HISTORY LESSON: Man Enough? Part 3 - Method to Modern Times

Continued from Part One - The Silents and Part Two - The Studio Era: 

The Wild One was not a fantastic film all considered, but it remains interesting
for its incite into the angst of the youth culture in the 1950s. Brando's line in this
scene summed it all up. As he beats on the juke box, with a contemptuous
eye fixed on his surroundings, he's asked, "Hey, Johnny... What are you
rebelling against?" He replies: "Whaddya got?" Gold.

Guttural actors of passion, guts, and loins have been acting their hearts out in cinema since from its very advent. However, something different started happening as the 1940s transitioned to the 1950s. With World War II over, another battle was inevitable. Mercifully and mercilessly, this one would be “Cold.” Broken by the horrifying glimpse into man’s darkest chasms—the Holocaust, the Devil and/is Adolf Hitler, the American boys coming home in coffins—the United States lost its trust, and the word “united” stopped being aptly descriptive of the nation. The country would be divided, not between North and South, Republican from Democrat, or Caucasian from all others, but instead everyone from everything. This new paranoia naturally led to the red scare—the obsession regarding an impending war that was only theoretical. We sought to identify villains, weed them out, and destroy them before they could strike. Less focus was given to the “Commie Bastards” building missiles on the other side of the globe than to the silent threat hiding among us: the radicals, the divergents, and those threatening the sanctity of our fictional impenetrability. A skeptical eye was turned on every neighbor, and the witch hunts began.

The movies followed, both before and behind the scenes. As the Hollywood Ten were called before the bench of public opinion and hypocrisy, celebrities of the past were forced to confront the HUAC tribunal—The Father (Joseph McCarthy), The Son (Paranoia), and the Scapegoat. Those too proud to beg (Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole) or those too petrified to argue (Elia Kazan, Robert Taylor), became the sacrificial lambs in the nation’s shamefully unfolding history. Most kept their heads down and stayed "polite" and non-political (Gary Cooper), some were scolded for their resistance and then silenced (Humphrey Bogart), but others flew into a rage of protest (John Huston, Gene Kelly), the same vigor within them that had drawn them to art hastening them to protect humanity. This created conflict on the screen; film noir grew even darker and the heightened paranoia punched up storylines. In the meantime, while Hollywood would continue to produce films starring the greats of the past, these men were aging. Audiences held onto them as necessities, guys indivisible from the very name America, but our hold on them was loosening. 

John Garfield, the wronged man in They
Made Me a Criminal.

New actors with fresh perspectives started to emerge. These guys came with a contrasting conscience to their macho forbears. John Garfield is often credited with paving the way for the method actors to come, his art being his lack of art. He was not a superhero, a cowboy, a villain, or a martyr. He was just a man, and he presented himself as such. He mumbled with streetwise, apathetic articulation, and his movements were natural and un-mannered. His prototype of masculine authenticity became a game-changer: each man is his own sinner and saint. Your worst enemy is not he at whom you point your judgmental finger, but the voice you hear in your head-- the one you are often too weak to combat. So, Garfield fell prey to both greed and his desire for Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, played the underdog as the desperate boxer turned puppet in Body and Soul, and represented the wronged minority as the Jewish Dave Goldman in Gentleman’s Agreement.

Kirk Douglas as the unconscionable reporter in Billy Wilder's 
Ace in the Hole, one of his many shades of gray
morality pieces.

Film had always asked moral questions, but it had never penetrated the gauze of hypocrisy that simplified black and white philosophy to ask truly social questions. The distinction was no longer that of "Is this right or is this wrong," but "What does this say about us? What if there is no hero? What if there is no solution?" Hollywood doesn’t like open endings, sad endings, nor any package that is not cleanly wrapped. So, while the monarchs of the past—Gable, Wayne, Cooper—carried the torch of vintage Americana, actors like Garfield, Burt Lancaster, and Kirk Douglas acted as progressive, envelope-pushing phenoms of male complexity and rebellion, slowly paving the way for those others reacting to a changing world. Confinement is not acceptable to the male animal, and while some stayed behind, others would mature with their world, working to untie the knots that they had seen formed even in their own lifetime. Yet, the tug-of-war between the past (a lost era that can never be revisited) and the future (a horrifying but necessary prospect) would begin and end in one word: “Stella!”

Brando's Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named
Desire. His macrocosm of machismo would
knock the socks off Hollywood.

Marlon Brando killed Tinsel Town. After he ripped off her crown, it was no longer possible for the public to ignore her lies. Every new generation of man has a need to discover the world for himself, and such evolution necessitates demolishing the old images we had once so relied upon. The New Kids, those of the Stanislavsky or the Strasberg or whatever school, lashed out at their parents as all children do. They translated the world as they saw it, maturing into ungovernable, multifaceted anti-heroes performing only accidental heroics. Brando’s appearance as the cave man of humanity’s past in A Streetcar Named Desire unleashed a horridly brutal portrait of those theories of manhood that we had once held sacrosanct. He was a man unmannerly, primitively sexual, alcoholic, abusive, and even sadistic, all of these qualities simultaneously enclosing a scared boy desperately clinging to/rejecting his mother’s breast-- exemplified in the mother of his own child, Stella (Kim Stanley). He desires and is addicted to her earthy appeal, even supplicating himself before it, while shunning the pretense of the past, mercilessly raping false Hollywood’s personification in Blanche Dubois (Vivien Leigh). He makes her antiquity a joke. It was a savage way to bring us into a new era, but it worked.

Working alongside him were Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Ben Gazzara, James Dean, and Dennis Hopper. These artists in the early method days were like a jolt of adrenaline in the arm of America. While Hollywood tried to package them, they rebuffed the shackles of the star system by doing something different with their performances. They weren't playing to their audiences; they were playing their audiences. Neither enunciation nor dialogue were as important as internal and thus physical authenticity. Brando mumbled and tossed lines away. Clift spoke with his eyes and his body. Dean went to another planet, playing hide and seek with the camera, giving it the proverbial finger while making his audiences search for him and the truth. Newman defied his good looks by wearing a chip on his shoulder and letting his guts hang inside out-- the only man in known history to eat "fifty eggs" to prove a point. Actors suddenly weren't actors, they were people. In a return to the "every man" appeal of the silent days, stars were replaced with standard, every day guys, albeit with a little artistic elevation. 

Monty Clift, post-crash.

With an enthusiasm for the art that eclipsed the drive for celebrity, these actors seemed to resent themselves. Most openly admitted to an embarrassment over their chosen profession. A real man would be the men they pretended to be instead of being imitations. Their ego was hurt by society's definition of them as "pansies." Perhaps their reaction to this was a result of the fact that they were being more emotionally open than actors of the past. Yet, in their unapologetic tears and vulnerability, there was an aggression, a naked abandon, a sense of dissatisfaction and fear, which often revealed itself in moments of poetry. They were flawed men, and as such, they were relatable men. But, they were still men for other men to look up to. They took movie star status and brought it back down to earth. The polish was gone; the anger was still there. Clift perhaps embodied this best, as his great beauty and "movie star looks" were corrupted by his fatal crash. His life as his art, most specifically in A Place in the Sun, thus visually revealed what many instinctively felt-- that the American Dream was broken, and they were left the sons of its still perjuring manipulations. 




McQueen on the move in Bullitt.

Men were not portrayed as valiant fighters of the Flynn or Wayne variety. They were only accidental heroes. Brando's conflicted and bitter character in On the Waterfront had no desire for social glory. His own feelings of social rejection-- the boxer who didn't make it-- have made him disinterested in its salvation, until he finally stands up to the "the Man," Lee J. Cobb, to reclaim his integrity-- the only real thing a man has to hold onto. In keeping, Dean's Jett Rink in Giant starts out a buffoon chasing "the dream" and ends a ruined, despicable tycoon. An audience that understood his desperate rise and fall never withdrew its sympathy. McQueen did everything fast and hard, barely stopping for breath, sleeping his way through every beautiful woman's bed in every movie, rejecting his responsibility to them all in the desperate attempt to make The Great Escape from America's uncertain cobweb. No matter the struggle or his characters' flaws, the existential discontentment that followed him from film to film always made him a victim of circumstance. As in Papillon, he never stops trying to break from imprisonment. 

People needed this carnality. Men particularly were desperate to make such carnal howls. As young men were called to serve in the Vietnam War, their drafts arriving like preordered toe tags, there was plenty to scream about. As women grew more independent and feminism started taking a more assertive stand, the male position in the generally accepted patriarchy started to crumble. As society endured race riots, police brutality, the push toward desegregation, the arrival of the hippie, the metamorphosis of sock-hop rock 'n' roll to the Kinks early premonitions of Heavy Metal, the world seemed to be moving faster than it had since the 1920s without the nonchalance. Men onscreen began to inhabit all facets of the male human conundrum. His desire for love, and his desire to dominate; his quest for order and peace of mind, and his desire to escape the roots of his father. His brute force was supercharged but tempered with an increasing attraction to knowledge. A child of communal hysteria, he questioned the world around him. He defied it, and fell prey to it. The jig was up, and a new game was set: there is no peace on earth. Life is War is Hell, From Here to Eternity.

While Poitier's character in The Defiant Ones
still had to inevitably take a fall for "the
white man," Curtis, he also presented a
man morally superior and more
sympathetic than his partner
in crime.

Along with the surprising sensitivity these guys allowed to manifest in their performances-- Clift's jaw dropping and soulful performance in Lonelyhearts, Wallach's vengeful complexity in Baby Doll-- bigger issues were taking place than man's internal conflict. The camera turned outward as the actors turned inward. The world became the stage and its changing geography was mirrored on the screen. There suddenly emerged the minority voice in the person of Sidney Poitier. With the black man’s definition of masculinity on film as yet undefined-- previously only viewed as the segregated, submissive dog to the true, Caucasian male authority figure-- his windy path to absolution on film was yet to come. Sidney’s intelligence, poise, and natural command made him a worthy and acceptable vessel for all audience members to follow, and this initiated their Voyage Out of the deep dark forest of bigotry.  His instant charisma made him likable; the fact that he had the air of a gentleman and spoke in sophisticated "white man's speak" made him nonthreatening. His work-- The Defiant Ones, Porgy and Bess, Raisin in the Sun, Lilies of the Field, Patch of Blue, In the Heat of the Night-- presented him not as a cliche but as a man. While his skin color played a significant part in each role, it was not viewed as an unfortunate handicap that was to be pitied nor one that deserved condescension. He was an American trying to "make it" like any other citizen-- his biology so inconsequential that it made those who tried to use it against him the sorriest of villains. 

Spencer Tracy defends Darwin in
Inherit the Wind.

As this progress was made, the old school veterans tried to keep up. Spencer Tracy, always an actor with conscience-- a quality that haunted him in his private life-- approached groundbreaking material with his token respectful humility and uncanny intuition into the altercation of man's eternal maturation. In his films, he not only kept up with but outdid the rebel boys riding his coattails in Judgment at Nuremberg, Inherit the Wind, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the first of which he acted opposite Clift, the last Poitier. Meanwhile, John Wayne entered darker territory, and as his conservative politics found resistance with the changing world, his characterizations became even more multifaceted than before. He went from tough on the outside, to tough through and through. His work in True Grit and The Shootist did two things. One was to reveal his depths as an actor, which echoed the secret personal frustrations and bitterness as insecurity followed him into old age. The second was to reveal the lingering public need for icons-- the ones who had never let the world down during their Hollywood reign. Society sought that certainty, particularly the older generations, as the world around them became a thing they didn't recognize. Never was there such a clean split between age and beauty on the screen.  

Peck and Mitchum represent exaggerations of
two versions of the battling American male:
the Apple Pie man of morality vs. the
inner, untamed beast. 

As such, Clark Gable continued drawing fans to theaters to see his work in Mogambo and his wizened, vulnerable, and raw performance in The Misfits. Gary Cooper brought his usual understated pathos to High Noon, then shied away from provocative material to uphold his Mr. Deeds image. Mitchum always worked-- when he wasn't fishing, that is-- all the way into the '90s, performing in everything from The Night of the Hunter (1955) to Dead Man (1995). Gregory Peck held the badge of the eternal man of conscience, representing the soul of what America at least stood for-- or hoped to-- as Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird, and wrote his own cinematic doctrine by performing in topical or controversial pieces like On the Beach and The Boys from Brazil. He then proved his merit by pulling off a transition to horror in The Omen-- only a solid man of common sense as trusted as he could pull off the conflict of a reasonable man who comes to fear God through the acceptance of the Devil.

As these heroes died, retired, or were forgotten, the turmoil didn't cease. Men were left without giants and forced to reckon with themselves as cinema delved even deeper into the disturbances of the human psyche, his condition, and the complications of the world around him. The Kent State shootings, Patty Hearst and the SLA, Watergate, the Munich Massacre, Korea, Ted Bundy, the death of Morrison, the death of Hendrix, the death of Joplin, the death of Elvis... All these monumental crises chewed up the "glory, Hallelujah" of life and left man to reinterpret it's National Anthem as one big con. 

The Godfather opens with Vito Corleone almost immediately asking
for his son Michael. "Where's Michael?" He doesn't even share words 
with his son at his his daughter's wedding. Mistrustful of his eldest son 
Sonny,  he seeks the true family anchor to carry on his heavy burdens. 
These actors do not  have a genuine scene together until Pacino comes 
to Brando in the hospital and names him as his father,  stating, 
"I'm with you now."  Inheritance accepted. POETRY.

With the now absolutely dominant presence of television and the quickening informational capacity of the media, America was shrouded in mistrust and was Hell-bent on dismantling any still perpetuated delusions of grandeur. We are men; we are monsters. The method trend continued in two strains-- still real guys-- as activists or anarchists. Thus we witnessed the emergence of Dustin Hoffman's feminism in Tootsie and Kramer vs. Kramer and Robert De Niro's anti-christ in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Heroes were villains as they hadn't been since the '30s, and all were political. Who better to usher in these angst-ridden young men, seeking in vain to establish their misshapen identity than the Don himself-- he who had paved their way? Brando passed the torch to Al Pacino in The Godfather, and what followed on film was a new breed of man, violently tearing himself and his society down so he can build himself, and it, up again.

This anger began to dissipate in the hands of Ronald Reagan's 1980s optimism. America, in between battles for a time,  was determined to enjoy the economic boom and continue the progress of the '60s and '70s by turning itself into a big enough threat to keep all further mutinies, attacks, and depressions at bay. From the spring-board of the Jewish and Italian actors who populated the masculine screen in the last decade, Captain America was due to return-- our arrogance transforming itself into the muscular, one man heroes that only needed a gun to save the world (a trend started by Charles Bronson in Death Wish, and Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, the bridge films to a new era). 

Arnold goes Commando; America is secure.

Regular guys with chips on their shoulders disappeared behind muscular Gods from Mt. Olympus. Stallone: the broken, underdog poet on a mission. Willis: the clown having "a very bad day." Gibson: the loose cannon, crazy enough to do anything. Cruise: the miniature but cocky pretty-boy whose belief in his own invincibility worked better than any firearm. And Schwarzenegger... Where did this human treasure come from? His Austrian accent only enhanced his status as a mythological creature: Conan the American. His unprecedented reign in everything from action to science fiction to comedy made him an unparalleled force in the industry. People loved him. Utterly. His gravity as a performer was never exactly earth-shattering, but his unabashed commitment to whatever battle he was fighting was. Say what you will about the guy-- he always went for it. America was safe under Arnold's watch. He had our back, and we knew we could trust him every time he uttered those eternal words, "I'll be back," and he always did come back again... Up until the new millennium we he found politics and we found iPhones.

Our heroes aged, only reappearing to mock their image or play on their past mammoth status-- mostly thanks to Stallone's still active imagination and business savvy, as evidenced in The Expendables. At the same time, the world was intruded by the world wide web. As the increasing technological forces at our fingertips became our new heroes, our fascination with human representatives diminished. Our art, our introspection, slowly lost its way while we personally downsized to smaller screens in separate universes, wherein we became our own idols. (For more on that subject, visit my past article YouTube Killed the Movie Star). 

Now we find ourselves in search of "men." As a reflection of society at large, where gender equality between men and women has become (arguably) more balanced, more negative/competitive attention is given to the "other-genders": the homosexuals, the transvestites, the transsexuals, and even living dolls. The emergence of these different strains of manhood and the slow acceptance of them has split the previously more "predictable sex" completely asunder. A Man is a Man isn't a Man anymore. Men are expected to be more emotionally mature, to be more participatory and open in relationships, and to make room for women, who have invaded and irreparably altered the work place, changing all pre-programmed existential strategy. Wife, baby, house: they no longer apply. Your girlfriend is working, she's not ready to have kids, and who the Hell can afford a house in this economy?!?!

This economic slight is perhaps the worst. The depression has made our men depressed. The inability of a man to be a provider is the greatest wound to his ego. A provider is the one thing that he historically must be and which has been consistently represented throughout his path on film. A man must earn-- legally or illegally. Now, men are either out of work or working at jobs that torture them at breakneck speeds for far too little compensation. This, in conjunction with media saturation and our current obsession with surface over substance, pressures him to be a body-conscious metro-sexual with a sweet car, (that he can't afford). 

Man is showcased as presentation-- hiding behind cool specs and wearing skinny jeans, because he doesn't know what else to do. At least, that is the way he is portrayed in advertisements or by the baby-faced, interchangeable pseudo-stars of today. "Men" are Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, singer turned "actor" Justin Timberlake, or that other guy from the inexplicable tragedy of Magic Mike... hold on, I have to look up his name... Alex Pettyfer? Whatever. He's so boring that I would rather watch two retarded hippos have sex than see anything he's in. Pretty, pretty presentations... Some of them try so hard to act, to come across with actual guts, but most of them are just nice guys who are nice looking and that's it. When they imitate the strong men they grew up with, it comes across as insincere and a little pathetic. We're far too cynical to take any of them seriously. As such, they have replaced 1940s wartime pin-ups to become our modern bimbos, a total sexism boomerang effect.

Instinctively, contemporary men reject their actors as physical embodiments of their threatened emasculation, and are consequently left without what they deem to be true representatives, which is why they reject the options placed before them. There are some standouts. Ryan Gosling gets away with what he does due to his taste for intriguing material and his tendency to keep quiet and underplay. (Is it minimalism, or is it just not acting? At least he keeps things interesting). Ryan Reynolds and Bradley Cooper have genuine chops, but they aren't taken seriously enough to be idols. DiCaprio keeps killing it due to his genuine talent and eagerness to take risks. Still, while men respect him, no one man-crushes on him like they once did Cruise. Mark Wahlberg will always be Marky Mark, with or without his funky bunch. Even Brad Pitt's Fight Club sheen has tarnished behind the public campaign he always seems to be waging to be "Look, I'm the Nicest Guy EVER!"

No.

The amped up versions of masculinity presented in the sorry excuses for action films over the last decade-- which are so nondescript and cliched that I can't really think of one right now-- aren't authentic. We rely on Willis to reappear with Die Hard sequels, or Stallone to pull another Rambo or Rocky out of his back pocket. Yet, today's men aren't bodybuilders, because they are expected to be lean-- and not fighting machines, but sex objects. They also can't relate to Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson or Vin Diesel because they are beefy doofuses. In truth, audiences can only tolerate an action hero when he's a superhero, because these are mutants and real men don't feel that they are capable of superhero-dom right now-- not after what happened to us on 9/11. Real guys walking through fire or being shot to Hell and surviving don't make sense after witnessing bodies dropping from the Twin Towers and subsequently watching the economy bleed. Such fictions insult our intelligence. As such, when good looking guys with empty heads put on the cape (Superman Returns, 2006) we don't care. When an actor with actual ability does and the material is darker, we are more apt to get on board (Man of Steel, 2013). 

In contrast to Bruce Wayne, the Joker dives into
the chaos, as this is what has made him what
he is. His indulgence in it is his antipathy for it,
a fact many could certainly relate to.

In truth, the superhero marathon we're still lazily championing has another effect. Thanks mostly to Christopher Nolan's work in the latest Batman franchise, the fantasy world of these masked crusaders has become more interesting. Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is kind of an asshole in reality. He's self-obsessed. He loses the girl. His life is a self-inflicted curse... He has money, but what good does it do him? He consistently has to get out there and fight to defend his honor and save Gotham City, just as men put on their suits or khakis everyday and get out there and try to make a living and save the country from itself. Life sucks. Perhaps that is why people responded to Heath Ledger's joker with such passion... Being a hero isn't glamorous. It stinks. Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man could die at any moment, because of his defunct heart. The Hulk is the biggest loser ever and a bona fide freak. Thor lives on a boring planet that I wouldn't visit on my worst day. 

What is interesting about these films, aside from Captain America-- which didn't catch on because of the pretty boy problem-- is that the commendable acting when mixed with the machismo is what made all of its stars acceptable. Bale was an actor's actor before. People knew him as the guy from American Psycho. He puts on a cape, and suddenly he's the man. Downey became the comeback kid when he got clean and became Iron Man, going from public enemy number one to everyone's favorite movie star. If it weren't for Thor, there would be no Chris Hemsworth. He would have been one of the vanilla, interchangeable, revolving-door-duds on the cover of whatever constitutes today's internet "Tiger Beat." Similarly, everyone thought Matt Damon was a "pussy" until he became Jason Bourne. Men need the personifications of their complexities with a little flexing of muscle. They may not be he-men, but they're still men after all. Whatever "men" means these days...

Zach Galifianakis: modern hero lampooning
the superficiality of an industry that normally
wouldn't have him. Thank God for tough
times...

In truth, the biggest and most celebrated stars of today are the comedians-- coming full circle back to the silent comic days. Their modus operandi is different-- more vulgar and uncouth-- but losers who make us laugh are definitely on top in the industry game. Their masculine ineptitude gives men a cathartic sigh of relief from the pressures of contemporary narcissism and equally gives them permission to be a little screwed up right now. It's nice for them to see dudes just being "dudes." The appeal of the "Frat Pack" of Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and the Wilson brothers may have died down, but one of the most iconic, oft-quoted, and beloved characters of the current generation is Will Ferrell's Anchorman, Ron Burgandy. Zac Galifianakis is cleaning up with his pot-bellied, pot-smoking, supporting characters-- who coincidentally look like they rarely bathe and sound like they didn't pass the second grade. The new bro-from-another-ho-team of Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, and James Franco scored box office gold last year with This is the End. 

This does feel like the end, doesn't it? Everyone feels totally screwed, and seeing actors playing losers, degenerates, selfish bastards, and social retards reflects the feelings of total disorder that mankind experiences on a daily basis. Every day is like The Hangover. "What happened last night? What happened yesterday morning? The day before? What's happening now?! Where did my life go?!?!" The picket fence, the pie in the sky, the childhood home you grew up in, are all relics of a nonexistent society. The most we can do... is laugh. 

With the return of our modernized Tramps to the forefront, the masculine onscreen presence is as cryptic as it has ever been. The absence of movie stars with the instant accessibility of Netflix streaming has also done some damage, as there is no hugely adored prototype of Americana to latch onto and label as the new "He." We have gifted actors like Daniel Day-Lewis and Joaquin Phoenix who do compelling work every once in awhile; we have Hugh Jackman trying to be Wolverine and Russell Crowe trying to hang tough, but neither pull it off, because we heard them both sing. And "sing."

Jon Hamm has won an equally adoring male and female audience through his
performance as the mysterious and conflicted Don Draper on the "Mad Men" 
television series-- TV being much more influential than cinema these days. 
Of course, his character exists in another time, which brings the fascination 
into question. What does the "business man" really look like today? 
Are our working men no better than those portrayed in 
The Wolf of Wall Street?

As man searches for his masculinity in modernity, trying to find that balance between personal, emotional security, intellectual stimulation, and faith in his government, we may be at a point where we have outgrown such distinctive representations of Manliness. We live in a world of big box-office flops and unique, unpopular independent films, which present many interesting stories about the struggle to just hang on. With so many voices trying to be heard, there may be no need for fictional, pinnacle male models to do the heavy lifting for their living brothers. As our world opens up, it too disconnects us. We are all introverts living on Instagram. Our films, therefore, present a myriad of faces and slices of life: individuals not communities. It's a strange sort of limbo. Where it will lead artistically, I don't know. But wherever humanity goes, the cinematic male archetype is certain to follow.

TAKE ONE, TWO, THREE: The Lady is a Tramp

Some of our best films are adaptations of famous novels: Gone with the Wind, Double Indemnity, Ian Fleming's 007 Series, etc. During the Golden Studio Era, when a producer wanted a dramatic story with punch and passion, he turned to W. Somerset Maugham. Bette Davis had Maugham's genius to thank for two of her most popular roles in cinematic versions of both Of Human Bondage and The Letter. Gene Tierney embodied one of his venomous villainesses in The Razor's Edge. Greta Garbo behaved naughtily then piously for him in The Painted Veil. His work was written, adapted, then re-written and re-adapted several times throughout cinematic history, including re-makes of the aforementioned pieces. However, one particular story has been directed and performed in such vastly different and distinctive ways that it is well worth investigating. His tumultuous tale "Miss Thompson," later retitled "Rain," hit book stands in 1921 and enthralled readers around the world with its themes of sex, religion, and torrential downpour. It didn't take Hollywood long to smell an equally cinematic sensation, with emphasis on the "sin."

~     ~     ~

Gloria proves why she's a star in her Maugham piece.

The 1928 offering, silent film Sadie Thompson, stars none other than Gloria Swanson as the title character. Looking her most beautiful in a visually hypnotic film directed by Raoul Walsh, one's heart breaks with the knowledge that at this height of artistry, the land of sound was about to enter cinema and send us back to technological kindergarten. The movie opens aboard a boat docked in Pago Pago. One by one, we are introduced to the key characters, who are asked to write a quotation describing their outlook on life. Missionary Alfred Davidson (Lionel Barrymore) writes of the importance of "reform." His wife (Blanche Friderici) writes of "righteousness." Fellow passenger Dr. Angus McPhail (Charles Lane) writes of the importance of "tolerance." Finally, we meet the spunky Sadie, who offers her own personal rendition of, essentially, make love while the sun shines: "Smile, Bozo, smile!" From the outset, Walsh sets us up with the realization that this film is going to be about people and how their different outlooks and lifestyles can, at best, flavor life and, at worst, cause a dangerous friction that instigates natural disaster. The natural disaster in this film is rain, which, almost as soon as the boat docks, begins to shoot from the sky like daggers.

The whole company is forced to disembark and remain on the island of Tutuila, because the boat has been quarantined for small pox. The "plague" has arrived, but just who has brought it remains a mystery. When the main characters are thrown into closer contact at the lodgings of trader Joe Horn (James A. Marcus), Davidson becomes certain that the source is Sadie. A solemn meal between the Davidsons and Dr. & Mrs. McPhail is interrupted by the lively Sadie and her quickly made Marine friends, who play loud jazz music in her room and enjoy themselves in general. "Fun" and "Sin" are essentially synonyms to Davidson. When Sadie emerges from her bedroom, surrounded by the eager Marines, Davidson's eyes hit her with a ferocity that is difficult to describe as either hate, fear, or desire. Since we all preach the hardest against the things we fear the most, Davidson's creeping sexuality, as instigated by Sadie, evokes the missionary's wrath. He is certain that she is one of those "girls" from San Francisco. A prostitute! God knows, all sexual, lively women are whores, so he makes it his goal to "save her," or rather castrate her from her natural passion for life. (Gloria looks her man-eating loveliest, left).

Meanwhile, Sadie is having the time of her life, surrounded by fawning soldiers who haven't seen an American girl, nor one so gorgeous, in a long time. She cozies up quickly to Sgt. Tim O'Hara (Walsh in his last acting role, right), who is somehow different from the others. The duo don't draw up much heat, but they have an almost immediate rapport and affection that is real, if obviously more intensely felt by the male party. Sadie isn't heartless, though. She is heading away from a chaotic past to a respectable job offer at a steamship company. You can tell she's "been around" in the quiet moments that Walsh allows her to have-- alone in her room, she tries to brush off her dirty fur and counts the pins that she's saved from all the servicemen she's known. She doesn't add O'Hara's pin to her trophies, and because of this, we know he is already special to her. In this, we realize that the jovial front she puts on is an act... but not a total one. She possesses sadness but is not governed by it. She has hope-- a hope that lies across the sea in a better life. Davidson interprets this as ignorance. He even goes so far to say of the locals, "I actually have to teach them what sin is!" He, in effect, is the Devil, who comes into Eden and offers an apple of shame that no one was even hungry for. Is sin "sin" if no one's getting hurt? It is the missionary that enacts evil in this story.  We know this due to Barrymore's physical embodiment of sinister judgment. We too know that Sadie is a sainted Eve, if for no other reason than the monogram of her initials "ST" plastered across her breast. (In certain scenes it looks like she is sporting a tattoo as well, but I couldn't quite make it out).

Davidson comes to Sadie and offers her salvation, which she first tries to politely refuse (left) but then, insulted,  she rages against him in all her 4'11" fury-- and believe me, this pint-sized lady grows stories when she's provoked! He grabs her in a sexually dominating way, forcing her to her knees, and commands her to repent. Sadie refuses to take the bait, and Davidson thus connives with the local governor to have her deported back to San Francisco. O'Hara continues to step in as her knight in shining armor, offering her an even better dream of a life together in Sydney, but when she begs the governor to let her go to Australia instead of California, he holds firm. Without Davidson's blessing-- and his own political safety-- the governor cannot grant escape. Sadie is trapped. Another altercation ensues between Sadie and Davidson, and it comes out that Sadie cannot return to San Francisco, not just because of her promiscuous past, but because she has been implicated in a murder, of which she maintains her innocence. Davidson argues that she must return to California, and thus prison, to suffer for her sins. For this, Sadie calls him a "hypocrite" who has no concept of how she has already suffered.

Then, the shift. Sadie returns angrily to her room, alone, without her music or Marine friends to distract her. Outside, the rain continues to pour, and through her window, it looks like she is on board a sinking ship as the water beats against her window. Walsh produces a fantastic, terrifying fantasy sequence, in which Sadie imagines herself imprisoned-- without freedom, the flame of her life is snuffed out. Overcome with fear, she howls up to Mr. Davidson as if from the bowels of Hell, and he comes to her again with his demands of repentance. Struck by his power in her vulnerable state, she finally submits to him. Gone is the lively woman of vim and vigor; in her place is a penitent nun, who throws her make-up and baubles away. Davidson now has complete control, and he thrives on it. Sadie will return to San Francisco and fulfill his self-professed prophecy as the new Son of Man. O'Hara tries to win Sadie back to her senses, begging her to come with him to Sydney, but her head is so confused that she isn't certain which angel whispering in her ear is the good or the bad (right). She chooses Davidson.

The erotic charge of Barrymore during these final scenes is electric. Sadie is his triumph. He has annihilated her light and made it his own. It excites him. He tells her that she no longer has to return to San Francisco, but when she still opts for spiritual salvation, it only increases his desire. She has become his Saint, his great treasure. He wants her, and he savagely takes her-- behind closed doors, of course. Rape is about power, domination, and submission. Sadie was a sexual threat to Davidson, and he has finally had his vengeance, but the price is his soul. After this great betrayal, Barrymore's dead body is pulled ashore in a fishing net, feet first, and it is reported that he has killed himself by slitting his own throat. Cut to Sadie, who has reverted completely back to her old self-- dressed to the gills and referring to men as "Pigs!" She has paid the price for her blind faith, for it was not in God but in a man with a God complex. She is disgusted with herself and with the traitor that manipulated her out of her reason and her strength. Yet, when she hears that Davidson has killed himself, she shows that she still possesses the humanity that Davidson tried to steal, for she pities him. She forgives him for his sins, an ability that the self-professed spiritual man lacked-- he did not show her such kindness. Sadie, as the true Saint, is rewarded for her compassion and goodness-- a lamb in wolves' clothing-- and she is able to sail off into the sunset to Sydney, where she will await Sgt. O'Hara and their heavenly life together.

This has been hailed as the greatest adaptation of Maugham's classic, and after watching it, one can understand why. The poetry and vitality of the visual artistry and the impassioned performances of Barrymore and Swanson in particular are perfect in their beauty and horror. The story was too good to let go of, however. In 1932, before the production code came creeping in, there was another chance to interpret this story and explore it in a new, and hopefully bolder, way.

The tigress peers out from her jungle.

The film this time would be titled Rain, and from the get-go, we see why. The film's opening is filled with ominous storm clouds and threatening bullets of rain that interrupt the serenity of placid, crystal surfaces with chaotic splashes and ripples. The violent storm increases, and the earth is turned to mud, as the Marines sludge through and make quickly disappearing tracks. The theme this time is therefore an investigation of nature itself, or rather how human nature mirrors that of the natural world. Human beings are simply the vessels of their own private storms-- disasters waiting to happen. For this reason, when we meet the prime characters for the first time, they are all faceless. Instead, we are met with their passports and the sounds of their voices, which are indicators enough. Mrs. Davidson is a bit stuffy, Dr. McPhail seems pleasant, and this time, Mr. Davidson, played superbly by Walter Huston, too doesn't seem like an all-out villain. He makes polite conversation, and when the camera reveals him for the first time, he stands in stark contrast to the always maniacally vibrating Barrymore of the former film. For this reason, his character will be more fascinating to watch. His self-destruction becomes more of an inner battle, so deeply is he steeped in self-denial-- the denial of his primal self.

Sadie's entrance is, of course, the most important. We see her hands grasp the edges of her cabin door one at a time, both bedecked with garish, spangled bracelets. Then her two feet emerge from the door, heeled and wide apart in a warrior stance. Then, we see her face, and Dear Greek God, is it scary! This is not the lightly flitting Gloria Swanson-- vibrant but delicate-- of the past film; this is Joan Crawford in the beginning of her transformation from the delicate ingenue of her youth to the protective mask of exaggerated eyebrows and lips that we see in her later career (left). Lipstick is smeared across her mouth in a giant, clowning frown  (allegedly her idea), and her large eyes are emphasized by the thick lashes that weigh down the lids of her world-weary peepers. This woman, with cigarette planted firmly in her mouth, is tired. Tired of it all. She's not putting on any pretenses. This world is bull sh*t, and she knows it. She can barely even summon the strength to open her mouth to form words, but instead communicates in deep-throated mumbles and slurs. But, all in all, she's not a bad gal. She still makes nice with the people that are nice to her, like the Marines and Horn, the latter played comically by Guy Kibbee. But she still knows her place. When the quarantine (for cholera) keeps her ashore, she personally quarantines herself in her room, away from the religious Davidsons whom she knows want no part of her.

The same moment of introduction between cat and mouse occurs. Sadie makes a ruckus in her room, and at first, the more forgiving Davidson, as played by Huston, makes little of it in a "Live and let live" kind of way. But then... he sees her. Sadie exits her room with her gang of soldiers, and Davidson peers over his shoulder, taking her in deeply and slowly. Here, his anger is not as abruptly ignited as Barrymore's; instead, Sadie's image is subtly impregnated in his soul, and it will take time for Davidson's fear of her and his own desires to give birth to the wrath that is to come. The supporting cast is given more life here. Horn and McPhail have many conversations about how hypocritical the world is, including Horn's decision to retreat "back to nature," because of the restrictions of more civilized life. McPhail too, though nasally played by Kendall Lee, is vocal in his dislike of Davidson's "Thou shalt not enjoy thyself" viewpoint. Sadie's suitor is unfortunately played by William Gargan, an overgrown child who comes across as a doofus (right)-- no match for the man's man that Walsh portrayed in the previous film. At no point in time is it clear why a worldly dame like Sadie is even interested in this O'Hara, except perhaps to amuse herself at his ignorance.

In many ways, this film falls far short of its predecessor. Despite some impressive camera-work and brilliant cinematography, the film becomes steeped in camp and is proof of why Joan Crawford remains the cult classic leading lady she is. (Perhaps this is why director Lewis Milestone remained uncredited???). The movie's salvation comes via the performances of the two leads and the slow way they wrap around each other in their various attempts at manipulation, the clincher being that Sadie does not know until too late that she is the mouse and Davidson the snake. You have to hand it to Joan that beneath her overdone appearance, her luminous eyes still convey the despair her exterior seeks to hide. Initially, Davidson approaches Sadie with stoic control and alleged compassion when he offers the gift of her salvation. Sadie takes the opportunity to both show her truly vulnerable self and to hopefully use this man's kindness to her advantage. Yet, she is unable to seduce him with either her sexiness or girlishness the way she is the other guys (left); Davidson is not enticed by feminine power but by the destruction of it. The only person that seems aware of the danger to come is Mrs. Davidson (Beulah Bondi), who early on sees her husband mark his prey and says: "I wouldn't be in that girl's shoes for anything in the world." This statement echoes in the ears-- what evils has she seen in her husband already? 

Again, Davidson tries to woo Sadie to the Lord, which she finds comical at first, but when he starts making those threats of deportation, her anger rears its head. The low-angle/high-angle camera shots emphasize the growing power of Davidson over the weakening Sadie, who first promises to behave and be "quiet as a mouse," if he promises to leave her alone, but later retaliates against his attempts to possess her soul: "You want another scalp!" She sees that despite appearances, he is the true savage. She won't submit and refuses to fall to her knees before him. Both are wild beasts battling their natures out-- their need for independence and control. The rain outside becomes even more isolating during their epic battles, as if it more thoroughly needs to wash away whatever violence is being incurred, but so deep are the implications that it cannot easily remove the stains. As Sadie's self-conviction cools, her normally sound reason and bull sh*t detector start to malfunction. Her will is weakening, and soon the obvious signs of Davidson's evil are not so easily read. They intimidate her into obedience instead of defense. After she asks the ineffectual McPhail for help, she strolls around Horn's porch and is greeted with the shadows of Davidson and his wife. They are praying. It is horrifying. Horn's wife refers to Davidson as a "witch doctor." They are dangerous, shadow people, and most certainly not of God.

Finally, Davidson's great, orgasmic moment comes. After he confronts Sadie for her early days of whoring in Honolulu and demands that she return to face her jail time, she defies him only to be met by his cold stance and steely voice spitting out the Lord's prayer (right). Despite herself, she finds herself mouthing his words like a puppet. As he stands on the stairs before her, she falls to her knees, and in the throes of ecstasy, his hands reach out to brace the banisters on either side of him. Herein they consummate their relationship as tutor and pupil. The fumbling O'Hara returns to help, but his innocent, baby-like nature is no match for Sadie's defeated she-wolf nor Davidson's tyrannical control over her. Sadie is such a devotee at this point that when not in Davidson's presence, she is lifeless-- although much better looking without all that make-up. Whenever Davidson appears, Sadie animates, her eyes growing large and soaking in the wonder of her true God-- the only man who dared to lead her back to righteousness. (One is reminded of the mutated loyalties of the Manson family). What follows this allegiance is their final, fateful meeting, where all of Sadie's faith in him, and man in general, is crushed. Watching the locals perform their tribal songs, the pounding of the drums sounds out Davidson's own lust and leads him back to Sadie's door, where-- after offering her freedom-- she instead chooses to remain his disciple. As the boat to San Francisco approaches, it looks more like a menacing shark aka Jaws than Sadie's vehicle to salvation, but she still wants to take it. In refusing escape, she has passed the final test and sealed her doom. Now barely unable to contain himself, Davidson follows the unsuspecting Sadie into her bedroom-- walking through the doorway of beads like a man entering the jungle of his own torment. We are left to imagine the example of vengeful lust that occurs.

The result is the same. Milestone copies Walsh's retrieval of Davidson's body from the ocean. O'Hara rushes to Sadie, hoping that she will now consent to go with him to Sydney. We have come full circle. Sadie emerges from her doorway as in the beginning, with both hands clutching violently to the frame, her feet stepping out, and her gawdy-awful face telling us that she has returned to the world of "Pigs!" But, she too forgives Davidson his trespasses when she learns of his sad fate. His sacrificial act reminds her of the last vestige of her own humanity. As the rain dries up, the sun pours in. The evil in man's nature has been destroyed and the good has triumphed. For this reason, Sadie can escape to Sydney with O'Hara (though why, I can hardly imagine.) The world has been wiped clean. The End is a The Beginning of a new world, one where Goodness is the true measure of Godliness. Though a slightly hack-job of a film, this one is worth seeing for all Joan devotees and those who love good-bad movies.

Rita Hayworth's Sadie tries to muck it as best she can in a land of men.

As the opening credits started to role on 1953's Miss Sadie Thompson, I feared that things were only going to get worse in the world of Maugham. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Curtis Bernhardt's take on the Sadie saga. You can hardly blame me for my initial misgivings. The film opens with footage of beaches, palm trees, and jovial harmonica music. Immediately, I was certain that I was about to see some sort of Beach Blanket Bingo meets Gidget fiasco. Then, Bernhardt pulls the switch. The source of the music is found to be a lonesome Marine, soon joined by three of his fellow soldiers, including Phil O'Hara (Aldo Ray), who come out of the ocean after a swim looking more perturbed than happy. Pvt. Edwards (a delightfully menacing Charles Bronson) spits a mouthful of water right into the musician's face with a contemptuous smile. The message is clear: all is not well in paradise. We too get a bit of the age-old idiom "Boys with be boys." And that is exactly what this film is about: Men-- their nature, their desires, their makeups, and their variations. When Sadie Thompson (Rita Hayworth) comes riding up on a speed-boat from her soon quarantined ship, the local soldiers surround her like hungry apes beating their chests. It's been years since they've seen an American girl. They're horny, what can ya' say?

Rita's Sadie is not intimidated. In fact, she thrives on the overpowering male energy. She loves being the belle of the ball, and she knows how to use her sexuality to get what she wants. But she's not vindictive or malicious. In fact, she's a sweetheart. While sensual, her attention to the boys is more motherly than anything else. She wants to make them happy, and she literally sprinkles sunshine wherever she goes. For this reason, the men continue to fight over her, but O'Hara, who looks more like her son than a suitable lover, begins paying particular, protective attention. The thing is, Sadie needs no protection nor help from anyone. She's got this racket cornered. This is Hayworth in one of her best performances. Gone is the big-eyed girl of musical comedies. Here, she is a woman. Sweaty, unapologetic, dominant, and even a bit trashy, she is always confident and in control. Men throw her around on the dance floor like a ragdoll, but she pushes them away and playfully takes center stage in "This is how it's done, boys," fashion (left). She sings and dances alone (yes, it's a musical), both maintaining their desire for her and her power over them. Her independence is too illuminated financially. Whenever someone offers to pay for something, she says that she "always pays her own way." She's not looking for handouts, and she too protects her new friends, whom she doesn't want to see get into trouble for her sake. None of the men see her resilience, of course. They see a pair of legs, a possession, or a sweet little thing, depending on the guy.Their egos continually deny her identity. She lets them respond as they will and exists in her own phenomenal, private universe. This woman has clearly lived a life, but she still has spirit. Whenever a bad situation should rear its head, she offers up an old Japanese saying, "Pft, I should care!"

She should care, because this spark plug quickly acquires the disapproving attention of Davidson, this time played by Jose Ferrer. We see more fully that the source of the world's problems lie with the faults of man and his near-sightedness. Tragedy doesn't enter the picture until Davidson's eyes land on Sadie, who this time is flirting with the Marines at a local substitute for a bar. Right after Davidson's sexual gaze hits Sadie, the rain starts. He, like the others, doesn't see "Miss Sadie Thompson," he sees a sexual play-thing-- one that intimidates his religious laws and his own lust. Unlike Joan's Sadie, who feared the Davidson crowd, or Gloria's, who was ambivalent toward it, Rita's Sadie is welcoming. She makes no apologies for who she is-- life is a party and everyone is invited! She's making a fresh start and nothing is going to trip her up. We do see quiet moments of reflection in her. For example, when the Marines bring up The Emerald Club of Honolulu, the same place from whence Sadie is fleeing, she grows quiet, distant, then snippy. But, any past transgressions are not dwelled upon in length. Sadie wipes unhappiness away like dust off her shoulder. In an early, short song, Sadie sings about the classic three monkeys who "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil." This is a policy she lives by, perhaps too strongly. She shuts her eyes to the past and her own flaws, as well as the evil intentions of others. This is a feeling Hayworth could totally identify with, since compartmentalization was the source of her own personal survival. Davidson lives by the same policy, except to "see no evil" he simply seeks to destroy anything he deems evil so that he doesn't run the risk of seeing it anymore. Thus, Sadie is his mark-- he must kill her to kill his own desire. In this way, he shuts his eyes instead of allowing them to absorb the whole picture. (The duo have their first confrontation, right).

Not all the men on the island are bad guys. Mr. Horn (Harry Bellaver) and Dr. McPhail (Russell Collins) are both wise men who have evolved past primal urges to a place of reason and compassion. They have seen the world, sewn wild oats, admitted their flaws, and embraced them. They have nothing to run from, thus they do not see Sadie as a threat. They are humanly protective, whereas the other men are brutal. They look at her as a daughter as opposed to a sexual toy. Dr. McPhail jumps to Sadie's defense constantly against Davidson in some (often too-on-the-nose) dialogue about the battle between Davidson's invented faith and sense of "wrong" and McPhail's ironically more subjective, scientific reasoning. Even O'Hara is a kind of villain in his immaturity. He tries, very unstealthily, to get into Sadie's pants (left), but he's at least got enough manners to take "no" as an gentleman. Ray is not wholly bad in the role, and his screechy voice mixed with his fighter's physique makes his overgrown boy quite believable if not wholly desirable. Sadie is trapped in the wilderness with all these men and their green uniforms, and it is only her charm and wit that keep her from becoming dinner. But she cannot forever evade Davidson, who first chastises her for going out alone with the Marines, where she will be the only "white" woman (gasp), and later confronts her about her Emerald Club days.

In film, women are constantly made to pay the price for male sexuality. In this case, Sadie is the sacrificial lamb (her attempts to cool off only serve to turn up the heat, right). After she refuses to repent to Davidson, she is humiliated by man's hypocrisy. O'Hara tries, again unsuccessfully, to come to her rescue (oh, the vanity of the male ego), only to be met with the news from Davidson's mouth that Sadie was one of those "Honolulu girls." Sadie knows what is coming, and in waiting for O'Hara's return, she bursts into violent tears, which her "hear no evil" mentality fights to contain. When he returns to her, weathered and angry, she returns his gaze like a drowning flower, steeling herself for a final submergence. One piece of truth, one bite of knowledge, and O'Hara's love for her is destroyed, and his offer of Sydney is off the table. When Sadie resisted O'Hara's earlier sexual advances, he rewarded her chastity with an offer of marriage, but now that he knows she is "dirty," he turns his back on her. Such is the female plight. We must continually avoid the minefield of male sexual tests: if you submit, you get to have sex but lose the ring, and if you're good, you get to marry but probably won't have any fun. Davidson's deep embarrassment comes with the fact that this game was twisted on him, and he ignorantly gave his heart to a whore. This was totally her fault, of course, and now she must suffer. This confrontation evokes from Rita one of her most painful onscreen moments. She tells O'Hara  that when he fell for her, she felt like he was an angel from heaven sent "to take [her] by the hand," but now he slaps that hand away. After being treated like scum by yet another man, her faith in all men is crushed, until Davidson strategically uses the opportunity to accept the hand O'Hara shunned. In effect, this battle over Sadie was a possessive one, with both Davidson and O'Hara trying clumsily to mark their territory. When Davidson wins and enters into his prayers about "thy rod and thy staff," the phallic implications are clear.

After Davidson alters Sadie into the softer student of his enforced rhetoric, he yet again becomes unable to contain his inner, carnal howl. The erotic music and dancing of the locals sends him back to Sadie's door. She has received word that O'Hara is "sorry" and that he still wants her to go to Sydney and wait for him, but it is too late. She has seen the monster in him and cannot forget. Her savior Davidson arrives and again tells her that she is free to go if she wants, but she accepts her fate and the boat back to prison. Turned on, Davidson draws nearer: finally, she is his. Or is she? She draws back when he begins purring in her ear, which erupts his ego-- an echo of the fact that they are on a volcanic island. "Are you scared of me?!" Rejecting him sexually only serves to awaken all of his repressed urges-- apparently he doesn't yet hold all the cards, which is why he jumps to rape to claim final domination and control. This rape scene is the most graphic of all three movies, with Ferrer pouncing on a writhing Hayworth and knocking her to the floor, where one desperate hand claws at a curtain. Her red nails scream violence before the camera fades to black.

The next day, O'Hara rushes to Horn's place to tell Sadie the news of Davidson's suicide, hoping that she has not yet left on the boat. At first, she appears to be gone, but then the sound of hopping music can be heard coming from her room. Not only is she still there, but the real Sadie is back. She wants no piece of O'Hara at first, partly because he humiliated and rejected her, but mostly because she was just raped by another-- yet again-- "Pig!" Then, Davidson's suicide reawakens the mother in her, and she is left with feelings of pity, which counteract her anger. Here is the film's dividing line between men and women. Women are born knowing or willing to know-- hence Eve's embrace of the apple. Men resist learning-- knowing-- because it puts restrictions on their thoughtless actions. It takes longer for them to be schooled. Women, like Sadie, can compromise, adjust to times and circumstances, and give themselves sacrificially as martyrs when necessary, but men take longer to get to the same place. Davidson learned his lessons too late, and his final sacrifice was his life. O'Hara has luckily caught up. His childish illusions of right and wrong, virgin and whore, have been eradicated, and in their place is truth. True emotion and regret grow from this, and now he is wizened like the Doctor and Horn. He is a man that can offer himself and his unwavering support to Sadie. Sex is no longer a dangerous line between them, but-- one hopes-- an act that will finally bring them closer together. As Sadie rides off to Sydney, the audience is left hoping that these two will meet again, bite into this apple of fuller human knowledge together, and be rewarded instead of shamed.

"The Heat is On!" Hayworth takes center stage in the movie's big number,

and proves that she can act.

Maugham said he was proud that it was in an adaptation of one of his books that Rita Hayworth proved that she could act. And boy did she! From the moment she steps ashore, she is a three-dimensional, complicated woman who runs the gamut of emotions and back again. Proud, strong, ashamed, weak, angry, sorrowful, and fully alive, Rita Hayworth makes Sadie completely her own with no stone left unturned in her resistant, then repentant, then redeemed soul. The film, post-code, was quite scandalous, especially in its originally released 3D form, and it was banned in several states after it was defamed by-- you guessed it-- religious groups. Clearly, they didn't take the moral of the story to heart. All three films are fascinating investigations of morality, judgment, sexuality, hypocrisy, and the pain that comes with maturity-- life is no fairy tale. Human beings are destructive beings that seek to destroy themselves or each other when life becomes too confusing, too difficult to box-in or label, or too tempting. Does one obey the rules or break them to obtain happiness? Which solution offers the true Eden? The only answer these films seem to offer is not to jump to conclusions-- not to judge "lest ye be judged." You never know: sometimes the Whore at whom you cast stones just may be the Virgin.