Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1928-1929

The Contenders:

Betty Compson: The Barker
Bessie Love: The Broadway Melody
Mary Pickford: Coquette (winner)
Corrine Griffith: The Divine Lady
Jeanne Eagels: The Letter
Ruth Chatterton: Madame X

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1928-1929

The Contenders:

Harry Beaumont: The Broadway Melody
Frank Lloyd: The Divine Lady (winner)
Frank Lloyd: Drag
Irving Cummings: In Old Arizona
Lionel Barrymore: Madame X
Ernst Lubitsch: The Patriot
Frank Lloyd: Weary River

Don't Bother

Film: Madame X
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I sometimes have to force myself to watch some of the older films on my lists. There are certainly some films from the early years of the cinema that are worth watching, but plenty of these early films are tough watches. Madame X is sadly one of the second sort. I knew within the first five minutes that this was going to be a difficult watch for its entire running time. It’s not merely the melodrama; it’s the insane overacting. Anyone who put together a performance like Ruth Chatterton does in this would be laughed out of the theater today.

So brace yourself for plaintive violins and extreme drama. Madame X tells the story of Parisian woman Jacqueline (Chatterton), who is the definition of wanton in the late 1920s. How is she wanton? Well, despite being married and having a son, she also (gasp) has a lover. Her husband Floriot (Lewis Stone) has realized this and has kicked her out of the house. We actually start five years into this story. The boy is ill and Jacqueline tries to get in to see him. Floriot refuses her entry, though, and banishes her from his house.