MGM. 88 minutes.
US release: 5/9/34.Encyclopedia Entry • Films Main
Sadie McKee
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MGM. 88 minutes.
US release: 5/9/34.
VHS release: 12/5/90. DVD release: 2/12/08.
Cast: Joan Crawford (as "Sadie McKee"), Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone, Edward Arnold, Esther Ralston, Earl Oxford, Jean Dixon, Leo Carrillo, Akim Tamiroff, Zelda Sears, Helen Ware, Helen Freeman, Leo G. Carroll. Cafe entertainers: Gene Austin, Candy, and Coco.
Credits: Based on the story "Pretty Sadie McKee" by Vina Delmar, which originally appeared in "Liberty" magazine. Screenplay: John Meehan. Producer: Lawrence Weingarten. Director: Clarence Brown. Camera: Oliver T. Marsh. Costumes: Adrian. Editor: Hugh Wynn. Sound: Douglas Shearer.
Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times (1934):
Clarence Brown's direction of this film is studied and in its way effective but it scarcely improves the flow of the story. There are many static interludes, a great deal of talk, which is by no means as interesting as the producers evidently thought it to be. Miss Crawford assuredly does well by her part, but even so the incidents in which she appears often are hardly edifying. It is in fact an exasperating type of motion picture.
Marguerite Tazelaar in the New York Herald Tribune (1934):
Mr. Brown has employed an emotional quality in his direction that both helps and hinders the picture. It helps in keeping the story an exciting, vivid, enkindled canvas. It hinders, in exaggerating its artifice, its confusion and its lack of logic....Miss Crawford seems a bit miscast in the role of girlish innocence, but she does a competent job with Sadie, and in certain of her scenes is genuinely moving.
Hollywood Reporter (1934):
Swell picture...sure-fire audience...well-tailored for the talents of Miss Crawford.... the stuff the fans cry for...direction of Clarence Brown something to rave about...a humdinger for femme fans.
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"All I Do Is Dream of You": Words by Arthur Freed. Music by Nacio Herb Brown. Published by Robbins Music Corp., New York.
