Sadie Thompson (1928)

Very disappointed :(

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

. . . is tweaked slightly to a wolf in shepherd's duds for SADIE THOMPSON. An hour and a half of discordant, foreboding music belies the almost-everyone-lives-happily-ever-after ending eventually in store here. Water seeks its own level, and cute chicks such as Clara Bow's "Betty Lou" character in IT a year before SADIE THOMPSON almost always marry rich, handsome dudes without too much trouble (unless their Nude Selfies are hacked down from the Cloud before the wedding bells ring). Those less physically gifted females such as Bette Davis, Drew Barrymore, and Gloria Swanson as SADIE THOMPSON here still can achieve plausibility on screen (or off-screen, if not actresses) as mercenary schemers willing to make a quick buck the old-fashioned way rather than waiting forever on a "Mrs. Degree" falling into their laps. SADIE THOMPSON illustrates how "Good Moral Character" might sound nice to some, but be a luxury that the "Plain Jane" cannot afford. Don't forget that JANE EYRE could not land Mr. Rochester until he was legally blind. SADIE THOMPSON proves that if a proverbial "Whited Sepulcher" is harassing you with a holier-than-thou act, letting it brush up against you is the quickest way to get on with Real Life.

After watching this silent film i began to realize how large of a roll the music production contributed to the film industry through out America's cinema history. With all the flashy yet realistic effects that are produced now a days its hard to notice what makes a good movie good, and to me a lot of that has to do with the music. The audio of a silent film really helps you understand the language, emotion, and even gestures of a setting for a particular scene. The other portion of this film that i found interesting was the language and slang of the late 1920's. Words like "brazen" "boodwar" "brothel" "scarlet" and even "blood thirsty blizzard" are words were never hear now a days. I guess it just helps with the understanding of the era of silent films.

Monday March 15, 7pm, The Paramount, Seattle"I guess I'm sorry for everybody in the world - Life is a quaint present from somebody."A struggle between tolerance and zealotry takes place in a south-seas backwater when a religious fanatic, bent on her conversion confronts a woman attempting to hide her identity. Sadie Thompson (Gloria Swanson) languishes in a seedy hotel with the local detachment of bored marines as her only entertainment. The tropical rains fall and Sadie's fellow steamship passengers pass the time, while Alfred Davidson (Lionel Barrymore) determines to alter the social climate.At the twilight of Hollywood's silent era and the zenith of Swanson's stardom, she chose Somerset Maugham's immensely popular short-story as her ultimate vehicle. Directed by and co-starring Raoul Walsh, filmed by legendary cinematographer George Barnes, with art direction by the great William Cameron Menzies, Sadie Thompson is an overlooked masterpiece. Barrymore's malevolent sneering was never better. Aside from being lost in the wake of Hollywood's greatest year, the greatest tragedy of this film is the missing final reel.

In a number of different ways, "Sadie Thompson" shows how much guts Gloria Swanson had. In the first place, it wouldn't even exist if she hadn't turned down an extremely lucrative contract from Famous Players/Lasky in order to become her own producer at United Artists. There had been a gentlemen's agreement among the major Hollywood producers that none of them would buy the play "Rain," but Swanson was of course not a party to it. What she actually did was very clever and sneaky. She bought Maugham's original story "The Fall of a Leaf" -- not the stage adaptation by Clemence Dane -- and thus stayed under the radar. The theatrical producers didn't control movie rights to the story. Then she got Will Hays to approve an adaptation of that short story, keeping the wool over his eyes a bit and using all of her feminine charm. Hays was a Swanson fan (most men, I gather, were) and the lady got her way and put it over on Mayer, Laemmle, Zukor, et al. She did make some concessions, however, the most important one being that Lionel Barrymore not play a clergyman. If you notice, he's not called Reverend Davidson here, but Mister Davidson. It hardly matters, since nobody who saw the film ever thought of him as anything but a minister. Swanson's instincts were right on target in every department. She had hired Walsh to direct and suddenly realized he should be her leading man, and he's stupendous. They had a delightful, easy rapport, and although Walsh has sex appeal he's no movie Adonis, keeping it real. Swanson also dared to wear becoming but flashy and inelegant clothes, which was risky for the movies' most notable clotheshorse (the last time she had dressed dowdy, while under contract, the audiences stayed away, and the studio never let her do it again). Swanson's Sadie is able to live her life with good cheer because she genuinely likes men. This was certainly true of Swanson, whose father was out of the picture early, and who was always looking for a strong man. She was extremely curious, and always gravitated to the people at parties who knew the most -- usually the guys. Gloria Swanson as Sadie is kinetic. Her gaiety and charm are so incandescent that the biggest sin as you are watching the movie would have to be anything that dimmed her light. Davidson makes it go out, and that's exactly what happens to Swanson. When she "reforms," all the light goes right out of her. Barrymore is great, and we are so fortunate to have the movie in any form. It's probably Swanson's best performance outside of "Sunset Boulevard," and it's a great movie performance by any standard. Which brings to mind another point. No actress in Swanson's lifetime up to that point had ever given a more celebrated performance than Jeanne Eagels in "Rain," and Gloria dared to risk comparisons that would inevitably be made. We can't make those comparisons now, but you can't watch the movie and not feel that this lady, so made for the camera, so perfectly in control of all the tools of silent movie acting, gave Jeanne a run for her money.(Despite another comment here, Swanson's liaison with Joseph Kennedy did not give her "the clout to become her own producer." At the time Swanson went to UA, she hadn't even met Joe Kennedy, and she didn't meet him until after she had already produced "Sadie Thompson." Kennedy was a very minor player in the movies, and Swanson was one of the biggest stars in the world. If anything, she gave HIM clout. Indeed, when he did become her partner in Gloria Productions, he seems to have robbed her blind, even billing her production company for his own gifts to her. Kennedy, staunchly Catholic if hypocritical, strongly disapproved of "Sadie Thompson.")