Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . as "the female Lon Chaney" after one views MADAME X. Mr. Chaney may have had 1,000 faces, but it's unlikely that any of them were as horrifyingly grotesque as Lana's aging nymphomaniac absinthe addict mug that she comes up with for MADAME X. Charlize Theron may have owed her MONSTER Oscar to prosthetics, and Betty Davis did not get a gelded statuette for WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? because she was simply playing herself. Lana Turner, on the other hand, demonstrates as MADAME X a clear ability to reach deep down and to pull up her inner hag for all to see. Most elementary school classrooms have at least one facial contortionist kid who can make their visage go inside-out upon request. Such a "skill" might be considered a "cute" attribute among urchins. However, when we call an adult "two-faced," it's not exactly a compliment. But in Ms. Turner's MADAME X portrayal, the "X" can stand for anything along the most sordid range of human perfidy. As a low-born adulterous gold-digger perpetrating serial assassinations amidst her perpetual drunken haze, Lana's "Call me Betty" Floozie does Tinseltown's House of Universal Horror proud.
zetes
Corny melodrama starring Lana Turner, whom I generally don't like much. It has some good moments, though, and the final act is surprisingly touching, as silly as the twist is. Turner plays a woman of low class married into high society, her new husband a politician (John Forsythe). She's often left alone, though, and she soon attracts the unwanted attentions of Ricardo Montelban. He dies accidentally, but her mother-in-law assumes she murdered her lover and Turner gets banished. Later on, she hooks up with Burgess Meredith and has a drunken, semi-criminal relationship with him. He ends up dead, too, and then the son that she abandoned (now played by Keir Dullea) defends her in court, never knowing who she really is. The best scenes are the ones with Meredith. Yes, this is a movie where Lana Turner kills both Khan and the Penguin, but it's less campy than one might think (unlike Turner's following film, the hilarious acid trip movie The Big Cube). I think some just genuinely like the melodrama. I don't, but, in the end, it's not too bad a film.
dlbhina622
I admit that the first time I saw this film, I had gone through a box of Kleenex by the end. The second time around, it was a full-length soap opera, but a really good one. And the third time, I thought how silly it was. But all in all, I have to admit that Ms. Turner gave a beautiful and moving performance, and worked well with Ricardo Montalban. In fact, I would have liked to see them work together more.As one reviewer said, Ms. Turner is supposed to be of the lower class, but that is hard to imagine. Perhaps if Shelly Winters played the role, yes. But Ms. Turner to me, rather then being of lower class, gives the impression of being too beautiful, too playful and too liberal to be part of what appears to be a powerfully conservative and old money family. And realizing this, she descends into that lower class,not because she is, but because her broken self-esteem tells her that is where she aught to be. This self-destruction is more of what makes this film interesting, and to me makes her reuniting with her son almost irrelevant. Overall, when I think of how unimportant this film is, there are certain moments that are hard to forget, and for this reason I give it a 6+.
A M Boyd
That Lana Turner played her beauty down so much in this movie, that she acted like a dream - this is the real Lana Turner. She was marvelous. This movie is a heart breaker. That darling son that defends her, not knowing she was his mother, and yet, had an instinct? This is Hollywood and Lana Turner at their finest. If you want true soap opera and none of the tripe, go for this. John Forsythe, Constance Bennett? Even they are tearing up at Lana's performance. Marvelous is all I can say. Marvelous!!!! I loved Lana Turner when she was younger, but her later movies such as this and Peyton Place? She was and will always be fantastic.
AD
