Sadie McKee
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1934) Dir. Clarence Brown
93 min. / B&W / 1.37:1 / DTS-HD 2.0 Mono
Blu-ray: Warner Archive $21.99
Tremendous star vehicle for Joan Crawford, who certainly knew how to pick a part and make it unforgettable with MGM’s help. By the time this film went into production, she’d been with Metro for nearly a decade, and certainly knew what she wanted. She breathes life into what might’ve in lesser hands been little lmore than a routine woman’s picture, as she so often did in that era. The result is a minor masterpiece and a true gem for Crawford buffs.
The pitch for this one: a gullible but decent housemaid falls for a bad man who can’t stay out of trouble, and runs off with him to New York only to be left at the altar (well, at the City Hall Marriage Bureau counter). Forced into a career as a nightclub hoofer, Joan's random encounter with a rich alcoholic leads to marriage on a whim, and although he worships her and showers her with gifts she can’t stop thinking about the bad boy. Meanwhile, the family attorney, a bright young man, hangs around hoping that eventually Sadie McKee will straighten out her emotions and come to her senses. Will she?
If you’re not a Crawford fan, this movie might make you one, it’s so well-tailored to her talent and, with Hollywood on the bubble between the Pre-and-Post Code era, offers just the right amount of titillation to leave you guessing as to what she’s been up to with her boyfriends (there’s a far better chance her “chaste” romance with bad boy Gene Raymond ended up consummated than her marriage ever did). Edward Arnold is an unlikely choice as the unsober husband, but he’s terrific here, this may be his best role. Franchot Tone (soon to be real-life “Mr. Joan Crawford”) has a fairly thankless part, but we always found him easy to take and pleasant, and he’s no different in this one. Best of all, though, in the always-popular “wisecracking, been around the block a few times” sassy friend role is Jean Dixon, a treasure. She only made a handful of films (including classics like My Man Godfrey) but she’s so good and so funny and so real, you’ll wish she’d made a hundred. Esther Ralston as the third-rate singer that Gene Raymond runs off with plays a third-rate singer so well she must’ve been one. And by the way, this is the film that introduced the song Debbie Reynolds popped out of the cake to in Singin’ in the Rain, “All I Do is Dream of You.” Feel free to sing along.
Practically worth the price of admission all by itself: Warner Archive knows how to add bonus material! We get three early Merrie Melodies animated offerings, one of which is in 2-strip Technicolor and all of which are in HD and looking gorgeous; so far as I can tell, they’re all making their home video debut.
A wonderful example of the kind of movies they don't make anymore, and incidentally, it's the movie that shows "young Blanche," Baby Jane's sister, in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.
