The Gorgeous Hussy (1936)

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's a story about Washington D.C. It's about dirty tricks, sleazy operatives, scurrilous personal attacks and lies. The 2012 presidential campaign? No, "The Gorgeous Hussy." Many people have noted that "The Gorgeous Hussy" is not historically accurate. This is true and at the beginning of the picture they call it "fiction"-drawn from real characters, but definitely fiction. What did you expect? It's MGM in 1936. There is a huge budget, lavish production values, beautiful costumes (male and female), top-notch acting and, of course, romance.The story centers around Peggy O'Neill, Joan Crawford, an innkeeper's daughter called "Pothouse Peg," for her politics and her men. The men are a list of Metro's best—Robert Taylor, Jimmy Stewart, Franchot Tone, Melvyn Douglas and Lionel Barrymore. Robert Taylor dominates the first quarter of the picture with his enormous energy, his playfulness, his rapport with Crawford and his skin-tight costume. Taylor even sings and dances.After Bow Timberlake's (Taylor's) heroic off screen death, things settle down. Andrew Jackson (Barrymore) dominates every scene he's in. Beulah Bondi, as Rachel Jackson, is equally good. She won an Oscar nomination for her role.Joan Crawford is usually criticized for appearing in an historical picture because she was too "modern." Here she handles her costumes beautifully, using her skirts to express a range of emotions. While her acting is fine, she is overwhelmed by the male contingent.Franchot Tone, Crawford's husband at the time, is quietly effective as her second husband John Eaton. Melvyn Douglas brings strength and intelligence to his role as Virginian John Randolph. Jimmy Stewart is wasted as Peg's failed suitor."The Gorgeous Hussy" is fun, sometimes moving and a reminder that political behavior wasn't all that different in the 1820s.

No! No! No! What is that most modern, at least to her time, of actresses Joan Crawford doing in hoop skirts and crinoline? Pretty much making a fool of herself, not that it's her fault MGM should have known better. There is not one look or gesture that she makes that has a feeling of any period but the 20th century.Both stagnant and silly this completely miscast picture takes an interesting and scandalous piece of American history, The Petticoat Affair, and make it seem asinine and trivial when it practically tore Jackson's presidency apart and did lead to most of his cabinet's resignation. Proof positive that not every film that came out of Hollywood's golden age and its premiere studio was a classic worth seeing filled with top flight talent or not. Even if you are a completist of any of the stars work this will be a struggle to get through.

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.

This entertaining story is definitely worth the cost of rental. It is available in most video stores. It follows an Inn keepers daughter (Joan Crawford at her loveliest) through two marriages and a lasting friendship with Andrew Jackson. Although her particular character is fictitious, the rest of the story line is fairly historically accurate, especially the portrayal of the close campaign Jackson ran, due to the opposition of his wife Rachel.