Fegefeuer

This adaptation of Somerset Maugham's sordid tale about an alluring woman who gets progressively judged and berated and then lusted upon by a Christian missionary is less about moral hypocrisy and more about Evolution since, from the moment Rita Hayworth lands on a Samoan island full of marines, the biggest and toughest jarhead in Aldo Ray has her number, and won't let go...

None of his underlings, not even a more muscular Charles Bronson, harmonica-playing Henry Slate or goofball Rudy Bond has a chance; and most of MISS SADIE THOMPSON seems like PR for the noticeably-aged Rita Hayworth to still be a relevant sex symbol... for a young male audience...

And she looks great despite overacting the 'good time girl' routine, singing her lines while speaking her songs. But that experienced countenance neatly blends into a free-spirited yet enigmatic character that hypocritical bible-belting Jose Ferrer realizes could have been a prostitute, forcing our marooned goddess in bright red (intentionally contrasting with the grainy-dull browns and greens for what was originally 3D) into a sudden guilty change of conscience. And this 11th hour melancholy-Hayworth, although turning in a far more subtle, natural performance, is but a means to an extremely rushed ending: Instead of building a hate/love/lust relationship between leads Hayworth and Ferrer, the latter simply frowns then screams and then explodes, leading back to that rushed romance with Ray, an infatuation as equally empty and hollow - but on HER terms.

Imagine Pat Robertson pointing his boney crazy fingers out of the screen at you and you've got the picture.

Just saw this at the World 3-D Film Expo and it was quite enjoyable. The movie has great depth and wasn't filmed in a really gimmicky 3-D style. The transitions between location and sound stage work was fairly seamless and there were scenes I really wasn't certain if they were shot in Hollywood or the South Pacific.

It's always interesting to stumble on old movies like these that resonate more than 50 years later. How much and how little has changed when it comes to religious zealots...hhmmm?

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.

On an isolated South Pacific island, the unexpected arrival of Sadie Thompson (Rita Hayworth) causes an uproar among the local men at the US Marine Corps base, as well as with visiting philanthropist and religious zealot Alfred Davidson (Jose Ferrer). Sadie quickly strikes up a relationship with Marine Sgt. O'Hara (Aldo Ray), but the increasingly-offended Davidson will stop at nothing to see Miss Thompson and her wicked ways escorted off of the island.

Previously filmed in 1928 with Gloria Swanson and in 1932 with Joan Crawford, this version is heavily censored due to the production code, although it still manages to be mildly racy for the time. I really wasn't liking Rita Hayworth in this, but gradually I began to accept her take on the Thompson character. She's played as not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, a good-time girl in over her head and barely able to take care of herself. She gets to sing several songs, only she's dubbed, and the syncing is terrible.

Aldo Ray is his usual big lug/gorilla, while Ferrer gets to be self-righteous and bombastic. Charles Bronson gets a little more to do than usual at this stage of his career, playing one of the other Marines, but it's still not much, and he's still billed as Buchinsky (but at least he even got a credit this time). This was shot in 3-D, and played very briefly that way, but it flopped, so a flat version was widely released. The movie received an Oscar nomination for Best Song ("Blue Pacific Blues")

This is the 1950's "Disney-ized" version of W. Somerset Maugham's wonderful story "Rain," which was filmed much more successfully and faithfully with Joan Crawford as Sadie back in 1932.

Rita Hayworth is always a pleasure to watch--a true beauty with significant talent, though her performance here isn't much to shout about. Probably due to the wretched script and mediocre direction.

This Technicolor, 3-D (in the original theatrical release), musical version demonstrates clearly that technology does not equal quality.

The worst element of this version is perhaps Jose Ferrer as the unbending moralizer who tries to convert Sadie. Certainly he's supposed to be stiff, but not to the point where his face shows absolutely no nuance of emotion ever.

Look for a studly young Charles Bronson in a minor role, listed in the credits as Charles Buchinsky (this must have been before he discovered that Hollywood didn't like ethnic--especially in the 50's).

No, your best bet is just to read the story. Maugham deserves the attention; he's a much under-rated writer.