Crime of Passion

CinemaSerfJun 2023

3.0

"Kathy" (Barbara Stanwyck) is a feisty journalist who is sent to get the "woman's angle" on a crime and encounters a rather sexist captain and his more reasonable lieutenant "Doyle" (Sterling Hayden). After a bit of an whirlwind romance, the couple marry and move in together. It doesn't take her too long to discover that her husband, though loving, is actually a bit of a plodder who is content to work in the same job, with the same dull people, until he collects his clock. Their relationship starts to founder a little and that's when she becomes friendly with his unhappy colleague "Tony" (Raymond Burr) and his unassuming wife "Alice" (Far Wray). Pretty swiftly there is some cheating going on, but that only frustrates "Kathy" further, forcing a tragedy that has her husband and his entire team focused on an investigation that can only wreak havoc with all of their lives. This starts off quite strongly, with Stanwyck having a few pithy lines to deliver. As it meanders along, though, it loses that sharpness and becomes a bit more of a standard romantic thriller gone wrong! Raymond Burr could never be described as versatile, and he and Hayden battle one and other to see who can be the most wooden. It is watchable but could lose twenty minutes, I thought, leaving us with a far tighter, less verbose, story of betrayal that might just have worked better.