CRIME OF PASSION - never mind the generic title - exhibits much that's recommendable, but never quite jells as it might have under more imaginative direction and, much as I hate to fault powerhouse performers such as Stanwyck and Hayden, with different casting.
What we have here is really a sort of suburban "All About Eve:" the portrait of a manipulative schemer who'll stop at nothing in service to ambition, even when that ambition is to be simply the dutiful woman behind the successful man.
Another reviewer aptly calls the film "subversive," and this element could have provided its most interesting facets had it been more fully explored. By the mid-to-late 50's, some films were taking a hard-edged second look at the established conventions and revered institutions of postwar American life, and while this one appears at times to aspire to a similar examination - in this case, of the potentially stifling nature of traditional gender roles - it trips itself up in execution, leaning to heavy-handedness when subtlety is called for, and ultimately surrendering to a too-conventional presentation of a "woman at the breaking point" theme that was such a staple of players like Joan Crawford - and Stanwyck herself - during this period.
The been-around-the-block maturity of Stanwyck at this stage of her career is squeezed into a rather tight fit: that of a career woman who, on the brink of long hoped-for advancement, sacrifices all for love and transfers her personal ambition to the professional betterment of her new husband. Likewise, Hayden's normally brusque and self-assured persona seems uncomfortably constrained in the role of a pedantic police professional who cares little for departmental politics and career success, and is more comfortable with a solicitous passivity toward both his working and personal relationships.
One casting bulls-eye is scored with Raymond Burr as the departmental chief who misses nothing, and immediately spots - and appreciates - Stanwyck for the kind of woman she is. As a sort of counterpart to "Eve's" Addison DeWitt, Burr silkily embodies both graciousness and menace, and his sly underplaying projects true power not only of character but of performer, easily dominating every scene in which he appears. With this approach, he seems the only cast member with a handle on what a rich film CRIME OF PASSION could have been.
If undemanding, it's diverting enough, and would certainly be worth seeing for Burr's multi-dimensional work alone, but it's also worth pondering, while one watches, the fascinating possibilities at which it all too briefly hints.
What we have here is really a sort of suburban "All About Eve:" the portrait of a manipulative schemer who'll stop at nothing in service to ambition, even when that ambition is to be simply the dutiful woman behind the successful man.
Another reviewer aptly calls the film "subversive," and this element could have provided its most interesting facets had it been more fully explored. By the mid-to-late 50's, some films were taking a hard-edged second look at the established conventions and revered institutions of postwar American life, and while this one appears at times to aspire to a similar examination - in this case, of the potentially stifling nature of traditional gender roles - it trips itself up in execution, leaning to heavy-handedness when subtlety is called for, and ultimately surrendering to a too-conventional presentation of a "woman at the breaking point" theme that was such a staple of players like Joan Crawford - and Stanwyck herself - during this period.
The been-around-the-block maturity of Stanwyck at this stage of her career is squeezed into a rather tight fit: that of a career woman who, on the brink of long hoped-for advancement, sacrifices all for love and transfers her personal ambition to the professional betterment of her new husband. Likewise, Hayden's normally brusque and self-assured persona seems uncomfortably constrained in the role of a pedantic police professional who cares little for departmental politics and career success, and is more comfortable with a solicitous passivity toward both his working and personal relationships.
One casting bulls-eye is scored with Raymond Burr as the departmental chief who misses nothing, and immediately spots - and appreciates - Stanwyck for the kind of woman she is. As a sort of counterpart to "Eve's" Addison DeWitt, Burr silkily embodies both graciousness and menace, and his sly underplaying projects true power not only of character but of performer, easily dominating every scene in which he appears. With this approach, he seems the only cast member with a handle on what a rich film CRIME OF PASSION could have been.
If undemanding, it's diverting enough, and would certainly be worth seeing for Burr's multi-dimensional work alone, but it's also worth pondering, while one watches, the fascinating possibilities at which it all too briefly hints.