“Women will understand!” read one of the many various taglines associated with The Story of Temple Drake, the pre-code rape and revenge talkie the release of which, despite its box office success, pushed Hollywood into the vicious enforcement of the Production code a year later, the moral censorship developed in 1930 which would plague American cinema until its complete collapse at the end of the 1960s. But would they (women) understand? And if so, what exactly is Faulkner’s treatment (here adapted by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Maurine Dallas Watkins) saying about women, or at least a certain kind of ‘woman’ as this is a tale preoccupied with rich, desirable, privileged (i.e., white) women and the impossible precipice upon which a woman is forced to dance. However the ‘other women’ who aren’t Temple Drake—well, perhaps it’s the representation of their behaviors and realities which really instilled the necessity of the Hays Production Code, for a portrait of their resiliency and self-awareness challenged the propaganda machine of studio, business model cinema (box office profits be damned!).

Based on the lurid 1931 novel Sanctuary by William Faulkner (which was later adapted by Tony Richardson in 1960 starring Lee Remick), both novel and film attempted to collect on our preoccupation with lurid, tawdry, taboo busting pulp which subverted the rigid heteronormative realities of polite society. As such, in many ways, the film, directed by Stephen Roberts (who died only three years later at the age of forty) is a progressive provocation riding solely on its considerable shock value as well as a signature role for actress Miriam Hopkins (and its resurrection should hopefully reignite an interest in a performer who is best remembered by many as a footnote in the filmography of Bette Davis as her arch nemesis).

The plot of Temple Drake is quite rudimentary (watered down as it is, of course, from Faulkner’s prose). The eponymous socialite finds solace in her ability to woo the hearts (and hands and other appendages) of men, a wild child left to her own designs thanks to her sole guardian being her grandfather, the oblivious Judge Drake (Guy Standing). The good judge wishes her to marry an idealistic lawyer, Stephen Benbow (William Gargan), whom we meet defending a black man, in a case the judge derides Benbow for as ‘wasting his time’ (of note, the black characters in Temple Drake are peripheral yet are used to inform the cluelessness of white society in ways which would be quickly eroded in film productions following the enforcement of the Code).

Temple, who professes there are two sides of her persona battling for control, leaves a party with a drunken paramour in search of more Prohibition era booze only to end up in a car wreck and vulnerable to the kindness of strangers who are holed up in a dilapidated plantation home now serving a speakeasy run by Trigger (Jack La Rue). He takes a liking to Temple and spends the night trying to fornicate with her despite both her protests and the futile efforts of the other speakeasy denizens, eventually murdering one of the men to rape Temple (in the novel it’s with a corncob due to his impotence) and then absconding with her to a brothel in town, where he expects her to work. She’s located by Benbow, who is searching for Trigger in connection to the murder and upon being subpoenaed in court, must decided whether to lie or sully her good name.

Although The Story of Temple Drake has been unavailable for decades, the spirit of Roberts’ film, which was already borrowing flourishes from other noted films of the period (notably James Whale’s The Old Dark House) can be seen in a variety of other cinematic ventures. The 1948 Brit noir No Orchids for Miss Blandish, based on the novel by James Hadley Chase, for instance, also stars Jack La Rue and features a similar psychological Stockholm Syndrome dilemma for its heroine (and was also remade by Robert Aldrich as 1971’s The Grissom Gang).

Curt McDowell’s 1975 cult oddity Thundercrack! also seems to have a similar awareness, while Claire Denis dusted off those corncobs for what could potentially have been an homage to Faulkner in her 2013 title Bastards. But Temple on its own reflects the ear markers of German Expressionism thanks to cinematographer Karl Struss (who lensed Murnau’s 1927 classic, Sunrise) and utilizes jarring close-ups in ways well ahead of its time. As entertaining as Hopkins is, the film doesn’t care to examine the psychological tumult of either her or any other character, and despite its shockingly blatant strides for the period is not nearly as subversive or timeless as items like the Barbara Stanwyck led Baby Face (1933) or the Joan Crawford vehicle Rain (1932).

Film Rating: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Rating: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆