| [ |
mood |
| |
 cold |
] |
Sadie McKee is one of those movies that relies almost entirely on the performance of its star, in this case Joan Crawford. The plot is outrageously contrived and unlikely and ludicrously melodramatic, but Crawford bring into play every ounce of charisma, class and dignity that she can muster, and somehow pulls it off. She takes the character that she’s playing seriously, and drags the audience along with her.
Sadie McKee is a servant in the wealthy Alderson household, and she has caught the eye of the son of the family, hot-shot lawyer Mike (Franchot Tone). But Sadie is madly in love with the penniless and feckless Tommy. When Mike has Tommy fired from his job for some minor act of dishonesty, Sadie tells the Alderson family exactly what she thinks of them, and she and Tommy head off for New York City to get married with $17.45 between them.
As expected, Tommy lets her down. Sadie finds a job as a night club entertainer, and it’s strongly implied that the girls are expected to provide entertainment of a more intimate nature for wealthy male customers. At the club she is spotted by drunken millionaire Jack Brennan, who falls head-over-heels for her. As it happens (this being one of many unlikely coincidences in the story) Mike is Brennan’s lawyer, and an old buddy as well. Mike is convinced that Sadie is simply out to snare a rich husband, and in fact when Brennan drunkenly proposes to her, she accepts.
The twist is that Sadie isn’t a cynical opportunist, but she isn’t a plaster saint either. She marries Brennan, because only a fool would pass up a chance like that and she’s no fool. Sadie’s motives are complex, and her feelings for Brennan are even more complex. She also still has feelings for Tommy. Somehow Crawford has to make Sadie’s contradictory impulses and emotions convincing through the plot’s many improbable twists and turns, and she succeeds.
The other cast members are mostly two-dimensional and relatively uninteresting, although Leo G. Carroll is very good as Brennan’s butler and Esther Ralston is amusing as the singer with whom Tommy runs off, in a performance with more than a few echoes of the celebrated Mae West persona. The MGM glitz is seen to advantage in some gorgeous sets, and the gowns designed by Adrian for Crawford are (as always) stunning. Joan Crawford is at her most beautiful and most glamorous in this movie. If you’re a Crawford fan you have to see this one.
The movie came out just before the strict enforcement of the Production Code started. There’s not much pre-code outrageousness but the film does display a fairly casual attitude towards divorce which would have attracted trouble a few months later.
x-posted to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) movie_greats
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}