Sadie McKee (1934)

Sadie McKee is a 1934 MGM production starring Joan Crawford. It’s a pre-code movie. It just made the cut. Had it come out a week or two later it would have been subject to the Production Code. And there are quite a few moments that would definitely not have been permitted under the Code.

Joan Crawford is Sadie, a servant in the household of the extremely rich Alderson family.

Young Michael Alderson and Sadie had had a bit of a childhood crush on each other but of course nothing came of it. She is a servant after all.

Sadie is crazy in love with Tommy Wallace (Gene Raymond). She thinks he’s just swell. But Tommy has to leave town after being caught thieving at his factory job.

In a fit of hopeless romantic passion Sadie decides to go with Tommy to New York. This leads to several very pre-code moments. They find a room to rent. They’re not married so of course Tommy will sleep on the couch. But he doesn’t. They share the bed. And it’s made quite obvious that they don’t share it chastely. But it’s OK, because tomorrow they’ll get married.

There’s trouble in store, in the apartment next door, in the form of Dolly Merrick (Esther Ralston). She’s a night-club singer. She’s glamorous but she’s a cheap blonde and an obvious man-eater. And Tommy has caught her eye. She steals Tommy from Sadie with contemptuous ease.

Now Sadie is stuck in New York and she’s broke. Until she meets Jack Brennan (Edward Arnold). He’s a portly middle-aged tycoon and he’s drunk. He’s alway drunk.

Michael happens to be on the scene and he is convinced that Sadie is a scheming gold digger. It’s obvious to him that Sadie intends to trap the poor hopeless drunken Brennan into marriage.

Maybe because she’s so annoyed at Michael’s obvious contempt for her that’s exactly what she does.

But she still can’t forget Tommy.

This is full-blown melodrama with a whole bunch of classic melodrama twists still to come.

The first thing that makes the movie interesting is that it is pre-code. Which means you cannot assume that it’s heading for a conventional “virtue rewarded and vice punished” ending. In the pre-code era writers could choose to end a story the way they wanted to, rather than the way the Production Code Authority told them they had to end it. And, as a result, at various times the plot suddenly doesn’t go quite where you expected it to.

The second interesting thing about the movie is that Sadie is a woman and she does things for a woman’s reasons. Tommy is a loser and a louse but Sadie is a woman and she loves him anyway and nothing can persuade her to change her feelings. Sadie is a complicated woman. She’s not a stereotypical bad girl. She makes foolish decisions based on pure emotion. She can be calculating and she can be self-sacrificing. She can be cruel and she can be kind. And although she does marry Brennan and his millions in her own way she loves him. But she still loves Tommy. She’s a sympathetic character who can sometimes be unsympathetic. Sometimes she’s just exasperating!

The movie’s third great asset is Joan Crawford who somehow manages to make Sadie’s contradictions believable and manages to persuade us to be on Sadie’s side even when she behaves badly or foolishly. It’s a complex and assured performance.

Edward Arnold is excellent as Brennan. The big problem is Franchot Tone whose wooden performance is particularly disappointing since Michael is a potentially interesting character with contradictory motivations of his own.

Sadie McKee is a melodrama that is both straightforward and not straightforward. And Joan Crawford is great in a tricky role. Highly recommended.

Sadie McKee looks great on Blu-Ray.