Area Less than one acre Added to NRHP 2 July 2003 | NRHP Reference # 03000582 | |
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Location Along main road, Malaloa, American Samoa Similar Tradewinds Hotel, Jean P Haydon Museum, Rainmaker Hotel, Rainmaker Mountain, Matafao | ||
The Sadie Thompson Inn is a historic building in Malaloa, one of the constituent villages of Pago Pago in American Samoa. The building is noted as the guest house where, from December 1916 to January 1917, author W. Somerset Maugham stayed for six weeks. He described it as a "dilapidated lodging house with a corrugated tin roof" and complained that he contracted "a stubborn rash, no doubt fungus, while in the hotel in Pago Pago, and it took weeks to cure it."
The building was subsequently the setting of his short story, "Rain", published in 1921, which depicted a psychological battle of wits between a wayward, on-the-run prostitute, Sadie Thompson, and a conservative, self-righteous missionary. Although definitive evidence is lacking, Maugham, apparently, was indeed in residence at the lodging house with a real person named Sadie Thompson, who reportedly had been driven from the red light district in Honolulu.
Considered one of Maugham's more noteworthy works, the story was later adapted to the stage and brought to the screen three times. The first film was the 1928 silent Sadie Thompson, starring Gloria Swanson as the titular character and Lionel Barrymore as Alfred Davidson, the missionary. Just four years later, in 1932, it was filmed again as Rain, with Joan Crawford as Sadie and Walter Huston, the missionary. And in 1953, Miss Sadie Thompson was released in Technicolor, featuring Rita Hayworth and José Ferrer.
The building was listed as the Sadie Thompson Building on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. Previously, it had been known as the Meredith Building, the Haleck Building, and simply as Boarding House. At the time of its NRHP listing, it served as a department store on the first floor and a restaurant on its second. It is currently used as a hotel and restaurant.
It is historically significant for its association with Somerset Maugham during the waning years of the British Empire in the South Sea Islands. Maugham stayed at the lodging house from December 16, 1916 to January 30, 1917.