Mulher Sublime

Fictionalized historic soaper about Andrew Jackson's friendship and protection of a young woman named Peggy O'Neal. Lionel Barrymore plays Jackson and Joan Crawford plays Peggy. The rest of the cast is pretty impressive. Melvyn Douglas, James Stewart, Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone, Beulah Bondi, and Louis Calhern....not a bad lineup. Too bad the movie is boring. Andrew Jackson's wife dies and asks Peggy to look out for him. Thus she becomes the unofficial First Lady, despite not being married to or even romantically involved with the President. Peggy has a somewhat scandalous reputation of her own, which reminds Jackson of his wife, who suffered at the hands of Washington gossips. Worth seeing for Lionel Barrymore alone. But the rest of the cast being what it is warrants you check it out.

THE GORGEOUS HUSSY, based on a 1934 historical novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, is another one of those genteel forays into the past from squeaky clean MGM. The only compelling ingredients in this overlong saga about the controversial hussy Peggy Eaton who wielded much influence over President Andrew Jackson are a few of the performances and the novelty of actual political debates occurring in the context of a love affair; Hollywood seldom mixed those two elements. The first half hour is bone dead, with familiar performers strutting around in period costumes and delivering the necessary exposition. Joan Crawford is not particularly persuasive as a young tavern keeper's daughter. She looks somewhat haggard and hard, but still beautiful. Things liven up with the appearance of Andrew Jackson (Lionel Barrymore) and his unpopular and maligned wife Rachel (Beulah Bondi). Barrymore may have been a ham who gave basically the same performance in film after film, but at least he puts some juice into the proceedings, making the most he can of the extremely diluted representation of Jackson supplied by the script. Bondi is touching in her depiction of the ill-fated Rachel, the love of Jackson's life. Until then we have had to endure endless moments with a dashing but wooden Melvyn Douglas and a competent but unexciting contribution from neophyte Robert Taylor. Jimmy Stewart and later Franchot Tone are on hand too but only in a few scenes and to little effect. And we have the always nasty and conniving Alison Skipworth as a disapproving society matron to hold our attention. And the marvelous Zeffie Tilbury as Skipworth's deaf mother who disagrees strongly with her snobbish daughter's malicious gossip. Between these bits there are occasionally interesting sketches of the political contentions of the time, mostly about how much power should be granted to the individual states, foreshadowing the Civil War. But we never get a sense of what an extraordinary woman the title character was. Nothing in Joan Crawford's performance or in the material given her indicates that this is anything other than an unusually attractive and well behaved lady with romantic yearnings – but someone for whose honor and reputation a President would dissolve his cabinet and change the course of US history? No way. You cannot make a polite film about these characters in this historical period, but this is what MGM tried to do.

Joan isn't all that gorgeous, only a halfhearted hussy, and not much of an actress, either--at least not here. Rather, she's a nice but confused innkeeper's daughter in 1820s Washington with love and politics on the brain. Mostly she lifts her considerable eyebrows up and down, up and down, to indicate joy, worry, bafflement, empathy, ecstasy... All the while she's pursued by most of the leading men of MGM circa 1936, for reasons best known to them, since there's nothing particularly fascinating about her character. This lengthy melodrama does have first-rate production values and intermittent good acting, especially from the quieter performers, Melvyn Douglas and (most of all) Beulah Bondi, as a gentle, pipe-smoking Mrs. Andrew Jackson. But as a historical romance it's rather listless, with a rote Snidely-Whiplash villain (Louis Calhern) and much nattering about states' rights. The conflicts feel painted-on. The ending feels hurried and contrived. And Joan always seems to be looking for her key light.

Fanciful, but silly biography of Peggy Eaton (Crawford), a controversial figure during the Andrew Jackson administration in the late 1820s, and her relationships with influential men of that era. Semi-fiction story is "gorgeous" to look at thanks to elegant period settings and costumes, not so much the performances or script.

MGM in trying to expand Joan Crawford's repertoire into period costume pieces spared no expense and gave her one all star cast in this drama about the Peggy O'Neal Eaton affair. The basic facts are true, Peggy O'Neal, daughter of a Washington, DC tavern-keeper and widow of a young Navy Lieutenant, marries the Senator from Tennessee who then is chosen Secretary of War in President Andrew Jackson's original cabinet. The Cabinet wives however refuse to receive Peggy socially as does the wife of the Vice President John C. Calhoun. Jackson blows his cabinet up, requests resignations from all involved and Eaton and Peg are sent in exile so to speak as he is made Minister to Spain.

The real story is far more complex than that. Jackson did regard Peggy as a slandered woman, much like his late wife Rachel was. Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson dies between the election and inauguration of Jackson. Beulah Bondi plays her in the movie and it's the best performance in the film. In real life this whole affair was being maneuvered behind the scenes by John Calhoun and Secretary of State Martin Van Buren taking anti and pro Peggy positions respectively. Van Buren's character is barely mentioned here. Played by Charles Trowbridge, he's given one or two lines in the film.

Robert Taylor strikes the right note as the young Naval Lieutenant Bow Timberlake. After Timberlake and Peggy are married, he is ordered to sea and dies there. The manner of his death has never been satisfactorily explained. It's also not explained here and that leaves the audiences up in the air.

Franchot Tone plays John Eaton and I think a lot of his performance is left on the cutting room floor. In real life there is some question as to whether Eaton and Peggy were involved while she was married to Timberlake.

But the most fantastic error in this plot is John Randolph's interest in Peggy. The real John Randolph was impotent, his testicles never descended, he never reached puberty. He never had any romantic attachments with anyone, he wasn't capable of it. In real life John Randolph because he never reached puberty had this girlishly high-pitched voice when he spoke on the floor of Congress. No one ever dared make fun of him though as he was a crack shot with a dueling pistol. Melvyn Douglas played a character with no basis in reality.

One of the other things I found a bit much was Douglas's constant prattle about state's rights. To him this a nice philosophy to be debated on the floor of Congress. Louis Calhern's character who is admittedly like a previous reviewer describes him as a Snidely Whiplash villain, is ready for secession. He goes to Randolph and says that he's organized a movement and he wants Randolph to lead it. The real Randolph would have been hot to trot for that. Melvyn Douglas reacts in horror however, he threatens to expose Calhern's villainy. Calhern has to shoot him. But if you think about it, the only thing Calhern did was take that state's right talk of Douglas to its logical conclusion and translate it into action.

The real John Randolph was never assassinated, he died of natural causes and had no major role in the Peggy O'Neal affair at all.

Maybe some day someone will make a better film of this incident.