Stars: Ann Todd, Norman Wooland, Ivan Desny, Leslie Banks
Director: David Lean
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) Going into this picture, I knew very little about the movie. One of the many "list" projects I'm currently working on viewing is a list of ten of my favorite directors whom I want to see all of their movies, sort of to understand the ways that a career ebbs and flows creatively. Lean is on that list, and he had a relatively interesting career. Most noted today for his grand epics like The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, he made a number of smaller, more intimate dramas in the 1940's and 50's that I also enjoyed, albeit ones that few people discuss anymore. Madeleine was one of those films, and is one that Lean personally disliked (it was his least favorite movie he ever made), and that he created as a "wedding present" for his then-wife Ann Todd who played the role on stage.
The film features Todd as Madeleine Smith, a woman whom Scottish history remembers in the same way Americans remember Lizzie Borden, but whose story I was not remotely familiar with, so this is the rare biopic that I genuinely didn't know was going to end the way that it did. The film follows Madeleine, a seemingly respectable young girl with a wealthy father, as she has a torrid affair with a French man named Emile (Desny), who is of a lower class. At the same time, she's dating someone of her social stature named William Minnoch (Wooland), who wants to marry her but she's in love with Emile. After a while, Emile starts to show that he's just as interested in Madeleine's position and money as he is her, and they break it off, but he begins to blackmail her, threatening to ruin her, and it's clear that either she'll be destroyed or he will. And then the death happens.
The real-life case of Madeleine Smith ended in a verdict of "Not Proven," and the film does an exquisite job of making this seem as plausible as possible, neither convicting her onscreen nor letting us know that she's innocent. Todd plays Madeleine as a sweet, but smart girl-someone who knows how the world works and frequently can put on different masks. It's not a role necessarily made for sympathy (we understand she got into this situation herself, and her treatment of Minnoch raises an eyebrow), but a domineering father and an increasingly abusive Emile makes you empathize with her. I had seen Todd in other films (other than her work in three Lean pictures, she's most well-known as the leading lady in Alfred Hitchcock's bomb The Paradine Case, which I have seen but have little memory of), and I'll admit to quite liking her work here. In many ways she reminded me of Joan Fontaine, a sort of edgy stillness in her best moments in the movie, particularly the final moment after she is pronounced "Not Proven" and she slyly breaks the fourth wall.
Because what I didn't know about the case was that it was unsolved, though most modern crime historians believe that Smith likely did kill her lover, and there was just no proof. This is pretty rare for a film of this era to end so ambiguously, and it was quite titillating. The first half of the movie I'd argue was relatively dull, but once the "murder or suicide" occurs and we get to trial, watching Madeleine face the salacious downfall of her affair is jolting for a film of the 1950's. Todd plays her as both respectable and clearly someone who has had sex before (there's a seen where the camera cuts away from her removed scarf that pretty much implies this has happened), and it works. I'm not sure why Lean didn't like this movie, but I was a fan, and think it is comparable to a number of his films. If you still have FilmStruck too, first sign the petition, and then make room for Madeleine on your Watchlist-it's a hidden gem that made this platform so magical.
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