Film Review
Yes, the plot is a stinker, with more idiotic contrivances than the
scriptwriters ever managed to cram into all 356 episodes of
Dallas. Yes, the
sentimentality is ladled on so thickly that you can see it, actually
see it, dissolve the actor's make up and burn huge blistering holes in
the set (if not the plot) like some viciously acidic compound that is
outlawed by the United Nations. Yes, it is unimaginably crass
weepy fodder of the worst kind, the kind of artistic endeavour that has
the potential to cause your brain to implode and your internal organs
to shrivel up out of shame if you if you take it too seriously.
Yet, somehow, you wouldn't want it any other way. Like a massive
slab of sugar-rich chocolate,
Madame
X is not something you will be prescribed by your doctor, but it
does you a power of good when your girlfriend/boyfriend has given you
the elbow and your treasured pet dog has just emerged from beneath the
rear wheels of a sports car looking suspiciously like a hairy
jam-coated pancake.
For one thing, it has Lana Turner in it. That should be enough to salvage
any cinematic wreck, even one that feels like the distilled residue of
all of Douglas Sirk's films (without the good bits). This may not be Miss Turner's
greatest role, but she gives it everything she has and is virtually
unrecognisable in the film's closing scenes. Turner's career was
already on the decline by the time she made this film but she still has
what it takes to make the most mundane and ridiculous scenes appear
intense and meaningful. She out-performs and out-classes every one
of her male co-stars (even Latin Romeo Ricardo Montalban) and will have
you crying your hearts out in her last few scenes. Keir Dullea's
career was not too badly tarnished by the seriously bad dialogue he
has to spout in this film as a rookie defence lawyer - a year later
Stanley Kubrick would cast him as the lead (Dave Bowman) in his sci-fi
masterpiece
2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968).
Madame X is
not, repeat not, the Hollwood weepy's finest hour, but if your smashed,
suicidal or neurotic it's just about bearable. You'll hate
yourself in the morning though. Soap can sometimes leave a very
nasty smell.
© James Travers 2008
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Not everyone is pleased when social climber Holly Parker marries
up-and-coming statesman John Forsythe. The latter's mother takes
an immediate dislike to her new daughter-in-law, considering that her
son has married beneath him. Her first impressions are borne out
when Holly pursues an extra-marital affair with another man, Phil
Benton, whilst her husband is away on business. Ironically,
on the evening when Holly visits Phil to end their relationship, she
accidentally knocks him down the stairs and kills him stone dead.
Naturally, the older Mrs Parker gets to hear of this and uses it to
blackmail her daughter-in-law into staging her own death.
Adopting a new name, Holly must give up both her husband and son and
begin a new life in another country, but she ends up as a broken down
alcoholic in Mexico City. Here she runs into serial blackmailer
Dan Sullivan, who discovers her true identity and plans to use her to
extort money from the Forsythe family. To protect her secret,
Holly shoots Dan dead and promptly finds herself on death row.
Now, whom do you think Fate sends to defend her at her trial...?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.