Monday, September 12, 2011

Duets Are Made for the Bourgeoisie

The Story of Temple Drake (1933)
directed by Stephen Roberts
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
watched on YouTube

Miriam Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and was married, at different times, to an aviator, a movie director, and a war correspondent. She's a shoe-in for Temple Drake, and she excels in the scenes that stay closest to the lurid heart of Sanctuary. One could argue that Jack La Rue is the movie's revelation, since his highly sexualized Trigger is a complete fabrication that inverts the impotent Popeye. Adaptations are best when they do something new.

The Story of Temple Drake belongs to the title character, same as Sanctuary did, which is a reason I love the book. Temple, for better or worse, is the hero. But the movie doesn't go nearly as far as Faulkner did to convince you that she doesn't deserve the accolades. There's the same graffiti on the bathroom wall and a seedy suit of pajamas in a Memphis brothel, but onscreen Temple is an active agent in her own redemption, allowed to confess in the courtroom and clear Lee Goodwin of Tommy's murder.

La Rue plays his close-ups like a somnambulant dreaming the same dreams that bring Miss Drake to the Goodwin ruins amid a thunderstorm, with Tommy talking like Mose Harper in his sleep. That's the picture's best moment, before Temple is undone by her lousy date and compelled to protect the attorney she loves from the man who raped her in a barn. Pre-Code heroines weren't always so light on their toes. To understand what Faulkner brought to Hollywood, you only need to read the beautiful, salacious trash he published ten years before he made it out to LA, and see how the system that produced the well-intentioned The Story of Temple Drake could only be improved with his kind of talent around.