Rain (1932): watch the full film free, legally

Held at Pago Pago

Rain is a 1932 pre-Code drama directed by Lewis Milestone and set in the South Seas. A westbound ship traveling to Apia, Samoa, is temporarily stranded at nearby Pago Pago because of a possible cholera outbreak on board. Among its passengers are Alfred Davidson, a self-righteous missionary, his wife, and Sadie Thompson, a prostitute.

Sadie passes the delay partying and drinking with American Marines stationed on the island. Sergeant Tim O'Hara, whom Sadie calls Handsome, falls in love with her. Her behavior troubles the Davidsons, and Davidson confronts her with his intention to save her soul. When Sadie dismisses him, he has the Governor order her deportation to San Francisco, where she is wanted for an unspecified crime that she says was a frame-up. She asks to stay a few more days so she can flee to Sydney, Australia. During a heated argument, she undergoes a religious conversion and agrees to return to San Francisco and the jail sentence awaiting her. The evening before her departure, O'Hara asks her to marry him and offers to hide her until the Sydney boat sails.

Maugham story and California locations

The film's plot is based on Rain, a 1922 play by John Colton and Clemence Randolph. Their play was based on W. Somerset Maugham's 1921 short story Miss Thompson, later retitled Rain. Jeanne Eagels had played Sadie on stage. Earlier and later screen versions included the 1928 silent film Sadie Thompson, starring Gloria Swanson, and Miss Sadie Thompson in 1953, starring Rita Hayworth.

Joan Crawford played Sadie Thompson, while Walter Huston played the conflicted missionary whose moral standards and self-righteous behavior steadily decay. MGM loaned Crawford to United Artists for the production. Filming took place in part at Santa Catalina Island and at what became Crystal Cove State Park in California.

Critical response and financial loss

Rain was not well received critically or financially on its initial release. The unglamorous part for Crawford and the story's treatment of religious hypocrisy caught Depression-era audiences off guard. Motion Picture Herald found the film slow in its attempt to establish the story's stern impressiveness, saying its drive for power had lost spontaneity. The publication considered Crawford and Huston satisfactory.

Variety judged assigning Crawford to Sadie Thompson a mistake, arguing that the role showed her unfavorably and exceeded her dramatic range. The review said Milestone pursued action with the camera but exhausted viewers with words, and it called Crawford's appearance as the light lady extremely bizarre. Variety said the theme's general repute and Crawford's following gave the film commercial advantages, though it believed the finished film would help neither.

The film earned $538,000 in the United States and Canada and $166,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $198,000. In 1960, it entered the public domain in the United States after its copyright registration was not renewed in the 28th year after publication.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “Rain (1932 film)”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.