Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times (October 13, 1932)

Sadie Thompson Again.

W. Somerset Maugham's tarnished heroine, Sadie Thompson, who was impersonated on the stage by the late Jeanne Eagels and in a silent film by Gloria Swanson, is now to be seen at the Rivoli in the form of Joan Crawford in an audible pictorial conception of the play "Rain." This production was made on Catalina Island Beach, which serves admirably for the South Seas bit of land known as Pago Pago. Maxwell Anderson arranged the adaptation from the dramatic work and Lewis Milestone was entrusted with the direction. Besides Miss Crawford, there are in the cast, among others, Walter Huston, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore and William Gargan. With such obvious advantages, a far better picture than has been made was to be expected.

The photography and the scenic effects are splendidly done. There is the impression of the incessant rain and also the sticky heat in the comfortless trading post run by Joe Horn. Moreover, in several respects the present film contains episodes that were dodged in its mute predecessor. But here, there is much that goes against the grain, either when matters are overemphasized or when the persons involved are too zealous to reveal their characteristics. Mr. Huston is at his worst as the Rev. Davidson, the bigoted preacher. He walks as if he had spent years as a private in the Prussian Army, and in a sequence the usually sagacious Mr. Milestone has him repeat the Lord's Prayer four times.

The psychology is forced and erroneous in other characters, including Sadie Thompson. She, with sparkling bangles on her wrists, openwork stockings and slippers, is anxious all should know her profession. When she wilts before Davidson it no longer seems to be plausible. Then the marine, Sergeant O'Hara, is much too naïve for one of the contingent who sing loudly of it taking "ten thousand gobs to lick one sick marine." He is more like a lovelorn hero of early film days.

Beulah Bondi as Mrs. Davidson leaves nothing to the imagination in the tone in which she refers to her supposedly earnest husband. Like Mr. Huston, she loses the spirit of the rôle.

Naturally, all who intend going to see this picture want to know about Joe Horn, who was acted in the play by Rapley Holmes. Here the adipose and bibulous trader is interpreted by Guy Kibbee, who does capital work, but he has not the same opportunity as his stage colleague had. He does more to help this film than any of the other players, but at the same time it should be set forth that for the brief time that Walter Catlett is beheld he makes the most of the part of Quartermaster Bates, and Matt Moore is easy and natural as Dr. MacPhail.

The dramatic effect of the finding of the body of the Rev. Davidson has been spoiled and the lines, coupled with the way in which Mr. Huston speaks them, so weakened several sequences that many in the crowded theatre giggled and laughed when they should have been held in silence.

Motion Picture Herald (1932):

    Because the producers have made such a strong attempt to establish the stern impressiveness of the story, it is rather slow. In its drive to become powerful, it appears to have lost the spark of spontaneity....Joan Crawford and Walter Huston are satisfactory.

Abel Green in Variety (1932):

    It turns out to be a mistake to have assigned the Sadie Thompson role to Miss Crawford. It shows her off unfavorably. The dramatic significance of it all is beyond her range.... [Director] Milestone tried to achieve action with the camera, but wears the witnesses down with words. Joan Crawford's get-up as the light lady is extremely bizarre. Pavement pounders don't quite trick themselves up as fantastically as all that. In commercial favor of Rain is the general repute of the theme and Miss Crawford's personal following, but the finished product will not help either.

Stephanie Jones  (June 2008)

Rating: of 5

The rain starts with a single drop that descends into an incessant deluge in this 1932 film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's short story set on the South Seas island of Pago-Pago. In Maugham's story, the rain is "unmerciful and somehow terrible; you felt in it the malignancy of the primitive powers of nature."

This film version of the story, already a big stage hit for Jeanne Eagels as well as a 1928 silent vehicle for Gloria Swanson, remains true to Maugham's exploration of the eternal conflict between the ominous "primitive" and the equally ominous forces of "civilization."

The Reverend Davidson (an appropriately angular and glittery-eyed Walter Huston) represents civilization here, an entity mightily offended by the anarchic spirit of both the South Seas natives and of Miss Sadie Thompson (Joan), a prostitute and fellow passenger on the boat that is forcibly waylaid on Pago-Pago because of a cholera outbreak on the island the ship was destined for.

Once necessarily settled into a cheap hotel for a fortnight, the pounding of the native drums is as irritating to Davidson as the raucous ragtime emanating from the gramophone Sadie sets up in her room while she entertains American sailors to pass the time.

After years of missionary work, Davidson's used to bullying the natives (in the story, Davidson says, "We had to make sins out of what they thought were natural actions"), but Sadie is quite another "savage." She jeers and rolls her eyes in the face of Davidson's disapproval, determined simply to mind her own business and to pass the time while waiting for the next boat to sail.

Her "live and let live" attitude is mirrored by the hotel owner---a geezer who first came to the South Seas specifically to avoid the "Reformers" newly active in the States. He's long since gone native, marrying a local and spending his time rocking and drinking on the front porch, quoting Nietzsche ("Everything goeth, everything returneth...") and grousing about said Reformers: "They'll break your back to save your soul" and "They have lots of misdirected energy."

The energy Reverend Davidson directs toward Sadie quickly becomes obsessive. After breaking up her initial party, he lectures her about salvation---and how its only alternative is destruction. She's at first openly contemptuous, but soon obligingly softens and apologizes to him for causing trouble, promising to stay out of his way. Too late. His wheels of mercy are already in motion and he's reported her to the island's governor, determined to have her not just banished to her room or from Pago-Pago, but instead sent back to San Francisco, where she faces a sure jail sentence for prostitution.

Sadie's outraged reaction to Davidson's intransigence is one of Joan's finest and most goose-bump-raising scenes in the movie---her Sadie is a wild, cornered animal who has to be forcibly dragged away from Davidson before she physically attacks him. Onscreen onlookers are shocked---not at Sadie's reaction, but at Davidson's "harsh and tyrannical" behavior.

The Reverend's certitude soon begins to wear Sadie down psychologically, though. She starts to get spooked and to mentally unravel, envisioning the Reverend as all-powerful: "His eye sees right into you." Her instability isn't helped by the constant onslaught of the unnerving rain, or a native's telling her that the Reverend is a "witch doctor."

In Joan's tour-de-force scene, her Sadie finally confronts the Reverend on the staircase in a last-ditch attempt to beg him for mercy. When he continues to insist that she needs to be punished, she lashes out: "Your god and me'll never be shipmates. You can tell him for me that Sadie Thompson is on her way to HELL!" As he towers over her and repeatedly recites the Lord's Prayer, her brazenness finally breaks---

The energy of her outrage doesn't quite dissipate, though, but rather transforms---complicatedly---into the energy of almost equally avid submission. While her subsequent scenes, as the "reformed" Sadie, find Joan in drab garments and scrubbed-down face and very still movements, the intense glow in her eyes never subsides. Even when she's numbly reciting, "Mr. Davidson says it doesn't matter if I'm innocent or guilty...I've got to go back and be punished."

Along with the inner intensity and complexity that Joan brings to the role, the camera work of Oliver Marsh is equally masterful. From our first look at Sadie with the staccato slap-slap-slap-slap of her bejangled wrists and beribboned shoes (shots echoed exactly at the end of the film) to her post-salvation saintly glow to the innovative camera angles (on the stairs, as she's looking through the food pantry) to the fluidity of the camera movement panning around her on the porch (not to mention the various artistically symbolic shots of the rain), Marsh's eye is stunning and adept, perfectly atuned to the both sensually languid and ominous story being told.

"Rain" was received poorly by both critics and the public of the time (the latter, particularly, referring to Joan's performance as "vulgar and cheap"). Joan herself continued to dislike the film for decades afterward. ("I don't understand, to this day, how I could have given such an unpardonably bad performance.") Despite the dismissal, Joan manages to intensely and brilliantly capture the nature of the Primitive---in all of its radiant, beautiful, terrible, and ultimately overpowering glory.

Chris Hughes  (February 2007)

Don't listen to any houhy about this not being a good film. From the moment Joan first appears onscreen as Sadie she is completely captivating. True, the character is strangely overdone and exaggerated, but it works somehow and the soul of Sadie shines through Joan's performance.  And it is a sad and powerful performance. The whole movie is slightly skewed, like a good Orson Welles movie, but it works and it is the unusual flavor of the movie that I like the best.  Why would you want it to be like every other cliche Hollywood movie? There are plenty of nice little character touches in the movie, the innkeeper and his rotund Polynesian wife. Very strange and wonderful. The Island people are portrayed in a respectful and realistic way. Not the usual Hollywood bologna about native people. Walter Huston is superb. He had me believing his holy gospel by the end of the picture!! And when the old Sadie returns in the end you realize that you really missed and loved her. This is an unusual and original film and Joan Crawford's Sadie is an unforgettable character. And finally, the Somerset Maugham story really has a clear and timeless message for us all: Don't judge other people too harshly, they are all doing the best they can. We are all human with shortcomings and frailties. Enjoy the present and don't worry too much about being "good". In the words of John Lennon, "whatever gets you through the night, its alright, its alright."

Louis (March 2006)

Rain is actually one of my favorite Crawford films. Firstly her appearance in this film knocks you on your ass; she's way overdone even for Crawford and it makes you love her even more because you can tell that although Sadie is outlandish and very loud, on the inside she's just a little girl looking for love in all the wrong places. Another great thing about Crawford in this film is how raw her acting is; she hasn't quite become that Joan we all know and love. Although this film was a flop 74 years ago I think every Crawford fan should give up 2 hours of their life and sit down with a glass of scotch and watch this steamy, saucy tale of little girl lost.

Paul (June 2005)

I must admit that this was a film that I'd been curious to see for quite a long time, simply because it is widely regarded as Joan Crawford's first flop.  I put the DVD in and then made myself watch it with a completely blank and objective viewpoint.  Personally, given the roles that she had portrayed up until that time she does a remarkable job and it is a remarkable movie when you take into account that it was made in 1932. Although I'm not sure, I would guess that this film was made before the Hays code went into effect, as RAIN does not have a traditional happy ending and it shows the underlying hypocrisy of fervent religious zealots.  That was pretty racy territory for the time.  In fact, the innkeeper who spent his nights reading and quoting Nietzsche was a brilliant touch. I highly recommend this movie.

Danny (March 2005)

The first thing you notice in the credits is that Joan’s name is above the title (by courtesy of MGM corporation). Then that moody music score by Alfred Newman. Perfect beginning for a perfect movie!

Joan makes her grand entrance after eight minutes into the movie. She emerges from behind a beaded curtain, one limb at a time, all tarted up in cheap costume jewelry, a cigarette dangling from her painted lips and a dead fox skin slung over one shoulder. Sadie Thompson, the fabled whore with a heart of gold.

I have often noticed that this film is accused of being “stagey” and “static," but I've never found that to be the case. It is very cinematic, and the camera moves fluently under Lewis Milestone’s deft direction. And I like the way he lets the RAIN play a role in the story.

Joan holds her own opposite an ensemble cast of established actors like Guy Kibee, Beulah Bondi, and Walter Huston as the self-righteous reformer, Mr Davidson. The momentum she displays during the long takes and interminable dialog testifies to her highly developed acting talent by 1932.

The simmering drama comes to a boil during the last confrontation scene between Sadie and Davidson, when he rejects her plea for forgiveness and she goes into attack-mode, lashing out at his hypocrisy: “How do you know what I’ve suffered? Your God and I could never be shipmates!” she shouts wild-eyed, until she finally surrenders to his influence by reciting The Lord’s Prayer with him. Look at her eyes! They don’t blink for the entire scene!

Later, Sadie shifts gears. Soft-spoken and passive she appears ravishing under Davidson’s spell. She is subdued and de-clawed and she radiates a virginal glow as she yields to the Preacher’s control.

But she soon discovers Davidson’s fatal flaw when he proves he is just like any other man after he seduces her one night.

Sadie turns around again and puts her party dress back on, cocks her painted head back and cracks: “I’d race ya to the beach if it wasn’t for these pesky heels!” She is shocked, but not surprised, when she hears that Davidson committed suicide after his sexual liaison with her. I always wonder if it was just a set up and she was just pretending to be reformed in order to allure Davidson.

Either way, this movie works for me as a timeless allegory of the hypocrisy of the self-righteous, holier-than-thou religious fanatics of today.

The last scene wraps up this classic with a perfect exchange between Mrs Davidson and Sadie. The preacher’s wife tells her, “I’m sorry for him and I’m sorry for you.”

To which Sadie replies, “And I’m sorry for the whole world, I guess," then walks off into the sunset with her soldier man.