"Wilson" will stand for many years a vigorous documentary screen biography of a great American. It is not a motion picture with a message, but rather the vivid and moving story of an important President. Darryl Zanuck shows a quiet man of ideals struggling in a stormy era of materialism and comes forth with inspiring Americana.

Alexander Knox and Geraldine Fitzgerald lend an earnest dignity to the roles of the President and Mrs. Wilson. Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Senator Cabot Lodges breathes into every line the chill of his stern conviction. With fire and authenticity of representation, Marcel Dalio delivers a masterful few minutes as Clemenceau. Thomas Mitchell plays Joe Tumulty, the fighting Irish politician, in the warm-hearted way that won him an Academy Award. Professor Holmes, one of the President's life-long friends, comes to life with subtle, inconspicuous appeal in Charles Coburn. In bluster and oratory, Thurston Hall enacts the political boss, Big Ed Jones.

Spectacle paints the picture in bold strokes: the cheering Princeton-Yale football crowd, the Liberty Bond rallies, the Democratic national conventions, the wild hilarity of the Armistice Day celebration. But there is sincerity, there is force, and there is a certain tone of power and importance about this production that few Hollywood spectacles achieve. Where emotionalism usually buries the theme, here martial music and gaudy effect drive it home, and one is never allowed to forget that genuine patriotism was defeated by selfish individualism. That is the only idea that "Wilson" tries to convey. It never goes all the way and becomes bald internationalist propaganda, because it was not intended to be.

Henry King's direction and Lamar Trotti's scenario are above average, but both dangerously approach the common flag-waving touch. It is the essentially accurate re-creation of history with successful balance of insight and showmanship that makes "Wilson" first-rate. It rests on its merits of candor and taste as a stirring epic of the United States.