Sadie McKee (1934)

In this vivid melodrama, Joan Crawford is Sadie McKee, who must choose between love (with Gene Raymond) and money (with Edward Arnold) and eventually gets both (with Franchot Tone). Crawford had an amazing ability to adapt her screen persona with changing times. She was a frenetic flapper in the '20s, a chin-up working girl in the '30s, and a film noir femme fatale in the '40s. Here she is at her Depression-Era peak as Sadie, a maid who sacrifices all for love, suffers like crazy but somehow winds up happy at the end. The leading lady gets excellent support from her three co-stars. Tone (who was soon to become Crawford's second husband)and Raymond are compelling as the handsome young suitors in her life, one good, one a scoundrel. And Edward Arnold is particularly memorable in his sympathetic portrayal of the millionaire drunk Sadie marries. But from rags to riches, from heartbreak to happiness, the film is all Crawford's.

• drama
• romance