1950 Directed by David Lean
The middle-class family of a young woman cannot understand why she delays in marrying a respectable young man. They know nothing about her long-standing affair with a Frenchman.
L'amore segreto di Madeleine, マデリーン 愛の旅路, 매들린, As Cartas de Madeleine, 梅特林
UK
Finland
USANR
Finland
UK
USA
This one’s going out for David Lean, born March 25, 1908.
In Glasgow in 1857, Madeleine Smith (Ann Todd) poisons her French lover, Emile L’Angelier (Ivan Desny), to clear the way for her marriage to the more respectable William Minnoch (Norman Wooland). The case became one of the most famous in Scottish history.
Lean called Madeleine his worst film—no, Davey, that would be Ryan’s Daughter--but he clearly is not as engaged as he might have been. The film came about at the request of Todd, the third of six Mrs. Leans, who had played the role on the stage in 1944. She is twenty years older than the real Smith, twenty-one at the time of her spot of bother. I…
The Long Noirvember: A Film Noir Challenge for 2023
Noirvember Only Goal: Watch one film from any 30 of these categories by the end of November 2023
Criteria:
Random Letter Generator - M
(29/30)
"And now, Dr. Penny, can you tell me whether arsenic could be administered by means of - cocoa?"
Directed by Sir David Lean, this film has beautiful production design, costumes and cinematography. The thing I noticed most is the creative composition and how each scene is expertly crafted with that David Lean touch that elevates the film above your standard period melodrama.
Where the film falters is in the story itself. It's a bit slow moving and doesn't really pick up until the courtroom scenes in…
“Until now I’ve never really known you.”
Love transcends the classes in David Lean’s true crime noir and filmic wedding present to wife Ann Todd, in yet another love affair turned murderous, in this case, with her sly French sneaky link. Maybe it was a bad idea to watch so many of these gaslight noirs in such short succession (especially these Ann Todd-starring ones) because I was starting to feel tired around the half-way point of this one. It didn’t help that the last half is mostly white-wigged Welsh courtroom theatrics.
But I guess that’s just the end result for Ms. Madeleine when “papa” says it’s time to marry. His suitor of choice, Mr. Minnoch is handsome enough, but she’s…
David Lean said Madeleine was the worst film he ever made. Lean worked very hard to save it–realizing mid-production that this period drama about accused murderer Madeleine Smith was simply not working–but it was too late. The film drew critical scorn when it was released, a hard failure after Lean’s remarkable run in the 1940s.
Madeleine does not gain on reappraisal. Lean was right: It’s a tough movie to enjoy. The problem is, as it was in 1950, that the central character (played by Ann Todd) remains as much a mystery at the end of the movie as at the beginning. Todd is unreadable in the lead role, like a porcelain shell. The script didn’t really allow her anything else–leaving…
Since my views on David Lean received criticism after my review of Great Expectations, I will refrain from repeating them here. But David Lean really knew how to maximise visuals, and in Madeleine he makes great use of weather as well as some beautiful deep focus aesthetics. The first half of Madeleine is really interesting, with some tender romance that eventually peels away to reveal a cynical world where love doesn't have a say and no love is truly pure. In this vision of class, a poor man pretends to be a rich man, and there's a naïveté to privileged youngsters who don't understand hardship. Unfortunately Madeleine falls apart once murder / suicide enters the plot, and it becomes a…
A movie I found thanks to TCM. I was intrigued with the beginning. It was on a few days ago and recorded so that I could finish watching it later. It had such good drama. But then the court drama dried it out some. Ann was really good in this though.
The masterful first half is a moody, elegiac story of lust, power, and obsession in a cruel society that corners a woman into destroying herself for thinking she could indulge her fantasies without consequence. The dull second half is a rote courtroom drama given some life by Lean's striking use of flashbacks and close-ups. Ann Todd is wonderful throughout, transitioning movingly from warm, ecstatic yearning to meek, guarded panic as the walls start closing in.
You can see the part of the movie that probably appealed to David Lean and the part that might have appealed to Ann Todd, and it definitely makes this melodrama feel like two vastly different films.
Somewhat of a vanity project for his third wife, Ann Todd, Lean embarks on a genre outside of his wheelhouse: the murder mystery. Todd had played the role on stage and was obsessed with the historical Madeleine (to the extent she owned some of Madeleine’s letters to Emile L’Anglier). Lean goes to the historical records to reconstruct the trial and it is one of the most painstaking yet innovative court sequences ever created on film, without having the technique draw attention to itself. Behind it is Lean’s recreation of 1850’s Glasgow, as only Cinema’s greatest interpreter of Dickens could provide. Wind, rain, shadows and music combine with meticulous art direction to convey the passion and fluctuating emotions of the characters,…
There is some really playful filmic technique by Lean here, but the story lacks the kind of passion that a film like this needs to succeed. Instead it's in this weird limbo where it's not quite melodramatic enough, not cynical enough to be noir, and not dynamic enough to be a thoroughly engaging courtroom film. But my oh my were the gowns gorgeous.
The story of the murder trial of Madeleine Smith is one of David Lean's least-known films, although for at least half of its running time it plays as a strong psychological thriller.
The casting of Lean's third wife Ann Todd, who is far too plain and old, hurts this story, but she does what she can and is more successful in the second half which focuses more on the courtroom.
There is one absolutely stunning scene with lashings of rain quite early on which hints at the gothic eroticism which could have made this piece far more rewarding, but it wasn't to be. However, what is there remains enjoyable and this is far from the disaster it could have been.
the way i groaned when the crime happened with like an hour to go aka time for this movie's energy to go die in a courtroom!!!!!! at least david lean is a good enough director to make it marginally interesting but yeah idk the third act of this really helped me take a jetlag nap this afternoon
