User Reviews

More of a curio, this was reportedly the first MGM film to have a microphone follow the actors (on a fishing pole) at the suggestion of director Lionel Barrymore. Maybe that's why he got an Oscar nomination. Surely not for directing the photographer or the actors. The direction seemed so devoid of creativity it became obtrusive: a static camera that refused to follow the actors. If an actor moved, it jumped to a two-shot. Ruth Chatterton, however, is excellent as the long-suffering mother who sacrifices herself to prevent harm to the reputation of her son, who defends her in a murder case without knowing she is his mother! And Lewis Stone, who never gives a bad performance, is also excellent as the man she abandoned. It's worth a look for the acting.

... and understand that if the photography seems static and uninspired it is because that at this point in early talking film the camera could not move. You had to cross cut between shots to get even the illusion of motion.

As for Ruth Chatterton and Lewis Stone, in my opinion these two never could give a bad performance and that is true here too. These two were pioneers in acting in the talkies and acquit themselves marvelously considering that actors were often directed to over-emote. Ruth Chatterton resists the common early talkie urge to chew scenery better than Stone, though, probably owing to the fact that until she was 35 she was a star of the stage and thus was familiar with handling dialogue. Stone had started acting in silent films, so in these early talking roles he was having to feel his way through it, although he quickly got the hang of it.

In this case the two play estranged couple Jacqueline and Louis Floriot. Unlike the other filmed versions of Madame X, this one starts several years after Jacqueline has abandoned her family and at a time of severe illness for her son. The man she left her husband for has died, and she asks for a fresh start with Louis, who still loves her, but rebuffs her anyway on account of his pride and turns her out into the street without even allowing her to see her son.

In this version there is no meddling mother-in-law thinking the wife is not good enough for her son. Instead it is Louis' coldness that apparently caused Jacqueline to look for affection elsewhere. The vast majority of the film belongs to Chatterton as we see her go from man to man and fall deeper into alcoholism and despair. The makeup job was quite good on this film too as we see Chatterton transform from a woman with delicate China doll features to a bloated used-up alcoholic that not even her ex-husband recognizes when she goes on trial for her life in a courtroom where he presides as judge. Raymond Hackett is excellent as Jacqueline's grown son who feels real compassion for this woman that he does not know is his mother when he is assigned to defend her.

Seeing this 1929 version of Madame X was quite a revelation, the only other version I had seen was the Americanized Ross Hunter soap opera production that starred Lana Turner in 1965. This film illustrates the problems of early sound production and how the players and directors had trouble adapting to the new sound medium.

Ruth Chatterton was nominated for her stage like overwrought performance as the degraded Madame X formerly Jacqueline Floriot. I'm glad that before seeing Chatterton I had seen Mary Pickford in the Oscar winning film for Best Actress, Coquette. Pickford's performance is no more overwrought than Chatterton's. The Academy voters I'm sure chose from a whole lot of similar product.

Lionel Barrymore was up for Best Director in the only other Oscar category Madame X was entered in. Barrymore directed a few silents, but after talkies came in he soon found himself in front of the camera. His direction is for a stage play, but again I'm sure no better or worse than his competition.

The play is of French origin and debuted on Broadway in 1910 with a run of 156 performances. The lead was Dorothy Donnelly whose reputation today comes from being the book and lyric writer for Sigmund Romberg for Student Prince, Blossom Time, and My Maryland. The author Alexandre Breson took his plot idea from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Chatterton marries a cold hard self righteous Lewis Stone who when she gets no love at home, strays and seeks it elsewhere. Stone acts like Anna Karenina's husband and tosses her in the streets. And like Karenin, Stone tells his son, his mother is dead.

Fast forward about 25 years and Chatterton is now a poor man's version of Sadie Thompson. She hooks up with a South Seas low life in Ulrich Haupt who guesses her true identity and sees the blackmail possibilities in it. But when the idea is broached to Chatterton, she balks and Haupt pays the price.

This one as did the modern version had the Victorian ladies weeping every Wednesday matinée. Chatterton, Stone, Raymond Hackett as their grown son, and Haupt deliver their performances in true 19th century style.

The film is a curiosity and of course doesn't hold up well for today's audience. But in viewing don't compare Madame X with more modern work. It won't stand comparison that way.

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.

It's interesting that the rebellion against Victorian mores lasted until well into the 20th century. This story of the endurance of Mother Love and the cruel implacability of Victorian morality is much contrived ado about nothing.

Like too many early talkies it is extraordinarily dull: there is no background music, little cutting and the camera work is static. Self-indulgent, stagy scenes are allowed to run on for too long. The gloomy sets, dark painted flats such as one must have seen on the Victorian stage and as can be seen in early silent films, are only dimly illuminated. The gloss that MGM became known for is not in evidence here.

The only point of interest in this film is that it is a record of the talent and style of Ruth Chatterton, one of the foremost stage stars of the '20s, and a star of early talkie films. Unfortunately, though a definite professionalism and artistry are evident, they also expose her as a shallow and posturing actress. With her slack body, puffy face and large, bleary eyes, she exudes masochism and self-pity from her very first scene, and this sense of weary defeat is sounded again and again without variety. More of a problem is her voice: her plummy and very deliberate diction (perhaps a by-product of early sound recording) gives lie to what is supposed to be a display of deep feeling. Her performance is nothing but empty technique, all of which imitates and indicates intense feeling without actually showing any. Where is the energy and life of real emotion? It isn't here.

In fact, polished, lifeless performances like this suggest why Bette Davis's work in OF HUMAN BONDAGE was like a gust of cold, clear air in the movies: In that film, Davis is full of the grit, spite and energy of real life. When her Mildred gets angry, there is a real sense of danger and excitement in it, an almost out-of-control sexual edge. The tension, intensity and unexpectedness in Davis's best work is exactly what is lacking in Chatterton's playing at emotion. This film is strictly for students of early sound films, or devotees of outmoded styles in stage and screen acting.

Since there have been ten film adaptations of Madame X, you might not be tempted to rent all of them for a comparison study. What can I say to get you to check out the 1929 version instead of all the others? If you can appreciate the lost art of silent movies, but you prefer talkies, this one will probably be your favorite. It's a very obvious link between the two types of movies; if it were the first talking picture, I'd believe it.

Directed by Lionel Barrymore, this could have been a silent movie with the insertion of a few title cards. Everyone uses broad gestures and huge facial expressions. In one scene, the maid opens the door, flings her arms back in shock, waits three seconds as she backs up and widens her eyes, then exclaims, "Madame!" Lewis Stone waves his arms in the air, and Ruth Chatterton's makeup can be seen in the back row.

Still, the acting is worth watching. If you don't know who Ruth Chatterton is, that's because she retired in 1938. Before Gladys George wowed everyone with her 1937 courtroom scene, Ruth Chatterton played the famous fallen woman, and played it beautifully. In the story, Ruth is married to the wealthy Lewis Stone, but she leaves him and their young son for another man. The man dies, and Ruth is left penniless and alone. She takes comfort in alcohol and crummy men, until finally, her past catches up to her. If you don't know how, it's time you rented one of the versions. If you're on the fence about silent movies, don't pick this one first. Check out Gladys George or Lana Turner, and only come back to this one after you've seen Dodsworth and the hidden talents of Ruth Chatterton.

For two years, Lionel Barrymore was the most famous actor-turned-director in Hollywood. The older brother of the famous Ethel and John Barrymore trio, Lionel had dipped his toe in the director's chair in the mid-1910s before solely concentrating on acting. He resumed directing in 1929 by handling a wall-to-wall talkie, August 1929's "Madame X." At the time, successful silent film directors were hesitant to tackle productions with microphones to capture verbal dialogue. The opportunities were wide open for those willing handle a new way of filming a movie with audio. Lionel was one of those people.

"Madame X," a popular adaptation of the 1908 play of the same name by French playwright Alexandre Bisson, had been filmed two times earlier, and has been remade nine times and counting after the 1929 version. That includes the 1966 Lana Turner and the 1981 Tuesday Weld movies. Stage actress Ruth Chatterton's character, Jacqueline Floriot, is thrown out into the streets by hubby Louis (Lewis Stone) for having an affair. He also prohibits her from seeing her son. Years later, she shoots her lover for trying to blackmail her ex, who's now the state's attorney general. Her assigned lawyer turns out to be her son. She only gives her name as Madame X, fearful of revealing her past.

Lionel's camera is largely stationary, a throwback to when he was directing movies in the mid-1910s where the camera barely moved, especially in drawing room dramas. But his work was appreciated by the Academy, nominating him for Best Director. One reason may have been he was one of the first to use an adaptation of a 'boom microphone.' During the production of "Madame X," Lionel had his audio people string a microphone on a fishing pole and position the apparatus high just out of frame to follow the moving actors. Previously, microphones were stationary, hidden in telephones or behind furniture. Lionel refused to take all the credit with the new innovation, stating in his 1951 autobiography that others in the industry had claimed to be the first in come up with the device. He stated, "All I can say is that in 1929 I recorded Miss Ruth Chatterton's voice with a fishing pole."

Chatterton, a famous stage actress, was encouraged by actor Emil Jannings to go into film. She appeared in her cinematic debut, 1928's 'Sins of the Father,' as well as two more movies before earning the lead in "Madame X." Her performance was so spectacular the Academy nominated her for Best Actress, only to be edged out by Mary Pickford during the second Awards' ceremony. Film exhibitors voted Chatterton as the second most popular draw in their theaters in 1929, second only to Norma Shearer. She starred in a number of highly successful movies in the early to mid-1930s, but tired of the movie set in 1938 to return to the stage.

Chatterton was passionate about flying. She was good friends with Amelia Earhart and piloted her own airplane crisscrossing America by herself several times.

As for the movie "Madame x," piano, organ and other instrumental players were still in demand by larger city movie theaters even though they were wired for sound. In some original prints of 1929 films seen today, the opening and closing credits contain no musical soundtrack. Theater owners in that short period wanted to make their customers feel like it was a special evening out to attend a movie. They hired musicians to play the opening and closing titles and had them sit or go out for a smoke while the movies were being played.

Jacqueline (Ruth Chatterton) is kicked out of her home after her husband Louis Floriot (Lewis Stone) discovers her affair. She is unable to even to see their young son Raymond. Years later, she becomes the drunken mistress of gambler Laroque. He plies her with alcohol to get the truth of her identity. With Louis now the Attorney General, Laroque decides to blackmail him and she shoots Laroque in the back killing him. Through a stroke of cosmic coincidence, her son is assigned to be her lawyer for her trial.

The sound quality is problematic for this early talkie. The poster advertises ALL TALKING but there comes with plenty of static. Many of the Lionel Barrymore directions are stagey which is expected for the great stage actor. Another expectation is that the acting is superbly confident. It doesn't get better than Chatterton. She runs the gamut from crying to drunk to drunk crying to despair. It's a master class of classical acting. The surprise is that it doesn't devolve into the silent-era-overacting which is still prevalent in that era. She is always in control while going far in range. Barrymore is unable to add much to the directing language which is its main limitation. He is basically doing a stage play although one reviewer seems to suggest him creating one of the first boom mike. I don't know about that. Filmmakers started doing that a year earlier. Barrymore is functional and he has the good sense to have good actors. Both Chatterton and Barrymore's directing were considered unofficially for Oscars.

I have only seen three Ruth Chatterton films: DODSWORTH, FEMALE and MADAM X. I had never heard of Ruth Chatterton before I saw DODSWORTH and had no expectations regarding her as an actress. After seeing DODSWORTH, Ruth Chatterton's elegant persona entered my life forever. FEMALE, seen a couple of years later, was pure delight. What a find! A younger Ruth Chatterton, equally glamorous and equally brilliant, this time delivering a light, witty, winning performance. When I got to MADAM X, I was already a great fan of this divine actress. How can one describe the effect of her acting on one's feelings? I confess I was spellbound from the start. Chatterton's seamless technique renders her emotional outbursts painful to watch, yet we cannot move or breathe and just stand in awe, witnessing an exposure of emotion that is so raw and so true. I have read reviews that criticize Ruth Chatterton for the very qualities that I find attractive and unique in her acting. That only shows that taste is indeed a very subjective thing. MADAM X is an early talkie, static, old-fashioned, a shameless melodrama. I loved it!

I hesitate to add a note of dissonance to any of my beloved early talkies, but in this case it's most called for. Any contemporary viewer exploring ancient films may be swayed to try such a film with Oscar nominations and wide availability. Please don't. Early Oscars were voted on by studio heads only, and are no indication of popular support. Additionally, MGM and the WB studios' products so dominated the TV syndication market that most film buffs can't name any thing William Powell did before the Thin Man. [Mr. Powell had a career as a heavy even before he uttered his first word on screen.]

I found the material of the story to be that of old, turgid melodramatics. At the time M-G-M began making talkies, Louis B. Meyer and Irvin Thalberg actively sought to produce THEATRICAL productions on film, and therefore, this is not cinema. When Ruth Chatterton pauses at the door to tell Lewis Stone (almost moaning) to "tell our boy when he grows up that you (Stone) wouldn't let his mother see him one last time", talking pictures hit their lowest ebb. Outdoor scenes aren't recorded properly and at 95 minutes it's not hard to guess this is just a stage play on film.

I know I stand alone in my loathing. Variety, in 1929 said "Works like this...elevate the name of pictures, and tell the world there is an art in film making." MADAME X grossed over $1.2 million worldwide against a negative cost of $600,000. I say, works like this so dissuade modern viewers that hundreds of films lie in vaults rotting away. Please pass on this one.

"Madame X," like many of the very first talkies, is incredibly difficult to sit through.

Difficult not because of the subject matter. No, It literally makes you want to turn it off because the technology is so bad you can barely watch the movie anyway. For the first few minutes of the movie, I thought the sound had gone out on my T.V., because it's utterly silent -- not even any music over the opening titles -- and then, when the sound does finally come in, it's so muffled and distorted you can barely understand what the actors are saying. The sound seemed to improve over the course of the movie, either because the film crew actually got better at recording it as they went along, or because I got used to it. But sound doesn't help matters much. This was filmed in the days before anyone knew how to make a movie both move and talk at the same time, so most scenes are shot in long, static takes. If a character moves to the edge of the frame, the camera doesn't follow but remains pointed doggedly at the center of the room. Lionel Barrymore received an Oscar nomination for directing this film. He was apparently the first person to think of mounting the boom on a fishing pole that could be carried around the set and follow the actors as they spoke their lines, giving them greater freedom of movement. That innovation might be what nabbed him the Oscar nom, but it's little consolation to the viewer; even with that trick, the camera barely ever moves.

Ruth Chatterton also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and it becomes clear why as the film moves into its later half. She's dreadful at first, still acting like she's in a silent film as she plays a wayward wife and mother who comes begging at the door of the husband she walked out on in order to see her young child. But over the course of the movie, she transforms into a drunken woman of the world, and she's fascinating to watch. I'd already seen Chatterton in later films like "Female" and "Dodsworth," where she's spectacular, so I was surprised when this movie started at how bad she was. But the Ruth Chatterton of the later scenes is the one who went on to have a career in sound films.

It's nearly impossible to watch movies like this now for the sheer joy of watching films, and it's really not fair to review them using the same criteria you would for other movies. These early talkies feel far creakier and more antiquated than many silents that came out years before them. Instead, you almost have to approach them from a film study perspective, and if approached from that angle, they can be fascinating in their own right. It's kind of perversely fun to watch the product of a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing, and if you are interested in the history of film making, watching these silent to sound transitional films is like capturing a little bit of history in a bottle.

Grade: C

I must admit up front that the story of "Madame X" is one that never particularly interested me. I've seen some remakes and found them all to be very old fashioned and silly. I am pretty sure back in the day, however, these weepy films worked well with the audiences...particularly because there are many similar stories of selfless mothers such as this one and "So Big". So, at the outset, I need you to know I am not a fan of the selfless mother genre. Additionally, this version of the story is hampered even more because it's very old fashioned in style and the sound quality quite poor. The dialog, direction and look of the movie also seem dated...very dated.

As for this 1929 film, it's directed by Lionel Barrymore of all people! Apparently sound pictures were new to MGM and Barrymore was interested in sound and they let him direct the picture. After all, he'd been a director a decade earlier--before he'd become more famous as an actor.

The story begins in France--which is odd since not one of the principle actors sounds the least bit French! Jacqueline (Ruth Chatterton) is estranged from her husband Floriot (Lewis Stone), as apparently she was caught cheating on him and he tossed her out...and won't let her see their son. It seems that Floriot has told the boy his mother is dead and she begs him to let her see the boy...to no avail. What's next is pretty hard to believe, but it's a saga involving Jacqueline losing herself to drink and redeeming herself in order to help her son.

My feelings about this one are rather negative. I am not a huge fan of the story and the film quality is poor in so many ways. Watch it if you'd like...but you could do a lot better.

First talking version of a great tearjerker. Jacqueline Floriot (Ruth Chatterton) deserts her husband (Lewis Stone) and their little boy. She soon realizes she should never have left them but her husband rejects her and tells their son that she had died. Years go by and she gets involved in drugs, alcoholism and is a wreck. She murders a man who finds out about her past because it would ruin her husband. She is put on trial and is defended by a young lawyer who is her son!

There are three versions of this that I've seen--this 1929 one, a 1937 one with Gladys George and a 1960s one with Lana Turner. The Turner one was glossy but unmemorable. The 1937 one is superb--short but wonderful with George giving an Oscar worthy performance. This one is terrible. Stagy and with such mournful melodramatic acting that you'll be laughing. I don't care that is was nominated for Best Direction and Best Actress--it's bad all around. The direction was uninspired at best and Chatterton overacts so much I felt like laughing. Terrible script. Also the big trial scene at the end had me laughing. It was SO overdone! Bad sound recording too. Skip this one.

I really liked this old antique! Even though the heavy theatrics of Ruth Chatterton, Lewis Stone, and Raymond Hackett showed through, it was interesting in getting people's emotions involved circa 1929. Remember this was the early talkie period and the actors were still projecting their emotions, feelings, excitement, etc from the more familiar silent period....talkies were the new medium but feelings, emotions came out from the silent mode. I thought the spoken dialog to be excellent even though stagy. The whole production, photography, lighting, camera work was also outstanding. Overall it was a very good melodramatic, emotional, and provoked much sympathy and feelings. I'm for one enjoy the early talkie period with all its antique, splendid grandeur. Lets dust off more of these films for our future movie and theater historic buffs!!

Although Ruth Chatterton's performance starts out on a highly theatrical note, the pathos and poignancy she brings to her character as the film progresses is unforgettable. While hooked on alcohol in a sleazy hotel in Buenos Aires--she stakes her claim on the Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Filmed in early 1929, I was impressed with the camera fluidity in MADAME X. Director Barrymore deserves kudos for placing the microphone on the end of a fishing-pole (the first "sound boom") so the actors could walk and talk at the same time. One must take this into consideration when critiquing this film. Other "talkies" produced from Jan-Sept 1929 are far more "creaky". Raymond Hackett, as Ruth's son, is too overwrought in the courtroom scenes, but his "youth" almost makes this forgivable. Based on the 1909 French play, MADAME X would have many reincarnations and fuel the plots of numerous tearjerkers in the 1930's. Watch this for Chatterton.