Sadie McKee

Clarence Brown's 1934 American film follows Sadie, a maid who leaves the house where she works. She goes to New York with the man she loves; when he abandons her she has to build a life herself and marries a wealthy alcoholic. The film does not present that marriage as a rise. Sadie attends to her husband's drinking, and the attention is neither love nor calculation; the narrative shows a third thing that excludes both. The woman making her own decisions is at the centre. Joan Crawford leads and the role is typical of her studio period. The costumes and sets are bound to studio aesthetics; the class difference of the Depression years stands plainly inside the narrative. Who it's for: those who like thirties Hollywood melodrama and Joan Crawford's films. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a modern narrative pace; the film moves fast but cuts character development short.