Prologue: "WASHINGTON-- The policies of a great nation are molded by prominent men, but behind those men these men stand women, guiding their husband's destinies--using the same devices that the feminine sex has always used throughout the ages."
"The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the capital, which only goes to prove that wives are women in Kankakee or Washington D.C."
"While this story and all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are fictitious, and no identification with actual persons, living or deceased, is intended or should be inferred, it may have happened!--It could have happened!"
"The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the capital, which only goes to prove that wives are women in Kankakee or Washington D.C."
"While this story and all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are fictitious, and no identification with actual persons, living or deceased, is intended or should be inferred, it may have happened!--It could have happened!"
Play co-writer Katharine Dayton patterned the lead role on one of Washington's most powerful women, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt and wife of Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth. Because Dayton had never written a play, her agent hooked her up with the most successful playwright of his time, George S. Kaufman, creator of such critical and commercial hits as You Can't Take It with You, Stage Door, and Dinner at Eight. Kaufman liked her idea and agreed to collaborate, but Dayton soon found him to be the "travelingest" co-writer, taking large chunks of time off to go work on other projects. The final result, which ran on Broadway from November 1935 to June 1936, turned out to be a sparkling political comedy about the women who pull the strings in the country's highest seats of power, but Dayton and Kaufman never worked together again. In fact, she wrote only one other play, which opened and closed very quickly in 1938.
According to Warner Bros records the film only earned $322,000 in the US and Canada and $102,000 elsewhere.
This recalls the woman, Rachel Jackson, who in 1791 was married to the future President Andrew Jackson in the mistaken belief that she was divorced. They were forced to remarry in 1794 after the divorce had been finalized. She never served as First Lady, having died just days after his election and before his inauguration in 1829. The role of First Lady was assumed by her niece.