RAIN (1932) B/W 93m dir: Lewis Milestone

w/Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, Walter Catlett, Beulah Bondi

With this adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham chestnut, Crawford, surprisingly vibrant and vulgar, gave the performance of her then-young career as Sadie Thompson, the good-time girl of the tropics, engaged in a battle for her soul with a hypocritical man of the cloth (Huston). Despite the theatrical source material, this early talkie suffers none of the staginess of its contemporaries. Director Milestone delivers some exquisite visual interludes, displaying the tropical atmosphere inhabited by Sadie and company.