Madeleine
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Time Out says
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
Release details
UK release:
1949
Duration:
114 mins
Cast and crew
Cast:
Leslie Banks, Edward Chapman, Elizabeth Sellars, Ivan Desny, Ivor Barnard, Andre Morell, Ann Todd, Norman Wooland
Editor:
Music:
Screenwriter:
Stanley Haynes, Nicholas Phipps
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