Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Christophe Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

michelboudot-48990 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

SnoopyStyle Stephen Benbow (William Gargan) is an idealistic defense lawyer who is in love with Temple Drake (Miriam Hopkins). She is a southern belle wild child and a tease. Her granddad Judge wants her to go with Stephen but she can't seem to marry the straight laced Stephen. She leaves a party with the drunken Toddy who crashes the car. They're taken by bootleggers. Soon she's in fear of the lowlife criminals and the drunken Toddy is useless. She is raped by the well dressed killer Trigger (Jack La Rue). He kidnaps her as his kept woman. Stephen investigates Trigger for a murder and finds Temple. She pretends to be Trigger's woman to send Stephen off.The controversial salacious content is pre-code. There is some violence and a lot of suggested sexuality. It's actually effective as a noir style movie. The surprising thing is that it's still very watchable. The acting isn't always the best. William Gargan is a bit stiff. Miriam Hopkins is playing it very melodramatically as is usually the case of this era. It works in this melodrama. Jack La Rue is great as the quietly threatening villain.

kidboots 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".

NicML Based loosely on Faulkner's novel Sanctuary(but watered down), this film is a Southern Gothic tale of a spoiled southern belle named Temple Drake(Miriam Hopkins)who is the town tease, and loves to get all the local boys hot & bothered, only to leave them cold. One night with one of her beaus, they are involved in a car accident that leaves them stranded at a house where there's bootlegging going on, with an assorted lot of bootleggers,getting drunk. The head of them,a gangster from the city named Trigger(Jack La Rue)sees Temple,wants her as his, and nothing will stop him. The morning after, with Temple having a restless night in the barn, being guarded by Tommy(James Eagles), the feeb.She is trapped like a rat by Trigger, who kills Tommy, and then rapes her. Trigger then hauls Temple off to the city, to Miss Reba's place, a brothel, and she becomes his sex slave. Temple is so shell shocked by the rape, she stays there with Trigger, until an old beau, Stephen (William Gargan)who is defending Lee Goodwin(Irving Pichel) in the death of Tommy, comes looking around for Trigger. Stephen can't believe his eyes that Temple has taken up with Trigger,and wants to bring her back home. Temple then acts the part of a fallen woman, when she sees Trigger getting ready to kill Stephen, saying that she wants to be with Trigger. After Stephen leaves, Temple decides it's the best time to get out of there, but Trigger starts to beat & assault her again, she then shots Trigger dead, and goes back home. Back home, Temple has to take the stand and clear Lee Goodwin in Tommy's death.The whole cast is great, the best parts are the brothel scenes,which are so hot one could fry an egg on them. I really enjoyed the performance of Jack La Rue, who's Trigger is so hot & so sleazy, it's perfect. Also the fact that this film raises profane thoughts in one's head, that Temple may have enjoyed the rape(the very end of the film), makes this film one of the best of the pre-code era.