Movie Review: Magnificent Doll

A new series about the depiction of presidents in film. 


In the interest of consistency for these reviews, I am going to be using four distinct categories on which to grade them, using letter grades. These categories are: 


Historical Accuracy - How much of the plot was accurate? Was there any noticeable bias? How much of the plot was based on supposition?


Period Detail - Were the costumes, locations, and sets accurate? Were they at least not distractingly bad?


Casting - How well did the actors portray the historical figures? Were they distracting or helpful in their interpretations?


Quality of the Film - Was the movie actually any good? Did the inaccuracies (or accuracies!) get in the way of the plot?


So, without further ado, I give you Magnificent Doll.

I love old movies. I like my heroes heroic, my villains dastardly, and my romances chaste, but even I couldn't say Magnificent Doll (1946) was a good movie.


That is not to say I didn't enjoy the heck out of it. Any movie where James Madison is played by the Penguin is going to be worth watching, but Magnificent Doll is so much a product of its times, it suffers. 


Synopsis:
The movie covers the life of Dolley Madison from her girlhood in Virginia to her time as First Lady, but mostly focuses on the time between her first marriage and the death of Alexander Hamilton. Dolley is contracted into a loveless Quaker marriage with her first husband, who dies tragically in the Yellow Fever epidemic of Philadelphia. She and her mother take in boarders to make money, and their first boarder is none other than Aaron Burr, who takes a shine to Dolley. Through Burr she meets James Madison, whose gentle brilliance wins her over, even though she still has feelings for Burr. She gets over Burr when he attempts to take over the United States using mostly a lot of mustache twirling, and realizes James Madison is actually pretty awesome (and shockingly young looking for a man 17 years her senior).
Historical Accuracy:
Magnificent Doll is accurate in some respects, and totally off the mark in most others. It got the basic chronology and major points of Dolley Madison's life, but all the details are either fudged or completely wrong. There are too many to list here, but suffice to say, Dolley Madison was not the reason Aaron Burr conceded the presidency to Jefferson. The most glaringly awful changes had to do with her first marriage. There is no reason to suppose that Dolley Madison was forced to marry John Todd. Also, in the movie Dolley's entire family died in the Yellow Fever epidemic. While her husband and son did die, her first son survived and lived with her and James Madison. 
Grade: D


Period Detail:
Old Hollywood never let history get in the way of a good story (or an opportunity to reuse sets and costumes), so saying the movie was lacking in period detail supposes that the filmmakers had any interest in the historical period they were depicting. The dresses are not only wrong, they are hideous, and somehow manage to make Ginger Rogers look bad. 
Grade: F


Casting:
Without a doubt, the casting was the best part of Magnificent Doll, and it was still pretty patchy. I was skeptical about David Niven in the role of Aaron Burr, but he twirls his metaphorical mustache with great aplomb and manages to make Dolley's (historically inaccurate) attraction to him plausible. Burgess Meredith brings a quiet sweetness to James Madison, even though he is much too young for the role. The weakest link was definitely Ginger Rogers. Normally, I love Ginger Rogers, but it was pretty obvious she was doing this movie because of her contract with the studio, most likely with a gun pointed to her head if her line readings were any indication. Still, the casting was good overall.
Grade: B


Quality of Film:
The screenplay for Magnificent Doll was written by Irving Stone, a popular writer of historical fiction from the 40s and 50s. Random lines like, "I don't think your cousin, Patrick Henry, would approve of that!" attempt to give historical context, but instead make the dialogue clunky and unbelieveable. It seems like nobody really cared enough about this movie to try and make it good, so they just settled for mediocre. Still, the excellent cast and ridiculous melodrama are fun, if not high quality.
Grade: C


Overall: C


You can view Magnificent Doll here if you are interested.