Rent Madeleine (1949)
3.5 of 5 from 67 ratings
1h 50min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- During the nineteenth century, a young woman named Madeleine embarks on a secret affair with a penniless Frenchman. Being from a respectable family, their affair is carried out in secret whilst her father parades various suitors in front of her. The frenchman is keen to marry, and while Madeleine suggests an elopement, he wishes to gain her father's concent. This is not part of her plans, but he blackmails her with threats of revealing their affair. A few weeks later, he dies of arsenic poisoning . Madeleineis the prime suspect...
- Actors:
- Ann Todd, Norman Wooland, Ivan Desny, Leslie Banks, Barbara Everest
- Directors:
- David Lean
- Studio:
- ITV
- Genres:
- Drama
- Collections:
- Cinema Paradiso's 2022 Centenary Club, Top 10 British Actresses of the 1940s
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Reviews (1) of Madeleine
A Better Film than Some Would Say - Madeleine review by Cato
Some critics have panned this film, implying that it wasn't nearly as good as David Lean's classics, but I think it's as good as most films I've watched that have been about Victorian times. Set in Glasgow just over 50 years than when the film was made, it's a powerful film about a real crime, that of a woman who is supposed to have poisoned her French lover in order that she can marry the man who is chosen for her by her patriarchal father. Lean's wife, Ann Todd , who some critics didn't like (maybe because she was forty years old), thinking that she wasn't right for the part of Madeleine, but I thought that she gave a superb performance, and belied her real age extremely well. The only part of the film which I thought was rather overlong was the speech in the court at the end - I won't tell you what happens though.
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