Rating: 
Summary: A unique Joan Crawford portrayal
Review: When I bought my first VCR back in the mid-1980s, the first commercial tape I purchased was a cheapie of "Rain." I knew nothing about the story line and not much more about Joan Crawford other than "Mildred Pierce" and how she had been portrayed in "Mommie Dearest." While the tape was only of medium quality (I would later buy both better and worse from the same company), it was good enough to enthrall me with the film."Rain" tells one of those timeless stories that still has a lot to say to audiences today: missionary succeeds in reforming sinful woman but then succumbs to her charms. It had already been filmed as a silent with Gloria Swanson and would later be made into a color film with songs starring Rita Hayworth. Jules Massenet's opera "Thais" has a very similar plot line. Joan Crawford made this film at a time when she was mainly playing ambitious shopgirls clawing their way to the top. "Rain," for which MGM loaned her out after her big success with "Grand Hotel," was a very different kettle of fish than her usual 1930s heroine and gives her a chance to really stretch herself. Made up more than Gloria Swanson or Rita Hayworth ever thought of being, Joan's performance is similarly over-the-top but fascinating. Our first view of her begins preparing us for her portrayal: the camera first shows, one at a time, her two jewelry-bedecked wrists, then her two high-heeled-shod feet, and then finally her face, cigarette dangling from her mouth, and we have no doubt as to the kind of woman we are looking at. And to hear her as she speaks her first word, "Boys," is to understand why she thought her voice had been dubbed in by a man the first time she heard herself in a talkie test. Sadie is vulnerable almost from her first appearance onscreen, asking for a room in the little hotel in Pago Pago because she has no money, and explaining, Flaemmchen-like, that she doesn't eat very much. And William Gargan as O'Hara, the innocent young sailor who is smitten with her from the first time he sees her, recognizes her sweet, gentle quality, calling her a "lady," much to the delight of his friends. And Joan's softer side responds to his innocent quality, as she chooses O'Hara (whom she calls "Handsome") over the other men. Walter Huston, the Reverend Mr. Davidson, is Sadie's nemesis. His role is a little more one-dimensional, but he plays the cold, unflinching and ultimately all-too-human preacher very convincingly. He does manage to garner at least some sympathy, both because of his suicide and especially as compared to his extremely self-righteous wife, played by Beulah Bondi (when I first saw Beulah Bondi's sympathetic portrayal of James Stewart's mother in "It's a Wonderful Life," I had a difficult time believing such polar opposites could be played by the same actress). The turning point in the film is Sadie's conversion from sinner to penitent, and here it falls a little bit short. But this is a fault of the script itself rather than the actors: Sadie's actual conversion happens with very little motivation, so it is difficult to take seriously. But even if Joan is not up to the challenge of making Sadie's conversion believable (I don't know that anybody else would be, either), she more than compensates for it when she tells O'Hara how she doesn't know why she chosen to be saved, she only knows she was. This for me is the single most memorable moment of the film. And she is equally great when she says, after learning of Davidson's death, "now I can forgive him" (shades of Puccini's Tosca). Much has been made of director Lewis Milestone's camera tricks, but what I really love about his direction is how he introduces any number of interesting little contrasts and parallels. For example, while the Christians read the Bible, pray, and yet display no sympathy for the plight of others, Guy Kibbee, as the sympathetic proprietor of the hotel who has helped Sadie when she had no place to stay, reads writings by the atheist Nietzsche. And while our first view of Sadie is by way of her wrists and feet, our last view of Davidson is by way of his feet, washing up onshore after he has remorsefully cut his throat. The quality of this DVD reflects a marked improvement over the VHS tape I have owned for years, with strong contrasts in shading between light and dark. There is very little on the DVD in the way of extra features: separate listings of the cast and credits, and that's about it. "Rain" remains to this day one of my favorite movies. And I give it five stars because of the story line, still relevant almost 70 years later, the wonderful portrayal by Crawford, ably assisted by a srong supporting cast, and the greatly improved technical quality of the film.
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