Tuesday 5 February 2019

Crime of Passion (1957 Gerd Oswald)

I must have made a mistake - this can't have been a key film noir recommended by Peter Bogdanovich - can it? (It's too late for a noir for one thing.)

It's more of a bonkers melodrama really. Hard-nosed newspaperwoman Barbara Stanwyck rashly marries cop Sterling Hayden but begins to resent his life and friends (well caught in a scene in which Stepford Wives - to borrow my wife's description - discuss olive and cream cheese) and starts to plot his career improvements. (One way in which the film is nuts is she could easily have got another job working for an LA newspaper.) This involves alienating buddy Royal Dano, sleeping with boss Raymond Burr and ultimately killing him in a way in which she will obviously be caught.

Also with Fay Wray, of all people.

Performances are fine, film moves along. Written by Jo Eisinger, photographed by Joe LaShelle.


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