Crime of Passion (1956) User Reviews

Pushin' Hubby Up The Rungs

[ferbs54 · 7/10 · 29 November 2007]

We've all heard the saying that behind every great man, there's a little woman pushing him on. But what if the big lug has no desire to be pushed on? What's a gal to do then? Well, if the woman is Barbara Stanwyck in the 1957 film "Crime of Passion," she connives, eliminates the competition, arranges phony accidents, engages in adultery and finally commits homicide, all to push hubby up the rungs of success. In this film, Babs plays a tough-dame reporter in San Francisco who falls hard for L.A. cop Sterling Hayden. She even marries the big galoot after a couple of dates and moves to Lalaland with him. Anyway, that's the setup of what turns out to be a fairly interesting, sexually frank, compact little noir, featuring a once-in-a-lifetime cast. Stanwyck, 50 here and nudging toward the end of her spectacular film career, is as intense as ever (she always gave her all in every picture); Hayden is his typically macho, upright self; Raymond Burr, playing Hayden's boss, is a tad less sleazy than usual but still not to be trusted; and Fay Wray, also 50 here and approaching the end of HER career, is fine in her small role as Burr's wife. Director Gerd Oswald, a favorite amongst fans of the old "Outer Limits" (and who also went on to direct Burr on TV's "Perry Mason"), does his usual excellent job as well. The presences of Stanwyck and Hayden, who had starred in such noir classics as "Double Indemnity" ('44), "The Asphalt Jungle" ('50) and "The Killing" ('56), add greatly to the noirish feel here. And if this film shows anything, it's that there's one place on Earth you DON'T want to be: on Babs' bad side!

surprising social critique

[ricer · 7/10 · 20 September 2004]

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).

Some women should not get married.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 19 August 2012]

A devoted columnist for a large San Francisco newspaper, Barbara Stanwyck has forgone marriage and romance to have a career. But when Los Angeles police detective Sterling Hayden comes to town on a case, sparks fly between the two of them, and they impulsively marry. Stanwyck relocates to Los Angeles and finds the mediocrity of her existence not to her liking at all, and that includes instant resentment towards the wives of Hayden's co-workers, lead by chatty Virginia Grey. Certainly, these "Ladies who Lunch" types would get on the nerves of an independent woman such as Stanwyck, and it becomes her life's mission to change their situation immediately.

Stanwyck thinks like a ruthless businessman and schemes to get into the good graces of Hayden's boss's wife (Fay Wray), hoping that her husband (Raymond Burr) will look at Hayden for an important promotion. To get this to come to fruition, she goes as far as seducing him, but that's no guarantee that hubby will get the job Stanwyck wants for him. Stanwyck does what any other film noir wife will do. She resorts to murder!

Not as ruthless as her 40's film noir vixens Phyllis Diedrickson, Martha Ivers, or Thelma Jordan, Stanwyck's character is certainly a strong woman, having worked mainly around men and seemingly preferring their company. Certainly, the women in her new social circle seem frivolous and flighty, and its obvious that Stanwyck would feel more comfortable playing cards with the boys rather than swapping recipes with the girls. So while the crime she commits seems to come out of nowhere (other than perhaps a mental breakdown gone untreated), it does make sense that the frustration she felt would take over and cause her to snap. Stanwyck, getting ready to move on to her television career (with only a few feature films left), is still a quite attractive, shapely woman, and for someone in her early 50's, she has quite a bit of sex appeal left. This won't go down in the list of best film noir thrillers, but Stanwyck's performance helps it rise above what was being done in abundance already on television.

A lady who craves excitement...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 18 March 2023]

... 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.

A desperate woman will do anything for her man

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 13 January 2007]

So thinks Barbara Stanwyck in "Crime of Passion," a 1957 film also starring Sterling Hayden and Raymond Burr. Stanwyck is newspaper woman Kathy Ferguson who, in the beginning, is going after the story of a crime being investigated by Doyle and Alidos (Hayden and Royal Dano). Dano gives the newsroom a speech on the idea of "let us do our job" and Stanwyck is the only one who speaks up, stating, "And we're trying to do our jobs." Alidos' reply is a killer: "You should be home making dinner for your husband." Do you love it? Doyle and Kathy fall in love and get married a little too soon after they meet. Kathy, a woman who craves excitement and new adventures in life, is stuck with a bunch of vapid women she can't tolerate. Making things worse, her husband is a gentle and loving man but he has no ambition. And she's bored out of her skull. Of course, now that she's married, there's no question of her working. In an effort to help him, Kathy cultivates a friendship with the wife (Fay Wray) of Police Inspector Pope (Burr) and then has a flirtation with the inspector himself. It leads to problems (that's putting it mildly).

Stanwyck is terrific in a difficult role, that of a woman with more going on internally than even she knew; Burr does a good job as a hard-nosed, cold police inspector. Sterling Hayden has never been a favorite of mine. To me he always comes off as a dufus. In "Crime of Passion," he's excellent as a good man whose only ambition is to be happy and spend time with his wife. Alas, his wife didn't share his dream.

This is a small movie, probably a B, directed by Gerd Oswald that is shot in black and white, probably reflective of what people were seeing on television by then. The twists and turns will keep the viewer off-balance and interested. not to mention the pervasive '50s attitudes toward women.

A pre-feminist tantrum? No, "Witness to Murder" reveals the hysteria behind the cardboard image of the '50s happy housewife. - Spoilers

[bob-959 · 30 January 2004]

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.

Sinful passions

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 24 June 2020]

'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

Ambition and Murder

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 7 October 2009]

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.

A hair slow at times, but really well acted and filmed. And widescreen.

[secondtake · 8/10 · 7 January 2011]

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.

Colorful, implausible modern-era melodrama offers Stanwyck another meaty role...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 22 August 2009]

Career gal and avowed bachelorette falls for a ten-year veteran on the Los Angeles police force; they marry, but his low-level status at the department--and the bottom-drawer company they must keep on the social set--brings up the wife's ambitious, scheming nature. What begins as an interesting study of a woman columnist quickly turns into a potboiler, with Barbara Stanwyck as the newly-christened suburban housewife with discontent in her eyes. This change of direction nearly doesn't work, though Stanwyck and Sterling Hayden (and Raymond Burr as Hayden's superior) are very good at keeping the scenario engrossing. Barbara's smudgy face and puffy mouth are just the right ingredients to kick-start a frantic modern 'noir' (complete with a '40s-style score by Paul Dunlap), and the actress is really something to behold when she gets hysterical. The plot takes a few twists which replace the potential for irony with flat-out melodrama, yet it remains tart and absorbing on a minor level. **1/2 from ****

What Wouldn't She Do For Her Cop

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 20 March 2009]

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.

Thanks to TCM

[mollymoor · 10/10 · 12 January 2007]

My comments are not only for the movie and its stars but for TCM keeping these noir movies and other "oldies" on air for future generations to have the priveledge of viewing and even for its social education to give them a window of movies and life past. It is very important for us to never forget where todays movies started and what real stars and actors are.... At my age it is very nostalgic to return to the movies I grew up watching the actors I saw on the big screen. Movies will never be like this again and the present actors with the exception of a few will never light up the screen and cause our imaginations to go wild! Now movies have to show every nuance of reality so no one can have an imagination or self thought process...they do it all for you@

None Too Steamy

[telegonus · 6/10 · 7 May 2002]

For a movie with the word passion in the title this modest 1957 noir wannabe never builds up a head of steam. It tells the tale of a successful San Francisco Dear Abby-type columnist who inexplicably falls in love with a taciturn, unambitious police officer from Los Angeles. After a whirlwind romance, these two lovebirds settle down to a life of dull domesticity in L.A. Though the woman has given up her writing career, she soon finds that she's too intelligent and ambitious to be a housewife. She encourages her husband to seek advancement in the police department, but politics isn't his thing. He likes being where he is. Rather than do the smart thing, and return to writing, the woman becomes a meddler, and in time gets into deep personal doo-doo.

There's nothing in this movie that hasn't been done before and better. It doesn't feel like an independent production from the late fifties but rather like an RKO thriller from six or seven years earlier. And not one of the better ones. Director Gerd Oswald has proved himself elsewhere to be at times a superb craftsman, but Jo Eisingers by the numbers script conspire with mediocre production values to defeat him. And down he goes. What makes the movie somewhat watchable is the acting. Barbara Stanwyck gives her all to the role of a career woman who, though smart enough, maybe lacks the experience to see that the average joe she falls for, though amiable in his gruff way, is simply not the man for her. I find her performance believable. As her hubby, the towering Sterling Hayden, he of the sullen expression and morose, inexplicably angry line readings, is likewise okay, though I sense that he's not always focused on his acting. I've seen him do tighter work. In a smaller but pivotal role Raymond Burr is his usual polite, somewhat impassive, inscrutable self, bringing authority and, well, weight, to his role as Hayden's superior. Interestingly, all three performers were nearing the end of a particular phase of his career. Stanwyck was soon to quit movies for television, and when she returned it was as a character actress. Hayden was just about to quit movies, too, though like Stanwyck he would go on to interesting things later. And Burr was soon to triumph on television as Perry Mason, leaving behind a decade's worth of good character work in film, of which this is one of the last examples.

Just watched this, and wanted so much more

[thomas196x2000 · 4/10 · 22 August 2009]

This is really an oddball. I really wanted more from it, but viewing this is kind of like having an almost flat soda and trying to tell yourself it's still good.

Two different movies wanted to be made here, a soap-operaish character piece and a police melodrama. All we got was a melodrama of the very bad kind.

Where to start. Stanwyck's character acts in wildly improbable ways and is inconsistent. She starts in a newsroom doing the Ann Landers bit, and it SEEMS that she might want more--and is certainly capable of it--maybe a reporting job. Care was put into creating the newsroom atmosphere, including having a sandwich boy prattling on about sandwiches (and it's "Ike" from "The Waltons"!!!) and a lot of period detail. You think you're going to get some sort of newsroom/police drama. Uh, but no, the brakes are pretty much put on full just as you are getting acquainted with the atmosphere.

As the film continues, it appears that Stanwyck gets a better job in NY. She is going to move on up to something better.

Suddenly, the plot creakily shifts and we never see the newsroom, or the sandwich boy for that matter (hell, thought he might show up as a witness or something later on, I mean, this was supposed to be a noir, right?) Stanwyck, who doesn't believe in marriage, kids, or anything like that, suddenly marries a police office she barely knows and met during work.

It's not 10 minutes of screen time between when she seemingly rejects anything but a career and is next going on and on about wanting to do nothing but darn Hayden's socks. No, I am not kidding.

Then just as suddenly, she is bored of living with Hayden, her cop husband, and begins scheming to get him ahead in his career. If she is so bored, why is she not working? I didn't get the impression he would mind. But instead, she gets into all sorts of mischief, from staged accidents to affairs to get him ahead.

In the middle of all these things, she wants him to transfer to Beverly Hills, where it would be quieter. How is that moving him forward? It's inconsistent with her wanting him to move ahead. When all else fails, she murders someone, as if THAT would propel them both forward. How could it, when the results of the investigation would send her to the gas chamber? Why was his promotion that important to her, to lose her life or freedom over? Just a few minutes earlier in the film, promotion was not important, it was a transfer to a dead end quiet job in Beverly Hills! Huh?!?! The whole thing doesn't add up, or make any sense at all.

And one other thing, just what IS it with that huge looming drive-in screen outside their home? I thought that was going to play in somehow...maybe the noise coming over and bothering the characters, maybe masking an important sound, I don't know.

Heck, just in my wonderings here I am coming up with plot ideas that could have worked better. This cast and story foundation deserved so much more than this.

Very strange movie.

Performances are good but the plotting is not

[bob the moo · 23 November 2013]

Crime of Passion sees ambitious journalist Kathy fall for and marry the simple cop Bill Doyle and move into a world of settled domesticity. Her ambitions however are not satisfied and as she tries to manipulate her way up the social and career ladder for her and Bill, she loses sight of what is important and things start to go wrong.

With Stanwyck, Burr and Hayden in the cast I was looking forward to this film and on that front I was happy enough because the cast were as solid as those names would suggest. The problem is not with them but rather with a plot that moves too quickly, doesn't always ring true and is tidied up too easily. We meet Kathy as an aspiring journalist who has ambitions but within a few scenes she has settled down with Bill – a man that one key scene in their new home tells us, that she really doesn't know at all but it is clear to the viewer that the life models for these two don't align. Suddenly we have personal ambitions replaced with ambitions for Bill's career and from there things go wrong in ways that don't really ring true either. I liked Kathy as a character but her frustrations are all over the place – she hates the domestic life of the housewife circle but yet her attempts at betterment are focused on Bill, not herself. Her relationship with Tony Pope is also out of nowhere and again doesn't convince. From here things move very quickly to a conclusion that is far too tidy for its own good and doesn't satisfy as it should.

The delivery of the situations always feels rushed and although it pushes a dark tone, it doesn't support it with the material. The cast do all they can though and indeed it is Stanwyck that makes the difference as she sells her character the best she can. Her driven and frustrated performance makes the unconvincing narrative a little less unconvincing. Hayden is solid as you expect and I liked this naïve, rather plain- living character. Burr is a decent presence but he is a narrative device rather than a character – he serves this function well but nothing more.

Crime of Passion should have been a much stronger film but instead the narrative is unconvincing and jumps events without making good connections. The cast help cover for this and give good turns but the film is not really deserving of their efforts.

Wow, that Barbara is one bad lady!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 3 January 2011]

A hard-boiled middle-aged newspaper woman (Barbara Stanwyck) inexplicably falls for a police detective (Sterling Hayden) and gives up her career. Considering that they just met and then got married, it's not surprising that soon afterwords she would come to hate the banality of life in suburbia. She can't stand the life of a housewife and the dull friends--she wants more. So, this scheming and ambitious woman sets out to make changes in their lives--and her first order of business is to get her husband a more important job--even if he is quite content with his lot in life. So, she begins arranging 'coincidences' that help her get in good with the higher-ups at the force and thus improve the quality of their friendships. And, considering that Hayden isn't all that perceptive, she is able to manipulate him throughout the film and use other men (particularly Raymond Burr) for her wicked plans. But, when her plans don't go as she expects, she's even willing to kill!

This is a strange film noir-like film. The camera angles and elements of the plot are very noir, though it's highly unusual to make such a film without focusing on everyday criminals but the police. It's actually a noir and the 1940s/50s 'manipulative woman' genre combined (manipulative woman films are often associated with Joan Crawford though Stanwyck also made a few). I really enjoyed it and there was only one sour note--solving the crime at the end of the film was way too easy. There is no logical reason why Stanwyck would so readily admit to the killing. Still, it's an entertaining film from start to finish.

"I feel sorry for all people who make fools of themselves."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 30 December 2021]

I couldn't help but feel that this story could have used a good rewrite after the first draft, because things occur that beg explanation and they're simply glossed over. The biggest one of these is why Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) gave up her career and a move to New York City to marry L. A. Police Captain Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden). Sure, the chemistry was there, but she pretty much made it a point that she had ambition, even degrading Doyle early in the story for his lack of it - "For me, life has to be something more than that."

Anyway, after a series of broken lunch dates with her husband, inane small talk with the wives of other police officers, and enough already with the lavender beads and iridescent chiffon, Kathy takes the initiative to get Bill moved up in the police ranks. A move to the Beverly Hills PD which Kathy demanded was on the table for about a minute, until it wasn't, making for another sudden turn that was a puzzler. And then, in one of the biggest question marks in the story, Bill finds an accusatory letter concerning Kathy being involved with another member of the police force. Now why would she leave that just lying around? Bill had no suspicion and didn't even have to look for it, he just came out of the bedroom with it to confront his wife.

Fast forward to the ending, and Kathy is raging over her husband's boss (Raymond Burr), with whom she had a brief affair, presumably to enhance Bill's standing in the department. Tony Pope's (Burr) refusal to continue their affair leads to his undoing, as Kathy shoots him with a gun she stole from an evidence table at the station. That too seemed rather unlikely, though for a Fifties movie, I guess you could allow it some slack. As forensics eventually identifies the gun that killed Pope, Bill Doyle realizes his wife is on the hook for murder. Again, in a somewhat odds defying denouement, Kathy simply admits the truth and gives herself up. If not for the principals in this film, this might have been a bummer of a story, but with Stanwyck, Hayden and Burr in primary roles, it at least passed muster as interesting. I always like to see Royal Dano show up in a picture as well.

Entertaining but ludicrous

[marcslope · 6/10 · 31 December 2012]

Fun, low-budget late noir, where we see capable, independent career woman Barbara Stanwyck fall in love with straight-arrow L.A. cop Sterling Hayden, try to fit in as a happy Fifties housewife, quickly go insane from the effort, and commit the crime of the title. There's abundant pre-feminist social commentary, as well as palpable heat between the principal players--we see at once what's keeping them together. But there are loose ends, too. If Stanwyck's so unhappy with cakes and pies and cleaning, why doesn't she just go out and get another job, as Hayden would surely allow? Why would she Make a Mistake with his boss, an unappealing Raymond Burr, then regret it instantly? And what palpable gains are to be gotten from her from committing the titular crime? Some nice location filming helps, and we understand how the stultifying life she's chosen is messing with her head. But the plot motivations aren't entirely credible.

"I have other plans for you"

[nickenchuggets · 7/10 · 27 May 2023]

Noir movies are among my favorite types of films to partake in, and while most actors and actresses well known to fans of the genre are a welcome sight, Barbara Stanwyck just doesn't do it for me most of the time. This movie starts with a newspaper columnist named Kathy Ferguson (Stanwyck) having her place of employment visited by two detectives, Bill Doyle and Captain Alidos (Sterling Hayden and Royal Dano respectively). They're looking for a woman who has murdered someone in San Francisco some time ago. Kathy takes a liking to Bill, but his partner tells her that her only place should be in the kitchen making food for her husband when he arrives home. This leads to her having an intense animosity towards him. Kathy eventually manages to get the fugitive to trust her, and then gets herself mentioned in the papers. Because of this (and the interest she has in Bill) she quits her job and moves to LA. However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Kathy's time as a housewife is fraught with mental torment and uncertainty. She wants to see him do something ambitious so he can get ahead at the department, but at the same time, him taking on dangerous work makes her uncomfortable. Later on, Kathy stages a car accident with Alice Pope (Fay Wray), wife of inspector Tony Pope (Raymond Burr), who leads the division Bill is a part of. As Kathy continues to scheme to push her husband further up the chain of command, she starts clashing with Sara, Alidos' wife. Sara spreads nasty rumors about Kathy having an affair with Tony, and when Bill finds an incriminating note in Kathy's room, he drives to work and punches Alidos right in the jaw. Tony looks into the incident and learns that Alidos went for his gun when he saw Bill bust in, so both men acted out of line. Alidos is moved to another division, while Bill is promoted to homicide captain. Kathy later learns from Tony that Alice has been hospitalized due to stress, so Tony decides to leave the job. Kathy seizes the opportunity to persuade him that Bill deserves the job his departure will leave open. After kissing her, it seems like Tony is going to let Bill have the job, but then dismisses it as pillow talk at a later date. Kathy learns that not only is Bill not getting the job, but the person who is is none other than Alidos. She is livid. One day, Kathy goes with Bill to the station and asks for a drink of water when her husband leaves the lobby. When the guard's back is turned, she sneaks a pistol into her coat pocket. Kathy tries to play nice with Tony one last time, and begs him to not recommend Alidos for the job. Tony refuses, so she murders him. Pope's death plunges the police into a frenzy, and Bill throws himself and all his subordinates into an investigation. It takes a while, but he eventually concludes that Kathy is the murderer as the gun she stole was on the table until the guard decided to turn his back to her. Bill confronts his wife, who says she only did all these things to please him. Bill then takes Kathy to headquarters to be interrogated. I wasn't really that thrilled with this movie. Burr and Hayden are both good, as they're staples of the genre, but it seemed as if there was never a time when Stanwyck's performance didn't annoy me. One moment she's scheming, then crying into her husband's arm because she doesn't want to see him die on the job. Maybe it's just me, but I like to see dangerous women in noir movies who are just as capable as the men when it comes to causing havoc. Stanwyck does do that in this movie, but she never really feels in control of herself. She frantically jumps from one setup to another in order to boost Hayden's prestige and she seems to get sick just at the thought of Alidos' name. Why is she so angry at him to begin with anyway? Because he told her she should focus on being a wife and nothing else? The catalyst for her malice isn't convincing. I thought it was odd seeing Fay Wray over 20 years after she starred in King Kong, and I didn't recognize her at first. If anything, I felt that basically all the characters but Kathy were tolerable. At least they aren't annoying or clingy to the extent that she is. To sum things up, Crime of Passion wasn't that great, but I only really watched it to progress with the film noir book I bought from TCM's website. The author spoils a lot of movies I haven't watched, so I felt the need to see this before I continued reading. In hindsight, maybe I should have disregarded the spoiler since Crime of Passion's ending is just plain unsatisfying.

Babs pulls out all the stops

[mls4182 · 10/10 · 21 March 2022]

This came near the very end of the great Babs Stanwyck's career. I don't think she would have accepted this unintentionally funny script earlier in her career.

Babs plays a woman who gives up her career to marry cop Sterling Hayden in Culver City. She is annoyed by the insipid housewives she is forced to socialize with.

She channels her frustration into her husband's careerhe schemes to get closer to his superior - very close. She has an affair with his boss, tubby Raymond Burr. The guilt and frustration drive her to A CRIME OF PASSION. Hilarious.

noir in suburbia

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 21 May 2017]

Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is an advice columnist for the San Francisco Post. LAPD detective William Doyle (Sterling Hayden) and Captain Charlie Alidos arrive for a case. She helps Doyle to solve the case and is offered a big opportunity. Instead, she abandons her career to marry Doyle and follow him to LA. Doyle is a by-the-books guy with no ambitions to climb higher. Kathy claims to have no ambitions other than to be a housewife. Soon, she chafes at the banalities of a suburban housewife life and is pushing Doyle up the ladder any which way possible. She deliberately gets into a car accident with Alice Pope to connect with her husband, Police Inspector Tony Pope (Raymond Burr). This sets her in conflict with the Alidos and down a dark path.

Barbara Stanwyck is a noir femme fatale stuck in suburbia. It is a fascinating concept and it has the amazing Stanwyck. She does need a more compelling opponent. It would have been interesting to have the Alidos have a bigger role. As such, it is a fascinating character for Stanwyck. She has the balls and the rooting interest. Although, I don't think that it's necessary to start her off as a career woman. It would have been more compelling to do a darker side of suburban life by starting everyone in that nuclear family utopia.

The Curse of Phyllis Dietrichsen

[theowinthrop · 4/10 · 25 August 2009]

I have always had a secret pantheon of actresses (like all movie lovers do) who I could watch most of the time quite happily. In the so-called "Golden Age" of talking films the two twin lights were Bette Davis and Kate Hepburn. I never have really chosen which of the two was the greater. The number of Oscars they won, totaling six - two for Davis and four for Hepburn - meant nothing because Hepburn won one for MORNING GLORY, which is now a historical curiosity, and one for GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, which she knew was a joint one for herself and Spencer Tracy, while Davis' first Oscar was not for Joyce Heath in the badly written DANGEROUS. So the Oscars they won are not really great measuring devices.

Anyone else on that top line - well, I suppose that everyone can fill in some name (Crawford, Russell, Lombard, Garbo, take your pick). To me the third one would have been their only real peer as an actress who could play anything: Barbara Stanwyck. She never got a specific Oscar, although she did get nominated for her best recalled role of the villain Phyllis in DOUBLE INDEMNITY (still the champion icy killer of that period). Towards the end of her career (like Davis and Hepburn she worked up to the end, in her case mostly on television), she got an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement. Somehow, given her abilities as sex object (BABY FACE), tragic mother (STELLA DALLAS), killer (DOUBLE INDEMNITY), comedienne par excellence (THE LADY EVE, BALL OF FIRE), even willing to sing in a musical number (LADY IN BURLESQUE - imagine Hepburn trying to sing in a film!), a lifetime award seemed actually more fitting than any particular film choice by the Academy.

Having said that, I must admit one giant reservation for Stanwyck. While Davis was frequently characterized as appearing only in "woman's movies" (then how explain THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER or WATCH ON THE RHINE?) and while Hepburn seemed to be too much the social snob (even in PAT AND MIKE or DESK SET?) they never got as seriously type-cast as Stanwyck did after her best known villain role. Phyllis Dietrichsen is a fascinating bitch - no other way to explain her evil spell on people. She destroys or threatens anybody who is in her way to wealth, using her sexuality as the ultimate weapon. Possibly the sexiest unseen moment in film noir is that brief time off screen between her and Fred MacMurray in his apartment, beginning with them kissing, and ending with her fixing her face with her compact and lipstick. You know they were screwing at that point.

But after that film's success the three stars had different trajectories. MacMurray did an occasional heel again (THE CAINE MUTINY, THE APARTMENT), but was mostly playing good guys. Eddie Robinson played all sorts of characters in all kinds of films, but never another insurance expert. But it is like Stanwyck found herself playing variants of Phyllis every four or five pictures. Not in all her film noir (in the TWO MISS CAROLLS she is threatened by insane husband/killer Humphrey Bogart) but look at some of the other films: THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS, THE FURIES, THE FILE ON THELMA JORDAN. Her great intensity was constantly used to make her the most lethal of the three greatest actress (Davis comes next with THE LETTER and THE LITTLE FOXES, but with a bland iciness that rarely breaks until the end).

CRIME OF PASSION is nowhere near as good as DOUBLE INDEMNITY or THE FURIES or even THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS. In fact it has some of the worst writing in a film noir I have come across. Film noir plots at their best are logical outcroppings of humanity and twists of fate (Neff selling insurance to a greedy monster; Robinson spending a pleasant evening with Joan Bennett when they are forced to kill her jealous, insane lover in THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW). Here it comes down to this - do not marry a woman who is insanely into your job status! That's the plot.

Stanwyck works on a newspaper, and she has been contacted by a killer. She dislikes Detective Royal Dano, who belittled her with a sexist remark (actually one of the small, rare, realistic pluses in this 1957 film), and uses her tip to help handsome, nice Sterling Hayden. Hayden and she hit it off, and marry. But she is appalled that he is unwilling to push for promotions she thinks he deserves (at one point later on, Raymond Burr will make the point that Hayden really did not merit the promotions - and pays for saying so). Stanwyck (like Dennis Price in a far better film) starts seeing how to remove competition for her husband, and ends up romancing Burr (married to Fay Wray). But when that fails to change things, she kills Burr - and suddenly Hayden is temporarily promoted. So it can work for awhile.

The dialog is awful. If she were arguing with Hayden about killing someone for a fortune maybe it would work. But she is arguing with a character reminiscent of the young David Morse on ST. ELSEWHERE in terms of "live and let live" philosophy. This might have been better as a comedy in which the lack of push by Hayden leads Stanwyck into finally divorcing her husband (much to his relief). Instead it leads to Hayden belatedly realizing the nut he married. The best character in it is Burr, who when seeing the results of his tawdry affair comes to his senses and resolves to end it and return to Wray, the woman he always loved. One wishes that had been built up a bit. CRIME OF PASSION is only worth seeing if one wants to see all of Stanwyck's films. But be prepared to be disappointed.

Extremely Offbeat and Interesting Crime Noir Thriller

[zardoz-13 · 9/10 · 28 November 2009]

Barbara Stanwyck delivers an outstanding performance as a hysterical woman who pulls every string ethically and then eventually unethically in "Brass Legend" director Gerd Oswald's hidden gem of a crime noir "Crime of Passion" that qualifies as a sociological expose of the displaced women in the late 1950s that anticipated the feminist movement. Since this movie was under the aegis of the Production Code, the savvy viewer will know that crime doesn't pay and it doesn't pay in this sharp sage. The Stanwyck protagonist is the epitome of an independent woman who doesn't believe in marriage but she turns around and marries a veteran Los Angeles detective who lacks ambition. Compensating for his lack of ambition and her lack of a job, she pours her energy into getting her husband promotions, even if it means 'playing dirty' and relying on underhanded schemes, finally she embraces murder as a means to an end. Sterling Hayden is perfectly cast as the level-headed cop, while Raymond Burr makes his presence felt even when he is not on screen as Hayden's superior and Stanwyck's illicit lover. "Crime of Passion" qualifies as a film noir and the low-budget and concise direction by Oswald adds a luster to it. The last quarter hour is a clincher. Look for Stuart Whitman as a police lab technician. Atmospheric and edgy material, "Crime of Passion" depicts a headstrong woman's collapse in a contemporary society when she has no outlet for herself. The moral of this movie is that the Stanwyck character should never have quit her job as a manipulative newspaper advice columnist.

OK drama

[PeterJackson · 6/10 · 20 January 2001]

This story concerns a woman who would do anything to forward her husband's career. Pretty unbelievable? Wait til you see what she's prepared to do for it. No, actually, no kidding: this film is a decent drama with a strong performance by the always reliable Barbara Stanwyck at the heart of it. Not good, not bad, like many other films. But I'd give this one the benefit of the doubt. That is, if you've got nothing better to do. 6/10

Baffling story, abysmal script

[lbkrahn · 1/10 · 15 December 2014]

One of the worst Barbara Stanwyck movies I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few of them, since I'm a big fan of hers. This movie made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

First, the storyline is so uninteresting and mundane, by the time the main character gets around to committing the "crime of passion," all the reasons for committing it have gone up in smoke. It is too late to do the deed, but then it makes as much sense as the rest of the movie does.

Secondly, the movie was just plodding and uninteresting. I suppose there were 3 or 4 lines of social commentary that made sense but as a whole, this movie was so jumbled, I could not make sense of it as a viewer. I now wonder what the point of watching it was, since it did not have anything that caught my interest.

Even one of Barbara's less-than-wonderful movies, "The Moonlighter" made more sense than this mess.

Not one of Barbara's better movies and thus not recommended.