THE PRESIDENT'S LADY (1953)

This pleasingly modest bio-pic, at its best covering YOUNG ANDREW JACKSON (our alternate title), is told from the POV of much beloved/much maligned wife Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson.  It’s also Charlton Heston’s ‘other’ adapted Irving Stone ‘pop’ biography, before his Michelangelo meets Sistine Chapel in THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY/’65.*)  And while it does take Jackson all the way to the White House, the main focus is star-crossed romance with Susan Hayward’s Rachel, a feisty spirit already unhappily married when met.  Accused of wrong doing by her philandering husband, alternately repentant & vindictive, she finally gets word of her divorce and immediately weds now rising political force Jackson only to discover news of divorce was premature.  Branded a fallen woman, Jackson stays fiercely loyal to his near outcast of a wife yet still goes on to military & political glory.  It’s a strong story, relatively factual as these things go, with Hayward in especially good form and Heston fascinating to watch as his easy charm and fluid acting style progressively stiffen as he turns into a great man of destiny.  A paradigm of Heston’s problematic on-screen work.  Sooner or later, he’s gonna start acting.  Or is without William Wyler to keep him honest, as here under Henry Levin’s laissez-faire handling.  (But credit Levin, and a tight budget, for the film’s human scale.)  It also holds interest as few presidents have seen such a precipitous drop in reputation.  In many ways our first truly popularly elected President, Jackson’s first claim to national fame came from all but wiping out the Cree Indian Nation who’d aligned with the British (Jackson’s other great hate).  A hero at the time, no longer easily celebrated.  Yet what a fascinating holy terror of a man he was.  Heston, in a supporting role, had another go at him in THE BUCCANEER/’58*, but something more complete/more complex is needed.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Heston's return to the role in Anthony Quinn’s 1958 remake of C. B. DeMille’s THE BUCCANEER.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-buccaneer-1958.html  OR: That second Irving Stone book, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY/’65.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/06/agony-and-ecstasy-1965.html