La Belle du Pacifique

The old Sadie Thompson story gets the full Technicolor treatment and some eye-filling location photography of a beautiful South Seas island--but nothing hides the fact that the story is simply another reworking of the Somerset Maugham saga about a sinner, a man of the cloth and a bunch of rowdy U.S. Marines.

RITA HAYWORTH gives her all to put some much needed vitality into the tale and puts some heat into her dance number--"The Heat Is On"--while the men aren't shy about showing how they appreciate her earthy charms. But there's not much to say about the story and its labored message about sin and redemption with JOSE FERRER as the uptight preacher who takes a moral stand on her behavior but can't practice what he preaches.

ALDO RAY and CHARLES BRONSON are among the Sadie admirers in uniform and both of them do splendid jobs. Rita has a nice chemistry in all her scenes with Aldo Ray but her scenes with Ferrer never quite have the impact they're supposed to. She handles all the dramatic moments well, but there's a tired look about her face that is most noticeable during the latter half of the film.

Not exactly an upbeat tale, but Rita does make a believable Sadie Thompson.

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.

Having read some of the comments about this film I must disagree with much of the criticism made against this film. I have seen the 1932 Joan Crawford film "Rain", and while I agree that it is more successful in creating the mood and tone which is required for the story I consider this film version to have its own virtues. Rita Hayworth is good as Sadie (although unlike Joan Crawford she presents herself most of the time a a happy go lucky sort whereas with Crawford it is always apparent that she has a "bad" past)and Jose Ferrer is solid as Mr. Davidson. The location and Photography also add a great deal to the telling of this simple yet powerful story.

At a postwar isolated Pacific military outpost, the men are all taken with Sadie Thompson (Rita Hayworth) who is stopping for a couple of hours in between ships. They try to hide her from the rest of the base. She becomes the toast of the club and finds that she has to stay for a week due to quarantine. The religious Mr. Davidson is the head of the Mission Board who tries to run her off the island before she catches her boat to Sydney. She doesn't want to go back San Francisco and he suspects she's on the run from the law after being in the notorious Emerald Club of Honolulu. Marine Sgt. Phil O'Hara falls for the brash show girl.

Rita Hayworth rides that boat onto the island and shows her star power. She puts on a big show in this movie. José Ferrer is a good cold foil for her. Aldo Ray is a meathead. I can only imagine if the O'Hara role is played by somebody great like Marlon Brando. The story seems to be stuck between something really juicy and a bad morality play. It's a hard-boiled romance exploitation movie. I don't know what it looks like in 3D. It's not obviously shot that way. At its core, Hayworth shows that she still has it.

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?