Crime of Passion

Don't be put off by the negative commentary on this film (which surprises me almost as much as the film's unflinching social critique). Stanwyck gives a strong performance in an unusual late-cycle noir; unusual in that it opens in conventional noir style, wraps up the first noir plot in less than ten minutes, then proceeds into insightful and incisive melodrama. Sharper socially than even Fritz Lang's late noirs, "Crime of Passion" reminds us of the "nostalgia" for the "happy family values" of the 1950's for the wishful (?) thinking that it is. Stanwyck's slow descent into middle-class torpor and madness (she's a sharp, witty, intelligent woman who saddles herself with a maddeningly boring and conventional cop husband, played nicely against type by Sterling Hayden) lays bare the social nightmare presented to women desiring anything but the conventional patriarchal lifestyle (at one point, the LA police captain tells Stanwyck that she should be at home making her husband supper-- a line which haunts both Stanwyck and the film).

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.

Crime of Passion (1957)

A gripping widescreen black and white crime film where the loner lost in a complacent world is a woman--played with steely determination by Barbara Stanwyck. In some ways this film is a familiar type, but it has some unique lines that open up as it goes until it becomes a unique tale of seduction and ambition.

You won't see Sterling Hayden better (this is around the time of his defining but more constrained role in Kubrick's "The Killing"), and throw in Raymond Burr and, believe it or not, Fay Ray (of "King Kong" fame, 1933), and you have quite a cast. It moves fast though there is some redundancy to the events sometimes--we get the idea of her ambition, for example, but they give us several examples of it instead of one good one. In general the writing is very smart and sometimes witty, in the hands of a late noir standard bearer, the woman writer Jo Eisinger.

The great dramatic photography is by legendary Joseph LaShelle, and it's all pulled together elegantly by director Gerd Oswald. Who's he? Good question...this is his most respected film (he also did the good "A Kiss Before Dying" which is streamable on Netflix). I think this is a lucky confluence of talents--Stanwyck of course, and Hayden, but also LaShelle and Burr and Eisinger.

It might be no coincidence that one of the themes, in fact the trigger for Stanwyck's change of character halfway through, is a revelation of sexual (gender) stereotypes--men play cards and silly things that sound important, and women sit in the next room not playing cards saying silly things that sound silly. At least in Eisinger's eyes. It's great stuff for 1957, and has more honesty than many later approaches to the problem. Stanwyck's solution, of course, is dubious. She plays a role she played in one of my favorite movies of hers, twenty some years earlier, in "Baby Face," where she sleeps her way to success.

A good one, late in the noir/crime era for this style, but so good it holds up well.

'Crime of Passion' had all the ingredients to be a good film. It even had all the ingredients to be a great film. The title is attention grabbing enough, but it is also hard to resist any film that has the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck heading the cast. Loved the idea for the story and it is a type of film that you'd see me particularly enjoy. It was interesting seeing Sterling Hayden playing against type and Raymond Burr in a role different to his iconic Perry Mason.

While it is a worth a look (it takes a lot for me to deem anything these days a must avoid), though namely for the cast, there was a much better film somewhere in 'Crime of Passion' that didn't fully make it out. So considering what it had going for it, part of me was disappointed by 'Crime of Passion' while far from disliking it. Would have liked it a lot more if the story was a lot stronger and more focused, because it was that component that brought things down by a too significant degree.

There are a number of good things in 'Crime of Passion'. The best thing about it is the cast. Stanwyck's role is not an easy one to pull off, but she pulls it off very well. There is her usual steel, yet never in a cold way, and how effortlessly she commands the screen, while also giving a little vulnerability. It has been said that she was too old for the role, maybe but actually it didn't distract me that much. Hayden's character on paper sounds dull, but that's not how his own performance came over as and he does great at coming over as level-handed and sympathetic. Burr is distinguished yet menacing as a charmer with a (very) dark side sort of character. Fay Wray does nicely in a role different to her role in 'King Kong' and it was fun seeing Royal Dano as a work rival.

It's not just the cast. It's assuredly directed by Gerd Oswald and the film looks great. Although the story could have done with more atmosphere, the production values are hardly bereft of them. The photography is especially first class. The ominous but not too obviously so score helps too. There are moments where the script thought provokes and has snap, the social commentary is very interesting and insightful. There is intrigue and the film does start off very well.

Sadly, the latter parts of 'Crime of Passion' aren't as strong in particular. While a good deal of the pace is assured and not too filler-like, some of it does lag and if the script was tauter and not as routine or soggy as it at times was that would have made things better. The story loses focus and could have done with a lot more suspense.

Also felt that the story did get far-fetched and not always easy to follow. Capped off by an ending that was too convenient and almost implausible, the writing for the lead character not making much sense.

Definitely worth a viewing, but really wanted to love it and ended up being fairly neutral. 6/10

... is who Kathy (Barbara Stanwyck) is. She's a reporter on a paper that usually gives her lonely hearts column assignments, but then she gets a chance to report on the case of a woman who has killed her lover. She writes a sympathetic column in which she encourages the woman to call her and talk, she does, and as a result Kathy finds out where she is hiding. Then she encounters the cheerless LAPD detective Charlie Alidos who tells her to give up the woman's location or he'll have her arrested, indicating that she should be home cooking dinner for her non-existent husband. Kathy gives Alidos a bum steer as far as the woman's location because she'd rather give this arrest to Alidos' partner, Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden), but he sets her straight that he and Alidos are partners and you just don't do that to your partner.

Kathy gets a new job in a different city as a result of her helping break this case, but her new romance with Bill Doyle is getting in the way, and they marry in haste when she makes one of her trips back to California to see him. As was the custom in the 50s, she stops working and becomes a housewife. But being a wife and in particular the wife of a cop in the 50s is particularly boring, and she is soon going nuts from the constant company of the Stepford wives who comprise the wives of the cops who come over to play cards with Bill a few times a week. She also discovers that Bill is not particularly ambitious. He just thinks being a cop is a pretty secure job with OK pay and good retirement prospects and that is the end of it for him.

So Kathy starts out to be ambitious for Bill if he will not be so for himself. She studies the driving habits of the wife of the head of detectives, Tony Pope (Raymond Burr) and manages to maneuver an "auto accident" with her, befriends her, and gets herself and Bill invited to their house for their parties. But almost immediately Tony Pope lets her know he has her number, knows the accident was planned, and that she is trying to get her husband promoted. But he is also obviously fascinated with her. At this point, if Kathy just wanted to promote her husband, she'd give this effort up since Pope has her cold busted. But she still hangs around Pope until an affair occurs. Why? Because Kathy likes the danger and excitement of dealing with Pope versus the ennui of being just another housewife. But Pope himself has a conscience and cuts off contact with her as a result of him feeling bad for betraying and cheating on both Bill and his own wife. This is when Kathy's actions become erratic and also, just plain dumb. Complications ensue.

I particularly liked seeing Raymond Burr as the rather enigmatic chief of detectives. Not a white knight as he was in Perry Mason, but also not one his psychopathic characters when he was starring in the noirs, it was a nuanced role for him. Also note he is close to a normal weight here. This was made just as he was starting out on Perry Mason, and one of the conditions of getting that role was that he lose 60 pounds.