RAIN (United Artists 1932) Alpha Video
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In her early career, Joan Crawford relished the
opportunity to expand her acting horizons. As a star who, often ruthlessly,
clawed her way to the top with nothing better than blind ambition as her confidant,
Crawford had yet to develop what is now coined ‘her face’: those
trademarked large lips and descriptive eyes, augmented by perfect bone
structure, expertly lit by her cinematographers. Furthermore, in this formative
period, Crawford felt her bosses, L.B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were not
paying enough attention to her career – certainly, not as much as they had
advancing that of Thalberg’s wife - actress, Norma Shearer. There was no love lost between Crawford and
Shearer – the two stars locked in a battle royale for nearly 17-years, often vying
for the same juicy parts that, more often than not, went to Shearer due to
favoritism from her marriage to Thalberg.
Indeed, Crawford had played Shearer’s twin in 1925’s Lady of the
Night. And Crawford was exceedingly transparent in her contempt for Shearer.
“How do I compete with that?” she once told Mayer, “She sleeps with
the boss!” This, of course, did a tremendous disservice
to Shearer who, apart from being Crawford’s rival, was nevertheless, on par
with her own talents as an actress. And, by all accounts, Shearer had wed
Thalberg for love – not personal advancement, though, undeniably, this became a
perk. But even more so, Thalberg deeply
cared about all of his stars – not just Shearer, using the studio’s prestige to
hand-craft movies for all of the various personalities under contract.
Whatever the case, by the early thirties, Crawford’s
bitter griping had worn thin with Thalberg. Indeed, he had given her a big
build-up in the all-star, Grand Hotel (1932) in which Crawford had been
given a very distinguished and meaty role.
Hence, when Crawford heavily petitioned Thalberg for the opportunity of
a loan-out to play W. Somerset Maugham’s notorious, Sadie Thompson in Rain
(1932) for United Artists, Thalberg willingly granted his caustic star the
opportunity to fall flat on her face. As far as Thalberg was concerned,
Crawford’s failure in the part would confirm to her she did not know everything
when it came to advancing her own career. And thus, Thalberg at least hoped,
proving as much to her would bring Crawford’s belligerence down a notch or two
once she returned to MGM for the duration of her studio contract. Rain
is a very low budget, unrelenting and un-glamorous portrait of a prostitute. However, Thalberg’s acquiescence to Crawford’s
desire to play the part left L.B. Mayer with clammy hands. Could Crawford’s
on-screen reputation as the ‘shop girl makes good’ sustain such a blow? Asked
by Mayer why she should want to play such an awful bitch, Crawford reportedly told
Mayer, “I’d play Wally Beery’s mother if the part were right!” Indeed, at
least one aspect about Crawford remained resolute - her striving/driving
ambition to be America’s top actress. In the days before screen censorship,
playwright, Maxwell Anderson was pretty much given carte blanche to explore
Sadie’s seediness and sultry sins. And so, Crawford would reincarnate Maugham’s
embittered shrew wholly invested in every faculty at her disposal, transposing
her own venom for Shearer into this world-weary harlot, and, running away with
the part.
The story opens with a group of steamer passengers
forced into quarantine at Pago Pago in the Samoans; a tropical oasis that
proves more deadly than pleasant. Chronically plagued by intense heat and rain
the passengers find themselves in a tropic hell hole with no escape. With nothing
to do but indulge her past time, resident whore, Sadie Thompson (Crawford)
takes up with various military officers stationed on the island. Sadie’s wild
carousing eventually incurs the wrath of husband and wife missionaries,
Reverend Alfred (Walter Huston) and Mrs. Davidson (Beulah Bondi). Alfred in
particular is bent on restoring Sadie to the side of virtue. Eventually,
Alfred’s heckling leads to Sadie's outburst of contempt for not only him but
the whole human race she regards as spiteful hypocrites. “Suffered?” she
declares to Alfred at one point in their confrontation, “How do you know
what I’ve suffered? You don’t know and don’t care!” The one man who eludes
Sadie’s spite is Sergeant Tim O’Hara (William Gargan); a handsome officer who
would also like to see Sadie repent, if only to fall into his loving arms and
become his wife. Gradually, Sadie learns to trust another human being.
But then Alfred reveals his true colors. He has secretly lusted after her from
the moment she arrived in town. He further proves his own fallibility by
attempting to rape Sadie before committing suicide in a fitful, impassioned
rage.
Rain is a potent piece of ‘star acting’ from Crawford.
Indeed, she relishes the opportunity to illustrate – if only to Thalberg and
Mayer - just how much of the actor’s craft she had acquired in only a few short
years from being considered the queen of the nightclubs and Charleston
contests. Director, Lewis Milestone delivers an engrossing hot-blooded
melodrama. Largely due to Crawford’s riveting performances, this continues to
captivate from start to finish. And, in assessing the film purely from a
performance level, Crawford does the best work of her early career here; her
veneer of heartlessness imbued with an underlay of painful soul-searching; the
viper, desiring virtue on her own terms, eventually stirred to purity, before choosing
love over lust. Alas, as Thalberg had predicted, Crawford’s startling departure
from that Teflon-coated mold Metro had carefully concocted for her did not sit
well with her fan base. While some critics applauded the effort, audiences
stayed away in droves and Rain sank at the box office; an abysmal failure,
and not altogether because carnal lust was perceived as taboo, except in the
bedroom, rather than the cinema.
Alpha Video’s DVD is still floating around the
internet despite its appallingly bad video mastering. What’s here shouldn’t
even be classified as VHS quality, because I’ve actually seen some VHS tapes
looking far better than what’s here: a hazy, non-progressively mastered B&W
image that is so softly focused, Crawford is only discernible in close-up – the
image, loaded with macro-blocking, clumpy grain, and a greenish telecine tint
that renders this disc virtually unwatchable. Add to this, a barrage of age-related
artifacts and, well…there really is no point to going on. Rain was an
interesting anomaly in Crawford’s career and one that ought to be revisited on
home video – just not like this.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
0 (if it were possible, this digit ought to be a
negative)
EXTRAS
0
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