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Madeleine (Hedy Lamarr) lives the high life: She is the art director of
a high gloss magazine, she parties all night long, can drink witht he best
of them, and she has admirers lining up in front of her and affairs on
end. But her good life comes with a price, she suffers from severe
insomnia, has suicidal streaks and deep inside she is a lonely woman.
And after one day she had once more almost killed herself, she seeks
help from psychiatrist Richard Caleb (Morris Carnovsky), who tells her to
give up her high life altogether, quit her job, move somewhere else under
a new name, and do what she always wanted to do ... start painting again.
Soon, Madeleine moves into a modest appartment and does just that, and
wouldn't you know it, her insomnia and her depressions slowly go away. She
even finds love - real love, not just an affair - with her neighbour David
Cousings (Dennis O'Keefe), a honest young doctor at the verge of becoming
a research scientist. However, she just cannot bring herself to tell him
about her past life, even when he asks her to marry him and she says yes
...
Then one day, when David is out of town, her past life strikes back at
her: She visits a club, one of her former favourite spots, with a friend,
just to help her out, and before she knows it, she is quite drunk ... and
from here on one thing leads to another, Courtland (John Loder), a former
admirer who just couldn't forget her and besides an immensely rich
jeweller, decides to take advantage of drunk little Madeleine and takes
her home with him.
But before they can really get to it, they are interrupted by a
knock at the door, and while Courtland opens, Madeleine seizes the
opportunity and runs away.
Too bad the caller at the door is Garrett (William Lundigan),
Courtland's private secretary, who has gotten himself into a bit of a jam
when stealing jewels out of his boss's safe, and now he tries to keep
Courtland from phoning the authorities ... even if that means killing
Courtland ...
Of course, Madeleine is now the tailormade culprit, since there
are enough witnesses who saw her with him, but something else hits her
even harder than her own arrest: David finally finds out about her past
life, and it looks as if she has cheated on him, and it breaks his heart
... and it breaks Madeleine's own heart even more.
At the trial, Madeleine's defense attorney even figures they'd have a
fighting chance, but Madeleine has given up on herself and forbids him to
even cross-examin the witnesses ... all seems lost, just because she has
lost her love.
Only Madeleine's psychiatrist hasn't given up on her, and he persuades
David to tell her that he still loves her, and in court too.
It seems almost too late, since Madeleine herself is the last - and the
defense's only - witness, but then she mentions something about a safe in
Courtland's home, a safe only few people could have known about, among
them Courtland's secretary Garrett, who denies it. But when the police
inspects the safe, Garrett makes a tiny little mistake - which only David
seems to notice. And soon enough David can not only make Garrett give
himself away but also overcome him and hand him over to the police.
And the ending sees David and Madeleine in each other's arms ...
Even though the film is (loosely) based on a true story (that of one
Madeleine Smith in case you wondered), and even though the ending is quite
cheesy and far-fetched, the film as a whole is an enjoyable,
entertaining crime- and courtroom-drama. And though the actual murder
doesn't happen until relatively late in the movie, the script and director
Robert Stevenson make sure to present the audience with more than just a
boring set-up for the story, instead use the time to flesh out interesting
characters, but at a steady enough pace and with well-written dialogue to
keep things going.
Recommendation.
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find Dishonored Lady at adultvideouniverse.com
