The third film adaptation of “Sadie Thompson”, while Rita Hayworth gives a solid performance as Sadie, due to the production-code of the era, “Miss Sadie Thompson” is a watered down version when compared to the previous two films, especially when it comes to the topics of sex and religion. Nevertheless, it was a film in which Hayworth was able to display her talent in playing the various emotional states of Sadie Thompson including a sexually driven performance of “The Heat is On”.
© 1953 Renewed, 1961 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved
DVD TITLE: Miss Sadie Thompson (as part of “The Films of Rita Hayworth” DVD Box Set)
FILM RELEASE DATE: 1953
DURATION: 90 minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Color, 1:85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
COMPANY: Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
RATED: N/A
RELEASE DATE: December 21, 2010
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Screenplay by Harry Kleiner
Cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr.
Edited by Viola Lawrence
Art Direction by Carl Anderson
Set Decoration by Louis Diage
Costume Design by Jean Louis
Starring:
Rita Hayworth as Sadie Thompson
Jose Ferrer as Alfred Davidson
Aldo Ray as Sgt. Phil O’Hara
Russell Collins as Dr. Robert MacPhail
Diosa Costello as Ameena Horn
Harry Bellaver as Joe Horn
Wilton Graff as the Governor
Rita Hayworth, who was born Margarita Cansino, the daughter of Spanish and Irish parents, trained from a young age as a professional dancer and would become one of the more enduring symbols of glamour and sex appeal of her era. As a result of her sultry good looks and talent displayed in every genre, including comedies, dramas, musicals, thrillers, and even westerns, Rita Hayworth became the unmatched Queen of the lot at Sunset and Gower, in Hollywood, and one of Columbia’s most important contract stars. By 1940, a picture starring Rita Hayworth guaranteed the highest level of production values and her films are some of the most iconic of their era. Now Sony Pictures and The Film Foundation have teamed again to bring five of her finest films to DVD–three of them for the first time. These films highlight Hayworth’s charm, grace and allure as a dancer, dramatic actress, and vamp–while charting the exceptional range of her career. It’s a collection that showcases one of Hollywood’s most unforgettable stars…and is certain to win her legions of new admirers as well.
MISS SADIE THOMPSON–The fourth screen version of the famed Somerset Maugham story details the arrival of a free-spirited woman to Samoa, where she naturally arouses the interest of the Marines based there (especially sergeant Aldo Ray), as well as the wrath of the fire-and-brimstone preacher (Jose Ferrer) who wants her sent away immediately. Curtis Bernhardt (A Stolen Life) directed the film, which was originally released in 3-D.
Rita Hayworth, one of the most popular actress in America, a sex symbol who would win audiences with her performance in the 1946 film “Gilda†and would have a career that featured 61 films shot in 37 years.
Known in her earlier years as Rita Cansino, the half Spanish and half actress was born in a family full of entertainers. Her father was a flamenco dancer, her mother was an original Zeigfeld girl, her parents were a source for her to pursue acting and dancing. Father and daughter would become the “The Dancing Cansinos†and she would eventually catch the eye of the head of the Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan and Rita was signed to a short-term contract.
Because of her Spanish look, studios were not reluctant to hire her, so Rita would go through several procedures to change herself and when she returned to screen test for Columbia Pictures, the actress who now had red hair and would change her name to Rita Hayworth (her mother’s maiden name) would make her brand new return in 1939 and eventually would get a small but yet important part in the Cary Grant film “Only Angels Have Wingsâ€. And eventually, her career would blossom from then on.
In fact, during World War II, Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable would become the popular pin-up girls for military serviceman. She also had a “no nudity†policy which boosted her popularity during the 1940′s and by 1944, Hayworth was the big box office star in Hollywood.
To celebrate the career of Rita Hayworth and her films that she has done with Columbia Pictures, together with the Film Movement, a special five movie DVD box set titled “The Films of Rita Hayworth†is being released.   The set includes the following films: “Cover Girl†(1944), “Tonight and Every night†(1945), “Gilda†(1946), “Miss Sadie Thompson†(1953) and “Salome†(1953).
With the success of “Gilda” in 1946, Rita Hayworth would go on to make four more films for Columbia: “Down to Earth” (1947), “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947), “The Loves of Carmen” (1948) and “Affair in Trinidad” (1952). It’s also important to note that right after “Gilda”, she and husband-at-the-time, Orson Welles would go on to work on “The Lady from Shanghai” together but the red hair that the actress was known for, would die her hair blonde. But by 1953, years of hard drinking and stress would definitely show a change in Rita Hayworth’s appearance.
Yet Hayworth can still dance and still exhibits the sexiness she was known for onscreen but it was quite evident that the actress would go through significant challenges in her life and her career after her marriage and divorce to Orson Welles, her remarriage with Prince Aly Khan and giving birth to her second daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan but yet to divorce again (Hayworth would remarry the same year after her divorce in 1953 to actor Dick Haymes).
After four years of inactivity (due to her marriage with the prince), Hayworth would make her return to film in 1953. And that year alone, 3D films have become a short fad and “Miss Sadie Thompson” starring Rita Hayworth, Aldo Ray and Jose Ferrer would be one of the few musicals that year to be released in 3D.
The film is based on W. Somerset Maugham’s short story “Miss Thompson” and a familiar film as it was released as a silent film titled “Sadie Thompson” in 1928 starring Gloria Swanson and remade in 1932 as “Rain” starring Joan Crawford.
“Miss Sadie Thompson” is directed by Curtis Bernhardt and featured a screenpay by Harry Kleiner (“Bullitt”, “Red Heat”, “Fantastic Voyage”) and would be released in theaters on December 23, 1953. By then, the film would be released during the decline of 3D films and interesting enough, the film would also have its share of criticism from censors.
Lloyd T. Binford, the 85-year-old head of the Memphis Board of Censors said of the film “Miss Sadie Thompson”, “It’s rotten, lewd, immoral, just a plain raw dirty picture”. And as for its music scene with Hayworth, Binford said of her performance of “The Heat Is On”, a “filthy dance scene,” and wanted the film to be banned.  And sure enough, several state censor boards did in fact ban the film.
“Miss Sadie Thompson” takes place in a military outpost in American Samoa. The Marines stationed there are pretty lonely as the women of Samoa don’t really do anything for them. That is until a beautiful, flirtatious woman named Sadie Thompson arrives and immediately, all the men go crazy for her. And Sadie knows what the men want and so she sings and dances for them and it drives them crazy. But to make sure nothing gets out of hand, the marine Sgt. Phil O’Hara (played by Aldo Ray) is there to make sure that nothing gets too out of hand, especially since he is starting to fall for her.
But the locals in the area are not so pleased with Sadie being in the area. During a church service, the men of the marine can be heard singing so loudly to Sadie that it disrupts the service and also making everyone want to know why things have become so lively in the area.
But one man, the self-righteous Alfred Davidson, the powerful head of the Mission Board believes that Sadie Thompson is making men behave immorally and fighting each other because of how she flaunts her sex appeal. And because her ship is under quarantine, Sadie is expected to stay longer in the area than Davidson and a few others would like. But for Davidson, he believes he met Sadie Thompson before… but where?
Mr. Davidson is a conservative, religious man who will do what it takes to get Sadie Thompson off the island and sure enough, he remembers that Sadie Thompson was a nightclub singer (aka “prostitute”) of the Emerald Club which he was involved in closing down. And because she was a prostitute and breeds immorality, he now has the power to convince the governor to kick Sadie Thompson off the island. But with Sgt. O’Hara and the men who have fallen for Sadie, will they allow it?  But most of all, will Sadie Thompson allow it?
VIDEO, AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Miss Sadie Thompson” is presented in 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Shot in Hawaii, the film does exhibit quite a bit of grain and film noise. Not the best looking film in the DVD set but compared to other Technicolor classics , picture quality was good.
Audio is clear and similar to the other films, subtitles are white with a black box behind it.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Miss Sadie Thompson” comes with the following special feature:
- Introducing “Sadie Thompson” with Patricia Clarkson – (4:23) Actress Patricia Clarkson talks about “Sadie Thompson” and the sex and religion themes of the film. Also, the challenges the film faced due to the censor boards.
- Original Theatrical Trailer – (3:00) The original theatrical trailer for the film.
EXTRAS:
“The Films of Rita Hayworth” DVD Box Set comes with a slip case and digipack similar to other Sony Pictures Home Entertainment/The Film Foundation DVD releases.
“Miss Sadie Thompson” is one of those stories that unfortunately was watered down due to the strict production code of that era. Unlike the previous two films before it, the story had to be changed to reflect a more sanitized world of Sadie Thompson. No longer was a Sadie known as a prostitute but now she was a “nightclub singer” who worked at the seedy nightclub, The Emerald Club.
What made the original Sadie Thompson film work was that the story focused on the couple, Sadie Thompson and Sgt. O’Hara wanting to get married and move to Australia. Sgt. O’Hara accepting her past and the two wanting to have a good life together. Meanwhile, Mr. Davidson used religion as a way to convince Sadie to tell him about her past and thus, we see Davidson twisting his conservative and religious ideology to hurt Sadie in various ways.
In “Miss Sadie Thompson”, we never get a true sense that Sadie and O’Hara are that close. We aren’t convinced that Sadie Thompson even cares about Sgt. O’Hara at all because the film tries to focus on how all the military men would literally fall for Sadie Thompson as some love goddess and that their loneliness on the island has made them horny troglodytes.
O’Hara was made one dimensional and as for Mr. Davidson, his character was watered down so much that only until you get to the final 15 minutes of the film, does he make any true impact. There is no doubt that the goal of the screenwriter was to make the leading lady, Rita Hayworth, the focal point. Using her hot performance of “The Heat is On” (and it’s important to note, the vocals are dubbed over) with the men just salivating all around her was possibly the most sexual driven scene that the director Curtis Bernhardt and Harry Kleiner could allow.
If anything, the previous two films “Sadie Thompson” and “Rain” are much more enjoyable than “Miss Sadie Thompson” because they were pre-code and were able to portray much more of the sex appeal of Sadie and the twisted darkness of Mr. Davidson quite effectively. “Miss Sadie Thompson” is literally a film that had its most important elements stripped down to appease the ultra conservative censor board and even when the film was stripped down, the film was still too hot for them and was banned in several states.
While “Miss Sadie Thompson” is not Rita Hayworth’s best film, it does showcase her in a character role that no one has seen of her before and its clear that the film was created around her.
The character of Sadie Thompson is supposed to be beautiful and sexually-charged to all men that are around her and they fall for her. She knows how to pull their strings to get what she wants and Hayworth pulls the character off with amazing confidence. But you also get to see several sides of Sadie as well and Hayworth does manage to do a very good job by playing the various emotional states of the character and of course, giving a magnificent musical performance that literally heats things up for this otherwise average film.
Overall, “Miss Sadie Thompson” is a worthy addition for “The Films of Rita Hayworth” DVD box set but in terms of enjoyment, the film was average at best.
