Sat 25 May 2013
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: CRIME WITHOUT PASSION (1934).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[13] Comments
CRIME WITHOUT PASSION. Paramount Pictures, 1934. Claude Rains, Margo, Whitney Bourne, Stanley Ridges, Leslie Adams, Charles Kennedy, Paula Trueman. Written & directed by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur
On a brighter note, Crime Without Passion is a Clever, Woolrichish little thing written and directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, no less, about a high-powered shyster (played a bit broadly by Claude Raines in his third screen appearance) tired of his inconvenient mistress.
When said mistress gets thoughtlessly shot, arguing over possession of a gun in her apartment, Raines knows that circumstantial evidence around her death will convict him of murder (and we know he deserves to step off for it) but being a legal mastermind, he also knows how to go about removing said circs while planting a trail of evidence that will absolve him, which he spends the rest of the film doing.
Okay, with a premise like this, you pretty much know Raines is going to trip himself up and get hung, so it’s no surprise that’s just what happens here.
But just how Hecht and MacArthur score is the trick of this thing, and I have to say when they put it across the plate, I wasn’t just looking the other way, I was up in the stands buying peanuts, that’s how well they misled me. It’s one of those films that I can tell you it has a surprise ending and it’ll still surprise you.
I should also add that Crime starts with one of the most remarkable montage sequences ever committed to film: a blur of images that evokes the most febrile and lurid of the old Horror Pulp Covers and a few minutes of Cinema that will stay in my memory long after whole other films have vanished:
May 25th, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Wow. You weren’t exaggerating. I’ve never seen anything like THAT!
May 26th, 2013 at 3:01 am
That seems in line with a lot of modern cinematic tricks and procedures tried out at the time, each unique, all part of the technical heritage, upon which nowadays movie-making is based.
To make movies with Justin Bieber .
The Doc
May 27th, 2013 at 11:05 am
When I first saw RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the sequence when the Nazis open the Ark and the avenging angels take flight first as beautiful women and then become ravening nemisis, I was struck by the similarity to the CWP opening montage. Likely that it was the inspiration. Lucas may have seen it at USC Film School as I did at UCLA.
May 27th, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Well, Rick, a stroke of directorial genius that wasn’t lost, evidently !
The Doc
May 27th, 2013 at 12:10 pm
The effects were done by a guy named Slavko Vorkapich, a montage specialist in Hollywood who worked his magic on films like WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD, SAN FRANCISCO, MANHATTAN MELODRAMA and I think (though there is some dispute) I BURY THE LIVING.
May 28th, 2013 at 4:41 am
Had Vorkapich previously worked in Europe, Dan ?
The Doc
May 28th, 2013 at 6:19 am
No, he didn’t, found an article in Wiki.
He emigrated to the US in 1920, and soon started cinema-related work there .
He went to school with Einstein’s first wife .
The world is a village, as we say .
The Doc
May 29th, 2013 at 9:14 am
I spent the better part of two weeks with Slavko in Mexico City 1969. At the time he was employed by an American commercial firm called Filmex and I was part of Rainbow Productions and extension of The Softness Group. The high altitude affected his mobility but not his brain and in a single afternoon, less then that, he gave me insights into film. This was not a commercial approach he took but highly artistic that today would pass as auteur.
May 29th, 2013 at 11:20 am
Wow, Barry ! YOU do get around !
The Doc
May 29th, 2013 at 11:41 am
Well, Doc — I am an old man
May 29th, 2013 at 1:59 pm
I#m over 50 myself. I once saw Richard Nixon very near (after he was unpresidented),and this and that, but due to the fact that I don’t work in films, TV, or publishing, I of course rarely talk to people from that walk of life .
But admit it- I had never heard of Slavko before,and here on the blog is someone who worked with him, and you see the Wiki entry, and so on.
The world IS a village !
The Doc
May 29th, 2013 at 4:42 pm
Doc —
According to IMDB Slavko was born in 1894. That made him about my age now. He struggled in the altitude and required supplemental oxygen. I’m not struggling with healthy, yet, just with life. And, final thought, these people are usually quite approachable in the right setting. I am sure most would like to have a word with someone like you.
May 29th, 2013 at 6:06 pm
Yeah, absolutely possible, it’s simply that I don’t meet them.
But , anyway, fascinating sideline of the mysterydom.
The Doc