As a fan of the classic black and white films, some of my favorites come from the pre-code era. Rain, a 1932 pre-code film that stars screen icons Joan Crawford and Walter Huston to me is an overlooked gem. Rain is a movie that has been made a few times, including a 1928 silent film entitled Sadie Thompson that stars Gloria Swanson and a 1953 version called Miss Sadie Thompson starring the legendary Rita Hayworth. But in my opinion, Rain is the best of the three!

In this film, Joan Crawford (Sadie Mckee, Mildred Pierce, The Damned Don’t Cry) stars as Sadie Thompson, a prostitute who is stranded on Pago Pago due to an outbreak of cholera on the ship she was travelling on. Also on the island is a missionary, Alfred Davidson (Walter Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dodsworth, The Devil and Daniel Webster), his wife and some marines happen to be stationed on the island. They are all residing in a local resort run by Joe Horn (Guy Kibbee, Lady for a Day, Captain Blood). While there Sadie meets and later falls for Sergeant Tim O’Hara (William Gargan, The Misleading Lady) who also reciprocates and wants to marry her.  Sadie, who drinks with the troops and acts in ways that are apparently inappropriate to the religious zealot Davidsons gets into a bitter argument about her lifestyle, and philosophical differences ultimately leading to Alfred Davidson wanting to ‘save’ Sadie’s soul from her sins and reform her into something “decent”! But even Alfred’s overly religious demeanor gets put to the test with Sadie. And yes, this all happens during a nasty rainstorm!

Rain is my favorite edition of the Sadie Thompson films due to the outstanding acting by the two leads, Joan Crawford and Walter Huston who have great chemistry as rivals and have a lot of rich dialogue exchanges. The other actors in the film all hand in professional performances. Because this movie was filmed during the pre-code era, it meant anything goes without much in the way of censorship.

Lewis Milestone’s Rain receives a Blu-ray release courtesy of VCI Entertainment. It has been given brand-new 4K restoration and is the uncut 94-minute version. I can easily say that the picture quality for Rain looks fantastic. Details to the black and white image are stunning and is a bit of a revelation. The video offers a nice, clean polished look to it with no vertical lines or print damages outside of a few speckles here and there. The greyscale looks balanced with bold whites and dark blacks to compliment the image. Close-ups of the actors’ faces boast a lot of detail. Film grain is present throughout and no usage of DNR appears to have been applied.

For the audio, VCI has gone with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, and the audio sounds clear with music and dialogue coming in clearly without drop-offs or hissing. The dialogue is easy to understand with none of the sounds not being overpowering or too timid. English subtitles are available for this release.

Extras for this release include a pair of commentary tracks. One audio commentary features Mick LaSalle, film historian and writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. The other track is with writer and film historian Richard Barrios. Each commentary offers a wealth of information about the film and the cast.

There is also a booklet which feature liner notes reprinted from Views & Reviews Magazine by author and film historian, Jon Tuska.

This release even offers and alternate opening title and credits sequence from the eighteen minutes shorter version for those that are interested. The image for this is okay with the audio being the best and strongest part. For me it is more of curiosity piece.  

Finally, there is a trailer, a Poster and Photo Gallery, a Betty Boop cartoon called Poor Cinderella and a Newsreel that rounds out the extras.

Fans of Rain can now dispose of the public domain, lousy image quality DVDs, even the release by the Roan Group can be retired now that we have this superb Blu-ray. Given a vast number of extras to go with the excellent audio and video quality, I can easily recommend this release from VCI Entertainment!

Rain (1932 Film)

Director- Lewis Milestone

Cast- Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Guy Kibbee

Country of Origin- USA

Distributor – VCI Entertainment

Number of Discs – 1

Reviewed by – David Steigman

Date –9/20/2022