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More than anything, Raoul Walsh enjoys seizing a yarn by the neck and wringing a juicy joke out of it. The South Seas backdrop is established with a spacious stroke or two, W. Somerset Maugham's characters are introduced via calligraphy: "Those reforming Davidsons" (Lionel Barrymore, Blanche Friderici) jot down notes of damnation, the affable MacPhails (Charles Lane, Florence Midgley) pen a lament for lost tolerance, Sadie Thompson (Gloria Swanson) scribbles a hard-boiled jest. In plumed hat, parasol and frowsy furs, the gal from San Francisco becomes the center of masculine attention in the island; the wrathful Bible-thumper demands atonement, threatens deportation, succumbs to lust. "Scarlet woman!" "So's your Aunt Abbie!" As with What Price Glory, the staginess of the narrative is animated with a steady flow of vigor and a casually inventive use of space—when the Marines gather around as Sadie recounts a saucy anecdote, the camera expands the frame by panning right to reveal Sgt. O'Hara (Walsh himself, jaunty and strapping pre-eyepatch) listening in, then further right as she good-naturedly pushes him away with the tip of her umbrella. Whether swirling her dress after being caught in the rain or cursing out the pulpit hypocrite, the heroine runs the gamut of charm and fury. Her "redemption" comes out of fear and exhaustion, the horror of a party girl who warbles along to her gramophone converted into zombified piety. The urge in the darkened room, the corpse in the fishing net. "Life is a quaint present from somebody..." The lost final reel has been restored with stills, confirming Walsh's chivalry and Swanson's triumphant fierceness. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |