Magnificent Doll (1946)
Directed by Frank Borzage

Film Review

Magnificently Dull would perhaps have been a more fitting title.  Ginger Rogers is woefully miscast as Dolley Payne Madison, the wife of the fourth President of the United States, in this dull-as-ditchwater and largely fictionalised historical drama which marked a new low for director Frank Borzage.  Despite its above average production values, Magnificent Doll falls flat in just about every department, but mainly on account of its implausible script and Borzage's totally uninspired direction. (The visual flair that Borzage showed in his late silent films, and on which his reputation rests, has all but deserted him by this time.)   Rogers' hideously unconvincing performance becomes almost unbearable in her scenes with David Niven, who has rarely (if ever) looked more wooden and unsympathetic.  A clumsy attempt to connect historical fact with recent events (the threat posed to western democracy by Nazism) robs the film of any conviction, so what should have been a rallying cry for freedom and democracy ends up feeling like an embarrassed yawn at a wake.

Film Synopsis

Born into a Quaker family, Dolly Payne has no choice but to agree to an arranged marriage but she never can love the man her father forces her to wed.  After her husband's untimely death, Dolly moves with her mother to Pennsylvania, to run a high class boarding house.  This is how she comes into contact with Aaron Burr and James Madison, two young men with great political ambitions.  As Madison lends his support to Thomas Jefferson's campaign for Presidency of the Unites States, Burr decides that what his country needs is not democracy, but a strong dictator.  When she realises the kind of man Burr is, Dolly rejects him and instead marries Madison...