Product Details

• Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid, Oskar Homolka, Yul Brynner, Richard Chamberlain
• Directors: Bryan Forbes
• Writers: Edward Anhalt, Jean Giraudoux, Maurice Valency
• Producers: Anthony B. Unger, Ely A. Landau
• Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: February 21, 1995
• Run Time: 132 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630273276X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,627 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Parable about a woman who refuses to believe the world is no longer beautiful.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific, timely, terrifying!, August 25, 2003

By 

R.L. Holly "piper909" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madwoman of Chaillot [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"The Madwoman of Chaillot," based on a 1940s play by Jean Giraudoux, is one of those underappreciated treasures that rewards careful and repeated viewings. Like another parable/allegorical fairytale from Sixties filmmaking, "King of Hearts" (also set in France), it is an easy movie to dismiss as pretentious or longwinded. But this is to judge on surface appearances or to hold the film to a standard that it does not seek to attain. This work is a morality play, meant to instruct and illuminate; it is not a typical linear, real-world drama -- although the interweaving of the real world of contemporary Paris with the fantasy world inhabited by the Countess (Katharine Hepburn, who is brilliant as usual) and her coterie of elegant female eccentrics gives the movie much of its surface charm. Hepburn's Countess is not so much insane as preferring to live in an imaginary world of rosy nostalgia and wishful thinking. She and her friends fundamentally realize the difference between invention and fact but choose to generally ignore it.

Let me be the first reviewer here to suggest that the curious use of three aged women to represent the forces of justice at work in this dual world is a deliberate hearkening to the Weird Sisters of "Macbeth", or the Furies of Greek tragedy, or even the Fates themselves. Similarly, the huddled poor of the Parisian streets and the menial laborers mostly have no names because they represent archetypes, perhaps -- a Greek chorus full of accusations for their tormentors. They contrast starkly with the smooth amorality of the movie's duplicitous villains -- an oil tycoon, a clergyman, a general, a politician, a business consultant, and others -- played to icy perfection and with just the right amount of absurd black humor by Pleasance, Brynner, Gavin, and their partners. Richard Chamberlain, playing an idealistic activist, adds a dose of romanticism when he leaves the world of the "faceless pimps" (in the damning words of Danny Kaye's relentless Ragpicker) and journeys for the love of Irma, a poor waitress, into the shadow world of the Countess of Chaillot -- although in doing so, he must destroy Hepburn's illusions forever, prompting her to take a terrible vengeance on the "greedy, stupid, lost" men who have caused the world to "not be happy."

The climactic "trial" sequence, where the Ragpicker must play the devil's advocate on behalf of the collective monied classes, placed in the docket for crimes against humanity, is a masterful performance by Kaye, playing a non-clown role for once (who ever suspected he had it in him?). With honeyed words, he first seduces his "judges" into falling for his deceits; then, when his lies are exposed for the pretense they are, he turns into a raging, bellowing monster of hatred, openly proclaiming his naked desire for money and power merely to make war and destroy what's left of the earth. Finally the mask has slipped; the court renders its verdict; and Hepburn's meting out of justice is as dreadful as any judgment of Nemesis.

Which is all very ponderous and heavy, but you can really take this film two ways -- whimsical fantasy entertainment or something much deeper and disturbing. The choice rests with the viewer, much as it lies with the characters in the movie to choose which path they wish to pursue. "The Madwoman of Chaillot" may have been made over 30 years ago but the issues it raises and the attitudes it depicts are still very much with us today, and only someone as asleep and dreaming as the Countess wouldn't realize it.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Marvelous Parable, July 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Madwoman of Chaillot [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A wonderful fable I happened to stumble across. The inimitable Katharine Hepburn as the title character conspires with other eccentrics to save Paris. Warm, funny, delightfully non-sequitur and deeply poignant, this film has messages about love, greed, happiness, fear, hope, dreams. . .life. Excellent performances by all, including some wonderful dramatic acting by Danny Kaye. I highly recommend this movie.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hepburn at Her Finest, May 1, 2001

By 

Edward Scott Haas (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madwoman of Chaillot [VHS] (VHS Tape)

O.K., I admit it. I'm the type who would watch Katherine Hepburn in literally ANY role and find something good about it. There are plenty of flawed or mediocre works I have sat through just for her. But the fact is that "Madwoman .." is a truly great film both as a comedy and a social critique. A consortium of evil conspirators representing most of the world's repressive idelogies (Communism, religious fundamentalism, corpoate greed, rigid middle class conformism and military war-mongering)try to destroy the "decadent" city of Paris (symbol of liberty, beauty and humanism). Kate, the city's defender, is a highly eccentric Countess who may or may not have some kind of semi-magical powers and who may or may not be immortal. To make a long story short, the bad guys make her mad and end up buried alive (when asked if they will be missed she replies "Do you miss a cold when it is gone?" Good answer!). Don't mess with Kate!