Madeleine (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Madeleine


caption =
imdb_id = 0042700
amg_id = 1:30706
director = David Lean
writer = Stanley Haynes
Nicholas Phipps
starring = Ann Todd
Ivan Desny
Norman Wooland
producer = Stanley Haynes
music = William Alwyn
cinematography= Guy Green
distributor = February 14, 1950
runtime = 114 min.
country = UK
language = English

"Madeleine" is a 1950 film directed by David Lean, based on a true story about Madeleine Smith, a young Glasgow woman from a wealthy family, who was tried in 1857 for the murder of her lover, Emile L'Angelier. The trial was much publicized in the newspapers of the day and was labelled "the trial of the century." Lean's adaptation of the story stars his then wife, Ann Todd with Ivan Desny as her French lover, Norman Wooland as the respectable suitor, and Leslie Banks as the authoritarian father who are both unaware of Madeleine's secret life.

Plot

The film dramatises events leading up to the 1857 trial of an otherwise respectable young woman, Madeleine Smith, (Ann Todd), for the murder of her draper's assistant lover, Emile L'Angelier (Ivan Desny). The trial produced the uniquely Scottish verdict of "not proven", which left Madeleine a free woman.

The film begins with the purchase of a house in Glasgow by a wealthy middle class Victorian family. Their eldest daughter, Madeleine, chooses to have for her own the bedroom in the basement. Here she will have easy access to the servants' entrance, and will be able to entertain her lover, Frenchman Emile L'Angelier, without the knowledge of her family.

The relationship continues, and the couple become secretly engaged, but L'Angelier begins to press Madeleine to reveal his existence to her father in order that they can marry. Madeleine, frightened of her authoritarian father, is reluctant to do so and eventually visits L'Angelier in his rooms and says she will run away with him and marry him rather than face telling her father the truth. L'Angelier, however, says that he could never marry her in this way, and Madeleine realises that he does not love her for herself but rather that he sees her as a means to recover his position in society. She tells him that their relationship is at an end and asks him to send her letters back.

During the time that she has been seeing L'Angelier, Madeleine's father has been encouraging her to accept the attentions of a wealthy society gentleman, William Minnoch, (Norman Wooland) and after having broken her engagement with L'Angelier, she tells Mr Minnoch that she will accept his marriage proposal. Her family are delighted, but L'Angelier visits the house again and threatens to show her father the compromising letters in his possession unless she continues to see him. Saying nothing of her new engagement, Madeleine reluctantly agrees.

Some weeks after this, L'Angelier is taken very ill, and although he recovers, he later has another attack of the same illness and this time dies from it.

He is found to have died from arsenic poisoning, and L'Angelier's friend points the finger of suspicion at Madeleine, who is found to have had arsenic in her possession at the time of L'Angelier's death.

The remainder of the film covers the court case, at the end of which the jury bring the verdict of not proven, a uniquely Scottish verdict which releases Madeleine from custody as neither guilty nor not guilty.

Madeleine and David Lean

The film was not well received on its release, perhaps due to the objective handling of the story, which has the effect of leaving the audience unsure as to whether Madeleine actually committed the crime or not.

Whatever its flaws, the film has a clear place in the development of Lean's directorial style, and the lighting design is particularly striking. Shadow and light are used very definitely throughout to emphasise the emotional content of scenes.

There are also interesting uses of sexual metaphor, notably the scene where Madeleine and L'Angelier dance on the clifftop whilst in the hall below the sexual intensity of the villager's reel becomes more and more frenzied.