For Helen Hayes's sound feature film debut she was given The Sin of Madelon Claudet which was adapted from a play called The Lullaby. The Lullaby ran on Broadway during the 1923-1924 season and starred Frank Morgan, Florence Reed, and Rose Hobart.
It's one weepy tale about a mother's sacrifice for her son and the only one who knows about it is Doctor Jean Hersholt.
Poor Helen Hayes. She's a peasant girl from Normandy who is wooed by an American, Neil Hamilton, who loves her and leaves her for his fiancé back in the USA. But not after getting her pregnant with a kid who grows up to be Robert Young.
This is a four handkerchief picture ladies and even the men might be well advised to take some handkerchiefs along themselves. After being abandoned by Hamilton, she takes up with a Count played by Lewis Stone who's willing to accept her with child. Problem is he's a nobleman who keeps up his style of living by being a jewel thief. When he's finally arrested, the law doesn't want to believe she knew nothing about his activities.
After prison, it's prostitution and vagrancy for her. But every sou she earns on the streets of Paris goes to pay for her kid's medical school.
It sounds terribly much and is terribly dated. But Helen Hayes makes this whole soggy tale believable some how. So much so that she got an Academy Award for Best Actress. This was also the film that got Robert Young his first real notice.
The Sin of Madelon Claudet was one of the first of many kindly doctor roles that Jean Hersholt took a patent on. Later on he played the lead in the film series Dr. Christian and you can see from this why Hersholt was cast in that role.
If old fashioned tearjerking melodramas is your thing than The Sin of Madelon Claudet is the film for you.
It's one weepy tale about a mother's sacrifice for her son and the only one who knows about it is Doctor Jean Hersholt.
Poor Helen Hayes. She's a peasant girl from Normandy who is wooed by an American, Neil Hamilton, who loves her and leaves her for his fiancé back in the USA. But not after getting her pregnant with a kid who grows up to be Robert Young.
This is a four handkerchief picture ladies and even the men might be well advised to take some handkerchiefs along themselves. After being abandoned by Hamilton, she takes up with a Count played by Lewis Stone who's willing to accept her with child. Problem is he's a nobleman who keeps up his style of living by being a jewel thief. When he's finally arrested, the law doesn't want to believe she knew nothing about his activities.
After prison, it's prostitution and vagrancy for her. But every sou she earns on the streets of Paris goes to pay for her kid's medical school.
It sounds terribly much and is terribly dated. But Helen Hayes makes this whole soggy tale believable some how. So much so that she got an Academy Award for Best Actress. This was also the film that got Robert Young his first real notice.
The Sin of Madelon Claudet was one of the first of many kindly doctor roles that Jean Hersholt took a patent on. Later on he played the lead in the film series Dr. Christian and you can see from this why Hersholt was cast in that role.
If old fashioned tearjerking melodramas is your thing than The Sin of Madelon Claudet is the film for you.