Dishonored Lady
Tags: murder, melodrama

Plot synopsis:
A motorcycle police officer notices a luxurious car parked on a road with its female driver just sitting there. He asks the woman if anything is wrong, she is unresponsive, then seems dazed for a moment, says no, then drives off at very high speed. The car crashes and ends up in the front yard of a house. The owner of the house is a doctor, who, with the officers help, brings the woman into the house and puts her on a couch, where she says she wants no help.Dr. Richard Caleb (Morris Carnovsky) is a psychiatrist and guesses she was trying to kill herself. He tells her he knows how to help suicidal people and she takes his card as he puts her on a commuter train to go back to town.The next morning we see the woman (Hedy Lamarr) arriving late for work at a fashion magazine, and she overhears some men saying to each other that Madeleine is the problem. We learn that her name is Madeleine Damian, that she is the art editor, having much responsibility and a fancy executive office at the magazine. She confronts the group of men and threatens to quit if the magazine doesnt go along with her artistic decisions about the advertising for an important client, Felix Courtland (John Loder), a diamond dealer.In conversations among the people at the office it becomes clear that she has had lots of relationships with men at work, and others, that she is good in her profession, that she uses her beauty and style to attract men, whom she discards easily when they have served her purpose. Madeleine overhears her secretary make gossipy comments about why she might be late, and the girl is fired on the spot.Jack Garet (William Lundigan), one of Madeleines coworkers who evidently is an ex, attempts to intercede in favor of the secretary, but he is brushed off. Jack is also brushed off with a smile but with disdain when he tells her he needs money and wants to borrow 500 dollars from her.Later she encounters diamond dealer Courtland for the first time, smiling while she tells him she wont bend on the matter of rejecting his advertising art. Courtland is smitten by her, uses the fact that cabs are hard to get in pouring rain to insist on giving her a ride in his limousine, and pours on the charm while displaying his great wealth in front of her at his luxurious mansion, making sure she sees he has a concealed safe in his library workroom. A large painting in the room is a work by Madeleines father, which triggers conversation where we learn of Madeleines childhood and artistic talents.Weary of the game of selling herself and fending off wolves, Madeleine looks up Dr. Caleb and after an initial interview decides to put herself in his psychiatric care, trying to redo her interior life and learn how to be a happier by giving up pretenses and become a genuine person.Under his orders, she quits her job and moves into a small flat under a new identity, starts painting and living the life of an artist, and has no contacts with anyone from the magazine.Her landlady (Margaret Hamilton) tells her downstairs neighbor, Dr. David S. Cousins (Dennis OKeefe) that she is an artist, and it just turns out that he needs illustration art to publish medical research he is doing. So she meets handsome young bachelor David, she begins to interact with him in his apartment, peering into microscopes and making drawings of what she sees. He is direct and uncomplicated and has no secrets or guile, no pretenses, so different from the men of her previous world that she falls in love with him. After a short time when he has his mind only on his research project, he notices how beautiful she is, and he gets smitten also.Now things immediately get very complicated for Madeleine. Felix finds out where she lives, enters her apartment and waits for her, where he pressures her to return to her old life.When his research project is finished, and a paper on the results is about to be published, they celebrate. He needs to find a job, they talk about him going to Oregon to set up a practice, and he proposes marriage. She doesnt give him an outright yes because she fears what might happen if he found out that she had assumed a false identity to conceal her past relationships. Just then his boss sends him to a conference in Chicago for a few days, and she knows that she must make tough decisions before he returns.She consults Dr. Caleb, who says she can have no future with David if she continues to keep secrets from him.Madeleine and David, at the airport, happen to meet Jack Garet and Felix Courtland, and she realizes that she will have to give David some account of her past. She makes contact with Ethel Royce (Natalie Schafer), her best female friend from her old job, meets her at a restaurant to catch up on events, where she is seen by her old boss and Jack. Jack calls Felix, and he comes immediately to the restaurant to renew contacts.Then come the fateful sequence of events. Jack had become a confidant and secretary to Felix. Needing money, Jack had removed a valuable diamond from the safe at Felixs house, and pawned it. Felix became aware of the theft and knew that only Jack could have removed the diamond, threatening Jack.Jack arrives at Felixs house to beg for time while Madeleine is there, in Felixs fancy room, where she had been brought in to recover from drinking too much with Ethel. Madeleine wakes, hears the voices, escapes by going out towards the rear. Jack and Felix enter the room, continue arguing, Felix takes the phone to call the police, and Jack clobbers him over the head with a heavy table lighter.When the detectives investigate, the evidence points to Madeleine as the killer. She had been seen arriving there by servants and chauffeurs, her fingerprints were on the cigarette lighter, Felix had been seen by the landlady at Madeleines apartment, her double identity is very suspicious, the fact that she had received a proposal of marriage from David, and that he was unaware of her past, gives a motive.When David learns of her deceptions and her past, he becomes very disillusioned and believes she is the killer.Dr. Caleb sees that she is suicidal again, committing suicide by murder trial, refusing to cooperate with her defense attorney, although she may well be innocent. He approaches David and by his persistence gets David to admit he is still in love with her and would love her even if he had known about her past, and explains to him that to her, he is her judge and jury, and wants to die because she thinks their love has no chance.After David answers, under oath, that he is still in love with Madeleine, she regains hope, she agrees to testify, and testifies that she heard an altercation of Felix with another man, plus the detail that Felix had a concealed safe in his room, where he kept diamonds. The lawyer and court agree to suspend the trial until the existence of the safe is verified. David is present when the safe is discovered by police, and after the police leave, comments that there might be fingerprints on the dials if in fact there was someone who entered the room to rob the safe. He also noticed that Jack knew that the safe was opened by a key and not by the customary combination.David pretends to leave, but he returns, to see Jack carefully wiping the dials on the safe. David figures out that Jack is the killer, there are scuffles, reaches for guns, but the murder details have been solved enough to convince the court that Madeleine is not guilty.The newspaper headlines scream that Madeleine is freed, Madeleine and David make up and all the good guys can try to live happily ever after.

Review: It moves rather slowly much of the time, but this is an interesting drama with a performance from Hedy Lamarr that is well worth seeing in itself.
The story is rather ambitious, and though it does not always fit together as well as it could have, it has a number of interesting aspects centering on Lamarr's character, Madeleine.Madeleine is an interesting and complex character, starting out as a hard-driving, self-absorbed art editor, confronting an emotional crisis, and then starting a new life that brings its own challenges.
It's a great role, and Lamarr fills it pretty well and makes good use of the material.
The character would still work all right if he were made less infallible and inflexible.The first part of the story probably works the best, painting an interesting picture of the changes in Madeleine's life.
Overall, the movie seems as if it could have been better with a few improvements, but it's worth seeing, and Lamarr provides a good reason to watch it..
"The most beautiful woman in films" was the epithet generally bestowed upon the amazing Hedy Lamarr.
We have recently learned that she was really Jewish, not Austrian, and that makes a lot more sense, as she did not exactly look like an Alpine Yodeler (her real surname was Kiesler), although strangely enough, in this film at one point she dresses like one.
Opposite Lamarr as the serious love interest is, of all people, Dennis O'Keefe, better known as a tough guy, and who went on to make "T-Men" (see my review) in the same year.
This is a very gripping film, and Hedy Lamarr was perfect for the lead.
Wrongly accused of John Loder's murder, Lamarr sits in court refusing to defend herself because O'Keefe doesn't love her any more (or does he?), and the tension goes right up to the end.
Hedy was beautiful, and I thought her rather ambiguous performance, gave the film a nice sense of mystery.
I do believe Hedy Lamarr needed strong supporting performances, to help carry her movies, and inspire her performances..
But then Bette Davis would not have been believable in Hedy's role, because no one would believe all those men would have been so obsessively attracted to the frumpy Ms. Davis.Dishonored Lady is an early example of the "pycho-drama" and possibly one of the best in that typically dreary, and not so entertaining genre.
Not surprisingly, since it would be a major shocker if a dame like her didn't have a shrink on the payroll.In Dishonored Lady the shrink, played with great verve by Morris Carnovsky, is the pivotal character.
Hedy's character is a high-paid advertising designer, surrounded by shallow, dishonorable men who take advantage of her promiscuous nature.
Best line in the movie -- when one of Hedy's rich, carnivorous ex-boyfriends takes offense at Carnovsky's criticism of his ways, the psychiatrist replies, "I usually get paid for insulting people." It goes on from there, and this is a very entertaining movie.
Heddy's supporting cast, led by Carnovsky and Dennis O'Keefe are all very good.
O'Keefe, cast somewhat against type, plays a nice medical research doctor who thinks of nothing but germs until he falls in love at first sight with Hedy (and what man wouldn't).
To say any late 'forties movie has good cinematography and fluid editing is redundant.Dishonored Lady is an enjoyable watch and a good showcase for Hedy Lamarr's beauty and talent..
Promiscuity and She. Beautiful and suicidal Hedy Lamarr (as Madeleine Damien) takes her psychiatrist's advice, and moves from promiscuous Manhattan magazine editor to struggling Greenwich Village artist.
Although she comes to her senses in time to flee frisky John Loder (as Felix Courtland), her presence in his apartment makes Lamarr a murder suspect.So, how does she explain all this to returning fiancé O'Keefe?
These types of pictures are always easier to watch with an extremely attractive woman at the helm; and, "Dishonored Lady" is tailor-made for a beautiful Hollywood actress.
Interestingly, Mr. Loder was, at the time, Lamarr's real-life husband - though, not for long.
None of the men seem entirely up for Lamarr, but chatty Margaret Hamilton (after "The Wizard of Oz") and catty Natalie Schafer (before "Gilligan's Island") offer helpful support.****** Dishonored Lady (5/16/47) Robert Stevenson ~ Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe, John Loder, William Lundigan.
I've just seen Dishonored Lady for the first time and quite enjoyed it.A fashion editor of a magazine has a breakdown after she crashes her car.
Can she clear her name in court?The cast includes Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe and John Lodar.
Set in New York in the immediate post-war years, "Dishonored Lady" grabs our attention straight from the outset, as Hedy Lamarr walks to work at her office, and from there it is non-stop interest as the story unfolds, in the office itself, in cocktail bars, the opulent mansion of predatory male, John Loder (twice, as well as twice in his chauffeur-driven limousine), in Hedy's flat where she has started a new life, in the courtroom and at the airport.
She is well supported by the rest of the cast, in what is a film that deserves recognition as 90 minutes of gripping cinema, with the bonus of seeing Lamarr throughout, whose role as a woman that men can't resist is entirely credible..
Hedy Lamarr is gorgeous, and this is a fascinating role for her - getting to be vulnerable, a tigress, a very successful businesswoman, and a woman happily in love.
I thought John Loder as reptilian Felix Courtland was also excellent, as was William Lundigan as a spoiled, jealous, callow rival of Madeleine's in the office.I really liked this film and think the score it has on IMDb should be a lot higher..
I must admit I have been a Hedy Lamarr fan since "Algiers", which was a great big hit back in 1938, so I do not understand some reviewers here saying, unfortunately, most of her movies are "forgettable".
As for her other 'unforgettable' films she was fine in "H.M Pulham, esq.", "Comrade X", "Tortilla Flat","Experiment Perilous", and "The Strange Woman".In all her roles, someone, the leading man, feature players always had to comment on her beauty...like we had to be reminded.
Hedy Lamarr once remarked, I believe, that most of her films were pretty forgettable.
John Loder (who was one of Hedy Lamarr's husbands in real life) plays a client of hers from the fashion job who finds her in her new place and from there, things happen.
William Lundigan, Morris Carnovsky as the psychiatrist, Natalie Schafer (from "Gilligan's Island",) Paul Cavanaugh, Douglas Dumbrille, and Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West from "The Wizard of Oz") make up the rest of the cast.
What's unique about Lundigan and O'Keefe being in the same picture here is that usually they were competing for the same type of roles in films, the young man usually on the right side of the law and is set on solving a murder that is thrust upon them.
It may be one of the best of Hedy Lamarr's "forgettable films.".
At the end of an age where it was honorable to at least want to be fooled into that "illusion" of innocence this film predicts a future where those around us will too much enjoy our less honorable moments (...loves company) to ever let us engage our best selves.
Transition between innocence solidly existing, even if buttressed since time by illusion, to the illusion we now have that there is no such a thing as innocence at all--the latter illusion being the tool of those who would take our childhood abuses and adolescent mistakes and rule us with them (or roll us with them in the dirt) until our better selves seem too far away or too hard to reach.This isn't so much a film for the woman Jesus stopped from being stoned as it is a sadly correct socio-psychological analysis of how little it will mean to be holding a rock in years to come--rocks made mostly of dried past that itself was full of peltings.
But, in the case of "Dishonored Lady", the film is pretty good and you wonder why it's included with these clunkers.The film begins with Hedy Lamarr behaving like she'd like to die--though she denies she has a problem.
She also is apparently 'a bad lady' though the film only implied what this means--and I do think this is one case where the requirements of the Production Code harmed the movie.
Had they said she had been very sexually active, what happened throughout the film would have made a lot more sense.Regardless, a kind psychiatrist sees a sad and sick lady and offers to help.
While O'Keefe is a lesser-known actor, he was also very good--and I liked him at the end in a very rough and tumble scene.
Worth seeing, though by no means a great film.By the way, if you do see this movie, get a load of the crazy wardrobe Hedy wears through much of the film.
Enjoyable, and good performance by Hedy Lamarr..
She's certainly no worse than many other actresses of her time that are thought so highly of.Madeleine is quite a touching character and her inner struggles may strike a chord with many high achieving and hard working women, although there's obviously a moralizing untertone that has to be expected from a movie shot in the late 40s.
The psychiatrist came across at time as an unecessary addition to the plot, but that's also in line with the late 40s, when psychiatry was still very influential.Overall, that's a very enjoyable movie, with an abrupt ending that'll keep you on tenterhooks until about the last minute of it..
Sometimes Hedy Lamarr appears like a double of Vivien Leigh, only more beautiful, more vulnerable and more untouchable.
You can imagine her problems started there.In New York she is highly appreciated as a successful artist, maybe too highly for her own good, and there is particularly a rich jeweller and millionaire, who never tires of trying to seduce her, mainly by insisting on giving her a ride in bad weather and instead of driving her home driving her to his place, where he insists on her having some drinks.
After a film like this you will love Hedy Lamarr forever..
The gorgeous Lamarr is a Dishonored Lady.
Meaning, I guess, that she slept around.So this is what used to happen when a female movie star turned 30 during Hollywood's golden age - her studio drops her, and she winds up with the serviceable Dennis O'Keefe as her leading man.
DeMille later cast her as Delilah in "Samson and Delilah." Before that, and her time at MGM over, Lamarr made "Dishonored Lady" in 1947, starring the aforementioned O'Keefe as well as her husband, John Loder, Morris Carnovsky, William Lundigan, Natalie Schaefer, Paul Cavanaugh, and Margaret Hamilton.Lamarr plays Madeleine, the beautiful, glamorous, editor of a Manhattan magazine who goes from man to man, which we gather from this carefully- worded script.
In her apartment building, she meets an attractive scientist (O'Keefe) and the two fall in love.However, the past returns to haunt Madeleine in a particularly vicious way.Decent film, and it's always a pleasure to see Lamarr.
Though she was often cast for her beauty and sexuality, Lamarr had a spark as well as a very pleasant voice and here turns in a fine performance.
Dishoned Lady finds Hedy Lamarr taking on a role originated by Katherine Cornell in a play on Broadway that ran 127 performances during the Depression era 1930 season.
Lamarr plays the high powered art director of a fashion magazine who has quite the active love life.
Kept on a string by her are accountant William Lundigan, her boss and jeweler real life husband John Loder and research scientist Dennis O'Keefe whom when she first him, he has no idea about her fame and character.The film opens with a suicide attempt where psychiatrist Morris Carnovsky is on the scene and she becomes a patient.
No real suspense in identifying who is who as you watch the film.Still 84 minutes of Hedy Lamarr is also a pleasure..
The movie's designed to show off the gorgeous LaMarr (Madeleine) and her acting chops.
Seems as though she can't resist having sex with the wrong kind of guys (Loder and Lundigan) even as she tries at a normal life with O'Keefe.
Madeleine (Heddy Lamarr) tries to kill herself at the beginning of the film.
We want to know why and it is left in the hands of a psychologist Dr Caleb (Morris Carnovsky) to help her to turn her life around and face the cause of her unhappiness.
For the first hour of the film, we mainly concentrate on her relationships with Courtland (John Loder) and David (Dennis O'Keefe).
A first, I wasn't sure where the film was heading but after a while I understood that it was about the character of Madeleine and who she was going to choose for a husband - the 2 candidates being Courtland and David.
Dennis O'Keefe is good as her suitor who is fooled by her as is William Lundigan who plays "Geret", a former work colleague of her's.
When Hedy Lamarr made this film she was 34 and her Viennese accent and sophisticated European poise were evident in this film where she plays the art editor of a posh New York magazine.Her rather promiscous personality on screen (allowing for what was allowed by 1940's censors) and her rather stentorian personality to her subordinates at work gave her a rather sadistic quality which I found not unattractive!!
It seems the job is stressing her out and although brilliant at what she does, she does not like what she has become.She decides to have a complete break and adopts another persona and live elsewhere.Her rich boyfriend (one of her real life husbands - John Loder) tracks her down and complicates her life when she poses as an artist in a flat above a scientist (Dennis O'Keefe)in a modest block run by a landlady - the  unmistakeable actress who plays the wicked witch from "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)!!
Certainly he is not of the first  order but ...adequate, a bit like the film.My motive to own the DVD was to see the mature Hedy Lamarr after seeing her as a 20 year old in "Exctase"(1933).She comes over as rather enigmatic, even when she resolves her love with Dr. David S.
"Dishnonored Lady" was clearly designed as a star vehicle for Hedy Lamarr, not in terms of budget (which must have been pretty limited), but in terms of surrounding her with lesser-known male leads who had no chance of stealing her spotlight.
The story is predictable, and the character of the psychiatrist is self-righteously preachy, but the film moves right along, and Lammar's star power shines through, especially in some screen-filling closeups of her gorgeous face.
Hedy Lamarr, she of the perfect proboscis, was a beautiful woman, no matter from what angle she was regarded.
Her real name, of course, was not Hedy Lamarr.
Really.At any rate, she looks just fine in this rather drawn-out romantic drama of a woman who is consumed by the need for power and money and rises to the top of the art department of a chic New York magazine, or something like that.
It must be said that Hedy Lamarr can at least "do drunk" better than some others, like Richard Egan and Doris Day, who were positive embarrassments when they tried.
Hedy Lamarr lacks the proper acting chops to really convince in this psychological study of a troubled magazine artist.
As the men in her life, Morris Carnovsky is statically noble as the shrink, John Loder sleazy and one-dimensional as the skunk and Dennis O'Keefe spunky as the sap.The supporting cast includes wonderful moments from Natalie Schaefer as Lamarr's trouble-making friend, Margaret Hamilton as her nosy landlady and Douglas Dumbrille as the tough prosecuting attorney when evidence points to Lamarr in a murder.
The movie is effective and thorough in a sleazy way, though with a peculiar scent of silliness and the awkwardness of an untruthful standpoint, an educational and cautionary movie, like others from that age ; Stevenson, the director, knew his trade and here he leads us through a few milieus and uses a few quirks (as in the tracking of Hedy's new place of residence, or, earlier, when she's shown returning to her office, or when her idyll is shot from on high).
It has a 2nd rate cast: Hedy Lamarr plays the nymphomaniac (and presumably abused daughter), O'Keefe: the researcher, Loder: the jeweler and seducer, Carnovsky: the psychiatrist and 1st rescuer, Lundigan: the murderer, Margaret Hamilton: the landlady, Cavanagh plays a small part as a shark; Dumbrille has a bit part.
By then, making love could still mean flirting; but Loder asks Hedy about being wet, she asks him to show her his jewels .Much is made of the medicine, two characters are physicians.The trashy thoroughness shows in the fact that what could of been phony comes across as apposite and plausible.
***SPOILERS*** Corny but interesting movie involving fashion magazine editor Madeleine or Maddie for short Damien played by who was considered the most beautiful woman in the world at the time Heddy Lamarr who's got serious problems about her life career and future.
While there Maddie meets and falls in love with struggling medical student David Cousins, Dennis O'Keefe, after finding his prized rat, that David uses for his experiments, in the hallway and to David's surprise, in her being a woman, not being scared to death of it.
So with the juggling act going on here between Lamarr's character and her suitors, I wasn't expecting the murder mystery that occurs later in the story.
Caleb's pronouncements about Miss Damien's identity and commitment fit the story well, but it made me a little suspicious that Cousins (Dennis O'Keefe) could figure out Garet's (William Lundigan) murder of Courtland (John Loder) so easily.