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Simply A Masterpiece

It is a performances centric movie

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The loathsome Reverend Davidson (Walter Huston) is evil incarnate, but presents himself as the only good person in the world, who must tell everyone else what to do and how to do it. The fact that many people ignore him just bolsters his belief that the world is Evil, and he alone is Good. (His wife (Beulah Bondi), a screeching harpy who obediently venerates him, doesn't count as another good person because she's a mere woman.) When Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford) tells Davidson to his face what a hypocrite he is, he suffers what he considers an unbearable insult: a "party girl" dared to confront him with the truth about himself! He is then on an obsessive crusade to "save" her, by which he means humiliating her, demeaning her, and forcing her to complete obedience to his will. In one scene, as Sadie tries to stand up for herself, Davidson begins chanting the Lord's Prayer over and over, drowning her out, until she finally succumbs to his brainwashing and sinks to her knees in a chilling demonstration of how religion can be used as a club to bash "sinners" over the head.Davidson even convinces Sadie that she must "atone" for her sins by returning to the U.S. and turning herself in for a crime she was framed for. Ironically, what really saves Sadie is Davidson's inevitable surrender to his own evil.

Interesting well-directed adaptation of Somerset Maugham story about a prostitute and a missionary out to reform her. I was surprised to discover this was a box office flop when it was released as I enjoyed it very much. Joan Crawford and Walter Huston are great as the two leads. Beulah Bondi and Guy Kibbee offer solid support. But the real star is Lewis Milestone's wonderful direction. He takes what would otherwise have been a very stagey film, especially for 1932, and keeps the camera moving and lively. Milestone not only directed but produced Rain as well. He was one of the best directors of the 1930s and I don't feel like he gets anywhere near enough credit. Try to catch this if you can but beware of bad prints.

It's very delightful to watch such honest presentation of the times without the hypocrisy of the production code... Sadie is the most realistic wh**e of the 30s, more than Stanwyck's Baby Face or Jean Harlow's.Joan Crawford delivered one of her best performances as the fun loving girl, the one religious hypocrites love to hate just because they want to feel they are better than her. And actually they aren't... (SPOILER:) the missionary who was supposed to lead sinners to the right way he commits one of the worst crimes, rape (and adultery of course) END OF SPOILER What surprised me the most was Crawford's performance, it was a completely natural and actually she lived the part. In the famous scene when Walter Huston asked her why she left Frisco when she lies her eyes blinked a lot but not when she tells the truth. According to body luggage studies when someone lies he blinks a lot but not when he doesn't... There are another 2 adaptations of the play. One silent with Gloria Swanson (1928) and another one with Rita Hayworth but this one is the best. Maybe because of the time it was made (pre-codes) And I'm still wondering why this doesen't better rating...

You either love Joan Crawford or you hate her. I hate her, and she didn't let me down in this movie. She plays an amoral psychotic which is a part she rehearsed all her life. Joan has never had trouble portraying believable characters as long as those characters are psychotic. She delivers once again.I watched this movie because of John Huston. As always, his acting is wonderful. His role is the evil psycho as opposed to Crawford's somehow heroic psycho.Guy Kibbee steals the show. His character provides the voice of reason during the struggle between the two psychos. The moral of the story, from Kibbee's character's viewpoint, is that no matter whether you are a hooker, a saved hooker, a preacher, or a fallen preacher, if you are psycho, you are still psycho. I agree with that assessment.William Gargan, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, and the rest of the cast perform well.The only difference between this Crawford movie and other Crawford movies is she doesn't have a big knife when she ultimately snaps. Huston, apparently, was appointed to be the psycho with the knife.Despite the knife, there is no action, but lots of raving madness from Huston and Crawford. If you want a two-hour discussion on whether a hooker should be kicked off an island, then this is for you.