"Miss Sadie Thompson" was Rita Hayworth's third and last film during her brief return to the screen in 1952/3 after her unsuccessful marriage to Prince Aly Khan. (The other two were "Affair in Trinidad" and "Salome"). Before "Affair in Trinidad" she had not made a film for four years, and after "Miss Sadie Thompson" she would be absent from the cinema for another four, this time because of her marriage to Dick Haymes. She was to return once again in "Fire Down Below" in 1957.
The film, made in 3-D during the brief Hollywood 3-D craze of the early fifties, was a remake from 1953 of "Rain" from 1932, which itself was a remake of "Sadie Thompson", a silent film from 1928; all three films are based on Somerset Maugham's short story "Miss Thompson", later retitled "Rain". The story takes place in American Samoa. Maugham's heroine was a prostitute, as was the character played by Joan Crawford in the pre-Code 1932 version. (I have never seen the silent version, which starred Gloria Swanson). In 1953, however, the film-makers had to be more cautious. The Production Code was in force, and audiences were not used to seeing Rita Hayworth as a bad girl; when she had made "Salome" earlier in the same year the traditional Biblical story was rewritten to make Salome a virtuous heroine and Christian convert who only performs her seductive dance because she is trying desperately to save John the Baptist's life.
So in this version Sadie Thompson's status is more uncertain. Certainly, her nemesis Alfred Davidson accuses her of being a prostitute, but she angrily denies the allegation, claiming that she was never more than a singer and dancer, and that if she once worked in a Honolulu nightclub with a dubious reputation she did so because they offered her better money than their more salubrious rivals, not because she was offering sexual services to the patrons. Making Sadie an entertainer also allowed the film-makers to introduce several musical numbers, as was often done in Hayworth's films to take advantage of her dance skills. (Her singing was as usual dubbed over).
Changes are also made to the character of Davidson; he remains a bigoted religious fanatic, but does not appear to be an ordained minister of any church. (The Code forbade disrespectful portrayals of the clergy, which explains, for example, why the worldly and sycophantic Mr Collins, a parson in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", had to become a librarian when the novel was filmed in 1940). In one respect, however, the film is surprisingly explicit. Even in the pre-Code era there was a limit to what film-makers could get away with. The ending of "Rain" is ambiguous. It is implied that Davidson, obsessed with the beautiful Sadie, forgets his religious principles, attempts to rape her and then commits suicide, but nothing is actually shown or made explicit. In "Miss Sadie Thompson", however, it is made quite clear that Davidson does indeed sexually assault Sadie, and possibly rapes her, a rare example of a film from the Code era going further than a pre-Code one dared to.
Despite its rather ragged ending, I preferred "Rain" to "Miss Sadie Thompson"; perhaps turning Maugham's story into a musical, or at least a semi-musical, was not a particularly good idea. I also felt that Crawford was better in the lead role, but then Crawford's character was more straightforwardly a "bad girl"; Hayworth seems to have been handicapped by a script which never seems sure whether Sadie is the sinner of Davidson's imagination or a misunderstood "good girl", more sinned against than sinning. There is a decent contribution from Jose Ferrer as the hypocritical Davidson, but overall this film has less dramatic power than its predecessor. 6/10
The film, made in 3-D during the brief Hollywood 3-D craze of the early fifties, was a remake from 1953 of "Rain" from 1932, which itself was a remake of "Sadie Thompson", a silent film from 1928; all three films are based on Somerset Maugham's short story "Miss Thompson", later retitled "Rain". The story takes place in American Samoa. Maugham's heroine was a prostitute, as was the character played by Joan Crawford in the pre-Code 1932 version. (I have never seen the silent version, which starred Gloria Swanson). In 1953, however, the film-makers had to be more cautious. The Production Code was in force, and audiences were not used to seeing Rita Hayworth as a bad girl; when she had made "Salome" earlier in the same year the traditional Biblical story was rewritten to make Salome a virtuous heroine and Christian convert who only performs her seductive dance because she is trying desperately to save John the Baptist's life.
So in this version Sadie Thompson's status is more uncertain. Certainly, her nemesis Alfred Davidson accuses her of being a prostitute, but she angrily denies the allegation, claiming that she was never more than a singer and dancer, and that if she once worked in a Honolulu nightclub with a dubious reputation she did so because they offered her better money than their more salubrious rivals, not because she was offering sexual services to the patrons. Making Sadie an entertainer also allowed the film-makers to introduce several musical numbers, as was often done in Hayworth's films to take advantage of her dance skills. (Her singing was as usual dubbed over).
Changes are also made to the character of Davidson; he remains a bigoted religious fanatic, but does not appear to be an ordained minister of any church. (The Code forbade disrespectful portrayals of the clergy, which explains, for example, why the worldly and sycophantic Mr Collins, a parson in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", had to become a librarian when the novel was filmed in 1940). In one respect, however, the film is surprisingly explicit. Even in the pre-Code era there was a limit to what film-makers could get away with. The ending of "Rain" is ambiguous. It is implied that Davidson, obsessed with the beautiful Sadie, forgets his religious principles, attempts to rape her and then commits suicide, but nothing is actually shown or made explicit. In "Miss Sadie Thompson", however, it is made quite clear that Davidson does indeed sexually assault Sadie, and possibly rapes her, a rare example of a film from the Code era going further than a pre-Code one dared to.
Despite its rather ragged ending, I preferred "Rain" to "Miss Sadie Thompson"; perhaps turning Maugham's story into a musical, or at least a semi-musical, was not a particularly good idea. I also felt that Crawford was better in the lead role, but then Crawford's character was more straightforwardly a "bad girl"; Hayworth seems to have been handicapped by a script which never seems sure whether Sadie is the sinner of Davidson's imagination or a misunderstood "good girl", more sinned against than sinning. There is a decent contribution from Jose Ferrer as the hypocritical Davidson, but overall this film has less dramatic power than its predecessor. 6/10