Madame X

Lana Turner, party gal supreme, was a fine actress whose personal life detracted from her fine on-camera work. "The Bad and The Beautiful" "Peyton Place" "Imitation Of Life" and this film "Madame X" are all examples of fine acting. Lana Turner after the Stopanato Murder was given a new lease on her career by Ross Hunter at Universal, and the result was "Imitation of Life" a huge success for Universal and Turner who had an ownership percentage in that hit. Hunter and Turner and Universal reprised in "Portrait In Black" and hit another great home run with a remake of "Madame X" also at Universal. Simply put Lana Turner is outstanding in this film and the last 30 minutes of Madame X has Lana Turner performing as only the best actresses could. Lana Turner should have been nominated, but I gather her party ways, the hangover of the Stompanto murder, etc..left a sour taste with some Academy voters. Fine support by Keir Dullea and terrific seeing Constance Bennett in the role of Lana's wicked Mother In Law. Ms Bennett died soon after filming.

This is a fine Film with Lana Turner robbed of a Nomination.

This movie happened to be on while I was trying to slumber. It caught my eye and had me stay up way too late. I thought the acting was superb. The movie was so well acted it made me cry at 2am!

Yes, this film is the "queen of all soap operas," but it has one thing going for it. And that's the acting of Lana Turner, who gives the performance of her career. If you don't shed a tear at the end of this film, you are made of stone!

LANA TURNER knew a good part when she saw it. And there was even a courtroom scene that she could savor while she recalled her own real- life courtroom drama a decade earlier. She digs into the script with all of her being and gives one of the strongest performances of her career. Unfortunately, her co-star, John Forsythe, is all but invisible in a thankless role. But because the story was an old chestnut that had been done many times before, Hollywood seemed to turn its back on her work and she received not even a nomination for this, one of her best roles.

At 45, she was really too old for the early scenes depicting her as the young bride of a wealthy political candidate, but her make-up is expert and she looks radiant. She is soon to be undone by her mean mother-in-law, a youthful looking Constance Bennett (who, incidentally, just had a face lift before starting the film, much to Turner's distress). The plot has Turner getting involved with a playboy (Ricardo Montalban) who gets too serious before she decides to ditch him. She rejects him and an accidental fall down a steep stairway ends in his death and leads to the mother-in-law's scheme to get rid of the unwanted Turner by sending her into exile and making her give up custody of her young son.

The suds get thicker as Turner turns into a lonely woman who can never forget her past and the son she left behind. After an irrelevant episode with a concert pianist who wants to marry her (Curt Jurgens), she hits the skids and ends up boozing it up in Mexico with an unscrupulous Burgess Meredith. At this point in the film, Turner really does the kind of emoting that should have guaranteed at least an Oscar nomination. She pulls no punches in revealing with gut wrenching honesty what she has become under the influence of alcohol, bitter self-contempt and loneliness. It almost comes as a relief when she reaches for a gun and shoots Meredith when he plans to use her for his own ends.

Her acting is further strengthened by some courtroom scenes that show the ravages that her wasted life have done to her once lovely facade. And her expression in court, when she realizes that the young lawyer defending her is her own son, says more than a thousand words of script. There are moments throughout the film where she does some of her best acting since PEYTON PLACE.

She is wonderfully supported in the final scenes by some excellent work from Keir Dullea, who shows great sensitivity in his dealings with the woman he only knows as Madame X. His final line: "I loved her from the moment I first saw her" is guaranteed to make the eyes tear after Turner's emotional courtroom outburst. Constance Bennett is efficient and cold as her mother-in-law but John Forsythe has such an underwritten role as Turner's busy husband that his performance is as wooden as any he has ever given. Luckily for him, he found his niche on television.

By all means, if you're in the mood for a good tear-jerker and would like to see Lana at her best, this is one that you can't miss. The background score by Frank Skinner adds greatly to the story's effectiveness in wallowing in those soapy suds, reminding one of the days when Max Steiner would have been called upon to do exactly that for a Bette Davis film.

The old chestnut "Madame X" has had something like 9 screen versions, not to mention a play and the book. There's an occasional change here and there but the plot remains basically the same: A young woman is thrown out of her home and separated from her child. She hits the skids, and 20 years later, the child defends her on a murder charge.

So goes this version of "Madame X" as well, with a nice roster of stars: Lana Turner, Keir Dullea, John Forsythe, Ricardo Montalban, Constance Bennett, and Burgess Meredith. Turner is the unfortunate woman, happily married to Clayton Anderson (John Forsythe) a man with a good political future, and she's the mother of a young son. But the marriage becomes strained when Clayton is away too much, and Holly starts fooling around. When her husband comes home and she realizes how much she loves him, she tries to break it off with a roué (Ricardo Montalban). During an argument, he falls down the stairs to his death. Holly's mother-in-law, played by Constance Bennett, arranges for her to disappear with a new identity. In Europe, Holly meets a wealthy musician who falls in love with her, but she runs out on him - a big mistake - and ends up turning to alcohol and easy sex. When she murders a blackmailer (Meredith) who is going to tell her son who she is, she ends up on trial - defended by her son.

Well, the pot doesn't boil any better than this, and Hunter gives it a big, expensive production and sets Lana Turner loose in what is probably her best performance. Although the age/dissipation makeup is a little over the top, Turner gives the degenerate Holly a great, hard edge and a lot of frailty. It's a nice juxtaposition to the earlier sweetness and buoyancy of her character. Turner was one of those movie stars whose beauty, glamor, and private life often had critics not paying much attention to her performances, but she gave some good ones nonetheless. The other standout in the cast is Bennett, who's as slender as she was in the '30s and a lot tougher. Her voice has dropped a couple of octaves and her hair is a strange brown (this was perhaps in deference to the blond Lana). Toward the end of the film, she gets white hair softly styled and looks beautiful - even with the age makeup that needed to be added to the 60-year-old. The role of Forsythe's manipulative, protective mother is perfect for her -- a fitting last film for one of the great and prolific stars of the 1930s. She died before the film was released. Keir Dullea is appealing as the son, and Forsythe is pleasant though he doesn't have a huge role.

Try as they might, Madame X is from another time and by 1966 just wasn't great movie material. It is however, entertaining and engrossing. The most jaded person can't help but to be moved by the ending, though you may hate yourself for it.