Reception
In his review in the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall said, " superb portrayal in a difficult role leaves only the regret that the powers that be did not see fit to have her make her screen début in a more cheerful study . . . The Sin of Madelon Claudet is a sorrowful chronicle which will undoubtedly have a strong popular appeal. It is endowed with other commendable impersonations . . . also has the benefit of Edgar Selwyn's expert direction."
Time said the film was "remarkable because in it Helen Hayes appears in cinema for the first time and because it succeeds in its intention — to make audiences weep . . . By ceasing entirely to be Helen Hayes and becoming instead the woman whose life story she portrays, Cinemactress Hayes makes the familiarity of the story double its sadness . . . The picture is well directed by Edgar Selwyn splendidly acted by the rest of the cast."
TV Guide rates the film four stars and calls it a "well-acted soaper."
Read more about this topic: The Sin Of Madelon Claudet
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)