MGM. 105 minutes.

US release: 8/28/36.

VHS release: 6/24/92.

DVD release: 6/15/10.

Cast: Joan Crawford (as "Peggy O'Neal"), Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Melvyn Douglas, James Stewart, Alison Skipworth, Louis Calhern, Beulah Bondi, Melville Cooper, Sidney Toler, Gene Lockhart, Clara Blandick, Frank Conroy, Nydia Westman, Charles Trowbridge, Willard Robertson, Ruby DeRemer, Betty Blythe, Zeffie Tilbury.

Credits:  Based on the 1934 novel The Gorgeous Hussy by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Screenplay: Ainsworth Morgan and Stephen Morehouse Avery. Producer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Director: Clarence Brown. Cinematographer: George J. Folsey. Art Director: Cedric Gibbons. Musical Score: Herbert Stothart. Costumes: Adrian. Editor: Blanche Sewell.

Plot Summary: The Gorgeous Hussy purports to be based on the life of Margaret "Peggy" O'Neill, the controversial wife of early 19th-century politician John Eaton, who served as cabinet minister during the Andrew Jackson presidency. Snubbed by the Washington elite because of her questionable background as a tavernkeeper's daughter, "Pothouse Peg" is championed by her longtime friend Jackson, who chooses to ignore the gossip-mongers and the scandal-provokers of the era. He even stands by Peggy's side when one of her admirers (Melvyn Douglas) is ignominiously killed by his enemies. Some historians believe that the "gorgeous hussy" and Jackson were themselves lovers, but this is never hinted at in the film, which is described in a foreword as "fiction founded upon historical fact." Joan Crawford wears an exhausting succession of gorgeous gowns as Peggy Eaton, but she can't do much to enliven her sketchily written role; one is aware that she brings disgrace to everyone she meets, but one is hard-pressed to understand why. Much better within the framework is Lionel Barrymore as Jackson, Beulah Bondi as "Old Hickory"'s pipe-smoking wife, Rachel, and Sidney Toler (two years away from Charlie Chan) as Daniel Webster. James Stewart is also in the film as one "Rowdy" Dow, a role he later chose to forget. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Awards: 1937 Oscar nominations for Beulah Bondi, Best Supporting Actress; and George J. Folsey, Best Cinematography.

Total Gross:  $2,019,000 ($116,000 profit)

Notes:

In production from 4/27/36 to 6/36.

First announced that RKO would make the film with Katharaine Hepburn in starring role. (AFI)

Once MGM acquired rights in 1935, they announced that Jean Harlow would star and that Brian Aherne would also appear. (AFI)

The Hays Office objected to profanity used by Andrew Jackson, and all "damn"s and "hell"s were removed. (AFI)

American Film Institute page 

IMDb page

TCM page

Wikipedia page

September 5, 1936

Democratic Unconvention in 'The Gorgeous Hussy,' at the Capitol

Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune (1936):

In the title role Joan Crawford is handsome, although century-old costumes do not go well with the pronounced modernity of her personality. She makes of Peggy Eaton a straightforward and zealous figure....[A] show that is rich with trappings and accented by moments of moving intensity.

Tom C. (August 2024)

Rating: of 5

In Conversations With Joan Crawford, Joan said of The Gorgeous Hussy (1936): “Historical romance was simply not for me.” Joan praised her co-stars but was critical of her own work in the film.

Joan did very few period pieces. Apart from Hussy, I can’t think of another costume drama she did in the talkie era, and in the silent era were only Winners of the Wilderness (1927) and Across to Singapore (1928). As a prototypical Modern Woman during her late-1920s--mid-1930s prime, maybe Joan and MGM felt her audience was uninterested in seeing her in movies set in the distant past. In the mid-1930s, Joan’s competitors at MGM---Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo---were doing period films such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and Camille (1936), respectively, and getting Oscar noms. Maybe this motivated Joan to try historical romance herself. (BTW: Hussy itself earned 2 Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actress [Beulah Bondi] and Best Cinematography [George Foley]. Both lost to nominees from Anthony Adverse---another historical romance.)

In Hussy, Joan resembles a slightly older version of Priscilla Crowninshield, her character from Across to Singapore, costumed in crinoline and curls. I think she does a fine job, albeit not her best effort. Crawford did better as women with a bit of an edge to them. If Joan had played it less "gorgeous" and more "hussy," that might have spiced the movie up. Overall, Hussy focuses more on affairs of the heart and less on affairs of state.

MGM surrounded Joan with perhaps her most prestigious cast, apart from ensemble movies like Grand Hotel (1932) and The Women (1939). I like how they introduced the main players with a little picture of each in costume during the opening credits. Lionel Barrymore (who played Kringelein in GH) is excellent as Andrew Jackson. Jackson’s relationship with his wife Rachel, and the abuse she suffered during the election of 1828, was dealt with touchingly. Like her previous Joan film, Rain (1932), Bondi is the moral voice of the film. Bondi’s Rachel displays great strength dispensing simple, homespun advice with no pretentioun. A melodramatic death scene could easily have propelled Bondi to Oscar victory.

Robert Taylor and Jimmy Stewart are also here, both on the cusp of stardom. In Taylor’s case, he was getting the same treatment Gable got in 1931 and Joan got in 1927/8, i.e., pairing with major studio stars of the opposite sex to build his own star power. Taylor is brash naval officer “Bow," but he’s also tender in his pursuit of Joan’s Peggy Eaton, such as in the cute scene in which boys and girls are “sewn into bed” (presumably this was enough in the 1820s to thwart shenanigans). Stewart is “Rowdy,” the “aw shucks” loyal friend he played in many of his early movies. Taylor and Stewart would go on to co-star with Joan a few years hence when they were bigger box office attractions: in When Ladies Meet (1941) and Ice Follies of 1939, respectively.

Two-time Oscar awardee Melvyn Douglas plays John Randolph. He and Joan are fated throughout Hussy to be star-crossed lovers who never connect. He co-starred with Joan in 3 more movies over the next several years, culminating in They All Kissed the Bride (1942), the rom-com in which Joan replaced the late Carole Lombard. Last but not least, Franchot Tone---Joan hubby #2---is also here. This is one of his Joan pictures where I liked him. Tone is less smart-alecky and gets to take a poke at someone during the scene in which the infamous Petticoat Affair is played out.

Among bit players in Hussy, Zeffie Tilbury is my favorite. She’s the old lady who enjoys telling off the society gossips who shunned Peg Eaton. (She was also the grandmother in The Grapes of Wrath [1940].)

The picture---and book of the same name by the prolific Samuel Hopkins Adams (who also authored the source material for films like It Happened One Night [1934], The Harvey Girls [1946], and Flaming Youth [1923])---takes pains to point out that historical accuracy was sacrificed for the sake of storytelling. Clarence Brown---who directed Joan 5 times and was one of her favorites---directs Hussy. The movie was a tad long for me at 103 minutes, but there are not many scenes that plod along, aside from some of those dealing with politics. Given the cast assembled, Hussy could have been a much stronger film.

Stephanie Jones (April 2023)

Rating: of 5

Good God, what an annoyingly bland hodge-podge of a film! And it has nothing to do with Joan in period costume; she's nothing particularly special here, but she's certainly not the problem. Rather, it's the screenplay writers, director, and editor who are to blame for this big ol' mess.

I've got to start with the real-life Peggy O'Neill (1799 - 1879), whose actual life was much more interesting than anything you'll see in this film. The focus of the later Petticoat Affair/Eaton Affair (1829-1831) during the Andrew Jackson Administration was the daughter of a Washington, DC, innkeeper, whose establishment was frequented by notable politicians/military men of the day. In 1816 (at age 17), she married 39-year-old Navy purser John Timberlake (a real-life drunk who was heavily in debt; portrayed in the film by Robert Taylor as a good-natured young Lieutenant, with the two marrying in this film in 1828). They had 3 kids, and he died 12 years later in 1828 during a job-related voyage.

A mere 9 months after his death (this, plus her tavern-girl background, were responsible for the societal scandal), Peggy married Tennessee Senator John Eaton (played by Franchot Tone in the film, in which he appears only several brief times as a very minor character, albeit finally becoming her husband only at the insistence of newly elected President Jackson), who was a friend of Jackson's and was appointed Secretary of War in the new Jackson Cabinet after Jackson's election in 1828. The national Petticoat Affair/Eaton Affair began when Vice President Calhoun's wife and the wives of other Cabinet members refused to socialize with Peggy, leading to President Jackson's asking for the resignations of most of the Cabinet members.

President Jackson had been a long-time friend of both Peggy's and Eaton's, and he also associated the social shunning of Peggy with the similar shunning of his own once-divorced wife, Rachel, who died shortly after his inauguration in 1829. In addition, VP John Calhoun of South Carolina, whose wife was leading the social charge against Peggy, was strongly against a tariff bill of 1828, supported by Jackson, which would have financially harmed Southern states----Calhoun was a strong proponent of States' Rights, even to the point of secession from the Union, whereas Jackson was a Union supporter.

The scandal blew over when Secretary of War Eaton resigned his Cabinet post in 1831, going on to become an undistinguished Governor of the Florida Territory (1834-1836) and then Ambassador to Spain (1836-1840). He died in 1856. (In 1832, Calhoun resigned shortly after being elected a second time as Jackson's Vice President and was elected as a Senator from South Carolina.)

At age 59, Peggy O'Neill Timberlake Eaton, 3 years after husband Eaton's death, married a 20-something "Italian music teacher and dancing master" (and all that implies!). A few years later, he absconded to Europe with both her fortune and her 17-year-old granddaughter. Peggy O'Neill died in poverty in DC.

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Now, all of the above is a REAL movie! (Or two or three! The Petticoat Affair is interesting in and of itself as a DC social drama. And the Jackson politics of the time were certainly interesting, with the Petticoat Affair as a side-note. And then there's the fact that Peggy really was, in real life, a "hussy" 'til the very end---I'd like to see a movie about her post-menopausal marriage to that dance instructor who ran off with both her money and her granddaughter!)

What instead happens in this ridiculous 1936 film (which can't seem to figure out if it's a fun, frothy costume picture or a serious costume political drama---it alternates unsuccessfully and schizophrenically between the two):

First we get a title disclaimer: "The story of Peggy Eaton and her times is not presented as a precise account of either --- rather, as fiction founded upon historical fact. Except for historically prominent personages, the characters are fictional...." We then get an opening scene with Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster arguing with Virginia Senator John Randolph (played by Melvyn Douglas) on the Senate floor about States' Rights, seguing to the two arguing in the inn owned by Peggy's father. When Peggy shows up to serve them and parries a bit to show her gumption, Webster claims "You should have been born a man." Peggy is then ogled by a newly arrived military man, Timberlake (Robert Taylor), who's in turn chastised by Melvyn's Senator Randolph for being so bold as to ogle.

For the first solid hour of the film, Joan's Peggy alternates between flirting with the so-called "Lieutenant" Timberlake (second-billed Taylor) and confessing, by candle-light, her long-time feelings for Senator Randolph (Douglas). When Randolph (in real life, not even an acquaintance of Peggy's, and a bachelor and opium addict, but here portrayed as a serious scholar and suitor) dismisses her feelings, she rebounds. There are then multiple cutesy scenes of Peggy and Timberlake flirting, him holding her knitting, youthful hayrides, the two funnily being sewn into quilts when stranded at an inn, the crotchety Andrew Jackson's disbelief at their marriage license, etc. At the end of it all, they marry, only to have him killed off minutes later. Yes, despite the 2nd billing, Taylor disappears halfway into the movie! Joan and Taylor are very attractive, but if your film both begins and ends with scenes indicating that the Fate of a Nation is allegedly at stake, then you probably shouldn't spend literally half of the film focused on the cutesy goings-on of Crawford and Taylor! (Another superfluous character is the non-entity "Rowdy" played by James Stewart, who's also a complete waste of time.)

The Melvyn Douglas character of Senator John Randolph, portrayed here as Peggy's longtime love, had, in actuality, nothing at all to do with Peggy, but here, he's portrayed as a serious-minded would-be lover who only first rejects Peggy because she's too young to know her own mind. Then later, after kisses, they can't be together because they disagree politically (!) and because President Andrew Jackson doesn't think it's best for the country (!). Later in the film, Randolph is ridiculously shot by a pro-Slavery conspirator (when in fact he actually died at age 60 from consumption and opium use), providing yet another death scene for Joan to attend (after the first Rachel---wife of Andrew Jackson---death scene).

After Taylor's Timberlake has died at sea, and---before Douglas's Randolph gets shot---Peggy marries Senator John Eaton (Franchot Tone) after nearly zero interactions on-screen. Eaton just kind of "turns up"---no introduction, nothing; he's all-of-a-sudden just THERE waiting with Peggy for the 1828 Jackson election results to come in... Then he hangs around to marry her and hangs around post-Randolph death scene. In fact, when Peggy and Eaton sail off for Europe in the final scene, Peggy's last words are "Goodbye, John Randolph" before posing with Franchot's Eaton at the mast of the ship as it sails.

This film is a NON-hot mess. Nothing "hot" or exciting about it. It's sloppily written, sloppily put together. There are multiple potentially very interesting personal and societal/political tales to be told here, but, unfortunately, the writers and director were unable to arrange anything into any sort of cohesive sequence. Joan barely counts here: She is tender in individual scenes with Taylor and with true love Douglas, but she's, ultimately, a non-entity in the overall haphazard proceedings.