Rain (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Rain
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1932
length 93 minutes
Rod
Director Lewis Milestone
script Maxwell Anderson
production Joseph M. Schenck on loan from United Artists
music Alfred Newman
camera Oliver T. Marsh
cut W. Duncan Mansfield
occupation

Rain is a 1932 American film starring Joan Crawford . The film is based on the play of the same name, which takes motifs from Somerset Maugham's story Miss Thompson .

action

A ship enters the port of Pago Pago . On board are the bigoted Reverend Alfred Davidson, his submissive wife and Sadie Thompson, a woman with a dubious background. The outbreak of an epidemic forces passengers to stay in Pago-Pago. Davidson's goal is to morally save Sadie, who in his eyes is a depraved woman and a lost soul. Sadie brusquely rejects the missionary, who seems to have more than just honorable intentions towards her. Davidson then causes the governor of Pago-Pago to deport Sadie. In the meantime, Sadie gets to know and love the friendly officer O'Hara. Both want to get married. Davidson, who has since gone mad, rapes Sadie in a fit of madness and then commits suicide. Sadie and O'Hara begin a new chapter in their lives.

background

Joan Crawford had risen to become one of Hollywood's greatest stars since her breakthrough in Our Dancing Daughters in mid-1928 . Gradually, however, she was dissatisfied with the rather easy roles her MGM was offering and increasingly asked for dramatic appearances in order to develop her acting potential. With this in mind, Lewis Milestone offered to take on the role of Sadie Thompson. The film is based on the play Rain , which premiered on Broadway in November 1923 and which starred Jeanne Eagels in a total of 256 performances. Just a year later there was a re-performance with Eagles, which ran for a total of 648 performances. In 1935 Tallulah Bankhead took on the part in another revival, after she had already performed the role with great success in London in the 1920s. Gloria Swanson starred in the first film adaptation directed by Raoul Walsh in 1929 .

Now it was Maxwell Anderson who wrote the script. In order to dispel the concerns of the censors, Anderson changed the character of Sadie and made him more personable. Where Sadie is a bitter whore in the original who falls into a kind of religious madness under the influence of Davidson, in this version Sadie is more of a somewhat careless girl with changing male acquaintances. Crawford was initially reluctant to accept the offer. Her good friend William Haines warned her not to compare it directly to Jeanne Eagles and Swanson. In the end, the producer Joseph Schenk, whose brother was the main shareholder of MGM, convinced the actress. For the first time since 1926 Crawford was shooting for another studio. In order not to forego the usual technical standard completely, she insisted on engaging the cameraman Oliver T. Marsh, who was largely responsible at MGM for presenting Crawford as advantageously as possible on the screen. Then there was the commitment of Lewis Milestone, who was one of the best and most respected directors in the industry at the time. Crawford had barely arrived for the outdoor shoot on Catalina , an island in the Bay of California, when she regretted her decision. Walter Huston and Beulah Bondi , two veteran stage actors, looked with condescension on Crawford, who had never taken acting classes. William Gargan and Crawford disliked each other, so the central love story had little credibility from the start. Then there was the uninspired direction of Milestone, who had no real interest in the venture and limited himself to fighting his displeasure with alcohol. His instructions to Crawford consisted mostly in unfavorable comparisons with Jeanne Eagles and their portrayal of the role. In addition, Milestone had a tendency to repeat every scene indefinitely, which Crawford, who usually gave her best interpretation from the very first shot, did not necessarily suit. In addition, there were significant personal problems at Crawford, whose marriage to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had increasingly shattered in recent months. They both argued endlessly, and in the end, she forbade her husband to visit her on the set. All the stress is said to have led to a miscarriage at Crawford, who could not have children afterwards.

Joan Crawford, who was her sternest critic herself, was dissatisfied with the end result. Until the end of her life she regretted the in her eyes unforgivable mistake of taking on the role. In Conversations with Joan Crawford , she explained to Roy Newquist.

“I hope they burn every single copy of this failure that exists. [...] I cannot understand why I offered such an unforgivably bad presentation. It was all my fault. Milestone's direction was so weak that I decided to take the bull by the horns and play my own Sadie Thompson. I was so bad in every single scene. "

Theatrical release

The film came into national distribution on October 12, 1932. At $ 591,000 to manufacture, it was a slightly above-average production. Rain flopped at the box office, grossing just $ 538,000 in the United States, an amount that was well below the other results for a Joan Crawford film. With catastrophically low overseas revenues of $ 166,000 and a cumulative total income of $ 704,000, producers ended up with a loss of $ 198,000. It was the first Crawford film since The Boob of 1926 that did not show a profit.

Reviews

Most of the contemporary critics found fault with the adaptation and blamed the failure of the boring directing by Lewis Milestone and the unconvincing portrayal of Joan Crawford.

Mordaunt Hall wrote unflatteringly in the New York Times :

"Mr. Huston is bad as Rev. Davidson, the bigoted preacher. He walks around as if he had been a soldier in the Prussian army for years. […] The psychology of the other characters is forced and flawed, including that of Sadie Thompson. She has dazzling bracelets and high heels and yet she is afraid of the idea that everyone might know about her job. "

The review in Variety wasn't much better either:

“It was a mistake to let Miss Crawford play Sadie Thompson. The role shows them in an unfavorable light. The dramatic demands are beyond their capabilities. [...] Joan Crawford is made up extremely bizarre as an easy girl. Curb swallows do not thunder as theatrically as they do. "

literature

  • Roy Newquist (Ed.): Conversations with Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1980, ISBN 0-8065-0720-9 .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk : The Complete Films of Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1988, ISBN 0-8065-1078-1 .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk, William Schoell: Joan Crawford. The Essential Biography . University Press, Lexington, KY. 2002, ISBN 0-8131-2254-6 .
  • Alexander Walker: Joan Crawford. The Ultimate Star . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1983, ISBN 0-297-78216-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ I hope they burn every print of this turkey that's in existence […] I don't understand to this day how I could have given such an unpardonable bad performance. All my fault, too - Milestone's direction was so feeble I took the bull by the horns and did my own Sadie Thompson. I was wrong every scene of the way.
  2. ↑ Mr. Huston is at his worst as the Rev. Davidson, the bigoted preacher. He walks as if he had spent years as a private in the Prussian Army […] The psychology is forced and erroneous in other characters, including Sadie Thompson. She, with sparkling bangles on her wrists, openwork stockings and slippers, is anxious all should know her profession.
  3. ↑ It turns out to be a mistake to have assigned the Sadie Thompson role to Miss Crawford. It shows her off unfavorably. The dramatic significance of it all is beyond her range. [...] Joan Crawford's get-up as the light lady is extremely bizarre. Pavement pounders don't quite trick themselves up as fantastically as all that.