Crime of Passion

Crime.Of.Passion.1957.(B.Stanwyck).1080p.BRRip.x264-Classics

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source: Crime of Passion

The successful columnist of The San Francisco Post Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is an independent woman that has the intention of never getting married. However, when she meets the LAPD Detective Lt. Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden) during the investigation of Dana Case that is resolved with her support, they immediately fall in love for each other and get married. Kathy quits her job and moves to Los Angeles to be a housewife. Bill is very close to his colleagues and their wives, and they have frequent dinner parties at his home, and the boredom of the conversation with other wives and the lack of ambition of Bill in the Police Department make Kathy to plot a scheme to push Bill's career to a higher position. Kathy forces the encounter with his superior Police Inspector Anthony Pope (Raymond Burr) and his wife Alice Pope (Fay Wray) and destroys the friendship of Bill with his immediate superior Police Capt. Charlie Alidos (Royal Dano); then she has one night stand with Tony to get the promise that he will recommend Bill to his position since he is planning to retire. When Kathy realizes that Tony's promise was just pillow talk, the ambitious woman takes a decision with no return. The film-noir "Crime of Passion" is quite dated today but I believe that it was ahead of time in 1957 with an engaging and amoral story of ambition and murder. Barbara Stanwyck plays Kathy Ferguson Doyle, an ambitious woman in the 50's not tailored to be a conventional housewife that loves her husband that is a man that prioritizes his family over his career. The emptiness of her life associated to the lack of interest of her beloved husband in his career drives Kathy insane and capable of committing a murder and destroy her family and certainly Bill's career. Just as a curiosity, the wife of Police Inspector Tony Pope is Fay Wray, the unforgettable Ann Darrow from "King Kong". My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Da Ambição ao Crime" ("From the Ambition to Crime") Note: On 24 Jul 2018, I saw this film again.

This seldom seen film is one of the best Noirs from the 1950s. It never looks down on the audience which is refreshingly different than most films made during that decade. What makes this so good is the believability of the dialogue and the settings. Nothing too glam or too dreary. It's just right. The actors are all good, with Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden and Raymond Burr all in top form. The Stanwyck - Hayden pairing is fascinating and it works beautifully. One of the more interesting couples I've seen on screen. Hayden is a great overlooked actor who has amazing screen presence. Always believable in all his roles. Stanwyck is equally good, with this being one of her most fascinating roles. Many have said that Stanwyck was too old for this role but I disagree. Her age/look is what makes her role interesting. Had her role been played by an average 1950s screen beauty, it wouldn't have worked. Stanwyck's dilemma is greatly accentuated by the "possible" age difference. It's brilliant casting. But what's really interesting in this film is Raymond Burr. He's surprisingly good here. So believable in his slimy contemptible character that one feels sorry that Burr's career ended up playing the same character over and over again on TV for the rest of his life. The story is grounded and never becomes ludicrous. Some of the police stuff is actually fascinating to watch. But the threesome between Stanwyck - Hayden - Burr is what makes the movie so cool. Watching Stanwyck and Burr pining for each other is great, on so many levels! Arf. Crime of Passion is a film I enjoy watching over and over again. Check it out.

An overwrought BARBARA STANWYCK tries hard to make CRIME OF PASSION look like a steamy melodrama but the script, production values and uninspired direction defeat her despite some valiant efforts in a couple of strong scenes. Sterling Hayden is convincing as her unambitious police lieutenant husband who has no idea his wife is so unsatisfied with domestic life that she's willing to kill the man who blocks any chances of a career rise. Stanwyck's unhappy wife reminds me of Bette Davis' Rosa Moline in BEYOND THE FOREST--both of them ambitious and totally without scruples. At least FOREST had the advantage of Grade A production values and a Max Steiner score--and Davis was even more flamboyant than Stanwyck in creating her vixenish creature. But here Stanwyck is adrift in what looks like a B-film made on the cheap and quickly without much thought given to characterizations. Raymond Burr gives the film's most interesting performance as a man who "picked up the chips" Stanwyck tossed at him--and makes more of his role than the script allows. He was always at his best in these films of the '50s showing his dark side as a philandering charmer who was quite a heel. The ending is a distinct letdown--especially when you want Sterling Hayden to have a really strong confrontation with the woman who killed on his behalf. A stroll with his wife down a hallway toward a squad room is hardly a strong enough conclusion for a story of this sort. Stanwyck fans will find it absorbing enough but definitely not one of her best assignments.

What Eric Chapman doesn't seem to realize when he dismisses "Crime of Passion" as a "pre-feminist tantrum" is that in its day, the movie was subversive and shocking (it still packs something of a punch). It's the story of a career woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who, tn middle age, marries a cop (Sterling Hayden) who forbids her to work, condemning her to a life of luncheons and card games. The triviality and emptiness of this life is so soul-destroying, the Stanwyck character essentially goes crazy, and the movie ends with Hayden arresting his wife for murder. The budget is more than modest, even by 1957 standards, and it's hardly the most cinematic movie in the world, yet it would have worked beautifully on a double bill with socially critical melodramas of the day like Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows." It's only fair to see "Crime of Passion" in that context.

It was interesting to read that Barbara Stanwyck feels the same way I do that the first thing a film should have is a good story. Sometimes some good acting can smooth over some glaring faults in the story, some time it can't. Even the brilliant pyrotechnics of Barbara Stanwyck couldn't quite bring Crime Of Passion off. It's a strange film because her character makes absolutely no sense, accept in terms of hormones. She's a sob sister columnist for a quaint metropolitan newspaper in San Francisco and she's gotten a murderess on the run to write to her. Which of course draws the attention of a couple of homicide cops played by Sterling Hayden and Royal Dano. Dano is all business and he wants a lead on where to catch the woman. But Stanwyck is eying Hayden like a prime rump roast in the butcher shop and she sends Dano off on a false lead, but gives the real goods to Hayden. So much for her job as reporter and protecting sources. Hayden doesn't go for it, but the two of them hit it off anyway and are soon happily married. For a career woman, Stanwyck seems to settle down to housewife bliss, but she seethes with ambition for her husband to rise in the department. Hayden's a happy go lucky sort who just takes things as they come. Not good enough, she sets her mind to promoting her husband and if that includes giving a little nookie to his boss Raymond Burr behind the back of his wife Fay Wray, so be it. Her change from career woman to sexual manipulator in Crime Of Passion makes no sense at all. She's a bad woman all right, right up there with her Oscar nominated Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity. But whereas Phyllis was one ice princess, this Stanwyck does things on the fly. Her crime when she commits it is indeed one of passion. This was not a film Stanwyck was particularly happy about, but she said that good stories for her and her contemporaries in the Fifties were hit or miss basis. Sadly Crime Of Passion is the latter.

This is an absolute hoot. It is one of the worst films I have ever seen. The joy of seeing this film, other than the unintentionally hilarious dramatic moments, is to get a clear picture of the type of world that director Todd Haynes envisioned in "Far From Heaven." Barbara Stanwyck, while possessing a hot figure for a 50 year old woman (at the time), was definitely pushing the borders with her looks. It is fascinating that studio heads were still giving her "leading roles" -- but then, once you hear the lines she had to say, you'll come to the conclusion that she must've owed somebody something, because this film is absolutely atrocious. My own poor mother, who's dying of cancer, had enough energy to say, "This one stinks!" Probably the most exciting thing about this movie is the big kiss between Barbara and Raymond Burr, both who were purported to be gay. It's just exciting to imagine them thinking, "Well, since we are getting paid for this, let's make it look good!" Poor Sterling Hayden is saddled with the worst lines, all of them sounding like they were written for a woman starring in a bad B-movie from the 1950s... which is oddly what this is. It is, I suppose, interesting to note that "Kathy" (Barbara's character, and the same name of the character that Julianne Moore played in "Far From Heaven") was not content to sit at home and bake pies. She was a rabble-rouser and was going to stir up trouble no matter what. In one hysterically funny scene, Kathy is a prisoner in her own home when her husband and "the guys" are playing cards on one side of the house, and their wives, "the girls" are gossiping on the other side of the house, going on and on and on and on about "cheese and olives." Kathy, rightfully so, rushes off to the bathroom saying, "I'm sick!" Ditto, girlfriend! Raymond Burr was a wonderful Perry Mason, but in this film he's deadly. But then, so is everybody else. It also seems strange that not a single couple (of course all "heterosexual") in this film has a child. Everyone is somewhere between 35-50 and no one has a child? I don't believe it. More fun can be had just by viewing a few vintage shots of Los Angeles in its '50s heyday. The script, as I mentioned before, is absolutely deadly, a laugh fest almost from start to end. Barbara desperately tries to rhythmically alter her lines to imbue them with deeper meaning, but when she's stuck with stupid, gushy conversation like, "Oh Bill darling!" it doesn't matter what she tries to do to dress this garbage up. It stinks. Again, it's a blast just to sit through and laugh at, and even if you get up 10 times to use the facilities or grab some cold pizza, you won't have missed a thing. An absolute must for dateless Fridays when you don't care about being fat and lonely.

Having not seen the film before, my thoughts were that with Stanwyck, Burr, and Hayden, along with character actor Dano and Fay Wray, how could I go wrong? The actors were wasted on this disjointed script, and the drivel that takes place is almost unwatchable. Some examples: Stanwyck saying I only want to make you happy and hope all your socks have holes so i can darn them then all day. And where was the building up to the marriage. They met, and in 5 minutes were married. The movie builds nothing, things just happen as if the director was on a LSD trip. AVOID.