Miss Sadie Thompson

A dire, updated, absurdly bloated 3-D version of Somerset Maugham's Rain - a tale of sin and redemption in the tropics - completely missing out on the dark, brooding intensity of Raoul Walsh's silent Sadie Thompson. Conviction never gets a look in, what with Ferrer wandering zombie-fashion through acres of pious platitudes as the religious bigot who turns out (surprise, surprise) to be a closet rapist, while Hayworth, mouthing a string of dubbed songs and cheerfully revving her motor as the good-time gal who is no better (and not much worse) than she should be, seems to be moulding her characterisation on Doris Day. Only Aldo Ray, as the bovine marine who falls for Sadie, and in so doing discovers the meaning of tolerance, emerges from the affair with any credit.