TV and Movies

[Oznell]

6:00 a.m. Eastern--  "Madeleine"  Ann Todd, Ivan Desny, Norman Wooland, Leslie Banks

Have not seen this, but boy it sounds like a very good prospect for DVR'ing. David Lean-directed ("Brief Encounter",  "Dr. Zhivago") adaptation of real life murder mystery that made headlines around the world.  It's the 1850's in Glasgow, and Scottish socialite Ann Todd takes a French lover, unbeknownst to everyone, while still living in her father's house.

Todd eventually realizes her lover may be using her, and agrees to her overbearing father's wish for her to receive a respectable suitor.  Events snowball, and when the lover Desny sickens and dies, she is accused of poisoning him with arsenic. 

Spoiler

The splashy, lurid courtroom trial results in the very unusual verdict of "not proven", so Madeleine comes down to us a symbol of ambiguity, neither guilty nor not guilty.

Interesting back story:  Ann Todd was married to David Lean, and this juicy role was a bit of a gift from him to her.  The austerely beautiful, intelligent British actress appeared in at least one other Lean film "The Passionate Friends", as well as Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case", and "The Seventh Veil" with James Mason.

Suave Ivan Desny, who plays the French lover, was a Swiss actor of Russian descent, who spent World War II in a Nazi concentration camp. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-flaBq_W0zc  

[spiderw]

I will DVR this movie based on your as always, excellent synopsis.  I  enjoy the settings  in the old murder mysteries and this movie sounds like a winner in that area. Thanks for the heads up, Oznell.

[golding76]

Bless the "Angel of Classic Movies," oznell.