The Lady (1925)

A young woman marries the wastrel son of a British aristocrat. Her husband, who has been disinherited by his father, loses what little money he has left gambling in casinos and then dies, ... See full summary »

Director:

Frank Borzage

Writers:

Martin Brown (play), Frances Marion

Stars:

Brandon Hurst, Norma Talmadge, Paulette Duval

Cast

Credited cast:
Brandon Hurst	...	St. Aubyns Sr
Norma Talmadge	...	Polly Pearl
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Paulette Duval	...	Madame Adrienne Catellier
Emily Fitzroy	...	Madame Blanche
Johnny Fox	...	Freckles (as John Fox Jr.)
Alfred J. Goulding	...	Tom Robinson
George Hackathorne	...	Leonard Cairns
John Herdman	...	John Cairns
Ed Hubbell	...	London Boy (as Edwin Hubbell)
Doris Lloyd	...	Fannie St. Clair
Walter Long	...	Blackie
Wallace MacDonald	...	Leonard St. Aubyns
Miles McCarthy	...	Mr. Graves
Marc McDermott	...	Mr. Wendover
Margaret Seddon	...	Mrs. Cairns

Storyline

A young woman marries the wastrel son of a British aristocrat. Her husband, who has been disinherited by his father, loses what little money he has left gambling in casinos and then dies, leaving her penniless and with an infant son. When her former father-in-law tries to get custody of the child, she leaves him with a couple she trusts, but when she later goes to reclaim her son, she can't find the people she left him with.

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Plot Keywords:

gambling | melodrama | abandoned child | disinheritance | failed marriage | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

8 February 1925 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Grande Dama

Company Credits

Production Co:

Norma Talmadge Film Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Why Be Good? Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema (2007)

User Reviews

Excellent Talmadge Soaper

Norma Talmadge stars in a 'Madame X' story in which the lower-class Talmadge must give up her infant son for his own good and then spends the rest of the movie suffering. When Norma catches her husband cheating on her, he calls her 'a common trollop' -- no, I don't have that backwards -- and abandons her. After she gives birth and goes to work in a Marseilles boite -- surrounded by women who wear so little makeup they look like bad cross dressers -- her frozen-faced father-in-law appears on the scene with a court order for his grandson -- his son is dead. Desperate to make sure that her son isn't ruined as her husband had been, she gives him to an Anglican Minister's wife who looks a bit like Bing Crosby, since they are leaving their parish in Marseilles and returning to England. Miss Talmadge then spends the next couple of reels wandering around the streets of London, moderately barmy, and it all ends with a Surprising Revelation.

Now normally I have little use for this sort of tripe, but Miss Talmadge is simply wonderful in it. She is not tied down, as she so often is, by wearing expensive clothes and exotic hair styles. Instead, you get to see how beautiful she is and how she really inhabits a character and world where she believes this. As a result, I found myself weeping intermittently throughout the entire proceedings.

There are a couple of scenes missing from the version I saw -- the road show version seems to have been fifteen or so minutes longer -- and decomposition had struck the leaders and two sections of two or three minutes each -- but the point of this movie is to watch Miss Talmadge act, and that she does. Magnificently.