Sadie McKee
- Joan Crawford: Sadie McKee
- Gene Raymond: Tommy Wallace
- Esther Ralston: Dolly
- Edward Arnold: Jack Brennan
Sadie McKee is an American feature film starring Joan Crawford, directed by Clarence Brown from 1934. The film is a good example of the excellent production values that were MGM available.
Action
Sadie McKee is working together with her mother as a maid for a wealthy family Alderson. The son of her employer, Michael Alderson, Sadie loves, even from his childhood. Preventing the class differences that he confesses his feelings. One day the naive Sadie learns to frivolous playboy Tommy Wallace know. Both burn through to New York, where it is found quickly, what a windy character Tommy in reality. Just when Sadie goes out of the house to make an appointment with the registrar's office, Tommy Dolly is seduced, a vaudeville artist. As Sadie happily returns home from the registrar's office, Tommy is up and away with Dolly already. Sadie is hit hard, but life goes on and she takes the job as a dancer in a nightclub. A short time later, she learns one of the guests, the alcoholic millionaire Jack Brennan, know that Sadie stands by against a pushy suitor. Brennan falls in love with Sadie and both get married. The first few months of marriage went well. Sadie tries to dissuade Jack from his drunkenness. But one evening in an elegant club, Sadie meets again to Tommy, which lists a number Revue with Dolly. Between the two it transmits again. Just when Sadie is ready to leave Jack, she learns of the doctor that he had to live only six months if he does not stop immediately with drinking. Sadie takes on the task and actually manages to cure her husband of his addiction. Suddenly Michael Alderson stands in the doorway. He loves Sadie, but Tommy loves that has been abandoned by Dolly in the meantime. After some back and forth takes Sadie Tommy, who dies immediately afterwards in her arms from tuberculosis. Finally Sadie brings order to her emotional life. She leaves Jack and finds happiness and security for Michael.
Background
Joan Crawford was yet at silent film days as a performer exuberant girl called Flapper in a series of light romances to fame. At the beginning of 1930 she was able to consolidate its status as a star by the role change towards heroine tearful melodramas. Most Crawford was seen as an ambitious woman who copes with the adverse circumstances under its own power, thus creating the social advancement and / or won by obstinacy her happiness with a man against any prejudice. After 1933, the actress specializing in the representation of wealthy women who experienced the romantic entanglements between two men and in the end finds true happiness, preferably in the arms of Clark Gable. Sadie McKee is a typical example of this produced a lot of effort films. Crawford lived through the emotional crisis in a never-ending succession of spectacular costumes of MGM chief designer Gilbert Adrian with ever- changing hairstyles and most opulent studio backdrops, all of which were designed by Cedric Gibbons. The camera work lends the scenes by the MGM preferred soft skylight in a luxurious, soft drawn aura of prosperity and solidity.
Sadie McKee wat Crawford's third film with Franchot Tone, who had already played in Today We Live and I dance for you in supporting roles at her side. Here it is the first time the man who is with Crawford at the end at the altar. The two actors had at the time already an affair that actually led to a marriage in 1935. In the film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962 sits Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson, a former movie star who is now confined to a wheelchair, watching television and sees one of her old successes on television. The cutouts used here are from Sadie McKee.
The actress was with themselves and their representation even decades later at peace, as they confessed to Roy Newquist:
" ' Everything in " Sadie McKee " was right - Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone, the script, the direction of Clarence Brown, Adrian's costumes. "
Theatrical Release
The film came in the national rental on 9 May 1934. Cost of 612,000 U.S. dollars made from Sadie McKee an exceptionally expensive MGM production. He played in the U.S. with 838,000 U.S. dollars significantly less of a success than the previous one I dance for you, or a short time later Come in the rental movie in golden chains. With the foreign income of 464,000 dollars and a cumulative total profit of 1,302,000 U.S. dollars, the studio was able to realize a lower than average for a Crawford film profit of 226,000 U.S. dollars at the end.
Reviews
Most critics were sympathetic to the stars, but criticized a certain illogic and banality of the script.
Marguerite Tazelaar -reviewed Sadie McKee for the New York Herald Tribune:
"Mr. Brown has served in his direction a emotionality that are equally promoted the film as it hinders him. It helps to make the story more exciting, lively and stimulating. You hampered by the fact that it emphasizes the flaws in the logic of the story, the confusion and artificiality. [ ... ]. Miss Crawford seems a bit miscast in the role of naive innocence, but it provides an excellent job as Sadie, and is in some scenes even moving. "
The industry publication Hollywood Reporter came straight to the point:
" Well made film [ ... ] perfectly well tailored for the audience [ ... ] on the talents of Miss Crawford [ ... ] the substance, after the fans want [ ... ] a blast for the female fans. "
Sources and literature used
- Roy Newquist (ed.): Conversations with Joan Crawford. Citadel Press, Secaucus, N. J. 1980, ISBN 0-8065-0720-9
- Lawrence J. Quirk: The Complete Films of Joan Crawford. Citadel Press, Secaucus, N. J. 1988, ISBN 0-8065-1078-1
- Alexander Walker: Joan Crawford. The Ultimate Star. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1983, ISBN 0-297-78216-9