21:00 - Teatro Verdi Pordenone
SADIE THOMPSON (US 1928; 98 min)
by Raoul Walsh with Gloria Swanson
Musical Accompaniment: Meg Morley

A rare female producer operating at the highest levels of the industry, Gloria Swanson made no secret of her contempt for Hollywood production strategies. Tired of doing whatever Adolph Zukor, Cecil B. DeMille, or Will Hays thought best for her, she was determined to demonstrate the superiority of her own judgement, and found a property that none of them would ever have selected for her: its heroine, a remarkably feisty lady, was a lone operator making her way in a somewhat disreputable profession, nearly crushed by an entrenched patriarchy. Consciously or not, the struggle seemed to mirror her own.
The original story by W. Somerset Maugham on which the film's screenplay was based, published in The Smart Set in April 1921, is set in a steamy Pago Pago backwater, where a fugitive San Francisco prostitute runs afoul of a censorious evangelical preacher.
Sadie Thompson was a critical and commercial hit. Gloria Swanson's performance, as well as the cinematography, were nominated at the first Academy Awards ceremony, and the film appeared on almost every "ten best" list. In 1932, a sound remake, Rain, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Joan Crawford, was made based on this film. In 1953 came Miss Sadie Thompson, starring Rita Hayworth.
The current copy of Sadie Thompson is a 4K upgrade of the restoration originally produced by Dennis Doros for Kino Lorber in 1987, and it is from this film that the image for the Giornate 2026 poster is taken.