Excellent and unjustly overlooked David Lean film starring his then-wife Ann Todd, "Madeleine" is terrific drama, and perhaps one of Lean's best-directed films. Todd is the young Glasgow beauty Madeleine Smith, brought to trial in 1857, accused of murdering her lover by lacing his cocoa with arsenic. In sensational scenes, Madeleine was allowed to walk free, proved neither guilty or innocent through a lack of evidence. Lean takes an interesting approach with his subject matter here. The casting of Ann Todd, a blonde, glacial and enigmatic presence serves to be the director's strong point, as the ambiguity of Madeleine Smith's motivations are increased.
Cinematographer Guy Green worked with Lean on the two Dickens adaptations before this film, and he once again shows absolute mastery of black-and-white images in this film. There are many strikingly composed shots in this film, not least the scenes between Todd and her lover, played by Ivan Desny. Madeleine hands him his cup of cocoa, and the shot is framed so the cup is in the foreground, alerting the viewer's attention and questioning Madeleine's motives as she focuses on the drink. At once we suspect her, knowing she has bought and used arsenic, but then doubt creeps back into our mind. Why would she let the young shop clerk and her maid both witness her buying arsenic, when it would have been much more clever of the woman to procure the poison by less public means?
Another striking scene has Madeleine's tryst with her lover played out in the dark of night as she removes her shoes and dances to a Scottish song playing in the distance. At once Madeleine is free of the ties that bind her in the staid Victorian England, and her joyful, seductive dancing is inter-cut with rollicking, very physical scenes at the dance. Soon Madeleine is on the ground, losing her shawl. We fade to black, and Lean has very implicitly informed us about the nature of their relations.
The acting is generally very good, with the leading players adding authenticity to their roles. Norman Wooland plays the wealthy, upstanding young man who courts Todd while she is still carrying on an affair with Desny. Elizabeth Sellars is also memorable as Todd's maid.
Most historians believe the woman was guilty of the crime, as she certainly was in possession of arsenic in the weeks leading up to her lover's death, but Lean chooses to direct in a detached manner, and by the film's end we are still pondering "Did she or didn't she?". Todd gives a curious half-smile to the camera in the final close-up shot. Is it a smile of a woman who has survived a terrible ordeal, or the smile of a murderer?
Cinematographer Guy Green worked with Lean on the two Dickens adaptations before this film, and he once again shows absolute mastery of black-and-white images in this film. There are many strikingly composed shots in this film, not least the scenes between Todd and her lover, played by Ivan Desny. Madeleine hands him his cup of cocoa, and the shot is framed so the cup is in the foreground, alerting the viewer's attention and questioning Madeleine's motives as she focuses on the drink. At once we suspect her, knowing she has bought and used arsenic, but then doubt creeps back into our mind. Why would she let the young shop clerk and her maid both witness her buying arsenic, when it would have been much more clever of the woman to procure the poison by less public means?
Another striking scene has Madeleine's tryst with her lover played out in the dark of night as she removes her shoes and dances to a Scottish song playing in the distance. At once Madeleine is free of the ties that bind her in the staid Victorian England, and her joyful, seductive dancing is inter-cut with rollicking, very physical scenes at the dance. Soon Madeleine is on the ground, losing her shawl. We fade to black, and Lean has very implicitly informed us about the nature of their relations.
The acting is generally very good, with the leading players adding authenticity to their roles. Norman Wooland plays the wealthy, upstanding young man who courts Todd while she is still carrying on an affair with Desny. Elizabeth Sellars is also memorable as Todd's maid.
Most historians believe the woman was guilty of the crime, as she certainly was in possession of arsenic in the weeks leading up to her lover's death, but Lean chooses to direct in a detached manner, and by the film's end we are still pondering "Did she or didn't she?". Todd gives a curious half-smile to the camera in the final close-up shot. Is it a smile of a woman who has survived a terrible ordeal, or the smile of a murderer?