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Sudden Fear (1952)

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22 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
San Francisco melodrama starring Joan Crawford, 17 September 2002

Author: Steve Tarter from Peoria, Illinois

Jack Palance has always looked a little maniacal and he plays it here. Just imagine seeing this one in the theater when it arrived on the scene in '52--suspense aplenty!

San Francisco is the backdrop for a mystery that builds until the very end. Joan Crawford is a wanted woman and doesn't crack too many smiles over the last 40 minutes of the picture.

The beauty of this film is its simplicity. There could have been a dozen different endings but this one works.

We won't talk plot--you'll just have it see it for yourself--you won't be disappointed.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Crawford Tops In S/M Noir, 10 February 2006

Author: David (Handlinghandel) from NY, NY

Joan Crawford is an heiress and a famous playwright. During rehearsals, she insists that Jack Palance be fired: It's not that he isn't a good actor. He just doesn't have the matinée idol looks, she maintains. Before we know it, the play has been successfully launched and she is on a train back to San Francisco. Who should kind of turn up on this train but Palance? He and Crawford play poker and she falls in love with him. OK, it seems: He wasn't right for a Broadway Don Juan. But for an unmarried lady of a certain age like her, he has just what it takes.

The fact that Crawford and Palance (the actors) have no chemistry isn't a problem. In a way, it works in the movie's favor. We know he hasn't forgotten the humiliation she put him through. We know she thought him not so hot to begin with.

Gloria Graham is used well as his girlfriend. They're kind of rough with each other too. He speaks of breaking all her bones, rather casually and almost endearingly.

Once Crawford and Palance have married, the suspense heats up. It's a highly suspenseful film -- well written and well directed. Palance is nimble in his role and Crawford is at her very best too. My problem with it is that I've seen it a few times and the print has never been good, which is a problem in the dark scenes toward the end.

But compare this with other movies Crawford was making at around the same time. "Torch Song" is one of the most outrageously ludicrous star vehicles of all time. "Queen Bee" is pretty funny, too -- unintentionally, of course. "Female on the Beach" ... In all the others, men come from miles to fall at Joan's feet. (Speaking of feet, "Sudden Fear" seems, for whatever reason to have more than a usual number of close-ups of its stars stockinged feet and her shoes.) No one has ever seen anyone so beautiful as Crawford in these movies. Maybe this made sense at the time but it doesn't now. She was near 50. Inthose days, this was like being near 65 for a woman.

In "Sudden Fear," she is an old maid. No one comments on her appearance one way or another. She is rich and successful but it doesn't seem that we're meant to view her as a great beauty. What we have instead is a beautiful movie -- quite possibly her best.

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17 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Right up there with Hitchcock at his best, 10 July 2000
Author: John Mankin (mankin@rff.org)

Joan Crawford's reputation as a gay icon and crazed child abuser courtesy of "Mommie Dearest" have tended in recent years to overshadow her considerable talents as an actress. When she died in 1977, a journalist wrote that she was one of the few major movies stars in Hollywood's Golden Age to create a genre all her own. It's true that she was often seen in rags-to-riches sagas, but in "Sudden Fear" (****), one of the best suspense thrillers ever made I feel, she is simply terrific as an already wealthy playwright who marries struggling actor Jack Palance, then accidentally discovers that he and his girlfriend Gloria Graham are planning to murder her for her money. After the initial shock wears off, she devises a plan to turn the tables on them both. The chasm between the clockwork perfection of the plot she devises in her imagination, and the unexpected setbacks that develop in the real-life execution of it, keep this gripping film hugely entertaining. Fine direction, atmospheric night photography of San Francisco locations and even occasional mordantly witty dialogue don't hurt, either. (You may never hear the line "I was just wondering what I had done to deserve you" quite the same way again.)

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10 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Women's Picture Meets Film Noir, 6 February 2002

Author: Irecken from Taylor, Michigan

Film Noir was never more suspenseful and energetic than in this, a wonderful movie. The best reason to see this film is for one of the three principals, either Jack Palance, whose portrayal of a murderous actor husband is great, Gloria Grahame's role as a sultry other woman conspiring with Palance to murder his wife is deftly played, and the best of all is Joan Crawford, who steals every scene and gives a greatly emotional and wholly impeccable performance as the wealthy playwright wife to Jack Palance and would-be murder victim. If this movie ever shows up, DON'T miss it. You'll be quite sorry, for this is a brilliant motion picture.

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13 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Joan and Jack are an impressive duo...good suspense..., 24 June 2001
Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.

Joan Crawford is a playwright who marries Jack Palance and then realizes he is planning to kill her. The formula works this time, thanks largely to the impressive acting of both Crawford and her leading man, Jack Palance. Gloria Grahame is the "other woman" (as usual) and plays an important part in the plot twist that provides a surprise ending.

Nail biting suspense, this is a film noirish kind of thriller that goes into full gear once Crawford learns her marriage is a mistake. Both Joan and Bette Davis (real-life rivals) were nominated for Best Actress Oscars when this was released (Davis for 'The Star') but they both lost to Shirley Booth (for 'Come Back, Little Sheba').

A good, crisp, no-nonsense thriller that showed us how good Jack Palance was in sinister roles.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Sudden Fear- The Advantage of Being A Writer ***1/2, 23 November 2007

Author: edwagreen from United States

Joan Crawford was absolutely marvelous in this 1952 thriller. In this film, she plays a wealthy playwright who rejects Jack Palance for the lead role in her new play only to wind up marrying him instead.

Crawford has everything until she discovers from a taping machine that Palance and secret girl friend, Gloria Grahame, plot to kill him. Using her writing talents, Crawford concocts a plan to outdo them. Remorse sets in before she can do this but she is aided by fate as the film ends.

Crawford becomes mesmerizing once she knows she is an intended victim. Gloria Grahame certainly had a busy 1952. Besides this film, she collected the supporting Oscar for "The Bad and the Beautiful," and was also in the best picture winner that year-"The Greatest Show on Earth."

Palance displays the villain type character that he would make famous in his 50+ film year career.

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2 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
I know a way..I know a way...I know a way...I know...., 9 September 2007
Author: dbdumonteil

"Sudden fear" is everything a good thriller should be.An inventive use of the recorder (an antique today!);The "revenge is a dish best eaten cold" subject masterfully treated;The "flashforwards" in the conditional tense -the "accidents" ,"Irene's schedule"-;the things which seem banal and which play a prominent part in the story:the clock,the wind-up toy,the mirror,all contributes to building a film full of suspense .The three leads ,Joan Crawford , a wealthy lady getting old and thinking she 's found true love,Jack Palance ,not the romantic lead of her play but a disturbing character ,and Gloria Grahame at her bitchiest are terrific.

Like this?Try these.......

"Sorry wrong number" Anatole Litvak 1948

"Dial M for Murder" Alfred Hitchcock 1954

"Les Diaboliques" Henri Georges Clouzot 1955

"Sleep my love" Douglas Sirk 1948

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2 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
great noir, 17 December 2006

Author: jib122-1 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is a great movie - the opening of the film has Crawford claiming that Palance's character doesn't have the "look" required to say her lines - he isn't romantic enough. So, he sets out to prove that he IS romantic enough by wooing her for real. In one seen he woos her by quoting the play she kicked him out of, thus, wooing her with the very lines she said he wasn't romantic enough to say on stage! This a wonderful juxtaposition of theater and reality - he sets out to show her he can play romantic by being romantic in real life - BUT - the real deep and interesting twist is that he is just acting the part in real life, playing her for her money! She is unable to tell, so what does this prove? To what extent is 'looking the part' essential to real life? She saw it as essential to the role on stage (and she turns out to be right, since the play is a big hit with his replacement); but how far is she able to endure the acting in real life - that is, the only 'looking the part' and not really having the 'being' of real romance? Great twisting questions through a deeply suspenseful and psychologically gripping noir (it's Crawford, what would you expect?).

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3 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Good Thriller With A Good Performance By Crawford, 14 January 2003
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

There are some very good features to this thriller that make up for its occasional flaws. Joan Crawford is very good in a role that gives her a chance to do a lot of different things, and the story builds up suspense effectively, to the point where you share in the anxiety and fear of her character. Those strengths make up for the implausible and occasionally unsatisfying plot turns.

Crawford's role gives her a chance to start off as a supremely confident, comfortable playwright, whose dream world is then transformed into a nightmare. She does quite a convincing job of taking her character through the joys, fears, and other turns that she experiences. It is largely thanks to her performance that the suspense build-up works especially well. By the time that the lengthy cat-and-mouse game in the last half of the movie begins, you are really thinking and feeling along with her. The crisis is built up skillfully, though again at the cost of some credibility.

This works very well the first time you see it. Watching it over again, it is easier to see through the less credible plot devices and other small flaws. But none of the flaws detract from Crawford's fine leading performance. Overall, it's a pretty good thriller and certainly well worth seeing once.

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8 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Fabulous, 5 January 2001
Author: ladbroke from London

Not as over-the-top as later works such as Female on the Beach or Queen Bee, but Joan is up to her midlife crisis shenanigans, playing a character much younger than herself and having the scriptwriters write dialogue that constantly refers to her as "girl". She's a fab-tastic rich girl and successful playwright who marries the wrong dude (a very spooky looking Jack Palance). Some great OTT scenes, especially where she learns about the plot against her - as she learns the truth, she shamelesly chews the scenery, gurning and rolling her eyes back and forth. Fantastic!

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