Directed by: Robert Stevenson
Starring: Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe, John Loder, William Lundigan, Morris Carnovsky, Natalie Schafer, Paul Cavanagh, Margaret Hamilton, Douglass Dumbrille
It is based on the 1930 play Dishonored Lady by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes.
STORY
Madeleine Damien seems to have everything.
Beautiful, sophisticated and successful, she is the art editor of a fashionable New York magazine, surrounded by glamorous people, expensive clothes, late-night parties and powerful men. But beneath the polished surface, Madeleine is unraveling.
Her demanding career, chronic insomnia and a succession of empty relationships have left her emotionally exhausted. Wealthy advertiser Felix Courtland pursues her aggressively, while Jack Garet — her assistant and former lover — knows enough about Madeleine's private life to use it against her.
Finally, the pressure becomes too much.
After attempting to take her own life, Madeleine receives advice from psychiatrist Dr. Caleb that forces her to confront the life she has been living. She walks away from her job, abandons New York society and disappears into a modest apartment under another identity.
For the first time, Madeleine begins building a life that belongs to her.
She paints. She lives quietly. And she meets her neighbor, research pathologist Dr. David Cousins, who knows nothing about the glamorous and troubled woman she once was. David falls in love with the woman standing in front of him rather than the reputation she left behind, and Madeleine begins to believe that perhaps she really can start again.
But the past isn't finished with her.
Felix finds his way back into her life. Jack's resentment and greed continue to threaten her. And when a man from Madeleine's past is murdered, everything she has tried to escape suddenly becomes evidence against her.
Now Madeleine isn't simply fighting for a second chance.
She's fighting to prove that she isn't a murderer.
Dishonored Lady combines psychological drama, murder mystery and classic film noir while giving Hedy Lamarr a role far more complicated than the glamorous beauty Hollywood so often asked her to play. Madeleine is intelligent, damaged, defiant, vulnerable and determined to reclaim her own life — even as the world around her seems eager to define her by the woman she used to be.
AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
HEDY LAMARR WANTED MORE THAN GLAMOUR
By the mid-1940s, Hedy Lamarr was one of Hollywood's most recognizable beauties, but beauty could also become a professional cage.
Dishonored Lady gave Lamarr something substantially darker to play. Madeleine Damien is sophisticated and glamorous, but the film allows that polished exterior to fracture. Depression, exhaustion, sexuality, reputation and the possibility of personal reinvention all become part of the character.
Lamarr was working independently during this period, collaborating with producer Hunt Stromberg on Dishonored Lady after their success with The Strange Woman. Both pictures were distributed through United Artists.
YES — THERE WAS A PLAY
Although Dishonored Lady fits beautifully into AIN's NOIR collection, its story has roots on the stage.
The film was based on the play Dishonored Lady by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes. The play was produced by Guthrie McClintic and opened in New York on February 4, 1930.
But the story behind the story gets even more fascinating.
THE REAL MADELEINE
The play that inspired Dishonored Lady was itself inspired by an actual Victorian murder case.
In 1857, 21-year-old Glasgow woman Madeleine Smith was accused of poisoning her lover, Pierre Emile L'Angelier.
The sensational case involved secret romance, letters, social expectations, sex, reputation and murder — precisely the sort of ingredients that would fascinate dramatists and filmmakers for generations.
Smith was ultimately acquitted.
Decades later, elements of her extraordinary story helped inspire the play that became Dishonored Lady.
ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD MOVIE GOT CAUGHT IN THE STORY
The history becomes even stranger.
MGM's 1932 Joan Crawford film Letty Lynton was originally planned as an adaptation of the Sheldon-Barnes play. Because of complications involving the Production Code, the acknowledged source became Marie Belloc Lowndes's 1931 novel Letty Lynton — another work inspired by the Madeleine Smith case.
The resulting rights dispute became one of Hollywood's notable copyright battles.
Fifteen years later, Hunt Stromberg produced Dishonored Lady, another screen adaptation connected directly to the Sheldon-Barnes play.
GRETA GARBO AND BETTE DAVIS WERE INTERESTED
Imagine either one.
When plans for an independent production of Dishonored Lady were being discussed in 1942, Hollywood trade reports indicated that Greta Garbo and Bette Davis both expressed interest in playing the lead.
The role ultimately belonged to Hedy Lamarr — but the fact that two of Hollywood's greatest stars were associated with the project gives some idea of how desirable Madeleine Damien was considered as a dramatic role.
THE FILM TOOK YEARS TO REACH THE SCREEN
Plans for Dishonored Lady were announced as early as 1942, but the movie audiences eventually saw would not arrive until 1947.
At one point, André De Toth was attached to direct and was reportedly working on a screenplay draft. Pedro Armendáriz and Betty Caldwell were also announced for the cast during development, but neither appeared in the completed picture.
Robert Stevenson ultimately directed the finished film.
HEDY AND JOHN LODER
There was another relationship happening behind the camera.
Hedy Lamarr and John Loder — who plays Felix Courtland — were husband and wife while Dishonored Lady was made.
Their marriage ended in divorce in 1947, the same year the film was released.
That adds another fascinating layer to scenes between Madeleine and the controlling, persistent man from her past.
MARGARET HAMILTON!
Classic movie lovers should immediately recognize Madeleine's landlady, Mrs. Geiger.
That's Margaret Hamilton — forever immortalized as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.
Here she gets to step out of Oz and into the shadowy world surrounding Madeleine Damien.
AINTOID: THE WOMAN HAS THREE LIVES
One of the most interesting things about Madeleine is that we essentially meet three versions of the same woman.
There is Madeleine the glamorous magazine executive — beautiful, desired and self-destructive.
There is Madeleine the anonymous woman trying to disappear and rebuild herself.
And finally there is Madeleine the accused woman who must decide whether she will allow everyone else's judgment of her past to determine her future.
That transformation gives Dishonored Lady considerably more psychological weight than a conventional murder mystery.
AINTOID: A NOIR WOMAN AT THE CENTER
Classic noir frequently gives us dangerous women viewed through the eyes of male protagonists.
Dishonored Lady does something different.
Madeleine is the protagonist.
We experience the glamorous nightlife, emotional collapse, attempted reinvention, romantic hope, murder accusation and courtroom danger primarily through her.
That makes Dishonored Lady a particularly interesting female-centered entry in the noir cycle.
AINTOID: BEHIND THE CAMERA
Cinematographer Lucien Andriot photographed Dishonored Lady in black and white, while Nicolai Remisoff served as production designer and art director.
Carmen Dragon composed the music.
The screenplay was credited to Edmund H. North, with Ben Hecht credited by AFI as a contributing writer.
Jack Chertok produced the film for Mars Film Corporation, and United Artists handled distribution.
AINTOID: ANOTHER MADELEINE WAS COMING
The Madeleine Smith story wasn't finished with the movies.
Only a few years after Dishonored Lady, director David Lean returned directly to the famous Victorian murder case for the British film Madeleine, starring Ann Todd.
One 19th-century scandal had now helped inspire a play, novels and multiple motion pictures — proof that some mysteries simply refuse to disappear.
DATE RELEASED
May 16, 1947
COUNTRY RELEASED
United States