Miss Sadie Thompson (1953)

Rita Hayworth hardly fit Somerset Maugham's physical description of Miss Sadie Thompson in his short story on which the film is based."She was twenty-seven perhaps, plump, and in a coarse fashion pretty. She wore a white dress and a large white hat. Her fat calves in white cotton stockings bulged over the tops of long white boots in glace kid". However she captured the spirit of the character and I think the film does do justice to Maugham's story. It was updated to the 1950's and opened out with the introduction of other characters - Aldo Ray and his U.S. Marine buddies - but the conflict between the missionary and the bar girl thrown together in Pago-Pago when their ship is quarantined still has bite.I first saw this film in the late 50's and thought it was pretty powerful - you didn't hear words like 'prostitute' bandied around too often in movies back then.José Ferrer ate up the role of Mr Davidson, the missionary who sets himself up as the anti-fun police and attempts to save Sadie's soul whether she wanted it saved or not - all the while suppressing a dark side.Aldo Ray was good as O'Hara, the tough marine sergeant who also wants to save Sadie from her previous life. The marines seemed a little over-caricaturised. It wouldn't have come as a surprise if they'd broken into a chorus of "There's Nothing Like a Dame". But this film is Rita Hayworth's. Catching the brashness of Sadie, she showed her range; very different to the soft-voiced femme fatale she often played. She sings and dances with stocky Aldo Ray, and is still a luminous presence. According to Peter Ford's biography of his father, "Glenn Ford: A Life", Rita desperately wanted Glenn to play O'Hara and go to Hawaii with her. This was at a time when she was beginning to show signs of the problems that would blight the rest of her life - Glenn Ford always provided an emotional safety net for her. This film looks good and the story of barely repressed lust with its shock ending still stands up. And of course, a film such as "Miss Sadie Thompson" takes on another dimension knowing the course of the lives of the fascinating people who made it.

My guess is that many will not recall this film as part of that initial 3-D wave that took place during the fifties. I was surprised to find that it was released that way. I was even more surprised to learn that it did well at the box office. For me it wasn't that great a movie, but it was interesting to view and consider how racy it was considered at the time. In a world where prostitutes are recurring characters on TV shows and porn is available at the press of a button this movie seems quaint in its moral dilemma.Rita Hayworth stars as the title character, a brassy woman on her way to another island in the South Pacific just after the war whose ship strands her on a military base when it has problems. Thompson garners the attention of every military man on the island, all wishing they were the one to romance her but who lose out to Sgt. Phil O'Hara (Aldo Ray) who falls hard for her.Unfortunately for Sadie another visitor to the island is on hand as well, Alfred Davidson (Jose Ferrer), the son of missionaries who is there to carry on his father's work. This is the sort of character who finds fault in most everyone else but himself, in particular the way the island natives behave and in Sadie who he recognizes. When he follows up on his hunch he discovers that Sadie is a woman wanted for solicitation in Honolulu and he blackmails her into returning to the states to serve her time. The conflict between the fun loving independent woman and the staunch religious fanatic should be the center piece of the film. And yet it never quite feels that way.Therein lies the biggest problem with this movie. Based on the short story by W. Somerset Maugham the heart of the story (as well as several other movies based on the tale) revolves around these two as well as the temptation that Davidson feels for Sadie. But that temptation is rarely on display here until very near the end of the film when suddenly he is drawn to her, shattering her changed outlook on life. This should have been a smoldering item that grew as the film moved forward and instead here it feels like a random explosion.The pacing of the film seems leaden but the acting is great. Hayworth turns in a fantastic performance with what she is provided and does a wonderful bit of singing and dancing for the military personnel at a local club. But Ray's character feels forced, ready to marry Sadie at the drop of a hat. The horn dog nature of the soldiers and sailors in the film is at best like a caricature and so over the top you wonder how they survive with little to no women to look at.If made today (and I'm surprised it hasn't been) Hollywood would have a heyday with this story, pitting a staunch conservative religious fanatic against an easy going free spirit who simply wants to have fun. But that shows the difference in time periods when you consider that at the time this film was considered racy and morally questionable. For me the entire movie honestly felt kind of boring. I found myself dozing on more than one occasion.But for those who love the film and Rita Hayworth you can't find a better presentation of this movie. Twilight Time (whose praises I constantly sing) has done the film right with as clear and clean a presentation on blu-ray as you will find. Included with the movie are extras like an isolated music & effects track, audio commentary track with film historians David Del Valle and Steven Peros, an introduction by actress Patricia Clarkson and the original film trailer. I may have to watch this one start to finish with the commentary track on to see what I was missing. For most it will be a movie to bypass but for fans of classic movies and Hayworth you'll add this one to your collection.

I thought I'd give this one a whirl even though I knew the story. I should try and kick myself for wasting my time.I posted a review of "Rain" so this review probably won't be much different than that one except for a few minor notations.Basic premise is a prostitute and a bunch holy rollers get stranded on an island but the holy rollers leader doesn't take to the prostitute being a bad influence on the island's population. That's his perception anyhow. He gets the Governor to expel her from the island and the furor begins.My main point of this film and it's predecessor is that there's just no way anyone could get another person evicted/deported from a place where they've done nothing wrong. This guy says she was a prostitute at a Hawaii based club and she needs to go back and pay for her sins. Problem is, there's no warrant out for her arrest, she's done nothing wrong on the island and she wasn't even gonna be going back to the states anyhow. She was going to another place to get a legitimate job. No person I've ever heard of has the power to wield someone from somewhere who's done absolutely nothing wrong. There are laws. Just because someone doesn't like someone, doesn't mean they can make them go anywhere or do anything.The ending is great cause this guy does what most would want him to. This film was obviously made as a Rita Hayworth vehicle. By this time though she was beginning her sorta downturn in movies...i.e...she wasn't as popular as she use to be. She's aged far beyond her actual age and in this film, it shows. She's still as beautiful she ever was though. Rain existed to point out the hypocrisy of Religion I imagine. At least it's pretty obvious to me. Problem is, it's just a story that doesn't have a lot of believability. Also doesn't help that, with the exception of Ms. Hayworth, it had sub-par casting.Watch this one for Rita Hayworth only. Anything else and you coulda been watching Flintstones reruns.

I am a big fan of Rita Hayworth but this film on the whole wasn't very satisfying for me. Ms. Hayworth of course is very glamorous and her musical numbers will get even the most lackadaisical viewer's attention. I also like Jose Ferrer who was especially brilliant in The Caine Mutiny. Now to the Aldo Ray character. I don't know if the character was written that way or not but Aldo's O'Hara comes across as a dullard. I know he played mentally deficient characters in films with Judy Holliday (The Marrying Kind) and Hepburn & Tracy (Pat & Mike) but here his simpleness detracts from the morality questions that the film tries to address with moderate levels of success. Can someone e-mail an explanation of the ending to me. I'm not sure I get it. With Davidson's death, Sadie is free to rendez-vous with O'Hara but if so doesn't that undo her repentance to go back and confront the sins of her past or is the film saying that since Davidson was a hypocrite so he had no moral authority to preach to Sadie to do so?