Madame X (1929)

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Movie
Original title Madame X
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1929
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director Lionel Barrymore
script Willard Mack
production MGM
camera Arthur Reed
occupation

Madame X is an American melodrama starring Ruth Chatterton and directed by Lionel Barrymore . With its portrayal of self-sacrificing motherly love, the film set the style for a whole series of subsequent productions.

action

Jacqueline Floriot is caught in a boring marriage to a much older man of the best company. Her needs for romance and variety eventually drive her into a frivolous liaison with another man who feigns her love. She leaves her husband and her beloved child to save them a scandal. When Jacqueline wants to return to visit her seriously ill son, there is a scandal. Louis, her bigoted husband, evicts her from the house and gives her a certain amount of money so that she never comes near his family again. Jacqueline is badly hit and her social decline begins. She makes the acquaintance of the cardsharp Laroque and becomes his lover. They both tour halfway around the world, and Jacqueline is becoming increasingly addicted to alcohol. Years later, completely impoverished, the two return to France. Laroque finds out who Jacqueline really is and wants to blackmail her husband, who had her officially declared dead years ago. In a surge of motherly love, Jacqueline shoots Laroque to spare her son the shame of disclosure. She is charged with murder and given her own son as a public defender, who of course does not know who the careworn old woman sitting in front of him really is. Throughout the process, Jacqueline stubbornly refuses to give her real name known and is eventually sentenced to death as Madame X.

background

Ruth Chatterton was a household name on Broadway when she made the leap to Hollywood on a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1928 at the ripe old of 35 . She made her debut in a silent film alongside Emil Jannings and the studio didn't know what to do with Chatterton at first. Only with the advent of sound film her rise began to First Lady of talkies and the biggest star of the studio. The main reason was her appearance in Madame X . The film is based on Alexandre Bisson's play La Femme X from 1908 and has already been adapted several times, for example in 1920 with Pauline Frederick in the title role. MGM had acquired the rights to the play and transferred the direction to Lionel Barrymore . The actor, a member of the famous Barrymore dynasty, had directed a few films back in the 1910s but then switched back to acting. Irving Thalberg personally asked Barrymore to return to the director's chair, as he trusted the experienced stage star to meet the demands of the new sound film medium for a completely different kind of staging. Barrymore took responsibility with humor. In view of the panic that gripped the studios during these years of upheaval and drove them to endless sound tests, i.e. trying out whether the actors' voices were suitable for the requirements of the sound film, he commented with the sentence:

“The language has been a success for thousands of years. And now they are testing them. "

On the other hand, Barrymore also understood that it would not be enough to simply bring a well-known play to the screen scene by scene, since the film needed other dramatic elements than just dialogue.

“Action and plot will remain the most important parts of the film. [...] The only difference will be that the dialogues will no longer appear in subtitles, but will be spoken, and hopefully in something that is roughly similar to our English. "

As a director, Barrymore staged Madame X against the trend of the time without accompanying music as an intense drama. In contrast to the then current style of driving the plot of a film through almost uninterrupted dialogue, Barrymore built in several dramatic pauses in which only the expressive face of Chatterton dominated the screen. At the same time, Lionel Barrymore broke away from the static drama on the first day of the sound film, when the still primitive recording technology forced the actors to speak their dialogues without moving into only weakly concealed microphones. In Madame X , however, the actors move freely through the scene, and this gives the entire plot extra pizzazz and a certain naturalness. Barrymore let the microphones hover over the actors on moving cranes. In this way, the actors regained their freedom of movement and the staging appeared less static and theatrical. This innovation was called the boom microphone , a technique that was also introduced at the same time by directors Cecil B. DeMille and WS Van Dyke .

Dorothy Parker worked for MGM for a while and was also scheduled as a screenwriter for Madame X. Their design tried to make the old-fashioned melodrama more contemporary and to adapt the antiquated morality of female self-sacrifice to the requirements of a changed society. When their script was discarded, Parker said cynically:

"Try making the story a little more exciting: throw in some hot musical numbers and then call it Mammy X!"

The film became one of the biggest financial successes of the year and was the style for a myriad of similar films such as The Sin of Madelon Claudet , The Secret of Madame Blanche , Blonde Venus , The House on 56th Street , The Life of Vergie Winters , I Found Stella Parrish , Confession . Certain variations were possible, for example the son was the accuser of the unknown mother instead of the defense counsel, or the woman accidentally became pregnant and had to give her child to foster parents. There were also variations that promised the heroine a certain happy end, such as Once a Lady , also with Chatterton, or Give Me Your Heart with Kay Francis . Ruth Chatterton shot several barely concealed remakes of her hit, such as Lullaby , for which she was again nominated for an Oscar for best actress, and Frisco Jenny . Madame X was successfully filmed again in 1937 with Gladys George and in 1966 with Lana Turner in the leading roles.

Awards

The film went to the 1930 Academy Awards (April) with two nominations , but won none of the awards:

  • Best Actress - Ruth Chatterton
  • Best Director - Lionel Barrymore

criticism

Variety wrote enthusiastically:

“Films of this caliber and their makers must be recommended without reservation [...] for their efforts to finally give the screen the quality it deserves. Films like Madame X affirm the reformers, improve the status of the film itself and show the world that there is such a thing as art in filmmaking. "

The New York Times read warm words of praise:

“Lionel Barrymore's debut as a director, the adaptation of Alexandre Bisson's old stage melodrama Madame X , premiered yesterday in front of an enthusiastic audience. The film is a wonderful production. [...] There are many good actors in the film, some are even excellent. But without a doubt it is Ruth Chatteron who really does something extraordinary in the title role. It shows the emotional struggles of a sad woman with true acting intelligence. In the course of the plot she dispenses with any make-up and the depiction of an alcoholic woman and a desperate mother allow Miss Chatterton an interpretation that was only rarely seen on screen. "

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Speech has been a success for thousands of years and now they are testing it.
  2. ↑ Action will remain the chief ingredient of these little cultural dramas of ours. [...] The main difference will be that the titles will from now on be uttered - preferably in something approximating English - instead of printed.
  3. ↑ Why not jazz up the story? Stick in a few hot numbers and call it Mammy X!
  4. ↑ Pictures of this caliber and their makers are entitled to untold commendation […] in lending to the screen a quality that the screen needs. Pictures like Madame X confound the reformers, elevate the name of pictures and tell the world that there is an art in film making.
  5. ^ Lionel Barrymore's talking pictorial transcription of Alexandre Bisson's old stage melodrama, "Madame X", which was presented last night before an enthusiastic throng, is an extraordinarily poignant production. [..] There are a number of competent performances, several of which elicited genuine applause, but without a doubt the acting of Ruth Chatterton in the title role is the outstanding achievement of the picture. She portrays the emotional spells of the saddened woman with intelligence and artistry. She abandons all idea of ​​good looks in the latter stages of this chronicle, and sometimes as the absinthe victim and on other occasions as the remorseful mother, Miss Chatterton lends to her part acting rarely beheld on the screen.