The Lady

Norma Talmadge stars in a 'Madame X' story in which the lower-class Talmadge must give up her infant son for his own good and then spends the rest of the movie suffering. When Norma catches her husband cheating on her, he calls her 'a common trollop' -- no, I don't have that backwards -- and abandons her. After she gives birth and goes to work in a Marseilles boite -- surrounded by women who wear so little makeup they look like bad cross dressers -- her frozen-faced father-in-law appears on the scene with a court order for his grandson -- his son is dead. Desperate to make sure that her son isn't ruined as her husband had been, she gives him to an Anglican Minister's wife who looks a bit like Bing Crosby, since they are leaving their parish in Marseilles and returning to England. Miss Talmadge then spends the next couple of reels wandering around the streets of London, moderately barmy, and it all ends with a Surprising Revelation.

Now normally I have little use for this sort of tripe, but Miss Talmadge is simply wonderful in it. She is not tied down, as she so often is, by wearing expensive clothes and exotic hair styles. Instead, you get to see how beautiful she is and how she really inhabits a character and world where she believes this. As a result, I found myself weeping intermittently throughout the entire proceedings.

There are a couple of scenes missing from the version I saw -- the road show version seems to have been fifteen or so minutes longer -- and decomposition had struck the leaders and two sections of two or three minutes each -- but the point of this movie is to watch Miss Talmadge act, and that she does. Magnificently.

Only of few of Norma Talmadge's 1920s silent features exist: KIKI, SECRETS, and THE LADY. Of the three, THE LADY is her best performance.

The film opens with middle-aged barmaid Polly (Talmadge) being insulted by patrons and sitting down to tell the story of her lifelong pursuit to be "a lady." She says that 24 years before, she was the toast of the British music halls as a singer and dancer and that she was pursued by a young gentleman. They marry and travel throughout Europe, but in Monte Carlo she discovers that he is having an affair. Polly attacks the woman, but the husband (Wallace MacDonald) comes to his girlfriend's defense and calls his wife a common trollop.

Back in England, they separate and Polly descends into singing at a cheap saloon. But her revenge is the son she has kept from her ex-husband. Then one day an older man (Brandon Hurst) comes into the salon and demands possession of the boy because the husband has died and he wants his grandson. Polly panics and goes back to get the baby but instead hands the kid over to a minister's wife (Margaret Seddon) with the promise the boy be raised to be a gentleman. They disappear into the London fog.

After 5 years of searching, Polly has never found the boy and is now reduced to selling flowers on the street. She calls plaintively into the fog and follows families with the hopes of finding the boy. A policeman comforts her and advises she give up the search. Years later we're back in a saloon where middle-aged Polly is a barmaid. After an especially violent apache dance, there is a brawl and shooting and a surprise ending.

Norma Talmadge is simply wondrous. At age 32, she is at the height of her dramatic powers and the height of her silent career. Co-stars include George Hackathorne, Doris Lloyd, Emily Fitzroy, Paulette Duval, Marc McDermott, and Walter Long. Directed by Frank Borzage with the same atmospheric touches he brought to great silents like SEVENTH HEAVEN and STREET ANGEL. A reel or two is missing and there is decomposition, but this film is still well worth seeking out.