The Cinematic "prose" is Lean (Ha ha)

While I am a lifelong member of the David Lean Marching and Shouting Society, I had actually never heard of this minor jewel. Glad I checked it out.

In an earlier review I praised Lean's masterpiece, "Great Expectations" for remaining true to the spirit of the Dickens classic, while creating something new, as films so often do. "Madeleine" has more of a challenge, being based on a sensational True Crime story from the 19th Century.

Quick summary, daughter of a upper middle class family in 19th Century Glasgow has fallen in love with a smoldering French Lothario, while her by the books Christian Father desires that she matches with a some what milquetoast-y fellow who probably has 100 quid a year, or more. The story does involve murder, but I won't spoil it by saying much more.

Ann Todd, at the time the wife of David Lean is solid as the tortured daughter, and the cast as a whole is quite good. What Lean and screenwriters Stanley Haynes and Nicholas Phipps do so well is to spin the real-life story into something combining Henry James with Daphne Du Maurier, with a hint of Noir. This is 1950, mind you, for some the very height of the genre.

Like Stanley Kubrick, Lean's film-making is robust, meaty and always artistic. An example of this is a scene part way through the film where Madeleine and her Lothario are on a hillside above the Scottish resort town of Rohr (don't know the spelling) and hear music coming from the Pub down in the town. M starts dancing, and tries to get her man to join in.

Dancing, of course, post Hays code and pre- nudity in films is a metaphor for Sex, and as the camera deftly cuts back and forth between the townspeople dancing sweatily, and our two Lovers doing so more sedately. There is that classic cut where, it is assumed, they have had sex but they are completely dressed. They might as well be smoking cigarettes, the implication is so clear,

Much else about Madeleine is to be praised, including the Score, and of course Art Direction and Cinematography. I don't think there are a lot of Lean detractors, but they probably exist. If you like or love Lean, and haven't seen this one, Amazon has the excellent Criterion Collection version: Restored Film digitally transferred - presumably first for DVD. Streamed on a decent HD TV the film looks exquisite.