La madone aux deux visages

Reportedly one of the most successful films of its year in Britain, this 1945 Gainsborough production obviously provided high escapism for its war-time audience.

The plot revolves around Phyllis Calvert's Maddalena who we first see as a young convent-girl chased and we are left to assume attacked and raped by her pursuer. Brought up to adulthood in the convent in a very opulent-looking between-the-wars Italy, without any consultation she is unwillingly married off by her absent father to a wealthy Italian gentleman who provides her with doting attention, a lavish lifestyle and then a free-spirited daughter. Despite this "arranged marriage" she, her husband and daughter all seem genuinely happy, so why does she go missing for months at a time before returning to the fold with apparently no recollection of where she's just been?

The answer we're given is that her trauma has forced her to create for herself a second personality as Rosanna, a confident, sexy, gypsy girl who has beguiled the leader of a band of brigands, a dusky, tousle-haired Stewart Granger. However, every time she encounters a stressful situation in either persona, she reverts to the other with no memory of her previous actions. It's her daughter, Patricia Roc who decides to solve the mystery of her mother's disappearances with her only clue being a brooch bearing a design of the Madonna of the Seven Moons which leads her to the the shady part of town where Granger and his gang coincidentally are planning a robbery at Maddalena's own house the night of a grand ball there and so the scene is set for the Maddalena / Rosanna secret to finally be revealed as the movie hurtles towards its tragic conclusion.

It's a strange movie. For the first half-hour everything's very hoity-toity and upper-class and you're wondering where the dreary story is going and then it's as if someone's thrown a box of fireworks at a funeral as the story gues berserk through to the end.

The legend at the beginning defiantly and proudly asserts that Maddalena's story is based on real-life cases, which of course we know nowadays to be true, but there's no explanation given as to why she goes from docile society hostess to the wanton partner of a scurrilous bandit. I'd certainly have preferred if the story hadn't felt the need to fly up into the stratosphere of heightened melodrama where it ended up.

Its difficult to rate the performances of the actors. Calvert is certainly better playing the lady than the tramp and Granger, who hated the picture apparently, struts his dusky stuff all over the place.

I didn't hate the movie myself and it was competently directed by first-timer Arthur Crabtree but really it teetered and fell over on its own pretentions almost the second the plot twist of Maddalana's identities was revealed.

This is arguably one of Gainsborough's best films ever, and as important in its own way, as "Brief Encounter." Gainsborough is sometimes criticized as a purveyor of "high toned" tosh for shop girls, yet no one did what they excelled in as well.

And "Madonna of the Seven Moons" excels in all departments. If some of its scenes and dialogue seem to beg a Carol Burnett parody, the film nonetheless grabs you from the first moment and doesn't let go till "The End."

Just try looking away!

The story: A convent bred schoolgirl is molested by a peasant, leading to dramatic repercussions in her later married life that impact both her husband and daughter.

And what a slick, juicy cinematic feast it is--with all the trimmings: psychiatry, nervous breakdowns, rebellious teen-age daughters, rhumba bands, dens of iniquity, fashion shows, Stewart Granger in gypsy pancake, male suiters and gigolos seemingly recruited from a "Brideshead Revisited" casting call, and all set against lavish settings from England to Italy (the art direction is A-1).

With such breadth of scope, mood, and tone, one would not be remotely surprised to see both Todd Slaughter and Olivier show up in the same scene, even though they don't.

The religious beginning and closing, with a genuinely touching depiction of Extreme Unction are deeply affecting.

It's also nice to see British stage great Reginald Tate in a rare screen performance.

Sin, redeem and save never had it so good! Highly recommended.

A dual personality is the subject of "Madonna of the Seven Moons," a true story. It was released in 1945, starring Phyllis Calvert, Patricia Roc, Peter Glenville, Reginald Tate, and John Stuart.

The story takes place in the early part of the 20th century, when Maddelena, an Italian teen, is attacked while she is walking in the woods.

Maddelena ends up in a convent, and when it's time for her to leave, she doesn't want to. However, she has been betrothed to marry Giuseppe Labardi (Stuart). She gives birth to their daughter Angela over a year later.

Then we flash to the 1940s. Maddelena seems very happy with Labardi and seems well loved and respected. Their daughter Angela (Roc), who is very grown up, modern, and vivacious, is due home from school.

It's then we learn that there is something strange about Maddelena, that she is a troubled woman who a few years back, disappeared from the Labardi home and returned some time later.

Mentally scarred and our story flashes forward to the 1940s where Maddelena is still troubled. She disappears one day and her daughter vows to find her.

Maddelena has another life, that of a gypsy involved with a crook, played by Stewart Granger. It is a passionate and adventurous life. No one at home knows where she has gone, and their only clue is a sketch of something called The Madonna of the Seven Moons, earrings with dangling quarter moons from the base. Angela sets out to find her, with this as her only clue.

It's an okay film from Gainsborough Studios, a melodramatic one that seems overwrought. I will say Stewart Granger is quite handsome with his dark curly hair. Interestingly, Calvert and Roc were the same age although they played mother and daughter.

This has got to be one of the most amazing movies I have ever seen. Not a dull moment to be had, and while it's not a thriller, it will certainly keep you on the edge of your seat. And boy are the love scenes steamy or what?? The only possible gripe is that it's extremely hard to believe that Miss Calvert could possibly have a daughter Miss Roc's age, and the casting is made even funnier when one knows the actual age difference between them (about 4 months), and has seen them act together in other movies where they play same-age friends, rather than inventing some non-existent 18 year age gap. Thus said, there truly would be no two women better suited to the roles, and they play their parts splendidly, with Phyllis Calvert expressing the mental anguish of her character's with such calibre that it certainly rivals Vivien Leigh's Blanche du Bois.

In Madonna Of The Seven Moons, young Phyllis Calvert fresh out of the convent is going through the woods and is raped. She got no traditional counseling as we would today so it's messed her head up good.

She's now some 25 years later married to Reginald Tate and has a daughter Patricia Roc. But during the period of the marriage she's taken her own sabbaticals from the marriage and gone and shacked up with gypsy Stewart Granger who heads a gang of thieves. Each time she's welcomed back to the family no questions asked.

Now she's gone and done it again and this time her British diplomat hubby and daughter are searching for her. She's back at her old haunts.

This is one weird and strange film and me just going this far with the plot should tell you as much. The cast can't make much out of this hash of a story though they do their best.