessed these events during the last years of high school and my first years of college during the 1960’s. This film is correct with the charge that his physical appearance was a factor in his not being accepted.
I remember family members referring to LBJ as “Shit-face.” However, Abraham Lincoln wasn’t exactly a show horse, either.
The distance of time does help to clearly see what LBJ did with his time in office. He was a very productive United States president, who committed himself completely to carrying out Kennedy’s vision.
LBJ created an impressive array of benefits, with his war on poverty, which we now enjoy and pretty much just take for granted.
In the film, Woody Harrelson, as LBJ, illustrates that it wasn’t his good looks, but (I prefer) his big heart and hard work that got it done.
Another film that Harrelson pulled his weight in as lead actor was as Larry Flynt in “The People vs. Larry Flynt.”
LBJ’s accomplishments included the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the 9-1-1 system, Food Stamps, the Social Security Acts, the Bilingual Education Act, and he was the president who put the Black attorney, Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court.
This is just a short list of his long list of political accomplishments.
Jennifer Jason Leigh does an outstanding job of portraying Lady Bird Johnson.
Leigh not only looks and sounds like Lady Bird, but she illustrates how his wife single-handedly healed LBJ’s wounded ego and self-destructiveness, so he was able to ignore all the negativity surrounding him.
When I graduated from college, I went to Hawaii, and while on a tour, the local guide complained and blamed LBJ for the flowering bushes along Hawaiian freeways. Another one of LBJ’s agenda items was beautifying the National Freeway System. At the time, he just could not do anything right.
If you get anything from this film, it is, leaders with big hearts, need to also have thick skins.
Bio of Lyndon B. Johnson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson
Bio of Woody Harrelson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Harrelson
Bio of Jennifer Jason Leigh:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Jason_Leigh
Lyndon B. Johnson versus Woody Harrelson.
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11/11/2017 # LBJ