Sergeant Madden is a 1939 film noir forerunner directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Wallace Beery. The supporting cast in this dark police crime drama, noted for its imaginative and evocative cinematography, includes Tom Brown, Laraine Day, Alan Curtis, and Marc Lawrence.
In the winter of 1937, Josef von Sternberg was in Vienna assembling the cast for the film version of ÃÂmile ZolaâÂÂs Germinal, with Hilde Krahl tapped to play Catherine and Jean-Louis Barrault as Etienne. The Austrian financed project collapsed when Germany invaded the nation in March 1938. Sternberg, ill in London at the time, returned to his California residence to convalesce for several months.
In October 1938, Sternberg returned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under a single-movie contract to direct actress Hedy Lamarr in New York Cinderella (later entitled I Take This Woman). The filming required so many revisions that it was known on set as "I Re-take this Woman". Unhappy with his lack of control over the direction, Sternberg quit the production after a week: the film was completed by director Willard Van Dyke and released in February 1940.
Sternberg would fulfill his movie contract for Metro with a crime drama, Sergeant Madden, with character actor Wallace Beery, a box-office favorite, in the lead role of New York City Patrolman Shawn Madden. The film was already in production when Sternberg arrived on the set.
The Sergeant Madden screenplay, based on a story by William A. Ullman entitled âÂÂA Gun in His Handâ was an âÂÂover-plotted potboiler paying sentimental tribute to âÂÂthe cop on the beatâÂÂ...âÂÂ
Wallace Beery, a âÂÂMetro institutionâÂÂ, provided a reliable source of revenue for the corporation, despite his âÂÂtiresome screen performance.â When Sternberg attempted to elicit a more disciplined approach from Beery, the studio hierarchy instructed the director to cease his overly âÂÂdemanding rehearsals.â Despite the Metro's interference âÂÂBeeryâÂÂs performance in Sergeant Madden is one of the least maudlin in his gallery of indistinguishable character rolesâ and âÂÂunusually controlled and believableâ is attributable to Sternberg's influence.
The film was released on March 24, 1939, and âÂÂdid quite well.âÂÂ
Film critic Tom Sutpen writing for Bright Lights Film Journal argues that as a Wallace Beery vehicle, guided by the market-driven contingencies of MGM - compounded by the director's âÂÂsheer indifferenceâ â produced âÂÂthe worst film [that Sternberg] would ever put his name to.â Elements of the film - most prominently the theme of the âÂÂtroubled copâ - foreshadowed the Film Noir of the post-WWI era.
Film Historian Andrew Sarris points to âÂÂSternbergâÂÂs distinctive framing and filters which give the movie a UFA look... one can almost see the ghost of Jannings in BeeryâÂÂs unusually restrained performance.âÂÂ
Andrew Sarris writes that âÂÂSergeant Madden is of more sociological than aesthetic interest despite SternbergâÂÂs visually striking direction.â The story concerns "a natural [biological] son" who goes bad, and ultimately atones for his sins: "the notion of a blood son being morally inferior to an adopted son is another movie cliché.â The moral of the tale is simply that "society transcends family" in the larger public interest.