Sadie Thompson spends her life on her knees before men, either as a profession or a confession. Lewis Milestone and his DP Oliver T. Marsh takes the talky stage-bound theatrics and make it visually interesting by utilizing a moving camera (slow tracking shots, even a 360-degree panning shot around a circular table!), and design some nice artistic montages of falling rain, leaves dripping with runoff, storm clouds and thick mud that set the stage (so to speak) for this tragic conflict.
Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford) is introduced in pieces: jeweled slender hands, high-heeled shoes and stockings, then her painted face with red lipstick and dangling cigarette, but with the cold dark eyes of a predator, like an animal caught in a trap that it knows it can’t escape. Her promiscuous behavior is frowned upon by the Davidson’s, a missionary couple who are forced to share the same Inn, which is owned by Joe Horn (Guy Kibbee) because their ship is delayed in this South Pacific port of Pago Pago. In a nice Pre-Code touch, Horn (an American Ex-Patriot) is married and has children to an indigenous woman! Fuck you, Hays Code. Though Horn is condescending towards the local population (they’re like children, etc…) it’s to the film’s credit it doesn’t subjugate or belittle the Pacific Islanders and Milestone gives ample screen time to observe their culture and traditions. This sets up the moral battleground between Alfred Davidson (Walter Huston) and Sadie for the sake of her soul or more realistically her subjugation to patriarchal authority. Though Sadie’s past remains hidden it is revealed she escaped prosecution in San Francisco which has led her on this sordid excursion. And importantly, it’s stated quite plainly that she was innocent of the crime for which she was convicted. So, it wasn’t prostitution since now she obviously accepts and flaunts her profession. Was it murder? A self-defense homicide? If so, this can give a different reading to the film’s final act. Of course, self-righteous douche bag Alfred Davidson doesn’t care if she’s innocent; it’s his god’s will that she takes her medicine like a good little girl and face her three-year prison term, even if he has to shove his biblical morality down her throat. Unfortunately, he probably tries to shove something else down her throat.
Joan Crawford may have disowned this film but her acting is superb. Even when she’s flirting and whorish, she imbues Sadie with intelligence, empathy and kindness. She’s never mean or masochistic towards men, not brimming with hatred but a resigned acceptance to her fate. She may manipulate men to survive but she’s tender about it. But when she’s stripped of the gaudy peripherals, she shines like an angel even if it’s a fallen one. Walter Huston as her instigator delivers a one-note performance of righteous fury, though when the pounding native drums and thrumming rain breech his psyche, he does a good job of allowing the shadow to pass over his face, a subtle gesture that leads to his death. But how does he die? Everyone quickly accepts that he slit his own throat and drowned but I find it unlikely. So, he cut his throat then jumped in the bay? Or, more likely, did Sadie kill him in self-defense and drag his body to the bay. After all, she’s sorry for the whole damned human race.
For all of the bible thumping from the Davidson’s, it’s Horn who gets to speak the film’s moral message, not from Jesus but from Nietzsche! Ha!!
Final Grade: (B)