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| Images courtesy of MVD Visual |
Just a couple of years after winning the Academy Award for
Best Picture and Best Director for the 1930 WWI pre-code epic All Quiet on
the Western Front, Russian immigrant master filmmaker Lewis Milestone would
send shockwaves through the filmgoing public with his 1932 adaptation of The
Razor’s Edge novelist W. Somerset Maugham’s 1921 short story Miss
Thompson which was later retitled Rain from the 1922 play by John
Colton.
One of three screen adaptations of the short story, the
first of which came with the 1928 Gloria Swanson silent and the 1953 Rita
Hayworth starring 3-D remake, Milestone’s take in 1932 is perhaps the most
daring and honest of the screen treatments and still pushes buttons only the
pre code era could’ve dreamt of. While the
film was initially a critical and commercial failure with its leading actress
Joan Crawford in the titular role of prostitute Sadie Thompson later going on
to say every print of the film should be burnt, in its 90th Anniversary
restoration released by VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual audiences now have a
chance to see this frankly grossly underrated little masterpiece that still is
rife with spitfire, Old Testament wrath and spunkiness.
On the way through the South Seas to Samoa, a ship of
passengers is postponed in Pago Pago due to a potential viral outbreak on the watercraft. Amid the uptight morally upstanding ensemble
is prostitute Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford) who quickly irritates the other
passengers with her tawdry flirting, boozing and partying with the American
marines on the island. Catching the unwanted
attention of pious missionary Alfred Davidson (a stoic Walter Huston) and his
prudish wife, he confronts and informs Sadie he has made it his life’s mission
to purify her soul of her evil and sinful ways.
Quick to show he’s not playing around, he informs the Governor
who orders her be deported to San Francisco, California where she is already on
the run for a crime which she claims she was framed for. While begging the missionary for a little
more time on the island amid secretly planning to flee, Davidson turns up the Old
Testament heat and we begin to see her transformation from loose sleazy call
girl to prim and proper religious convert.
Meanwhile Davidson himself, for all of his moralism and sermonizing, starts
to see his own moral compass crumble as his obsession with his new convert
escalates.
A tense, tightly constructed chamber piece that leans heavily
on rain as a mood and as a backdrop for nebulous moral quandaries, Rain out
of the gate is a captivating pre-code masterpiece further showing off Lewis
Milestone’s mastery of the dramatic picture.
With dynamic camerawork from Oliver T. Marsh (who also shot the silent Sadie
Thompson film) that feels alive and mobile, dense period set dressing,
intricate lighting and subtle musical renderings by multiple Academy Award
winning composer Alfred Newman, the film is really a technical tour de
force.
Joan Crawford though dismissive of her work years later is
positively electric in the role of Sadie Thompson, exuding vibes of sex, sass,
and a measure of hopeless street wisdom.
In true pre-code form, the characterization is shameless replete with
horny men smacking her behind with allusions to sex and implied sexual violence. Serving as the film’s “moral compass” is Walter
Huston as the arrogant and domineering missionary whose soul cleansing efforts
feel mercurial and hypocritical.
Watching his tall, stoic, lanky figure loom large over Crawford’s petite
loose figure leaves little wonder to why D.W. Griffith cast him as Abraham
Lincoln two years prior.
Upon initial release, the film did not go over well with
filmgoers. While the novel and stage
play iterations as well as the silent film version with Gloria Swanson were
successful, the transition to the sound era was still in its infancy and in
this case audiences turned against the sound version. Moreover, there was a belief the film and
subsequently the role of Sadie Thompson showed Joan Crawford in a negative
light. Almost 90 years later however, in
conjunction with the Mary Pickford Company, the Library of Congress, VCI
Entertainment and MVD Visual, the once maligned and then forgotten gem of a
film was rescued from oblivion in a new 4K digital restoration. Despite missing some frames here and there to
age, the film is otherwise intact and presented in uncut form alongside a much
shorter censored version that was reissued in 1938.
Seen now alongside Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the
Western Front and recently MVD Visual’s 4K restoration of A Walk in the
Sun, Rain shines brightly as a once misunderstood precode drama
which not only seems more relevant now than ever but still possesses a power
and punch missing from most modern dramas.
Bold, fearless and unafraid to provoke with good reason, the film is almost
proto-feminist for how it depicts Sadie Thompson’s agency and command while
also criticizing holier than thou domineering male behavior operating under the
guise of serving the almighty. Both
actors give astounding, brave performances under the deft aide of a most gifted
visual artist at the top of his game. In
its 90th Anniversary, the 4K re-release of Rain is a cause
for celebration!
--Andrew Kotwicki
