Review - The Story of Temple Drake

 January 8, 2022
 
The Story of Temple Drake – U.S., 1933
 

I have read William Faulkner’s 1931 novel Sanctuary, and, if you’ll pardon my frankness, Stephen Roberts’s 1933 film The Story of Temple Drake is not it. In fairness, how could it be? Sanctuary is replete with truly sadistic behavior and moral depravity and features a villain so hideous that few modern directors not named David Lynch would even dream of putting him up on the silver screen. Interestingly, Faulkner needed 336 pages to tell his story; The Story of Temple Drake clocks in at just over 72 minutes. Suffice to say, much of what rightly made the novel controversial remained unfilmed. In fact, gone are much of the details that elevated Sanctuary to the thrillingly wicked experience it is, transforming it into a relatively decent yarn about a young independent woman growing up in a time of great social change and ultimately finding her voice. The film works, even if it never completely sheds its watered-down impression.
 
Like many films during what it now referred to as the Pre-code Hollywood era, a term that was invented after the fact, its protagonist is a young woman coming into her own. This includes adopting a rather liberal attitude toward dating and physical affection, yet still adhering to the social norms of the time, meaning that the date next extends beyond the front door. In keeping with the modern spirit, Temple (Miriam Hopkins) has no interest in getting married, this despite the frequent proposals she receives from a young lawyer named Stephen Benbow (William Gargan). The two of them have an interesting exchange about this. She reasons that she likes him too much; his response: “And love me too little.” Too little to give up your youthful ways, perhaps?
 
At a party, Temple runs off with one of her suitors, and since he’s driving completely plastered, the two of them end up lying on a dirt road, having been thrown from her now overturned car. And who should come to her aid? Trigger (Jack La Rue), a tall menacing bootlegger with a cigarette constantly dangling from his lips and a look on his face that never lets you relax for even a minute. (His name is Popeye in Faulkner’s novel) It’s wonder Temple initially refuses his offer for shelter.
 
The film offers a rather discomforting contrast in two sets of characters. First, there are the characters from the city – well-dressed, well-spoken, and generally polite - and then there’s the group that hangs around Trigger. They are clearly from the countryside, and the film depicts them as either cold, simple-minded, or predatory. Two of them even advance toward Temple with obvious forced physical contact in mind. Even the character who offers Temple what she believes is protection is more than a little suspicious of her and even warns her to stay away from her husband. Unfortunately, there’s no real protection from a man like Trigger.
 
Following Temple’s assault, Faulkner’s novel becomes more complicated, culminating in more sadistic events and a clear case of Stockholm Syndrome. And I’ll be honest. I was riveted throughout. The problem with The Story of Temple Drake is that, by jettisoning the book’s most salacious details and changing a key aspect of a court scene, there’s not much there. Perhaps that’s why the final half an hour feels so rushed. Earlier characters are forgotten or marginalized, and as the film approaches its inevitable courtroom conclusion, it acquires a predictable feel partly because we already know everything that is going to be said by that final witness. The scene is still powerful, but since the end result is exactly what we expected it to be, it is a lesser power, the kind you experience because of the work of the performers, but one also that fades quickly because…well, you saw it coming a mile away.
 
There’s a tendency to give a film like The Story of Temple Drake more credit than it deserves simple because of the time in which it was made. We seem to think that old movies were depictions of good men and traditional women, innocent pictures made during innocent times. In truth, there were no purely innocent times, and many of the movies made before 1935, when the Hayes Code began to be enforced, pushed boundaries with their depictions of a society that were closer to reality than many people cared to admit. It was easier to blame movies for setting the example, rather than seeing them as a response to changes already underway. The fact that Roberts’s film completely disappeared for more than twenty years only increases our desire to praise it.
 
However, time also has a way of making blemishes more apparent, and there’s no question that The Story of Temple Drake has a problematic set of characters and a message that could be interpreted as reinforcing the need for marriage and moral behavior if for no other reason than to save women from the consequences that can come from adopting a modern lifestyle. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it is at odds with Temple Drake’s story, causing it to seem that she is at fault for her own misery. And maybe this was the intent. After all, the original title of the movie was The Shame of Temple Drake. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Criterion Collection)
 
3 stars