The Secret of Madame Blanche
Tags: melodrama

Plot synopsis:
Sally Sanders (Irene Dunne) is an American showgirl visiting London in 1898 when she marries Leonard St. John (Phillips Holmes), much to the displeasure of his wealthy and snobbish father, Aubrey St. Johns (Lionel Atwill), who cuts off his son. The couple moves to France. When Leonard is unable to provide a living for his new bride and himself, he eventually goes home to his father asking for help. St. Johns suggests that his son divorce his wife and keep her as a mistress, while marrying within his own class. He agrees to take his son back but only if he writes to Sally ending the marriage. Leonard, seeing no alternative, agrees. However, instead Leonard provides him with a suicide note and shoots himself.
When St. Johns discovers that Sally was carrying his grandson, he has her followed by a private detective in hopes of seizing custody of his only heir. When Sally, saving to return to America, is reduced to singing in a French bordello, St. Johns swiftly obtains a court order and seizes the infant while Sally is at work. After being assured of her legal defeat, Sally goes to St. Johns pleading for the return of her son on any terms, and is rudely rebuffed, banned from all contact with the family, and threatened with prison if she persists. The child is to be raised with no contact with or knowledge of his mother.
During World War I, Leonard Junior (Douglas Walton), now grown and in uniform as a British serviceman, visits the bordello with a date, hoping to obtain a room, which isn't available, and meets Sally, with neither aware of the other's identity. When he becomes drunk and disorderly he is knocked unconscious and Sally takes care of him, learning his identity from his date, whom she sends home with carfare. When Leonard awakens, the two become acquainted and then friendly, and Sally learns that her son was raised to despise women, including his mother, about whom he has heard only lies, including that she is dead. At this moment the enraged father of Leonard's abandoned date arrives and forces his way into the closed establishment, intending to kill Leonard. In the ensuing struggle Leonard kills the man with Sally's gun. She sends him away and confesses to the killing, without revealing her motive for helping him.
St. John encourages his grandson to go along with the lie, expecting blackmail, but at Sally's trial, as she pleads self-defense, he secretly recognizes her. The prosecutor then surprises everyone by debunking Sally's confession and revealing Sally's identity and motive for protecting Leonard. Mother and son are joyfully reunited as Leonard confesses to being the real shooter and angrily renounces his grandfather.
Leonard is sentenced to two years in jail for the shooting, and when Sally visits, the two plan their long-delayed trip to America as mother and son.

Review: Irene Dunne scores....
another winner is this Madame-X-type film about mother love.
She plays a classy stage performer who marries the spoiled son (Phillips Holmes)of a selfish rich man (Lionel Atwill).
The son commits suicide after the father cuts him off and Dunne then loses the baby to the evil old man.
She fends for herself over the next 20 years in French bars.
A curious set of coincidences reunites mother and son during WW I.
Anyway, Dunne is wonderful--as usual--as the mother and gets to age (as in Cimarron) into a spunky old lady.
Irene Dunne remains one of the most underrated stars of the 30s, excellent in drama, comedy, or musicals.
She's also one of the most likable..
Try to catch this sometime on TCM.
This is a close cousin of the classic (and often-filmed) "Madame X", but with some minor plot differences that make it worth watching.
Fans of Lana's 1966 "Madame X" and the other versions may be curious about its predecessors and similar movies.
In this one, Dunne gives a warm, heartfelt (and as is often the case with her) a startlingly contemporary and comfortable performance.
Her work in the '30's tends to transcend the span of time and come off fresh now, SEVENTY YEARS later!!
When her character ages, this quality is almost totally lost as she is buried in make-up and unnecessarily old-ladyish garb, wig etc....
(The most her character can conceivably be is 50 or so, but she looks like Bette Davis in "A Pocketful of Miracles"!!) Her mannerisms take over until it appears that Molly Shannon from SNL has stepped in to play the part!
However, her early scenes, where her romance blossoms with the rich young man who loves her, are the best.
She glows.
Her scene with her little baby boy is also worth the price of admission alone.
The child is adorable and the scene is spontaneous and beautiful.
Like most of these tales, the deck is stacked WAY against the leading lady and it gets to be almost ridiculous, but the film is most definitely worth watching as a curio.
The screenwriters Hackett and Goodrich were often called upon to translate plays and books to the screen.
This was their first try and they do a decent, if occasionally trite and contrived job (this was a different era of film making, though.) It is laughable to think that Irene Dunne has no Academy Award, yet Paltrow, Tomei and Sorvino do.....
Crazy!.
Despite being tough to believe, this is still a wonderful old fashioned soap opera.
This is a film that probably won't please everyone.
Viewers looking for a film with a lot of realism and a plot that is lacking plot holes would probably find it pretty tough going.
Plus, those who aren't particularly inclined to watch old fashioned soap operas might also balk at seeing this film.
However, for a lover of classic Hollywood films who accepts all the irony and melodrama without being too critical, the final product is lovely to watch and very satisfying.Now I must admit that usually a film with this many weepy scenes turns me off a bit, but the writers, directors and Irene Dunne manage to weave a tale so well that my sometime cynical nature was kept in abeyance.
Plus, the amazingly awful and evil character played by Lionel Atwill was one of his best roles--one that will definitely make an impression on the viewer.
Now I must admit that the impossibility of the final third of the film was at first a bit hard to take, but when the plot wrapped up like it did, I found I just didn't care--I wanted the hokey Hollywood ending and enjoyed it thoroughly.
An excellent weepy film--similar to, but in many ways superior to MADAME X and SO BIG!
If you liked this film, try Barbara Stanwyck's STELLA DALLAS--another great weepy melodrama..
Dunne and Holmes in teary romantic tale of mother love....
IRENE DUNNE had THE SECRET OF MADAME BLANCHE.
It's the forerunner of all those Madame X stories that gave actresses meaty roles in tear-jerkers.
For Olivia de Havilland it was TO EACH HIS OWN.
For Lana Turner and earlier, Ruth Chatterton, it was MADAME X.
For Helen Hayes it was THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET.
These were the kind of stories that spanned some twenty years, always about women who were cheated out of mother love--women who fell in love unwisely and were then cheated by circumstances.LIONEL ATWILL is the rich father whose son (PHILLIPS HOLMES) has fallen in love with a cabaret singer and he opposes the match from the start, threatening to stop giving his son handouts to keep them solvent.
The son is destitute when he learns that she's about to have a baby and finally commits suicide.
The years fly by and Dunne is now a working woman in London at a not very reputable establishment populated by servicemen.
It's World War I and one of the patrons is a young man who makes a fuss over not being given a room.
He turns out to be her son and she is soon protecting him from a murder charge.It's a pretty plot-heavy melodrama with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer interested, but you have to have a taste for these mother/son tear-jerkers to truly enjoy this sort of film.
The final scene with mother and son reunited at a prison after a stormy trial, is reminiscent of MADAME X--but at least here, the son learns the true identity of his mother..
The sublime Irene Dunne at low ebb.
This is a truly silly film in which Irene Dunne falls in love with Phillpis Homes.
She is a performer; so that won't do with his fine family.
She thinks she can get his father to reconsider.
But we know better: The father is the always scary Lionel Atwill!
She's lucky he doesn't mummify her on the pot.The actor who plays her son, many years later, is pallid and odd looking.
And the screenwriters (and censors) seem to have forgotten who is related to whom and how at the climax.Dunne is charming but she has a terribly corny plot to work with.
She ages well.
When she is an older woman, going under the name of the title, she is tougher than usual.
Maybe Barbara Stanywck could have done more with this role.
But it's pretty doubtful..
Yet Another Self-Sacrificing Mother.
Innocent woman meets rich playboy.
Innocent woman is seduced by rich playboy.
Innocent woman is abandoned by rich playboy.
Innocent woman has rich playboy's child.
Innocent woman loses rich playboy's child.
No-longer-innocent woman ages and prepares to sacrifice all for her child.An entire genre of motion pictures, which often feature Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner, has used this basic plot to wring tears from largely female audiences.
In "The Secret of Madame Blanche," Irene Dunne takes a turn at this well-worn routine and maintains her dignity throughout, despite the script's attempts to drown her in clichés.
In the role of showgirl, Sally Sanders, Dunne has a few opportunities to show off her fine voice, but the musical selections are poor.
The relatively short film, which was adapted from a play, lurches forward from hackneyed scene to hackneyed scene and leaves chasms of time for the audience to fill in.
Occasionally, patient viewers will be rewarded with dialog and delivery so rich in camp that they will howl helplessly with unintended laughter, although a mouth-to-mouth kiss between mother and son, perhaps common for the period, induces cringes today.
While Lionel Atwill is effective as Aubrey St. John, the selfish controlling father, and Philips Holmes is appropriately weak as his son, the rich playboy, the film offers little beyond the incomparable Irene Dunne slumming in a sub-par vehicle.
Coincidences abound, French accents come and go, laws benefit the rich and oppress the poor, and a mother's self-sacrificing love conquers all.
What more could one ask for?
Perhaps Barbara Stanwyck and "Stella Dallas?".
Stick with it: gets better as it moves.
It may be difficult to get past the premise of "Madame Blanche": movies always require a suspension of belief to some degree, but I had a very hard time with this one.
I can't swallow the idea that Irene Dunne would give up her career to marry Phillip Holmes' snivelling, substance-free, work-allergic wimp of a man, after knowing him for about 8 seconds.
Did young people in the 30's really marry so quickly without getting to know their potential spouses?Anyway, Holmes quickly justifies are suspicions.
His father disinherits him, so angry is he that Holmes has married so far below his station.
Holmes does nothing to make us feel any sympathy for him, but Irene Dunne loves him so!
A real unappealingly weak character, he is.The dialogue is so insipid and without drama in the first half of the film that I seriously wondered whether I had the will to see it through.Happily, there is much improvement in the second half.
Dunne's soldier-son, played by Douglas Walton, starts off as weak and selfish a person as his father (Holmes) was, but he does grow up and change nicely, and is somewhat appealing.
Dunne is fabulous and convincing as an older woman - actually, impressively so - it is hard to recognize her as an attractive younger woman in her "old age" make-up!
Lionel Atwill is absolutely evil as Holmes' brutally heartless father.
The best scene in the film actually occurs in the first half: look for the close-up, upper-bodies -only shot of Dunne and Holmes in what will be their final parting; the entire shot is beautifully and slightly and softly out of focus, and is quite effective and touching.Overall, this is a mixed bag, but if you love early sound films just for their own sake, or are a fan of Irene Dunne, then you will appreciate this little soap opera..
Falling for a wastrel.
If I had been Irene Dunne in The Secret Of Madame Blanche I might have thought
twice about eloping with charming wastrel Phillips Holmes..
Sadly she met his
ironfisted father Lionel Atwill only after they were married.
Dunne plays a singer and does get to show her vocal talents in this film which is
always appreciated.
Holmes who does nothing, but spend dear old dad's money
in various hedonistic pursuits.
Of course dad does not even try to channel Holmes into some useful profession where he could have an income.
wants and frankly I thought this a hoot, he wants to have him get a seat in 
Parliament with of course an arranged marriage with a woman of the proper
station.
Atwill has really no redeeming qualities as a father.
He just wants to dominate
his kid.
Eventually he forces Dunne to give her child over to him to be raised
in the image.
As the kid grows up to be Douglas Walton he truly is a chip off the old Atwill/Holmes block.Fast forward to the World War I years and Walton while AWOL gets himself in
a big jackpot and he also meets Dunne with no idea she's his mom.
Atwill told
him she was dead.I won't go any farther except to say that the whole thing has a Madame X 
quality to it.
It does work out better for the principal cast members.The Secret Of Madame Blanche is a property very unlikely to be remade.
the cast led by Dunne, Holmes, Atwill, and Walton does pull it together..
You will bawl or laugh at this...I bawled..
I am an Irene Dunne fan but had only seen her comedies, so I was surprised to see her in this one night after I got home from work.
I read the other review and thought it was rather harsh.
This IS from a different film-making era, so if it seems trite, that may be to our jaded modern sensibilities.
I was totally rooting for Dunne's heroine until the very end...and the part in which she discovers that the horrible soldier is her very own son that was stolen away from her...."Oh, my baby boy, what have they done to you?!?"...I mean, it will rip your heart out!!!!
I get misty just thinking of it.
You have to love the melodramatic twists and turns, and of course, I always appreciate a happy ending...even though he's in jail, you know they'll be alright!!!.
An Irene Dunne Tearjerker.
Irene Dunne falls in love with a well-bred gentleman, who is not suited for anything but to spend his daddy's money.
They marry, but the marriage doesn't last long, when he goes back to his father, played unmercifully well by Lionel Atwill.
But after Lionel gives him an ultimatum and feeling put in a no-win situation, his son commits suicide, thereby setting up the stage for pregnant Irene alone in the world, forced to do what she has to.
But Lionel quickly has his grandson taken from her and in his sole custody.
Fast forward, the son, played by Phillips Holmes, is a soldier who happens to come across her establishment, a bar with rooms to let!
You know the rest.
This is far from dull and does get rather melodramatic before the final fade-out, pulling no punches and no subtlety.
While not entirely one of Ms. Dunne's best, this certainly entertains..
Creepy father-in-law..
Spoilers.
Observations.Creepy pop in law.
He steals the baby.
How dare he?
He doesn't know how to raise male children, without spoiling them and making them into total wastrels.Irene Dunne always lovely.
Here, she falls for a puny, dorky rich kid, son of the above mentioned stupid idiot.
He has no career, and apparently no education.
Pop won't give him any more money, so he offs himself and leaves his wife, Irene, to raise the baby as best she can.Irene comes back from performing in a sleazy entertainment spot, finding the grandfatherly slimeball getting custody of her beloved baby boy.
Irene goes to grandpa's home to almost beg him to see the baby, but Grandpapa Dearest says no dice.Irene goes on to toil for many years in rathole after rathole, entertaining and becoming what looks sort of like a madam in a brothel, or as she describes later, a restaurant with rooms upstairs.Looks like the young WWI soldier wants to take HER upstairs, but actually he wants a room for himself and his teenage girlfriend who has run away from her parents.More spoilers.
Fast forward.
Girlfriend goes home.
Girlfriend's father comes looking for soldier who stole away his daughter.
Dad wants to beat the living stuffing out of soldier.
All of a sudden, kerblam.
Gunshot.
Soldier has gun in his hand, and the father is succumbed on the floor.Girlfriend had given Irene name of soldier.
Irene realizes it is her long lost baby son.
She tells police she did the deed, and that the soldier got away.Courtroom scene.
Irene has confessed to the crime, to protect her son.
Judge figures out the connection.
Soldier is in the room, and he realizes Irene is his long lost mother, about whom he was told by creepy grandpa that she was no good.
Grandpa, Irene's pop in law, is also in room, and cringes/realizes that she was the young woman married to his son against his wishes.Judge says Irene is innocent.
Next scene, Irene visits soldier in jail.
He didn't get capital punishment or a very long sentence; apparently, the verdict was self-defense, manslaughter or something like that.
He only gets around two years.Irene baked him a chocolate cake, but wasn't allowed to bring it into the jail.
Her son loves chocolate cake..
Dunne shines in mother son tearjerker..
Displaying the saddest (brown?) eyes in film Irene Dunne soldiers her way through one setback after the next in The Secret of Madame Blanche.
Dealing with three generations of an upper crust family Dunne finds all kinds of ways to sing the blues over a twenty year period.Silver spoon playboy Lenny St. John falls hard for showgirl Sally (Dunne) and in no time they are hitched.
Dad Aubrey (Lionel Atwell) will have none of it and he browbeats sonny to end it who does so in the most extreme fashion by committing suicide.
Aubrey, distraught by the realization that his money will be orphaned with no one to carry on his name has a detective shadow the pregnant Sally who after giving birth to a boy, sings for a living in a Paris pick-up joint.
Aubrey abducts the child after slandering her and pulling some strings to get full custody.
Years pass when her soldier son turns up at her bar makes a scene and gets involved in a murder.
Madame Blanche in turn selflessly takes the fall instead.On stage Dunne is more Chevalier than Mistinquette but when she deals with the family St. John she delivers powerfully in scene after scene as well as age convincingly.
Atwell as old man Aubrey also registers powerfully with an intractable condescending cruelty.
As Sally's son Holmes Philips chips in commendably as well playing at first a loutish dough boy before moving on to some tender moments with Dunne.Taking place between fin de siècle and World War One the film is both sharply costumed (Adrian) and set designed (Cedric Gibbons) providing a lush look and background for Dunne's tragic Sally in this well mounted if at times far fetched tearjerker.