The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd (1980 TV Movie) User Reviews

Good portrayal about the physician named Samuel Mudd accused as accomplice of Lincoln assassination

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 26 October 2009]

This agreeable TV movie concerns on Samuel Mudd and wife well interpreted by Dennis Weaver and Susan Sullivan . Mudd is a Mariland physician implicated for aiding and conspiring with John Wilkes Booth , then he is accused assassination Abraham Lincoln and prisoned in Fort Jefferson placed 70 miles West of Key West, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. The story is under point of view that Samuel Mudd was innocent of any conspiracy. Evocative cinematography by Figueroa and atmospheric musical score by Gerald Fried, Stanley Kubrik's usual composer . Rightly produced and well written by Michael Berk and Douglas Schwartz , future creators of ¨Baywatch¨ series. The picture is professionally directed by Paul Wendkos, a craftsman who directed several TV episodes and movies as ¨Untouchables, The Rifleman, Bif Valley and Invaders¨ and several others. It's a remake from classic film titled ¨The prisoner of Shark Island¨ based on a script by Nunnally Johnson and directed by John Ford with Warner Baxter as Mudd and Gloria Stuart as his spouse.

This film is based on real events , it deals about the tribulations of Doctor Samuel Mudd (Dennis Weaver) and his wife (Susan Sullivan). The deeds are the following : A few short hours after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln , Mudd (1823-1883) gives treatment to a wounded man who shows up at his door. He does not know that the President has been killed assassinated and the man he's healing is John Wilkes Booth . He's arrested for being a accomplice in the assassination and on 1865 President Andrew Johnson and his Secretary of State (Richard Dysart) ordered the formation of a nine-man military commission to judge the conspirators. Mudd was represented by General Thomas Ewing Jr (Arthur Hill) . The prosecution contended that he had been a member of a Confederate communications distribution agency and had sheltered confederate on his plantation. Mudd escaped the death penalty by one vote and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Four of the defendants were hanged at the old Penitentiary at the Washington Arsenal on July 7, 1865. He is sent to prison in the dry Tortugas islands , referred in the movie as Devil's island. After a period of ill treatment due his notoriety, his skills as doctor are requested by the Commandant of the prison . The island has been in the grip of a yellow fever epidemic and officer physician has dead. Samuel Mudd as good medic persuaded to treat patient despite any personal or political disagreement , or even potential legal repercussions. He takes charge injured person and the yellow epidemic subsides. In the ending he receives pardon and is allowed to return freedom. On 1869 , Mudd was pardoned by President Johnson and returned home. Mudd's grandson Richard Mudd tried unsuccessfully to clear the name from stigma of conspiring with James Wilkes Booth. He petitioned several successive Presidents , receiving replies from President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Due Process Was Trashed

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 5 June 2010]

Whether Dr. Samuel Mudd was indeed part of the conspiratorial group around John Wilkes Booth is still open to speculation. The Ordeal Of Dr. Mudd presents him as a completely innocent party. I'm not sure that was the case.

But his heroism during the yellow fever epidemic that struck the Dry Tortugas is unquestioned. And also the fact that due process in the case of his trial was completely and totally trashed by the government still operating under wartime auspices.

The good doctor in this film is portrayed by Dennis Weaver and his loving and helpful wife is Susan Sullivan. Her role in his ordeal is vital, she kept his case before the public and before the politicians.

The story is simply that while fleeing from the assassination scene of Abraham Lincoln, the assassin John Wilkes Booth and one of the conspirators David Herold stopped at the Mudd house. Mudd had met Booth before and was evasive about certain answers. He claimed he did not know about the assassination, he was just setting the broken leg that Booth got jumping from Lincoln's box in Ford's Theater.

The villain of the piece is Edwin M. Stanton who is played here pretty accurately by Richard Dysart. Stanton in real life was every bit as ruthless as the man you see here. He also was one of the best lawyers in the country so his trashing of Mudd's due process is an even more severe black mark on his character than even the film shows. Lincoln made him Secretary of War in 1862 after the original Secretary Simon Cameron was caught lining his pockets with war contract rakeoffs. Stanton was also honest and he brought a marked degree of efficiency to the department and was invaluable in winning the Civil War.

To be fair the country was still operating in a wartime mode. Though Lee had surrendered, Joe Johnston's army was still in the field and so was Kirby Smith's west of the Mississippi. Jefferson Davis was at large as were many of the Confederate government cabinet and Congress. They did not know who or what was behind Booth. But had they simply arrested the other conspirators and allowed a real investigation to proceed, it's possible Mudd might never have been tried.

One glaring inaccuracy was the fact that the whole group of conspirators arrested including several who wound up with Mudd on the Dry Tortugas prison were all tried together. Mudd was not given an individual trial as is shown here. General Thomas Ewing did defend him and Arthur Hill does a good job in playing Ewing.

It's not an accurate film, but it's a good one and a reminder of what can happen when we take legal shortcuts and trash due process.

The Strange Case of John Wilkes Booth's Doctor

[theowinthrop · 7/10 · 13 June 2010]

Dr. Samuel Mudd's name and position in American history is set for all time. Either he was a loyal supporter of the Confederacy who totally decided to support the plots of John Wilkes Booth (as many still insist) or one of the biggest victims of mistaken judicial vengeance of all time. As some modern research shows he was a typical slave holder and sympathizer with the South, but he was a prosperous southern landowner and doctor from southern Maryland.

Marylanders resented Lincoln and his government from the start of the Civil War, and probably might have joined the Confederacy. But Lincoln had need to keep Maryland in the Union (otherwise the position of Washington as capital would be nearly impossible to sustain). The President had had problems with the citizens of Baltimore with a possible assassination plot against him in February 1861 (see THE TALL TARGET). Lincoln got to his inauguration safely, but in April 1861 there was a bloody massacre in Baltimore when citizens rioted against Northen troops under Massachusetts General Benjamin Butler headed for Washington. Butler ordered the troops to fire, killing many in the mob. The result was the song (sung to "Oh Tannenbaum") that remains the only state song of defiance against the Federal government: MARYLAND MY MARYLAND*.

During the war Lincoln suspended habeas corpus as a security measure, and many leading Democrats and critics in Baltimore were imprisoned (despite opposition of Chief Justice Roger Taney, who was from Maryland - Lincoln ignored Taney's court decisions). Mudd was not the only "conspirator" in the Booth circle from Maryland. So were David Herold, Mary and John Surratt, George Atzerodt, Edmon Spangler, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlin. Only Lewis Powell (from Florida) came from outside the state.

[*In recent years signs and symbols of the lingering Southern White loyalty to the Confederacy (such as flags with the "Stars and Bars" in them) have been criticized by other groups as racist. The state song of Virginia, Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, had to be rewritten to remove a long cherished line about a slave recalling "old Massa". Yet nobody has yet criticized MARYLAND MY MARYLAND despite it's history of being written by southern white supremacists working against the Union and Emancipation. I suspect it's because of it's circumstances. If a similar song had been written and sung by 1970 student protesters about the incident at Kent State the same reaction would probably result - hands off because of the tragedy involved and the honoring of victims of state controlled violence.]

We certainly are aware now that Mudd was made an acquaintance of Booth the previous year when the actor was searching for routes to get out of Maryland with a kidnapped Lincoln. \Mudd introduced Booth to some men about the sale of horses. But Booth did accidentally break his leg during the assassination. The questions will always be, did Booth always plan to visit Mudd for a night's rest, or did he visit him for the sole purpose of fixing his painful leg?; did Mudd actually not recognize a poorly disguised Booth in the evening moonlight when he came, or did he welcome his friend and agree to help him? Both of these questions are the main hinges of the mystery. The military court verdict against Mudd really never answered them perfectly.

Dennis Weaver got one of his two or three best movie roles as Dr. Mudd, and certainly shows the determination of the doctor to fight for his name and reputation. Unlike Warner Baxter in THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (where the main "villain" was a Lincoln-worshiping John Carridine) Weaver has a harsh warden to deal with (Mike Maguire, best recalled as "Professor Sumner Sloane", "Diane Chambers" initial boyfriend in CHEERS). Baxter faced a more reasonable warden in his film (Harry Carey). This film also reminds us of non-Lincoln prisoners in Fort Jefferson, such as the British born St. George Grenville (who may have escaped or drowned in an escape in 1868).

As mentioned elsewhere, Richard Dysart does well as Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. Stanton's reputation as a bullying, belligerent man is true - given any task he demonstrated his determination to do it well, and devil to anyone who stood in the way. But Stanton (who initially did not think highly of Lincoln - they had worked on a law case years earlier - and he thought the gifted Illinoisian was not a good lawyer) learned to admire his chief, like Secretary of State Seward did, and he ended a close friend. His harsh treatment of the conspirators, including Mudd, was due to fury at what they did to that friend. It is doubtful that Seward or Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles would have acted less harshly had they been in charge of the trial.

This film is quite good at giving a fuller view of what Mudd had to go through once he fell into the hands of the authorities (though he did not get a separate trial - as has been pointed out). Still, despite adequate direction and above - average script, one misses the hand of a master director, like John Ford for THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND. But as a good follow-up to that film this one does well.

Still though we have no perfect movie or television serial about the Lincoln Assassination, nor have we gotten any film about Mary Surratt. What's up, Hollywood? Time's a-wasting.

harrowing

[dtucker86 · 3 July 2002]

I have always been a fan of history especially the Lincoln assassination. I had previously written of how much I enjoyed The Day Lincoln Was Shot. Almost twenty years earlier, this film told the story of one of the players in this tragedy. What happened to Doctor Mudd was a terrible miscarriage of justice because he was only a doctor doing his duty who had nothing to do with Lincoln's assassination. This film captures the terrible mood in the country after the tragedy where reason took a back seat and there was a terrible desire for vengeance and not justice. This film is harrowing in its depiction of Mudds nightmare. Forced before a military tribunal of perjured testimony and convicted on fabricated evidence, torn from his loving family and sentenced to the living hell of the Dry Tortugas prison, America's Devils Island. Weaver does a wonderful acting job in conveying this man's anguish and at the same time his determination to survive and be reunited with his loving family. I am glad they presented a fair balanced portrait of this mans case especially when they showed his heroic efforts to care for the sick and dying soldiers at the Fort during the yellow fever outbreak. LA Laws Richard Dysart gives a creepy performance as the villanous secretary of war Stanton. The Iran hostage crisis was going on at the time this movie came out in March of 1980 and he sort of reminded me of the Ayatollah Khomeni. Susan Sullivan gives a wonderful performance as Mudd's loving and courageous wife who stands by her man. There is hardly a film I have ever seen that had a more happy ending. THe courageous and loving woman manages to work a miracle and Doctor Mudd's hellish ordeal is over at last.

The famous Dr. Mudd case remains unclear, despite this movie wrongly displayed otherwise!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 1 February 2024]

As far I know two movies reported this sadly event took place on April 14 1865 when Pres. Lincoln was deadly shot at Ford Theatre, THE PRISIONER OF SHARK ISLAND and THE ORDEAL OF DR. MUDD which I'm been referring in my review, both implied Dr. Samuel Mudd (Dennis Weaver) is not guilty over a possible involvement in the plot carried out by John Wilkes Booth, as exposed in the picture he claimed just made his duty as Doctor, when he provides medical assistance on late night of two outsiders among them a wounded broken leg killer without noticed.

Later when John Wilkes Booth was found died, Dr. Mudd status changes a simply witness to conspiracy, indicted by the secretary of war Edwin Stanton (Richard Dysart), lead on military trial has been defended by Gen. Thomas Ewing (Arthur Hill), finally was found guilty and was sentenced by life imprisonment at military prison Fort Jackson in Dry Tortuga islands in golf of Mexico at Florida, staying there and forthcoming years he fiercely struggles against the lethal yellow fever, given the pardon from Pres. Johnson by toughness work of his devoted wife Frances Mudd (Susan Sullivan), backing at home.

According several sources this movie wasn't accurate whatsoever, many pivotal things were concealed on the screenplay, firstly Dr. Mudd didn't explained why he postponed that he had treated Wilkes's leg to the local Army, he also forgot to mentioned his previous meeting with Wilkes on Christmas at Washington, later he alleged it due Wilkes was planning buy part of his farm, sounds contradictory at least.

Worst the ordeal wasn't centered on Dr. Mudd case only, he was in trial among several conspirators and treated as such, not individually as the movie displayed, other key info, Dr. Mudd was pardoned, although never overturned as in the final credits states, the producers wrongly granted that Pres. Carter gave it, whilst it was really concerned by many US's Presidents it never was given, actually this movie wanted the re-write the real events, by this downgrading by itself.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1984 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 7.

Mudd was no saint!

[cinefemme · 7 February 2005]

I haven't seen this movie but it appears from the post that it is based on faulty history. While Mudd was not a part of the actual assassination (and was appalled that Booth took this action) he WAS part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln acting as Booth's active co-conspirator. This is why Booth went straight to Mudd's home after escaping from the shooting.

Mudd was also a violent racist who, with the help of his overseer, flogged one of his slaves to death. If you want to know more about him you may want to read "Blood on the Moon" by Edward Steers Jr.. You won't feel so bad for him after that.