Working under the alias of Alex Gordon, William Rickard was employed just two years after being released from Broadmoor Mental Hospital.

BBC: Fight to clear Derby suffragette Alice Wheeldon's name

The cast, uniformly superb, includes Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, Hal Holbrook as Lincoln adviser Preston Blair, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln, David Strathairn as William Seward and James Spader as political operative W.N.

WSJ: 'Skyfall' Upgrades Bond to Triple-A | Film Review by Joe Morgenstern