Mon 30 Oct 2017
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: CRIME OF PASSION (1957).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[9] Comments
CRIME OF PASSION. United Artists, 1957. Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Fay Wray, Virginia Grey, Royal Dano. Original story and screenplay: Jo Eisinger. Director: Gerd Oswald.
Call it what you will: a crime film, a film noir, or a proto-feminist melodrama. But make no mistake about it. Crime of Passion is most definitely a Barbara Stanwyck vehicle. So much so that one could say that Stanwyck, who is front and center throughout the proceedings, is the auteur of this United Artists release. Directed by craftsman Gerd Oswald, this somewhat average black and white thriller also benefits from the presence of co-stars and supporting cast members including Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, and a young Robert Quarry as a newsroom worker.
Stanwyck portrays Kathy Ferguson, a tough as nails San Francisco newspaper columnist. She’s a career woman with no desire to marry and settle down. Not until she meets visiting Los Angeles detective Lieutenant Bill Doyle (Hayden), who is up north searching for a Southern California woman accused of killing her husband. Soon enough, Kathy and Bill are married and living a seemingly idyllic suburban existence in the San Fernando Valley. But soon suburban dinner parties and boredom get to Kathy. It’s clear that she wants more in life. Both for herself and for Bill, whom she thinks is deserving of a better position in the police force.
Enter Bill’s superior at the LAPD. When Kathy meets Inspector Tony Pope (Burr), she takes an immediate interest in his passion for solving difficult cases. Soon, however, the passion between the two takes a more sordid turn, with Kathy and Tony sharing a night together. When Tony decides that it was all a mistake, Kathy is despondent. And never underestimate a character portrayed by Barbara Stanwyck, especially when she has access to a gun.
Despite Stanwyck’s formidable screen presence, Crime of Passion never quite gels as a movie. Yes, there are a few plot holes and implausibilities. But those aren’t what end up making this movie an interesting but not particularly memorable affair. No. It’s the fact that, while the plot may have worked well enough on paper, the movie’s story — the radical transformation of Kathy from a tough single newspaperwoman into a helplessly in love housewife and then into a scheming and impassioned killer — feels too forced. It’s this artificiality that makes this particular Stanwyck film a pale imitation of so many of her other works.
October 30th, 2017 at 5:57 pm
Good points, all of them.
October 30th, 2017 at 6:54 pm
Jon, you have the essence of what is wrong, the auteur, and confirmation of my theory, that on every project, someone is stronger and more influential. On a second tier film of this period, Barbara Stanwyck was that person. And not for the only time. Too old, too strident, too crude in performance. And if sex is essential here, she fails to sell it. Crime of Passion is neutered. Hayden does well as a dull guy. Burr, Fay Wray, Royal Dano, Virginia Grey, are all pretty good, enough so, that yo wish they had a better project.
October 30th, 2017 at 8:16 pm
THE THREE FACES OF EVE the middle aged years. Part one and three might work if the middle wasn’t out of character with Stanwyck just wrong for the idyllic suburban housewife role.
I’m not sure any actress her age could have sod that part the way this is written.
October 31st, 2017 at 10:32 am
If Hayden and Burr and played brothers, and Stanwyck their mother, we might have had something of interest going on.
October 31st, 2017 at 11:09 am
When CRIME OF PASSION was shot, Stanwyck was 48 or 49, Hayden was 40 and Burr was 39. People in their 40’s have sex drives too.
Their is a long tradition in auteurism of admiring Gerd Oswald.
The French critic and filmmaker Luc Moullet said in 1958 “Any film by Gerd Oswald deserves a long review.”
The British critics at MOVIE magazine put Oswald in their “Very Talented” group in their landmark 1962 survey of English-language cinema.
Andrew Sarris praised Oswald highly in his THE AMERICAN CINEMA (1968).
Today, Fred Camper has Oswald on his list of great filmmakers:
http://www.fredcamper.com/Film/Filmmakers.html
Although I like quite a few Oswald film and TV shows, I didn’t like CRIME OF PASSION when seen decades ago.
This review informed and intrigued me.
Maybe it’s time to look at it and more Oswald films again.
October 31st, 2017 at 11:43 am
The 1962 MOVIE survey chart is at:
http://irintech.com/x1/images/jean/actors_rated.jpg
October 31st, 2017 at 1:07 pm
My comment has nothing to do with their respective ages, just how unattractive and one note she is. So other than an inferior production outfit being excited about Barbara Stanwyck willing to work for them, which she would not have been years earlier, how about adding some classic Greek tragedy to the mix.
October 31st, 2017 at 2:44 pm
I’ve not seen this movie, but it must have come out just before Raymond Burr started his long stint on the Perry Mason series. I can’t say how it came across on the screen, but in the photo I included, he does look slim and fit enough to have had a fling with Barbara Stanwyck. In his heavier, more villainous days, I can’t see it at all.
October 31st, 2017 at 5:59 pm
Steve,
She had the fling with Burr only to further
her husband’s (Hayden) career. I’ve seen this movie a couple times now, but I agree with others above in that “I don’t buy it” as to Stanwyck’s part, early on as the hard-boiled reporter, only to become a stay at home wife/cop’s husband.
Otherwise, I still find her attractive in this movie. As I get older, I find myself attracted to older women. Go Figure!