The Hearst and Davies Affair

If you don't know anything about newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst or silent film actress Marion Davies, you probably won't come across this tv biopic while you're trying to decide what to watch this evening. You wouldn't know what to look for! But if you did know what to look for, look no further than this lovely, adorable, sweet yet dramatic, well-acted love story starring Robert Mitchum and Virginia Madsen.

If you've been reading my reviews, you know how I feel about virile, studly actors being put out to pasture when they get old, and thankfully, Robert Mitchum's career didn't take that turn for a very long time. At sixty-eight years old-which, back then, was the equivalent to seventy-eight nowadays-he starred in two romantic films! In Reunion at Fairborough, he actually had a bedroom scene with Deborah Kerr, and in The Hearst and Davies Affair, he had beautifully tender scenes with twenty-four-year-old Virginia Madsen! A perfect choice to be cast as the powerful, magnetic mogul with a dashingly romantic side, it's easy to see why Virginia's character can't resist him, even though he's married.

Virginia looks beautiful in her wigs and 1920s dresses, designed by Dianne Cohoon. Fans of the golden age will love the sets and throwbacks to silent films, including Lorne Kennedy playing Charlie Chaplin. If you've already seen The Cat's Meow, rent this one for the bigger slice of the story. Plus, you'll get to see Robert Mitchum acting exactly the same as he did thirty years earlier: singing, dancing and romancing!

The love affair between William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies is the stuff legends are made and the legend is certainly preserved if not entirely accurately in The Heart And Davies Affair.

William Randolph Heart, heir to a silver mine fortune could be considered America's first media mogul. He owned a chain of newspapers back when print was the way you get the news and he used it to try and launch a political career. He did make it to a couple of terms in the House of Representatives. but that was it.

Unlike what this film says, Hearst had given up his own ambitions by the time he spotted young Marion Davies in the Ziegfeld Follies chorus in 1916 and fell instantly. If Hearst couldn't have a career in politics, as far as his personal life he was going to have his cake and eat it too. He just had young Marion move in with him and never divorced wife Millicent Hearst who kept her dignity despite public humiliation. Caroline Yeager plays Millicent and she has one telling scene with Robert Mitchum.

Robert Mitchum might not have been my first choice in casting William Randolph Hearst. But his portrayal does capture the ego of the man who lived like a king, even to constructing his own palace in California called San Simeon.

Virginia Madsen plays Marion Davies and from all accounts Marion was a gracious and fun loving woman. Her best films in my opinion were some of her sound features where in a few she showed a natural gift for comedy. A gift that WR only reluctantly had her show. He wanted her to be an eternal virginal little girl on screen like Mary Pickford. But Pickford and Davies both grew up in their roles.

I also have to mention Doris Belack who played a young Louella Parsons, the first and maybe the greatest of Hollywood gossip columnists. With the Hearst chain behind her Parsons was a most powerful woman in Hollywood and she could make or break careers. She was a big influence in making Marion Davies the star she became. I only wish that the film had mentioned her husband who was a doctor that specialized in social disease. In his hands passed some of the most well known private parts in the country and therefore he had an unimpeachable source for gossipy blind items for his wife. Belack's Louella had a lot of bite.

The Hearst And Davies Affair is a quality bit of TV film making and not to be missed by fans of Robert Mitchum or Virginia Madsen.

I have little interest in the affair between William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies. However, I do enjoy Robert Mitchum films and decided to watch this, even if I didn't care about this power couple....as it's hard to really care about them for so many reasons...such as Hearst's ruthlessness, adultery, alcoholism and more.

Despite the couple not being folks I'd care to spend time with, the film is entertaining and interesting...and also very much a broad overview of their lives together. In fact, this is my biggest complaint....as the pair were together for decades but the film never gives you any sense of this and misses much of their lives together. It really should have been a miniseries, not a 94 minute film. It's like watching a movie about Germany or the 19th century....there's just too much material and what you get is a bit sketchy. Also, no attempt was made to make Hearst (Robert Mitchum) or Davies (Virginia Madsen) look like they aged at all during the film...whereas in real life, both naturally aged. Hearst got greyer and Davies put on some pounds. In this sense, the film was disappointing as some makeup and prosthetics seemed oddly absent.

Overall, a mildly interesting overview of their lives together...but not deep enough or well made enough to make it anything other than a time-passer. The actors tried their best but the film needed more.

The Hearst Castle has only been used once for a movie set. They used the outdoor Neptune pool for a scene in Spartacus. This movie does show exteriors of the Hearst Castle but any interiors must have been filmed somewhere else. Either England or Canada. Did I say Virginia Madsen was young? Well Robert Mitchum is old! But somehow they are both convincing as lovers. Shows what good acting is all about. The supporting cast could have used a little more star power. Who was that guy playing Charlie Chaplin? Marian Davies had a terrific career in movies both before & after the introduction of sound & I don't think that comes across.

This TV movie from 1985 is pretty accurate in a lot of things and pretty inaccurate in a lot more. But it's a fascinating look at one of the early "power couples" of filmmaking., and as an extra bonus, we get an inside look at the fabulous "ranch" at San Simeon in California.

Robert Mitchum stars as Hearst and Virginia Madsen stars as Davies. Hearst of course was the media mogul of his time, with an empire of newspapers, magazines, and radio stations. He added movie making not long after meeting Davies, who was a featured player on Broadway, notably in the 1916 edition of the "Ziegfeld Follies."

Davies and Hearst remained a couple for well over 30 years, until his death in 1951 at age 87. Hearst was never able to obtain a divorce from his wife Millicent. Davies never married until after Hearst's death, when she married Horace Brown.

Hearst founded Cosmopolitan Productions largely to make movies starring Davies, but of the 95 or so films produced thru Cosmopolitan between 1918 and 1939, only about half starred Davies.

Davies entered films in 1917 in RUNAWAY ROMANY, a film she wrote herself. The film was largely financed by Paul Bloch and was produced and directed by her brother-in-law George Lederer (called Byron in this movie). Davies would star in about 48 films between 1917 and 1937, transitioning from silent films to talkies in 1929.

Unfortunately this TV movie perpetuates the image of Davies as a movie star propped up by Hearst's media blitz and not thru her own talent. From 1922 on, Davies was a superstar, signing with MGM in 1924 and reigning there for a decade before moving on to Warners.

Davies was voted the #1 female star of 1923 by theater owners in April of 1924 for the blockbusters WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER and LITTLE OLD NEW YORK. Both films ranked in the top 5 at the box office and catapulted Davies into the highest ranks of stardom, where she remained until her retirement in 1937.

This TV movie shows scenes filming RUNAWAY ROMANY (1917), a film Hearst had no connection to. Since the film does not survive, there's no way to compare Madsen's impersonation of Davies. There's also a small scene filming WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER (1922), which is dismissed as something second rate, when it was a mammoth production and a major hit.

The third scene shown filming is not identified in the TV movie and is misidentified on IMDb as being POLLY OF THE CIRCUS (1932). Wrong. The scene is intended to be about filming ZANDER THE GREAT (1925) in which, Davies claimed in her memoir, Charlie Chaplin donned her costume and filmed the scene with the lion. The scene does not exist in the surviving print.

The scene between Davies and Chaplin is also bizarre for having them worrying about "talkies" in 1925 when they didn't become a major factor in Hollywood until 1927. The film touches on scandals like the "Marion Davies Murder" and the suspicious death of Thomas Ince onboard Hearst's yacht.

While Madsen does a good job in showing Davies as an intelligent woman and not a brainless floozy, the film overall shortchanges Davies by not giving her credit for having a solid and long career in films. To be fair, in 1985 the filmmakers didn't have access to many of Davies' silent films that we now have.

Not really bad, but why not just watch a Marion Davies film?