Sat 9 May 2009
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Columbia, 1935. Peter Lorre, Edward Arnold, Marian Marsh, Tala Birell, Elisabeth Risdon, Robert Allen, Douglass Dumbrille, Gene Lockhart, Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Director: Josef von Sternberg.
To begin with, the novel’s 600 to 800 pages long, depending on the size of font used and how wide the margins are. If a film adaptation is only 90 minutes long, as is this US version done in 1935, answer yourself this: how much of the book could be crammed in?
So, OK, let’s let that go, and talk about the movie as a movie. It was one of the earliest films that Peter Lorre made in the US, and as a leading man yet, in the role of criminology student Roderick Raskolnikov, who commits a murder and almost, but not quite, gets away with it.
Dogging his trail is Edward Arnold, as Inspector Porfiry Petrovich, not necessarily following the academic approach espoused by Raskolnikov, who as it becomes clear, is a rival in more ways than one.
In spite of first appearances, Porfiry is gradually seen as a student of human nature, allowing his prey to alternate between arrogance and fear by using only one simple method: by allowing him to remain free — and thereby trapping and convicting himself by his own hand.
A role that was meant to be played by Peter Lorre, perhaps, who does both arrogance and fear very well, and yet, in Crime and Punishment, he shows he has a human side as well, committing the murder of the miserly lady pawnbroker (Mrs. Patrick Campbell) yes, but giving the young streetwalker Sonya (a radiant Marian Marsh) all of the money given him earlier in return for pawning his father’s watch. (It is interesting to note how Sonya’s means of earning a living manages to be very conveniently skipped over.)
The film came along far too early to be classified correctly as noir, perhaps, but there are a number of elements that could easily make it fit (one might argue) into the category.
Not only the story itself, with Raskolnikov continually finding himself sliding into the abyss of his own mind — a quiet kind of desperation — but the black-and-white photography is also quite magnificent, showing the better parts of the unknown city (Moscow?) where the story takes place, as well as some of the worse, including Raskolnikov’s rather squalid apartment, for which, in spite of his brilliance, he cannot even pay the rent.
So, my final comment and overall impression? A very entertaining film, a movie that when I started, I intended to see only the first ten minutes as a preview, but which I forgot myself and watched all the way through to the end instead.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
No doubt about it, if you have read the novel you will be ripping your hair out because so much was left out and the movie would have to appear as not being properly developed. However, if you have not read the novel, then perhaps it is possible to enjoy it because you won’t be comparing the long novel to the short movie. Plus Peter Lorre is just almost always enjoyable.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:33 am
It’s funny the respect and the literary light we see Dostoyevsky in today, often not knowing, or bothering to know, that in his native Russia, during his most productive period, he was considered little more than a pulp author. Not a literary light worthy of study in universtity courses.
And that may be why his books make fairly good movies, since they are about murder, rape, and dramatic trials, and other matters well suited to pulp sensibilities. There’s a good deal of melodrama in most of Dostoyevsky’s work, from The Idiots to the Gambler.
Just a note, R. N. Morris 2007 novel The Gentle Axe (Penguin) features Porfiry Petrovich, the detective from Crime and Punishment, investigating a murder in St. Petersberg’s Petrovsky Park. A well done literary thriller, and first of a series featuring Petrovich.
Considering it is virtually the Classics Illustrated version of the story (much better than the early talkie version of Collins The Moonstone — another long book boiled down to less than ninety minutes) the movie is quite good, though it concentrates on what is just one part of the book, the psychological ‘war’ between Raskolnikov and Petrovich.
Von Sternberg is always an interesting director, apt to veer toward melodrama (and rather ripe melodrama at that), but always with style. His film Macao is noir, Shanghai Gesture borderline, and Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, The Devil is a Woman, and Shanghai Express created many of the models for the noir femme fatales to follow.
Edward Arnold seemed to vary between gangsters and detectives, with outings as Nero Wolfe (Meet Nero Wolfe based on Fer-de-lance) and Baynard Kendrick’s blind private detective Captain Duncan MacLain (Eyes of the Night, The Hidden Eye).
There is also a French version of the book with Jean Gabin, and a second American version with George Hamilton — both good. There was also a version done on Masterpiece Theater with John Hurt in the Lorre, Gabin, Hamilton role.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Lorre came to the US in 1934 and signed with Columbia pictures. Columbia didn’t quite know what to do with him, so they loaned him out to MGM for Mad Love in 1935. That same year, Columbia finally decided that “Crime & Punishment” directed by Josef Von Sternberg (his last film at Columbia). According to “Films of Peter Lorre” by S. Youngkin, the film had a troubled history and was cut severely by the studio.
Your review fits my own impressions of the film. It does pull you in with the excellent (but fragmented) performance of Lorre and the superb visuals. Sure wish someone would discover the original directors cut of this interesting film.
PS “Mad Love” is better film (overall) and well worth seeking out.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I like David’s analogy that the movie is the equivalent of the Classics Illustrated version of the book, since if I read the book at all before watching the movie, it would have been the original Classics Illustrated comic book, number 89 in the series, and I’m sure I did. It is obviously why I didn’t tear my hair out nearly as much as Walker says he did.
The original review in the New York Times was rather negative: see http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9800E3DA173CE733A25751C2A9679D946494D6CF
but I think the movie is much better than that.
I agree with both Walker and Ricky that Peter Lorre was excellent, but there’s an European atmosphere to the movie that might have alienated American audiences at the time.
Or perhaps “confused” is a better word than “alienated.” Not all of the motivations for Raskolnikov’s actions are spelled out in detail, and there’s a sort of mythic quality to the film that I haven’t quite put my finger on yet, at least in terms of being able to describe it to someone else.
For example, until Siberia is mentioned as a possible place punishment for Raskolnikov, it is not clear that the movie takes place in Russia at all. Time and place were deliberately, I think, removed from the film.
If there is a director’s cut for the movie, I’d surely love to see it.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
[…] law degree from a small but apparently reputable night school. As in Crime and Punishment, reviewed here not too long ago, the opening scenes are of the graduating […]
May 12th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
[…] Crime and Punishment down to a 90 minute movie was a considerable feat, as discussed briefly here, a few posts back, then how about a 200 to 300 page novel that’s trimmed down to a very quick 17 […]