The possibility of seeing Joan Crawford in a South Sea setting, as the "painted" woman in a tropical "cloud-burst of passion," is enough to bring the average moviegoer hustling to the theatre. The picture "Rain" will take care of his emotions,--faculties be damned. But when there hovers in the back-ground of this super-picture a touching drama and a powerful idea, written down by Somerset Maugham for his play of the same name, the intellectual man, the "well-read" man of the movies, will find it worth his while to see this screen version of a famous play,--emotions be damned.

Whether the producers found in the big frame and wide mouth of Joan Crawford a ready-made Sadie Thompson, or whether they softened to respect an author who bids fair to fill Hollywood unconsciously with excellent South Sea scenarios is hard to say. Whatever has been spoiled in this production is that which has been added to the stage show, not taken away. The result is a sincere impressive play, full, but not blown up with sentiment and passion, and interrupted constantly by manifestations of the mechanical ingenuity of the producers. These Hollywood moguls obviously feel that it would reflect no glory on them to let Joan Crawford dominate a scene prepared by some British author-- they must do something to show that Hollywood's money is speaking. So they harp on the title of the show, "Rain", and employ it in the manner of a theme song. To think of the amount of worth-while atmosphere created in the play by keeping the 6000 horsepower rain-making machines going at top speed all the time, is essentially, to laugh. It rains so hard during much of the film that the actors can hardly be seen, and yet when the acting in at its height, the camera man deserts the stage and uses up much of the Company's film in taking pictures of rain drops, and rain clouds, and often of sheets of rain which could only have been caused by a washout in some overtaxed rain shower machine. After all it does rain in Wisconsin and Cambridge, too. And they have mud in Russia. Besides this precipitation the stage hands are constantly showing off other wonders of cinematic engineering, giving a very Californian air to the island of Pago Pago in the gulf of Borneo.

In spite of these interruptions, and also in spite of several irritating instances of dragging in the action, this picture of one-of-those women being evangelized and then scandalized by a self-appointed soul-healer, who combines in himself the righteousness of a Father Confessor, the diction of a bishop, the vanity of a mayor, the power of a governor, and the morals of certain other reformers one could mention (but bygones are bygones), is convincingly performed. It is comforting to see that when Joan Crawford and Walter Huston are ordered to enact a "cloudburst of passion," they not only do what they are told, but do a good bit of real acting besides.