Crime of Passion DVD

I'm a big fan of Barbara Stanwyck & this has to be one of her best works. The supporting cast is great, too. In this movie, she goes to great lengths to get her detective husband promoted. Read more

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). Read more

A successful advice columnist (Stanwyck) falls for a manly hunk of a police detective (Hayden), and swaps career and fame for humdrum housewifery in the burbs. Maddened by boredom in the narrow confines of domesticity, the newly married bride attempts to make use of a high police official (Burr)in order to help push hubby up the ladder of success, but soon finds that the tables have turned. A great cast is led by Stanwyck who works her magic, wringing pathos out of every scene as she descends from a position of calculated power to one of emotional desperation. The domestic scenes are juxtaposed with the inner workings of a big city (L.A.)police department including a fascinating little forensic vignette involving spent shells from a gun retrived from a homicide. Crime of Passion, highly entertaining! Read more

Barbara Stanwyck, a great actress, known for taking chances and playing strong female characters often on the wrong side of the law, unfortunately, is miscast in this unrealistic film. Stanwyck is pushing 50 in this movie and looks older so it was not believable that two men, decades younger would fall for her. Her hair style made her look even older, like a granny but we are supposed to believe she seduced her husband's boss and slept with him for promotion prospects for her husband who is not ambitious. For such an ambitious woman, she should have just restarted her career. There was too much over acting that seemed misplaced. Causing a car accident to befriend the wife of her husband's boss to gain access to the boss is just totally far fetched. You will recognize other actors and actress. Read more

I loved everything about this movie from the beginning to the end. It had my full attention. It's one of those movies that I can watch over and over and never get tired of it. Read more

Barbara at her Best! A taut thriller about a women who wanted more than being a 50s housewife had to offer. A former newspaper columnist who leaves her job on an impulse to marry a police detective {Sterling Hayden} she barely knows, she soon begins to chafe in her role as police wife. She dreams up scheme to advance his career by becoming involved with the Chief of Police {Raymond Burr} and everything goes south. Stanwyck, Hayden and Burr give good performances and the story is surprisingly ahead of its time regarding a woman's place in society. Read more

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I'd seen this movie many years ago, and enjoy the performances of both Barbara Stanwick and Raymond Burr. Another femme fatale moment for Stanwick., with s twist. Loved it Read more