Summary
Inside a drawing-room paneled with mahogany nightmares, Mrs. Dean gasps her last breath as arsenic-laced lace curtains billow; her murderer, Martin Ross—equal parts bon-vivant and moral bankruptcy—absconds with a child’s birthright and a rope of moonlit pearls. The estate’s ledger becomes Ross’s bacchanal, inked in champagne and inked again by the quill of Fanette, a siren who hums avarice like a lullaby while every coin exhales its final glimmer. Years unspool; the orphaned heiress, Elsie, now eighteen, emerges from finishing-school shadows clutching nothing but a name and a vendetta. She dons turbans of midnight silk, re-christens herself Madame Rama, and deals tarot cards laced with nitroglycerin, setting predator against predator. Ross, frantic for the pearls Fanette has lifted from their dusty velvet casket, corners her; she answers with a stiletto’s kiss, then pins the scarlet guilt on William Gavin, Jr.—the only soul in the city whose pulse still syncs with Elsie’s. Detectives swarm, but Madame Rama orchestrates a séance of mirrors, coaxing Fanette into a confession that ricochets off station-house tile like a bullet. When the iron doors clang shut on Sima and Fanette, the pearls—cool as corpse skin—slide once more around Elsie’s throat, and dawn finds two silhouettes on a steamer, salt wind scrubbing every trace of yesterday’s treachery.
Synopsis
Martin Ross and his East Indian servant Sima poison Mrs. Dean, whose money and pearls are left to her little daughter Elsie. Ross, the executor of the estate, spends all of the money with the willing assistance of seductress Fanette, but manages to retain the priceless pearls. When Elsie reaches the age of 18, she learns that she is penniless and formulates a plan to retrieve the jewels with the aid of her boyfriend William Gavin, Jr. Posing as seer "Madame Rama," Elsie sets Ross against Fanette, who has taken the pearls from their hiding place. When he confronts Fanette, she kills him and frames William for the crime. William is arrested, but "Madame Rama" tricks Fanette into confessing her guilt in the presence of several detectives. With Fanette and Sima behind bars, the pearls are restored to Elsie, who starts a new life with William.
Review Excerpt
"
A necklace of nacreous globes, a child’s stolen future, and a drawing-room that reeks of bitter almonds—welcome to Money Mad, the 1920 silent so poisonous it could etch glass.
Lois Zellner’s screenplay arrives like a ransom note written in perfume and arsenic. Within the first intertitle we learn that Mrs. Dean—whose philanthropy once fluttered through charity galas—has been dispatched by her own executor and his turbaned manservant. The camera does not flinch; it lingers on a teacup tremblin..."
