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The Restored Silent Masterwork
This first film version of Somerset Maugham's classic story "Miss Thompson" featured the creative talents of Gloria Swanson, Lionel Barrymore, Raoul Walsh, art director William Cameron Menzies and cameramen George Barnes and Oliver Marsh, at the height of their careers. Swanson and Barnes were nominated for Oscars, in the first year of the Academy Awards.
Sadie Thompson proved to be a landmark of the silent era. Perhaps, its greatest achievement was the film's uncompromising translation of Maugham's controversial story of a San Francisco prostitute and a South Pacific reformer. Swanson correctly maintained that the film's silence was its greatest asset, for the churches and Hays office could not censor what they couldn't hear.
The tragedy of Sadie Thompson is that, for many decades, the last scenes were missing from the sole existing print. In this 1987 restoration by Kino International, the final minutes have been carefully recreated, using the original script, the star's own collection of stills, film footage where appropriate, and an orchestral score commissioned for the completed film.
Neglected and forgotten over the years, Sadie Thompson has emerged as an important triumph in the silent era, and Swanson's greatest performacne ever.
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