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Bookmark this pageMadeleine (1949)
Director: David Lean
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
One of three films Lean made virtually as star vehicles for his wife Ann Todd. Here she manages to extend the range of her semi-hysterical screen personality into a flimsily forceful character who pits her amoral deviousness against the rigid hypocrisy of Victorian Glasgow. Lean strongly emphasises her vulnerability: her French lover (Desny) is a preening bully, her father (Banks) a fire-eating patriarch, and her passage to the courtroom (accused of poisoning the lover) is marked by the furious rantings of a male mob. Where the film is remarkable, though, is in never allowing her to become simply a victim. She dares to expose and enjoy her sensuality, and cunningly exploits the prim reticence expected of a Victorian miss to avoid submission to marriage, deflecting the hostile gaze of outraged society with a proudly enigmatic vanity.Author: RMy
Cast & crew
Director: David Lean
Producer: Stanley Haynes
Cast: Ann Todd, Leslie Banks, Elizabeth Sellars, Norman Wooland, Ivan Desny, Ivor Barnard, Andre Morell, Edward Chapman full cast
Duration: 114 mins
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