Review of Madame X

Alexandre Bisson's story is told yet again in this 1981 TV adaptation featuring Tuesday Weld, Eleanor Parker, and Jeremy Brett. The gist of it is that Tuesday marries and has a child only to lose it all, when she has a casual affair and her mother-in-law forces her to fake her death, in order to get out her son's life without scandal and shame. I saw an early black-and-white version of this years ago; since I can't remember much of it, I can't compare it to that. The only version I'm really used to (because of my numerous screenings of it) is the Lana Turner film version. The story is one of the most retold in film history, but in this Tuesday Weld version the sex of the child is changed from a son to a daughter. During her years apart from her daughter, a series of miseries and hardships leads up to Tuesday killing a seedy opportunist. She is assigned a young lady attorney to defend her, and Tuesday ultimately finds out that the young lady is her daughter. That is the whole spoiler and plot, but anyone who knows the story or has seen at least one film version of it knows it already. What distinguishes this from other films is Tuesday Weld. Some may even say she's better in the role than Lana, and I do admit she's good. Her best scenes show her hardened from life going from country to country over the years. But the film lacks the production values that the Lana Turner version had. But I guess it's up to someone's taste whichever one prefers - the lavish Lana version or the more realistic!-based Tuesday one without all the glamour and melodramatic music. Quite frankly, the beginning or setup of this film (getting to the crust of the film) was pretty boring save for the presence of the always lovely Eleanor Parker, who gave a bold performance as the mother-in-law. The characters of the husband and the other man were not terribly memorable, and the actress playing the attorney daughter was awfully bland. Couldn't they have found someone better for that role? The crust of my review is that Tuesday Weld saves an otherwise average take on the Bisson story. It can be seen on YouTube, but, if you don't know Tuesday Weld or like far-fetched story lines, this isn't the film for you.