Madame X (1929)
…………………………………………………
Madame X Movie Review
Madame X is a 1929 Pre-Code drama film directed by Lionel Barrymore and starring Ruth Chatterton. It’s a melodramatic movie for better and for worse.
………………………………………………….
“Must we always do the right thing,
no matter how much it hurts others?“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
A woman is left on the streets by her jealous husband. She then takes up with no-good gambler who forces her to join in his crimes. Years later, he is killed, and she is put to trial for his murder and her lawyer is her son who doesn’t recognize her. She, in an effort to hide her shameful identity from her son, abstains from speaking in court.
Yes, this is oh so melodramatic. Gloriously melodramatic at times, but also often ridiculously so. That entire third act, though fun in its own silly way, was simply too implausible and too much of a coincidence. I did like the first act which set up the story well, and the second act is suitably dark while the third one is purely soapy. Every one of them is different, but as a whole the movie screams melodrama a bit too much for its own sake.
I did really like Ruth Chatterton’s performance in the main role. She is so good in fact that she gave one of the year’s best performances in a year with weak acting overall. Although she struggled a bit at times, for the most part her acting was not as theatrical as the others were. Thus, she deserved her Oscar nomination and she should have easily won over undeservedly crowned Mary Pickford in a much weaker performance and movie.
The other characters are only serviceable in Madame X, and only the protagonist is highly memorable and important. As for the technicalities, this is yet another 1929 flick which had screechy sound in it, and in particular the opening felt very poorly recorded and difficult to hear at times.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The movie also has way too much dialogue. Instead of musical numbers, they wanted to showcase talking so they went full excess with it. Although the dialogue is mostly good, it needed to have been cut a bit, but thankfully the second as well as the third act are more cinematic and bigger in scope. The direction from Lionel Barrymore is surprisingly solid for an actor.
Madame X has an expectedly poor sound quality, too much dialogue and it is melodramatic to a fault, but that also made it pretty engaging to watch. It is overall well directed, well made and interesting despite being so implausible. Ruth Chatterton is so good in the main role that she definitely deserved to win an Oscar over Mary Pickford.
