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Rosewater and arsenic, "the strange case of Madeleine Smith." David Lean has it in two low-angled views by the heroine (Ann Todd): The street seen through the barred window in a new Victorian home, through which a rendezvous invitation is surreptitiously dropped; and the staircase to be ascended into the Glasgow High Court to face the jury. She plays the piano and receives the suitor approved by the glowering patriarch (Leslie Banks), something "prevents you from acting naturally" nevertheless—suppressed passion, a steamer's whistle disrupting a tasteful recital or a storm pushing against a wooden door, mainly the French lover (Ivan Desny) waiting outside with his phallic walking stick. Rain pounds the pavement to celebrate the couple's clandestine kiss, later the two sneak out to the moors and stiffly attempt to mimic the dancing from the village, plebeian vigor dissolves to the maiden's shawl discarded in the woods. The romantic image crumbles with the revelation of social-climbing aspirations, a poisoned cup of cocoa figures in the impending scandal. "She dresses in purple and fine linen. But her heart is black with sin!" Wyler's The Heiress for the first half and Hitchcock's The Paradine Case for the second. (The little sister humming "Who Killed Cock Robin" announces the shift.) The return to normalcy after the affair (cp. Brief Encounter) turns out to be a sensational murder trial, "such a verdict could only be given in Scotland." It all comes down to Lean's contemplation of the patrician mask of the woman who, unable to pierce through like her sisters in Earrings of Madame de... and Senso, settles for a furtive smile, caught only by the camera in the back of a carriage. "There is such a thing as keeping up appearances." With Norman Wooland, André Morell, Elizabeth Sellars, Barbara Everest, Eugene Deckers, Susan Stranks, Jean Cadell, and Barry Jones. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |