A young lawyer unknowingly defends his mother who abandoned him when he was three.A young lawyer unknowingly defends his mother who abandoned him when he was three.A young lawyer unknowingly defends his mother who abandoned him when he was three.
- Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 2 nominations total
Ullrich Haupt
- Laroque
- (as Ullric Haupt)
Claude King
- Valmorin
- (as Claud King)
Henry Armetta
- Hotel Owner
- (uncredited)
Agostino Borgato
- Hotel Porter
- (uncredited)
Jack Chefe
- Nightclub Waiter
- (uncredited)
Ronnie Cosby
- Boy at Puppet Show
- (uncredited)
Carrie Daumery
- Dining Room Guest
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaNo music is heard under the opening or closing credits of Madame X, which was the result of a short-lived practice in which studios expected the local theater musicians to provide live accompaniment to the opening credits of sound films. Keyboardists and orchestras were still working in the theaters in the late 1920s providing music for silent films still in distribution. Live music was a way to make the screening more of a special event and not a purely "canned" presentation.
- ConnectionsAlternate-language version of La mujer X (1931)
Featured review
partly atrocious and partly brilliant
This first talking film version of the venerable Madame X takes a full one-third of its running time to get started as a proper movie. The first 30 minutes suffer horribly from atrocious miking, unbelievably stilted acting and frozen camera placement that was all too common in the early talkie era. It's as if the actors were on morphine laced with acid and performing under water. The one scene that takes place outdoors in a public park is crudely recorded and more jarring than revelatory in its effect.
When the locale finally shifts to southeast Asia the juicy part of the story begins with the star Ruth Chatterton on the first leg of her debauched round-the-world journey to oblivion as the wayward official's spouse whose life is ruined by an extramarital tryst. Chatterton's performance careens from laughably, abysmally dated posturings at the beginning to incandescent hyper-realism as she portrays the dissolution and ravages of absinthe addiction and self loathing. It is a brave and even startling tour de force, especially for its time. And the extreme contrast between the awful and the sublime is itself a phenomenon worth observing for its own sake. It speaks to the transition in acting styles that was taking place in the 1920s, a time of deep cultural change. Usually a movie from this era will contain different styles of acting coming from different actors - but here the differences are all within Chatterton herself.
The rest of the cast simply falls by the wayside, although in the early minutes it is Lewis Stone who registers more strongly, due to his deeper and more mike- friendly voice. Raymond Hackett as Madame X's clueless son is suitably earnest and sympathetic in his bravado courtroom climax scene. Ullrich Haupt is effective as the con man who befriends the heroine in South America, but Burgess Meredith's rendition of the same character in the 1966 version was more chillingly repulsive.
Toward the end Chatterton's performance begins to slip back into treacly mode (not helped by the overwrought dialogue), but for about 45 minutes she delivers one of the most entertaining acting jobs of 1929.
When the locale finally shifts to southeast Asia the juicy part of the story begins with the star Ruth Chatterton on the first leg of her debauched round-the-world journey to oblivion as the wayward official's spouse whose life is ruined by an extramarital tryst. Chatterton's performance careens from laughably, abysmally dated posturings at the beginning to incandescent hyper-realism as she portrays the dissolution and ravages of absinthe addiction and self loathing. It is a brave and even startling tour de force, especially for its time. And the extreme contrast between the awful and the sublime is itself a phenomenon worth observing for its own sake. It speaks to the transition in acting styles that was taking place in the 1920s, a time of deep cultural change. Usually a movie from this era will contain different styles of acting coming from different actors - but here the differences are all within Chatterton herself.
The rest of the cast simply falls by the wayside, although in the early minutes it is Lewis Stone who registers more strongly, due to his deeper and more mike- friendly voice. Raymond Hackett as Madame X's clueless son is suitably earnest and sympathetic in his bravado courtroom climax scene. Ullrich Haupt is effective as the con man who befriends the heroine in South America, but Burgess Meredith's rendition of the same character in the 1966 version was more chillingly repulsive.
Toward the end Chatterton's performance begins to slip back into treacly mode (not helped by the overwrought dialogue), but for about 45 minutes she delivers one of the most entertaining acting jobs of 1929.
helpful•132
- mukava991
- Feb 21, 2009
Details
- Runtime1 hour 35 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.20 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content