The Gorgeous Hussy

It is our hope that some day we may come to understand why Hollywood, when it selects a colorful personality for one of its themes, almost invariably chooses to divest the hapless character of that very color which seemed to justify a screen biography and hastens to reduce it (or him or her) to a faded stereotype which might pass for any one.

Consider the Peggy O'Neill Eaton of "The Gorgeous Hussy," which came into the Capitol yesterday under the proud aegis of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Pothouse Peg she was called because her father was a tavern-keeper, and she became a sort of daughterly Mlle. Maintenon to the Andrew Jackson administration. She had a few marriages, a host of suitors and Mr. Jackson's ear. The ladies of Washington disapproved her socially and the gentlemen of Washington courted her politically. She was vivacious, intelligent and born before her time—a woman-suffrage time. President Jackson disbanded his Cabinet because of her, men died for her and eventually she moved to Spain and married a 19-year-old dancing instructor.

Is there a bit of that in Metro's and Miss Joan Crawford's portrayal of Pothouse Peg? Well, just a bit. But most of Peggy Eaton and most of "The Gorgeous Hussy" can be guessed from the picture's apologetic foreword: "This 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 important personages, the characters are fictional." We would suggest a correction in that last sentence, making it read "even the historically important personages are fictional." We don't believe in Miss Crawford's Peggy, we have reservations about Lionel Barrymore's Andrew Jackson, we discount Sidney Toler's Daniel Webster, we pity Melvyn Douglas's Senator John Randolph of Virginia and we cannot even recall Frank Conroy's John Calhoun or Charles Trowbridge's Martin Van Buren.

What we have here, and you might as well make the best of it, is a thoroughly romanticized biography in which Miss Crawford is gorgeous, but never a hussy. An innkeeper's daughter she may be, but that is all the women of Washington can possibly hold against her. Sweet, demure, trusting and of rather doubtful inspiration to Old Hickory—even though Mr. Barrymore gallantly implies she is his chief prop in his efforts to preserve the Union against the States-righters—Miss Crawford's Peggy is a maligned Anne of Green Gables, a persecuted Polyanna, a dismayed Dolly Dimple.

Rebuffed by her true love, Senator Randolph, she marries the dashing young Lieutenant Timberlake (Mr. Robert Taylor), redeems her early widowhood by honoring Secretary of War Eaton (Mr. Franchot Tone) with her hand and eventually deserts the Capitol (the one in Washington, not on West Fifty-first Street) rather than cause President Jackson and the United States any more trouble. It is a gallant gesture on Peggy's part, but no more gallant than that Presidential inquiry in which Jackson dismisses his Cabinet and their ladies for daring to misconstrue Mrs. Eaton's interest in the Union.

Part of Metro's and Samuel Hopkins Adams's story is historically true, but most of it has an incredible ring and the players never are quite convincing in their political or emotional arguments. History compels us to accept the real Peggy Eaton's contribution to the preservation of Jacksonian democracy, but our national pride rebels at the notion of having to thank Miss Crawford for making possible such boons as Mr. Cleveland, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Roosevelt. We refuse to acknowledge "The Gorgeous Hussy" as fact, and as cinematized fiction it is merely passable.

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.