Madame X (1920 film)

Plot

As described in a film magazine, jealous husband Louis Floriot (Courtleigh), refusing to forgive his wife Jacqueline (Frederick) for fleeing from his wrath and living with the friend who presses his attentions on her, forces her into the life of a derelict. Twenty years later she returns to France from Buenos Aires believing that her son Raymond has died. Laroque (Ainsworth), a crook who aids her in her return to France, learns that she is the wife of a man of wealth and tries, with the help of his two associates M. Robert Parissard (Belmore) and M. Merival (Louis), to get possession of a fortune that rightfully belonged to Jacqueline. To protect her husband from violence, Jacqueline kills Laroque and, accused of murder, is brought to trial. Refusing to confer with her counsel and preferring death to freedom, during the course of the trial she receives the shocking revelation that the defendant attorney is her son Raymond (Ferguson). The tragic story ends with the reunion of the two and the death of the miserable mother.

Cast

Censorship

It was common at that time for American state film censorship boards to require cuts in films for reasons of morality or to promote the common good. One noted cut in this film required by the Pennsylvania film board was in a scene with Jesus and the woman taken in adultery where an intertitle card with a New Testament verse on sin and casting stones was removed.