Directed by: Gerd Oswald

Released: January 1957

Cast: Barabra Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Fay Wray, Virginia Grey, Royal Dano, Robert Griffin, Dennis Cross, Jay Adler, and Stuart Whitman as Laboratory Technician.

First-time viewing.

Crime of Passion is a noir film that indeed begins with a crime of passion. Concludes with a crime of passion. But lacks spark, despite the performances of the two leads.

Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is a big time San Francisco columnist who is draw into a Los Angeles murder case. When LAPD detectives Charlie Alidos (Royal Dano) and Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden) show up following a lead. It seems a disgruntled housewife plugged her husband more than once with a .38 and fled to San Francisco. Kathy’s editor (Jay Adler) wants her to follow the case and get whatever information she can from the detectives.

When Kathy meets Det. Doyal she immediately falls in love with him.

Using her column, Kathy is able to get the murder suspect to turn herself in. With Bill now having to return to Los Angeles, Kathy accepts a lucrative job with a New York paper. However, Bill convinces Kathy to come down to LA for one final dinner before she heads east.

Kathy gives up her career and marries Bill. Before you can say congratulations Mrs. Doyle, Kathy realizes that suburban life isn’t for her and is only a nightmare. The wives of Bill’s co-workers are shrill, especially Det. Alido’s wife Sara (Virginia Grey), a busy body who doesn’t know the meaning of shut up. And Kathy finds herself an outsider in the Wives of the LAPD club.

The Wives of the LAPD seem to idolize the husband’s boss, Police Inspector Pope (Raymond Burr), head of the detective division, and envy his wife Alice (Fay Wray). See the Pope’s live on the other side of the valley, in a gorgeous home, with a two-car garage, country club membership, all that stuff. And Kathy thinks that’s where Bill and she belong.

Bill is content with his work, and doesn’t think too much about promotion. So Kathy has to take matters into her own hands. Ascending to all levels of crazy, Kathy stalks, gaslights, and seduces Bill into a promotion, even placing him next in line for Pope’s job.

This is all-pretty sorted stuff, and the kind of material Barbara Stanwyck excels at. She and Sterling Hayden are the only ones injecting any energy into the film. Outside of Mr. and Mrs. Doyle, this is a film lacking in energy. The plot of Crime of Passion screams electricity, and Miss Stanwyck and Mr. Hayden do their best with what they’re given.

Crime of Passion, despite Kathy’s rather abrupt and unexplained shift in her mental state, provides the perfect platform for some dark satire of suburban life in the 1950s. Perhaps that may not have been the mindset of late-50s b-movie film units. So, instead the story just goes through the motions, capitalizing on Miss Stanwyck’s ability to play the crazed femme fatale to perfection.

The direction, cinematography, pacing are all lackluster. Even Raymond Burr, who can elicit menace with a glance, is stiff as a board, eliciting no emotion at all. Granted Inspecter Pope is supposed to be the pillar of righteous law enforcement, but he’s too good to be true and kind of dull as a result.

To the credit of the two leads, given the mediocre material, they give it their best. It is always great to see Barbara Stanwyck and Sterling Hayden in a picture. They are the main reason for watching. I was in the mood for a Barbara Stanwyck movie, and that’s what I got but not much more. It’s a shame, this one had the opportunity to say something, but chose not to.

Crime of Passion can be streamed on Amazon Prime and Tubi.