MADELEINE

Did she or didn't she? Ann Todd as Madeleine

MADELEINE (1950). Director: David Lean. 

Madeleine Smith (Ann Todd of So Evil My Love) of Glascow is being courted by one William Minnoch (Norman Wooland), a perfectly pleasant if unexciting man whom her father (Leslie Banks) heartily approves of. Mr. Smith can't understand why his oldest daughter keeps putting Minnoch off, but he doesn't know that she has been keeping secret rendezvous with a sexy French shipping clerk named Emile (Ivan Desny), something that would cause a scandal in the Victorian era. Madeleine can't bring herself to tell her father the truth, so she decides to run away with Emile, but he is dismayed at the thought that they would have to live on his comparatively meagre income. When Madeleine gets engaged to Minnoch, Emile threatens to tell her father, ruining her chances for a successful union with the other man. But has Madeleine cooked up a scheme to make absolutely certain that Emile cannot interfere?

Ivan Desny as Emile

Madeleine is based on the famous Madeleine Smith murder case. Todd, who was married to David Lean at the time, had played the role on the stage and importuned her husband to direct her in a film also based on the case (but not on the play). She is quite good in the film, matched by Ivan Desney of Lola Montes and Anastasia -- who never quite reveals if Emile is a complete mountebank or just a man who genuinely loves Madeleine but also simply wishes a better life. In fact, the one major problem with the film is that the characters are not as dimensional as one might like. Wooland and Banks [The Most Dangerous Game] prove good support for Todd, and Andre Morrell offers his customary sharp performance as her lawyer. The same case also inspired the Joan Crawford film Letty Lynton. 

Verdict: Absorbing true crime story with some fine performances. ***. 

LOLA MONTES

Martine Carol and Anton Walbrook in the Bavarian Royal palace

LOLA MONTES (1955). Director: Max Ophuls. This is the remastered and completely restored version as it was first made by Max Ophuls.

"When such a woman spends more than five minutes with a man, that's enough to start rumors."

In her later years, the still attractive dancer and notorious lady Lola Montes (Martine Carol), is exhibited as an attraction in a circus, with the various acts presenting tableaus relating to her scandalous life. Now and then she thinks back to things that happened in her past: her affair with Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg); her early marriage to Lt. James (Ivan Desny of Anastasia), who was her late father's adjutant; and her becoming the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook of Gaslight), a situation which nearly drives the whole country into a civil war before she flees in a coach with a handsome young student (Oskar Werner). Her infamous life and behavior have now literally turned her into a sideshow freak.

Martine Carol and Peter Ustinov

Lola Montes was based on a novel which was a fictionalized version of the life story of the real "Lola Montes," the stage name of the Irish-born dancer and entertainer Eliza Gilbert. Frankly Gilbert's fascinating life should have made a much more interesting picture than Max Ophuls has provided. After its release, the picture was trimmed of about half an hour with the narrative being presented in chronological order. Restoring the movie to its original shape hasn't done it much good, as it never builds up any suspense, introduces characters only to have them disappear a moment later, and has too many of those long and rather boring circus sequences. It doesn't help that in the lead role Martine Carol gives a performance that can only be described as adequate. The other actors make a better impression, especially Walbrook as King Ludwig, and Oskar Werner as the student, who catches Lola's eye but is seen on screen all too briefly.

Martine Carol

Lola Montes is dramatically bankrupt, with one-dimensional characters that never really engage the attention or sympathies of the audience. For much of the movie cinematographer Christian Matras seems to have trouble filling the CinemaScope frame with attractive compositions or even covering the action in a compelling or professional fashion. Faces often seem to be photographed through screens or lattices. For some reason there is s big improvement in the scenes that take place in Bavaria, which are striking. However, most of the settings and the lighting schemes throughout the movie are eye-appealing.

Martine Carol and Oskar Werner

One suspects that the main reason for the circus framing device was that it was cheaper to show Lola "carried off by Cossacks" by using clowns and the like in a theatrical setting than to use scores of men on horseback in a real location. Peter Ustinov has the thankless role of the circus' master of ceremonies. Georges Auric's [Dead of Night] score is occasionally powerful but it can't do enough to save the movie. Lola Montes has its admirers, but despite my admiration for many foreign films, I suspect this would have been much better had it been made in Hollywood. (Speaking of Hollywood, Ophul's best film may well be Letter from an Unknown Woman.) Today Martine Carol is pretty much forgotten (except for this film's enthusiasts) but she amassed fifty credits before dying in her forties and her real life had its own share of scandals.

Verdict: The material was certainly there for a great movie, but this is not the film it should have been. **1/4. 

ANASTASIA

Helen Hayes, Yul Brynner, Ingrid Bergman

ANASTASIA (1956). Director: Anatole Litvak. Screenplay by Arthur Laurents.

In Europe in the 1920's rumors are circulating that Anastasia (Ingrid Bergman), the youngest daughter of the Tsar Nicholas, may have survived the purge that killed the rest of her family. General Bounine (Yul Brynner) finds a woman, fresh out of mental hospitals and contemplating suicide, whom he thinks resembles Anastasia, and guides her -- like Henry Higgins -- to act more like royalty. But as she is about to meet the Dowager Empress (Helen Hayes) and seal her fate, she wonders if she could really be who everyone says she is. Anastasia is a wonderful, absorbing film that is not true to historical facts but to their spirit, and works beautifully as a kind of fairy tale. Bergman deservedly won a Best Actress Oscar for this, and she is matched in excellence by a powerful Hayes, and a rather sexy and dynamic Brynner. There is also fine work from Martita Hunt [Becket] as the Empress' peppery lady-in-waiting [to whom the Empress says "to a woman of your age, sex should mean nothing but gender"]; Ivan Desny as her nephew, Paul; Akim Tamiroff [The Vulture] as Boris Chernov, one of the co-conspirators in this matter of the "phony" Anastasia; and Natalie Schafer [The Other Love] as one of the group of Russian exiles who embraces Anastasia as their own; among others. The ending is contrived but effective, and the movie still manages to maintain an air of ambiguity. In real life, the Empress completely rejected "Anastasia's" claim, and the woman lived her life as Ana Anderson, protesting all along that she was the real daughter of the Tsar. Decades later, DNA proved conclusively that Anderson was lying. Filmed in stunning DeLuxe color and with a nice score by Alfred Newman.

Verdict: A true classic with superb performances. ****.