First Lady (film)

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Movie
Original title First lady
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1937
length 82 minutes
Rod
Director Stanley Logan
script Rowland Leigh
production Harry Joe Brown ,
Hal B. Wallis for Warner Brothers
music Max Steiner ,
MK Jerome ,
Heinz Roemheld
camera Sid Hickox
cut Ralph Dawson
occupation

First Lady is a 1937 American film starring Kay Francis .

action

Contrary to what the title might suggest, it is not about the first female President of the United States , but about all sorts of political machinations around the nomination of a presidential candidate. The focus is on Lucy Chase-Wayne, the granddaughter of a former US President who is married to the current United States Secretary of State , Stephen Wayne. Lucy desperately wants her husband to be a candidate for the next presidential election. Her main rival is Irene Hibbard, who is married to a corrupt Supreme Court judge. She wants to get a divorce and marry her lover Senator Gordon Keane, in whom she sees the best aspirate for the highest office in the state. In return, Lucy organizes a campaign, at the end of which not only Wayne receives the long-awaited nomination, but also the judiciary is freed from corruption and nepotism.

background

Immediately after moving from Paramount to Warner Brothers in 1932, Kay Francis had risen to become a popular actress of independent, self-confident women who fight for their love and do not submit to standard moral codes. However, her career had been on the wane again since the middle of the decade. Most of the roles Francis got to play placed more emphasis on their outfit than on gripping dialogues or believable scripts. From the beginning of 1937 an open dispute had broken out between the studio management and the actress about what kind of roles Francis should play in the future. The following roles offered a bit of everything, but without winning back the fans in the long run: Mother's love ( Confession ), dramatic entanglements in distant lands ( Another Dawn ) and entanglements in high finance ( Stolen Holiday ). The argument came to a head when Francis asked to star in Tovarich , a frivolous Broadway comedy. Contrary to oral agreements, Claudette Colbert got the role and Francis sued the studio in September 1937 for termination of the contract. The play First Lady by George S. Kaufman made it to 246 performances in the 1935/36 season with Jane Cowl in the lead role and was loosely based on the life of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt . Warner Brothers acquired the film rights as a potential play for Norma Shearer or Ann Harding .

The audience rejected the film and Francis received angry letters from her fans who complained that the role had too little warmth and sympathy. The actress herself admitted to having made a mistake with the part:

“I am aware that, like most actresses, I bring my own, very individual quality to the screen. The fans expect credibility from me and if they don't get it, they scream. My fans don't want "First Lady a bit. I know that. They wrote me that in hundreds of letters."

Theatrical release

With a production cost of 485,000 US dollars, First Lady was produced on a rather small budget, even for Warner Brothers. Income in the United States was a catastrophic $ 322,000, to which was added foreign income of the equivalent of $ 102,000. The cumulative box office of $ 424,000 made the movie a full blown flop and accelerated Francis' decline as a top star.

source

  • Scott O'Brien - Kay Francis I Can't Wait to be Forgotten - Her Life by Film and Stage; ISBN 1-59393-036-4

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ I know that I've got one special quality to see on the screen, as most actresses have. Fans expect sincerity from me, a certain warmth, and if they don't get it, they howl. They didn't like me in First Lady worth a cent. They told me so by the hundreds.