First Lady (1937)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) As much as it’s easy to lambaste Hollywood for its history of sexism, the record isn’t quite so clear-cut if you accept that female power often manifested itself in ways not necessarily recognizable as feminism. There’s a truly fascinating case to be made that First Lady, for instance, is a case study on hidden power—a film built around a universe in which even first-rate politicians are mere puppets for the ambitions of their wives and potential mates. Adapted from a theatrical play, the film showcases Kay Francis and Verree Teasdale as Washington, DC women maneuvering behind the scenes to ensure that their men end up with their party’s nomination for President. Both the comedy and the drama are slight—at least in appearance. But the fine dialogue makes up for a relatively lack of big effect—much of the screenplay is remarkably sly and biting in its depiction both of power and personal politics. But it’s really the idea that the powerful men are pawns in a bigger Bene Gesserit-scale game that’s the best thing about First Lady—or would be if the film didn’t happen to star the wonderful Francis, doing her best to keep up with the talky script in barely 83 minutes. Watch the film for Francis, stay for the enjoyable portrait of DC wives fighting it out… with the fate of the nation an incidental consequence of whom will best the other.