Sadie Thompson

CinemaSerf: Gloria Swanson pretty much owned this production - on and off screen - as she depicts the eponymous character. A charming lady of dubious repute, she finds herself on a small Pacific island that’s populated by a squad of American marines and a fairly zealous Scottish minister. She is a bit skint, so she is relying on a degree of good will to sustain her until she can make her way on to Apia and to her job aboard a steamship. The aforementioned preacher “Davidson” (Lionel Barrymore) immediately reckons she’s a bad ‘un and starts pouring poison in the ears of anyone who will listen. Rapidly running out of allies, she finds that it’s only the “Sgt. O’Hara” (Raoul Walsh) who is prepared to give her the time of day. With the pressures mounting to repatriate “Sadie” to an equally unwelcoming San Francisco, she is going to have to find a way to appease her puritanical tormentor - but how to find a chink is his armour? This is one of those stories that is made for a powerful and characterful woman to showcase not just sexual but religious hypocrisy and Swanson uses every glance and poise to tease and tantalise whilst empowering this woman who knew what it took to survive in a world riddled with cruel double-standards. Walsh also contributes strongly and despite their being no dialogue to help him pontificate, Barrymore and his on-screen wife Blanche Friderici quite effectively exhibit that all-too-familiar do as I say, not as I do, form of religiosity. The photography is fluid and the story really rattles along with a storytelling clarity that actually renders the inter-titles almost irrelevant.