Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Badly directed...overplayed by most except Hopkins and guy standing....the rest amateurish..looks like a silent movie wanting to talk..LaRue awful actor..cartoon like..so sad ..they showed this film at a festival somewhere..people were rolling in the aisle..and this is Faulkner.not funny at all..in my words a disaster...has aged very very badly

It was Faulkner's marriage in 1929 to a woman who bought two children from her first marriage that caused him to start thinking seriously about writing a book for financial profit which ended up being "Sanctuary". He said he then forgot about it but that didn't stop it becoming a sensation. It would be nice to think that Faulkner could have realised a nice profit but with his usual luck the publisher that he had given the book to, Harrison Smith, went bankrupt six months after "Sanctuary" was published and so he received almost no royalties. The only money he made from it was to come from Hollywood. By the time "Sanctuary" was ready to be filmed in 1933 the novel had been denounced as obscene and degrading. The Hays office became involved by informing Paramount that neither the film nor the credits were allowed to mention the title so Paramount compromised by calling it "The Story of Temple Drake", hoping the heroine's name would cause the public to remember the book's scandal.George Raft, who had been scheduled to star pulled out. He had no intention of hurting his newly won box office allure by playing a sadistic gangster who had no sympathetic qualities. He had already played a pretty despicable gangster with both Miriam Hopkins and Mae Clarke so there was method in his rejection. Probably the only role rejection that actually helped his career. Jack La Rue was given the assignment and it certainly didn't catapult him to stardom. He played Trigger (in the book it was Popeye) a city punk living in the Mississippi hill country.Temple Drake (Hopkins), Southern belle and grand daughter of prominent judge, has rejected Stephen Benbow's marriage proposal as she finds him too serious and unromantic. She craves excitement and unfortunately finds it. Exiting a stuffy party with inebriated Toddy (William Collier Jnr.) she is plunged into a nightmare world when their car overturns and they seek shelter at an abandoned mansion with a group of misfits. There's a baby in a wood box- "so the rats don't get it", a cretinous teenager, Tommy, a worn down woman (Florence Eldridge, Frederic March's wife) and a couple of men who wouldn't be out of place in "Deliverance". The rape scene between Temple and Trigger, a sadistic city gangster, is very powerful. The film drips with sexuality and decadence and the artfully lit soft focus photography of Karl Struss went far to diffuse the story's more shocking implications.Trigger kills Tommy who has appointed himself Temple's guardian and is determined to see no harm comes to her. Trigger takes a shell shocked Temple into the city to establish her in a brothel. Goodwin (the wonderful character actor Irving Pichel) one of the men from the house, goes to the police to report Tommy's murder and suddenly finds himself charged. Of course Benbow is assigned to the case and it is up to him to find Temple and convince her to testify and with it destroy her character!!!! Temple Drake was a challenging role and Miriam Hopkins, in one of her best screen performances, gives it everything she has. Her scene in the old house where she suddenly realises this is real and there is no escape, she starts to really cry and makes you believe in her. Jack La Rue is simply chilling as Trigger, a thug with no redeeming qualities. It is a pity it didn't lead to bigger and better parts but he could always be proud of his performance in "The Story of Temple Drake".

In the steamy South during Prohibition, sexy blonde Miriam Hopkins (as Temple Drake) likes to party but won't put out. The granddaughter of respected judge Guy Standing (as Sir Guy Standing), Ms. Hopkins declines marrying lawyer William Gargan (as Stephen "Steve" Benbow) because she wants to continue living the wild life. Admittedly, she has a wicked streak. Out with a drunken William Collier Jr. (as Toddy Gowan) one night, Hopkins is stranded with gangsters at an old plantation mansion being used as a speakeasy, after their car crashes. Mother of the house Florence Eldridge (as Ruby Lemarr) realizes one of the men will soon find his way into Hopkins and doesn't want it to be her man Irving Pichel (as Lee Goodwin). She arranges for Hopkins to be taken to the barn for safekeeping, guarded by slow-witted James Eagles (as Tommy)...After her "lingerie scene" for theater viewers, Hopkins is raped by head bootlegger Jack La Rue (as "Trigger"). Mr. La Rue memorably plays almost his entire villainous part with a just-lighted cigarette in his mouth. This film's lighting and photography by Karl Struss is excellent, by the way. The story is based on the novel "Sanctuary" by William Faulkner. Therein, "Temple Drake" is known as an easy lay; but here, her bathroom wall advertisement is altered to "Temple Drake is just a fake. She wants to eat and have her cake." That she enjoyed her sexual encounters with her abductor is downplayed; in the book, those where accomplished with a corncob and other men, since the novel's character was physically unable to perform. Many viewers familiar with the book imagined those events simply took place off screen, and this film welcomed the thoughts.******* The Story of Temple Drake (5/6/33) Stephen Roberts ~ Miriam Hopkins, William Gargan, Jack La Rue, William Collier Jr.

THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE is a racy pre-code melodrama shot in low-key shadowy photography that keeps the atmosphere tense with electricity. MIRIAM HOPKINS gives an earnest performance as the victimized lady in the title role. Despite the fact that the film seems like a condensation of the William Faulkner novel with its brief running time, she makes a fully developed character out of Temple Drake.AL LA RUE sneers at the camera in every close-up to make sure we know he's the villain of the piece and is given to extravagant bits of overacting in the process. As the embittered woman who loves him, FLORENCE ELDRIDGE does an impressive job as a harridan.Censorship obviously prevented the filmmakers from giving us a really in depth version of the story, but it manages to get its points across effectively even though the tale has been toned down for the screen.Others in the cast are less impressive than Miss Hopkins who does the central role effectively.WILLIAM GARGAN, looking impossibly youthful, has a courtroom scene where his lipstick make-up is accented to the max before it suddenly disappears for the next shot. Apparently make-up on male actors was still in the primitive stage in the early '30s.