How Long Is “Madame X”?

(1966) Lana Turner stars as Holly Parker in the seventh film version of this dramatic melodrama. Unhappily married to a respected diplomat, Holly begins an affair with playboy Phil Benton (Ricardo Montalban). But during an illicit assignation, he falls to his death from a balcony, and a scared Parker turns to her spiteful mother-in-law (Constance Bennett) for advice. That advice is to disappear and she ends up working as a prostitute in New Mexico where, years later, her past comes back to haunt her when a blackmailer (Burgess Meredith) tries to extort money from her husband. She kills him in anger, is put on trial and finds that her public defender is her son (Keir Dullea), who she abandoned when she fled. In her last starring role, Turner turns in a tour-de-force performance in David Lowell Rich's melodrama. Turner also stars in Imitation of Life , tomorrow.