As much as I loved Eve Best as smart, sexy, sophisticated Dr. O'Hara in NURSE JACKIE, she makes an appalling Dolly Madison in this stuffy and sleepy episode of THE American EXPERIENCE.
The first thing we learn about Dolly is that she grew up in Philadelphia and that her relatives were all Quakers. But for some reason English actress Eve Best has the phoniest, creepiest southern accent I've ever heard. Not like Scarlett O'Hara -- more like Carol Burnett imitating Vivien Leigh doing Scarlett in a comedy sketch.
It would have been just as logical to have Dolly Madison talk like Rocky Balboa -- at least he was from Philly! "Yo James, you want things, I want things, maybe, ah-wun know, maybe we want the same things. Ah-wun know, wudya tink?"
But it's not just a matter of accents. This documentary goes to all kinds of lengths to creep away from the uglier side of Dolly Madison's career -- betraying the Quaker principles of her father and marrying a wealthy old slave owner for money -- and off into endless, giggling tangents about Dolly showing off her bosom for drooling crowds of diplomats and dignitaries. Who knew that was all it took to become a legend?
The one revealing moment was when they showed an actual letter Dolly Madison wrote just after she married slave owner James Madison, and she signed her name "Dolly Madison -- alas!" There's a great story there, but it's not a story that fits in comfortably with the smug hypocrisies of modern feminism and modern liberalism. Some truths are just not meant to be a part of the American Experience.