# Madeleine (1950 film)
*Madeleine* is a 1950 British courtroom drama directed by [David Lean](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-lean), starring his wife Ann Todd as Madeleine Smith, the Glasgow woman tried in 1857 for the arsenic poisoning of her lover, Emile L'Angelier.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine) • [2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine) Produced by Stanley Haynes from a screenplay by Nicholas Phipps, Stanley Haynes, and Eric Ambler, it runs 114 minutes and also features Ivan Desny, Norman Wooland, and Leslie Banks.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / producer | David Lean; produced by Stanley Haynes[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine) |
| Screenplay | Nicholas Phipps, Stanley Haynes, and Eric Ambler[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine) |
| Cast | Ann Todd (Madeleine Smith), Ivan Desny (Emile L'Angelier), Norman Wooland (William Minnoch), Leslie Banks (James Smith)[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine) |
| Historical basis | The 1857 Glasgow trial of Madeleine Smith, who was accused of poisoning her lover; the jury returned a verdict of 'not proven'[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine) |
| Running time | 114 minutes (BFI); a 1949 cinema version ran 121 minutes 0 seconds[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine) • [4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/madeleine-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zmjgzmjc) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Guy Green; music William Alwyn; editing Clive Donner and Geoffrey Foot[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine) |
| Reception | Unsuccessful on its London release in February 1950; Lean later called it "a miserable film"[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine) • [2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine) |
## Spoilers
### Story and historical basis
The film dramatizes the case that was "the scandal of the day" in 1857 Glasgow. Twenty-one-year-old Madeleine Smith, the daughter of a wealthy family, was accused of killing her lover after he refused to return her love letters when she became engaged to another man. No direct evidence proved her guilt in court, though it was widely believed she was guilty.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine) In the film, Madeleine's secret affair with the penniless Frenchman L'Angelier is hidden from her family, who intend to marry her to the respectable William Minnoch; when L'Angelier begins pressuring her to acknowledge the relationship, he is found dead of arsenic poisoning, and Madeleine stands trial.[5](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-madeleine-1950-online) The jury in the real case declared the charge 'not proven', a Scottish verdict that left Smith in what one commentator calls an indeterminate space between innocence and guilt.[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine)
The story had reached the screen before. Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes had adapted it as the Broadway play *Dishonored Lady*, starring Katharine Cornell in 1928, and a film version starring [Hedy Lamarr](https://www.edgepedia.org/hedy-lamarr) followed in 1947; the 1932 MGM film *Letty Lynton* also drew on the same case. Todd had played Madeleine Smith on stage in *The Rest Is Silence* and wanted to bring the role to film.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine) • [6](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25147-DISHONORED-LADY)
## Production
Lean later admitted he made the film as a "wedding present" to Todd, whom he had recently married.[5](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-madeleine-1950-online) He himself was less enthusiastic: "I had just married Ann Todd and she begged me to direct it. It was a miserable film, one of the most difficult I've ever made. Something didn't fit. I don't know what."
Shooting took place at [Pinewood Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/pinewood-studios) in the summer of 1949, with locations in Cornwall and Scotland. The production was troubled: Todd second-guessed the director about how scenes should be played, putting the film behind schedule, and an electricians' strike at the studio in August caused further delays. In one incident recorded by the biographer Gene D. Phillips, a small plane swooped low over a beach shoot; the pilot was Nigel Tangye, Todd's recently divorced former husband, though Todd never told Lean his identity.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine)
Lean pursued verisimilitude. Todd owned some of Smith's actual letters to L'Angelier and the ivory-handled parasol Smith had brought to her trial, which Todd had used on stage. The film was shot on location at Smith's own house at 7 Blythswood Square in Glasgow, and the trial scenes in the last third of the film used court transcripts, including the final summation by Smith's attorney.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine)
The BBFC classified a 121-minute cinema version on 30 November 1949 for General Film Distributors; the 2008 restoration, 114 minutes 23 seconds, was classified on 16 April 2008 with the advice "contains occasional scenes of mild threat".[4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/madeleine-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zmjgzmjc)
## Reception and reassessment
The film was not successful when released in London in February 1950. [Noël Coward](https://www.edgepedia.org/noel-coward) identified the problem as its ambiguity: "I don't think you can end the film not knowing whether she did or didn't kill him. Somehow you've got to tip the scales one way or the other." According to Kevin Brownlow's biography, Coward believed the failure stemmed from Lean's own uncertainty about the outcome.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine) • [2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine) A contemporary [New Zealand Listener](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-zealand-listener) review found the stiffness of Lean's collaboration with Todd more noticeable than in *[The Passionate Friends](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-passionate-friends)*, with Todd's acting limitations more apparent in the central role.[7](https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19510706.2.45.1.1)
**Later views differ.** *Sight and Sound* notes that *Madeleine* is generally regarded as one of Lean's rare failures, yet argues it is among his richest works and a key title in British cinema, a "slippery melodrama" with echoes of film noir and women's melodrama whose ambiguity is deliberate.[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine) The BFI Player description says the film, once decried as cold and uninvolving, can now be admired for its restraint and ambiguity as a taut courtroom drama.[5](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-madeleine-1950-online) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 83% Tomatometer score from six reviews and a 69% audience score.[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1133774-madeleine)
## Place in Lean's career
*Madeleine* belongs to a group of four Lean films set in the nineteenth century, alongside *Great Expectations* (1946), *Oliver Twist* (1948), and *Hobson's Choice* (1954). While the Dickens films depict London and southern England, *Madeleine* and *Hobson's Choice* add the different worlds of bourgeois Glasgow and lower-middle-class Salford. Of the four, *Madeleine* is arguably the one most directly concerned with anatomising the spirit of the Victorian age, and the quartet contributed to the postwar reappraisal of the Victorians.[9](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/david-lean/nineteenthcentury-blues-italicgreat-expectationsitalic-1946-italicoliver-twistitalic-1948-italicmadeleineitalic-1950-and-italichobsons-choiceitalic-1954/BEF4829831705533EB674F1CDA65F3BF) It was also one of three films Lean made as vehicles for Todd, and its refusal to resolve its heroine's guilt anticipates the international career he soon began.[2](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1133774-madeleine)
## References
1. [Madeleine (1950), BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/2d9421e5-2ced-532a-a8b1-89f05afcf3de/madeleine)
2. [The Freudian revenge of David Lean's Madeleine, Sight and Sound](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/freudian-revenge-david-leans-madeleine)
3. [Madeleine, TCM article by Lorraine LoBianco](https://www.tcm.com/articles/236960/madeleine)
4. [Madeleine, BBFC](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/madeleine-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zmjgzmjc)
5. [Watch Madeleine online, BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-madeleine-1950-online)
6. [Dishonored Lady, AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25147-DISHONORED-LADY)
7. [Madeleine, New Zealand Listener, 6 July 1951](https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19510706.2.45.1.1)
8. [Madeleine, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1133774-madeleine)
9. [Nineteenth-century blues chapter, David Lean (Manchester University Press)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/david-lean/nineteenthcentury-blues-italicgreat-expectationsitalic-1946-italicoliver-twistitalic-1948-italicmadeleineitalic-1950-and-italichobsons-choiceitalic-1954/BEF4829831705533EB674F1CDA65F3BF)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1950s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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