It took brave souls to attempt filming this moth-ball ridden story. Poor Kay Francis at 26 plays the long lost impostor-mother of a blind teenager in order to inherit the boys fortune! She's part of a gang of crooks and agrees to be the "false madonna" as a final fling with crime. The teenager (John Breedon) is so terribly earnest and sweet that Kay feels her "mother love" instinct and can't follow through with the machinations. The boys caretaker (Conway Tearle) is on to Kay, but keeps her secret as the boys health is on the wane; the boy couldn't stand the "shock" of knowing his new found mother is a phony. The actors do what they can with this off-the-wall story-line. Scenes between Kay and the boy are actually quite moving and when Kay takes a second look at the life she's been living, the effect is quite poignant. If you're a fan of Francis you'll enjoy watching her almost get away with the impossible.
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sobaok2 April 2002
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mark.waltz21 September 2017I can't put into words the appeal of Kay Francis to me, but discovering her accidentally before TCM was the path to many treasures of a forgotten film career. Trading with collectors who had her entire library, I was fascinated by the very rare Paramount films, and outside of "Trouble in Paradise", realized that they didn't always display her as anything more than the romantic interest on the outside looking in. That's not the case here, and she delivers a very multi faceted performance that shows her for more than just being a clothes horse. It's the most unbelievable of stories,
She's a drifting glamour girl, going from one party or exclusive hotel to another, traveling with a band of con artists who are experts in the art of graft. That sets her up for this act of subterfuge, pretending to be the long lost mother of a young man whom she finds is blind and filled with generosity to a woman who abandoned him 14 years before and is really dead. Only because of the young man's doctor (William Boyd) does Kay begin to regret the con and truly tries to become the mother to him that he has craved. But with the gang lurking behind, her rosy future is threatened and so is the young man's (John Breeden) health.
There's more than just a passing resemblance to the Barbara Stanwyck melodrama "No Man of Her Own" (more so than the remake, "Mrs. Winterbourne") with the mistaken identity minus the heroine in the film being a con artist here. This is unique in many ways, but it's Francis's performance that makes it palatable. I've never seen such a pathetic and sad blind man as Breeden's, almost like a silent movie character. It's also a tale of redemption which makes it all the more interesting. -
planktonrules2 January 2016The story in "The False Madonna" is very, very difficult to believe. My advice is just to suspend your sense of disbelief and watch it, as it is well worth watching.
When the story begins, four flim-flam artists are leaving town just ahead of the authorities. Aboard their train, something really bizarre occurs--there is a dying woman and the conductor is looking for a doctor. Well, Ed was once a doctor and since no one else is available, he tells them he's Dr. Marcy. Unfortunately, he cannot help the dying woman...and as she lies there dying, she tells him her story. It seems that she was married into a very wealthy family but she disappeared 14 years earlier--abandoning her husband and son. She was on the way to see the son when she became mortally ill. Being a crook and all around jerk-face, Ed decides to take the dead woman's trinkets and the information he gleaned from her and create a fake mother. He gets Tina (Kay Francis) to imitate the woman when the train arrives. The plan is to fleece the family and run, but the plan runs afoul of Tina's conscience. Although a crook, there are limits to her villainy and stealing from a sweet and blind teenager is just too much. What's worse is that the kid is dying and she doesn't want to be the one to kill him! What's next?
There's a lot going for this story despite a very difficult to believe story. The cinematography is great (especially in the garden scene) and the story works very well...though the speech by Ed at the end of the film and his turnaround makes zero sense. Good but far from perfect and a bit dated. -
drednm29 April 2009Odd and moving film that stars Kay Francis as a grifter who poses as a dead woman to cheat the dead woman's son out of his money.
The film starts out as a bus races alongside a train on a rainy night. It seems Francis and her fellow cheats (William "Stage" Boyd, Marjorie Gateson, and Charles D. Brown) have been thrown out of a hotel and must get out of town. On the train Boyd (a defrocked doctor) is summoned to the room of a dying woman. As she blurts out her story of abandoning her husband and son 14 years before, Boyd hatches the plan for Francis to impersonate the woman and get money out of the kid.
Their research shows that after the woman abandoned them, the father and infant son moved from Chicago to Long Island. None of the family friends or servants had any connection with the woman, so it becomes plausible that Francis swoop in and get money.
Francis has misgivings and wants to quit the rackets but agrees to this one last scheme. When she arrives at the mansion she is greeted by the boy's guardian (Conway Tearle) and learns that the boy (John Breeden) is ill. She is accepted as the mother (or is she?) and after a week everything is resolved—Hollywood fashion.
Francis and Breeden are quite good together, and Francis gets to sing in her low throaty voice. Tearle is solid as the guardian, and Boyd (not the William Boyd of Hopalong Cassidy fame) makes a nice snarky crook.
What starts out as a typical pre-Coder about conniving thieves turns, thanks to Kay Francis, into a surprisingly moving film about regrets and redemption. -
JohnHowardReid14 January 2018Coupled with "The Vice Squad" (1931), the other 9/10 movie on this DVD, formerly available from Vintage Film Buff (who have now, alas, ceased business), "The False Madonna" (1931) had all the makings of a superior crime/weepie but unfortunately it is undermined by the weak acting of lackluster Conway Tearle in a small but vital role.
Even the editor is well aware of Tearle's total lack of charisma (or maybe it was simply the fact that the camera just didn't like him). Anyway, the editor tries to cut away from Tearle to reaction shots of Kay Francis, William "Stage" Boyd and John Breeden as often as possible.
Otherwise, the movie is most stylishly directed (Stuart Walker) and so beautifully photographed, that it still rates as an absolute must-see.