David Lean is a director best remembered for truly epic movies like 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Doctor Zhivago'. Some years ago I saw a small scale romance Lean directed in the 1940's called 'Brief Encounter', it was as good as his better known epics and made me interested in seeing more from him in that vain. 1950's 'Madaline' is based on a famous scandle that happened in 1850's Glasgow. Madeleine Smith was the socialite daughter of a prominent architect who was tried for the murder by possioning of an ex lover, who had been threatening to derail her engagement to a wealthy young man of whom her father approved.
A period piece, 'Madaline' is situated closer to 'Brief Encounter' then 'Lawrence of Arabia' in scale. It is a good looking movie, well written, directed and acted, with star Ann Todd the highlight, giving an impressively enigmatic performance as Madaline, despite being a 43 year old playing a 21 year old, they couldn't have gotten away with it had the film been shot in color.
My biggest problems with the movie was its pacing, it was slow and took along time to get started. There probably isn't much that could have reasonably been done about this, the story is a slow burn that requires alot of set up. I had just seen 'Poor Things', which is also set in Europe during the latter half of the 19th century, earlier that day and that movie was so well paced Lean's film suffered in comparison. Still 'Madaline' is a solid film which I'd probably enjoy more on a rewatch sometime down the line. ***
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