Crime of Passion
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Movie Reviews of Crime of Passion
Movie Review: "Crime of Passiion (1957) ... Stanwyck & Hayden ... United Artists (2003)"
Summary: 4 Stars
United Artists presents "CRIME OF PASSION" (9 January 1957) (84 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Kathy (Barbara Stanwyck) is a smart and tough 1950's advice columnist at a San Francisco newspaper, with her name plastered on billboards all over the city --- One day, Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden), a Los Angeles detective, walks into her office and there is instant attraction --- After marrying Bill, Kathy gives up her career and becomes a homemaker --- However, she is not your typical 1950's homemaker --- After hosting several cocktail parties in their San Fernando Valley home, she realizes that Bill is content with his position, and shows no ambition in furthering himself --- Kathy will not sit idly by while everyone around her is "moving up in the world" --- She personally takes upon herself the task of pushing Bill's career along, even if it comes down to murder.
Sterling Hayden: ever the maverick, ever the individual - he preferred to sail his yacht around the world rather than act in movies. Yet despite his lack of interest in film, he was lauded and chased by the very finest directors: John Huston, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola & Stanley Kubrick. In each of his roles, Hayden's individuality showed forth whatever the genre of film: noir, adventure, western & swashbuckler.
Under the production staff of:
Gerd Oswald [Director]
Jo Eisinger [Screenwriter]
Jo Eisinger [Story]
Herman Cohen [Producer]
Robert Goldstein [Executive Producer]
Paul Dunlap [Original Film Music]
Joseph LaShelle [Cinematographer]
A. Leslie Thomas [Art Director]
BIOS:
1. Gerd Oswald [Director]
Date of Birth: 9 June 1919 - Berlin, Germany
Date of Deatth: 22 May 1989 - Los Angeles, California
2. Barbara Stanwyck (aka: Ruby Catherine Stevens)
Date of Birth: 16 July 1907 - Brooklyn, New York
Date of Death: 20 January 1990 - Santa Monica, California
3. Sterling Hayden [aka: Sterling Relyea Walter]
Date of Birth: 26 March 1916- Upper Montclair, New Jersey
Date of Death: 23 May 1986 - Sausalito, California
the cast includes:
Barbara Stanwyck - Kathy Ferguson Doyle
Sterling Hayden - Police Lt. Bill Doyle
Raymond Burr - Police Inspector Anthony (Tony) Pope
Fay Wray - Alice Pope
Virginia Grey - Sara Alidos
Royal Dano - Police Capt. Charlie Alidos
Robert Griffin - Police Sgt. James
Dennis Cross - Police Sgt. Jules
Jay Adler - Mr. Nalence
Stuart Whitman - Laboratory Technician
Malcolm Atterbury - Police Officer Spitz
Robert Quarry - Sam, Reporter
Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 4 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]
Total Time: 84 min on DVD ~ United Artists ~ (12/02/2003)
Movie Review: Some Women Just Aren't Cut Out to Be Housewives.
Summary: 4 Stars
Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is a popular advice columnist for a San Francisco newspaper. Career-minded and unmarried, Kathy has a certain disdain for the housewives with whom she professes to sympathize in print. But when a murder suspect confides in her, Kathy is able to turn the woman in to the two Los Angeles police detectives who were on her trail. Her role in capturing a fugitive is a boon to Kathy's career, and she's offered a better job in New York. But Kathy has fallen in love with one of the police detectives on the murder case, Lieutenant Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden), a steadfast, unassuming man of whom Kathy says, "I don't think you'll get very far, but you're a nice guy." She gives up her career to marry Bill, make him happy, and keep his home in suburban Los Angeles. But she is soon frustrated by the tedium of bourgeois dinner parties and policemen's wives.
"Crime of Passion" is a female melodrama where violence and hysteria invade the idyllic post-war suburbs. What starts out as an advocacy of women leaving their careers to be homemakers, personified in Bill Doyle's chauvinistic partner Captain Charlie Alidos (Royal Dano), doesn't turn out that way. Kathy is an ambitious, self-possessed woman trapped in suburbia with nothing to do but have ambitions for her husband. She becomes obsessive and neurotic, but is as driven as she ever was. Uh oh. It's hard to say if "Crime of Passion" sympathizes with Kathy Ferguson, as a victim of ridiculous and stifling expectations, or makes her out to be an immoral monster because she's selfish and ambitious. Perhaps both.
Barbara Stanwyck gives Kathy the necessary force and hysteria, but it is painfully obvious that she is 15 years too old for the role. Her face is a mass of crow's feet in some scenes, and her neck is always covered. The hideous frosted hairdo doesn't help. Handsome Sterling Hayden looks downright ungroomed and unappealing. Raymond Burr, who is terrific as police Inspector Tony Pope, the one person who understands Kathy's character, appears younger than the film's 2 stars and is supposed to be older. Well, the actors' appearances wouldn't matter if they were not actually distracting. And Stanwyck and Hayden are perfectly cast otherwise. The film's final crime-solving sequence is contrived and implausible, but "Crime of Passion" features a captivating supporting effort from Raymond Burr, a passable performance from Barbara Stanwyck, and some interesting themes. There are no bonus features on the MGM 2003 DVD. Subtitles are available in English, French, and Spanish.
Movie Review: WHAT SCHEMES MAY COME....
Summary: 4 Stars
Neat, tidy little B-picture about a woman who tries to push her husband up the ladder of success only to have it backfire on her. San Francisco newspaper writer Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) meets and quickly marries macho LA detective Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden) and finds herself plopped down in the middle of suburbia. This is all well and good until she finds her role relegated to the living room with the brainless other wives while the "boys" play poker in the kitchen. Being from a newspaper, she's used to being one of the boys and not one of the "little women". She finally snaps after one too many of these evenings and starts scheming to move her husband up in the department so she can be proud of him and mingle intelligently with the upper crust where she feels they belong. Her plans go beautifully until she runs up against her biggest obstacle, Bill's boss police chief Raymond Burr. They become close and one night he shows up at Kathy's while Bill's away and confides that he needs to retire and is looking for a replacement. Kathy siezes the opportunity to sell Bill as the replacement and commits the ultimate sacrifice via a one-night-stand with Burr thinking she's cinched the "deal" for Bill. But Burr has other plans---leaving Kathy horrified and guilty over what she's done. Her next move will be murder. Stanwyck always excelled at portraying strong, driven, ambitious women and Kathy is no exception. But the film has an obvious feminist slant unusual for the time. The director and Stanwyck make it clear what motivates Kathy and why she she goes over the edge. She loves her husband enough to go all out for him but smart enough to know that she will benefit too. She's too strong a woman to just sit around and mindlessly gossip over dresses, diets and phony aspirations. Her aspirations are real because she knows what she wants for herself and her husband. And it doesn't include cream cheese and olives. For Stanwyck fans, this is an interesting addition to her gallery of headstrong women with an agenda. It's not a "great" film but it's good and worth watching.Movie Review: Who says 1950's suburban housewives lived dull and simple lives?
Summary: 4 Stars
This review is for the 2003 MGM DVD
Barbara Stanwyck stars as Kathy Ferguson, an ambitious, independent woman who writes a relationship advice column for a San Francisco newspaper. While on the job, she gets a different assignment dealing with a Los Angeles police investigation and through some savvy detective work, helps the out of town detectives crack the case. One of the policemen is Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden) and they quickly fall for each other. But at the same time, Kathy just accepted a job with a prestigious New York paper and is clearly conflicted between going east or continuing a relationship with Bill. On impulse they elope and Kathy becomes a housewife for Bill in suburban Los Angeles. It doesn't take too long for Kathy to realize that she's too ambitious and too liberated to be a stand-by-your-man spouse and quickly devises some schemes to push Bill up the business ladder. This sets up the rest of the film where things go wildly out of control.
The movie is in some ways a slice of life picture of life in the later 1950's. The social gatherings are segregated so that the women calmly chat in one room while the men recreate and discuss business in another room. I'm sure some people viewing this movie today would argue that the Kathy Ferguson character was an oppressed victim rather than a greedy, drunk for power wife. The movie has plenty of good acting, especially from one of my all time favorite actors Raymond Burr. The irony of the movie is that this "relationship coach" turned out to be the most dysfunctional character imaginable. It's overall a very good movie, but not a great one for me. Perhaps its because the ending plays it too much by the book and also it's a bit heavy handed since it portrays housewives in the `50's as shallow, simple minded, and boring.
As for the DVD, the B&W full screen picture was near pristine with minimal graininess or contrast problems. The DVD did not have any bonus material.
Movie: B
DVD Quality: A-
Movie Review: the original desperate housewife...
Summary: 4 Stars
With the exception of Joan Crawford, no-one could play the homicidal housewife more effectively than Barbara Stanwyck. CRIME OF PASSION (1957), based on a story by Jo Eisinger, is a great throwback to the noir thrillers of the 1940s, with Stanwyck delivering an amazing performance.
Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck, "Stella Dallas", "Ball of Fire") is a successful newspaper columnist who abandons her career to marry Los Angeles police lieutenant Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden, "Johnny Guitar"). Despite all her best efforts, married life doesn't come easily for Kathy. She's driven to the brink, enduring the police wives' banal small-talk, and the endless poker games of Bill and his colleagues.
Kathy decides to invest her time by helping Bill achieve his full potential within the police force - one rung at a time. But by ingratiating herself with the police chief and his wife (Raymond Burr and Fay Wray), Kathy only causes further hostility between Bill and his co-workers. When the chief announces plans for retirement, Kathy seduces him in an effort to clinch the deal for Bill to succeed him; but when the plan backfires, Kathy resorts to murder...
CRIME OF PASSION gave Barbara Stanwyck the chance to revive the kind of murderous noir heroines that had marked some of her greatest movies ("Double Indemnity", "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers"). Sterling Hayden does what he can to provide distiction as Kathy's weak-willed milquetoast husband. Former movie queens Fay Wray and Virginia Grey are sadly forced into thankless supporting roles; indeed they are hardly noticeable here.
The photography is superb, capturing the low roofs and picket fences of mundane suburbia (Kathy's self-inflicted prison). For fans of noir cinema, CRIME OF PASSION will be an entertaining title for the collection; fans of Barbara Stanwyck will naturally love it too.
(Single-sided, single-layer disc).