Sadie Thompson

Sadie Thompson

In the News~

May 7, 1928 [Santa Cruz Evening News]: “New Swanson film made on Catalina Island. A company of almost two hundred persons, headed by Gloria Swanson and Director Raoul Walsh, spent three weeks at Catalina Island and aboard a tramp steamer off the coast of southern California, filming exterior scenes for "Sadie Thompson," Miss Swanson's second independent screen offering under the United Artists' Banner, which will be shown at the Unique theatre today and tomorrow. The wharf sequence of the picture, depicting the arrival of "Sadie Thompson" and other characters of W. Somerset Maugham's well-known story at Pago Pago, was filmed at the Catalina Island isthmus. The shore line on either side of the wharf was transformed into a complete tropical setting under direction of William Cameron Menzies, art director, with the result that swaying cocoanut palms and native huts caused visiting tourists to rub their eyes in disbelief. In addition to the tramp steamer Chiapas, two sailing schooners were chartered to lend necessary maritime atmosphere to the exterior scenes. Among the extra players taken on location was an entire company of marines, many of whom actually were former members of the service, and a group of Samoan natives headed by a chief whose home is within a few miles of Pago Pago, the locale of the story. "Sadie Thompson" has been hailed everywhere as the picture that is destined to establish a new peak in Miss Swanson's career. Its story, detailing a terrific battle for supremacy between a social outcast from the byways of San Francisco and Honolulu, and a reformer of almost despotic power in the South Seas, is the most dramatic vehicle the producer-star has ever presented.”