Cinema: The New Pictures: Oct. 11, 1937

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Turned from her home and infant son by a relentless husband (Warren William) after an indiscretion, Jacqueline Fleuriot flees Paris, gradually sinks to craven depths—adventuress, mistress, prostitute, crone—in the 20-odd years required for her son (John Beal) to become a young Paris lawyer. Then, back in Paris, she kills a man who would have used her in a blackmail of her husband. As Madame X she is defended by her son, who thinks his mother dead. As is now known by all but very young cinemagoers, her husband and others recognize her but. moved by her tragically powerful address to the court, they keep her secret.