May 30 - The President's Lady

Today’s movie is a biography with scenes that happen on May 30. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

THE PRESIDENT’S LADY     

In 1789 Andrew Jackson moves to Nashville and works as the state Attorney General. He moves in with the Widow Donelson and he and her daughter Rachel Robards take an instant liking to each other. Rachel is unhappily married to Lewis Robards. He suspects here, but he’s carrying on with a slave.  Jackson brings Rachel back to Nashville from her home.  On the way back they escape a band of Indians. Her husband is there to meet her, but she ends it with him. Robards refuses to let her go and makes threats. Rachel flees to Natchez on Col. Stark’s flatboat, on which Andrew Jackson is also a passenger.  They survive an Indian attack. In Natchez Jackson proposes an annulment of Rachel’s marriage, but she wants him to get Robards to divorce her. Then they hear that Robards has already divorced her on the ground of adultery with Jackson. The pair marry and they later move back to Tennessee. Then they learn that the divorce was not granted earlier, but it finally is and they get remarried. Jackson leads the militia against the Creek Indians, but after defeating them, he adopts an orphaned Indian boy, Lyncoya. The couple move into The Hermitage. Lyncoya dies.The women of Nashville continue to socially ostracize the Jacksons. Jackson rides his horse to victory in a horse race on the day he is appointed a general of militia. However, Col. Dickinson insults Rachel and Jackson challenges him to a duel. On May 30, 1806 [1:15:00 to 1:19:43] Jackson wins the duel with Dickinson, but ends up with a bullet lodged permanently near his heart.  He recovers enough to win the Creek War and defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans. He is appointed US Senator, but later loses the 1824 presidential election. When he runs again in 1828 attacks on their marriage cause Rachel to have a heart attack and die.  Jackson is sworn in as President.

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House, New York, 2008) at page 26 gives the date of the duel.

Producer - Sol C. Siegel

Director - Henry Levin

Screenwriter - John Patrick

Awards –  The film was nominated for the Best Black and White Art Direction and Best Black and White Costume Design Oscars at the 26^th Academy Awards.

Runtime – 1 hour 36 minutes

Released – May 21, 1953

Starring –

Susan Hayward as Rachel Donelson

Charlton Heston as Andrew Jackson

John McIntire as John Overton

Fay Bainter as Mrs. Donaldson

Whitfield Connor as Lewis Robards

Carl Betz as Charles Dickinson

Gladys Hurlbut as Mrs. Phariss

Ruth Attaway as Moll

Charles Dingle as Capt. Irwin

Nina Varela as Mrs. 'Peachblossom' Stark

Margaret Wycherly as Mrs. Robards

Ralph Dumke as Col. Stark

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.