Crime of Passion, from 1956, is a crime/drama starring Barbara Stanwyck and Sterling Hayden, with Raymond Burr taking on a co-starring role. Always on the lookout for a Barbara Stanwyck film I haven't seen, I was excited to discover this on Net Flix instant viewing. It's an interesting story and features the usual stellar performance of Miss Stanwyck.
Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is an ambitious newspaper columnist in San Francisco. While covering a murder, she meets Los Angeles policeman, Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden), and the two quickly fall in love and get married. Kathy leaves her job and makes the move to Los Angeles, to Bill's very suburban home.
While Kathy loves Bill very much, she soon grows bored with their extremely middle-class life. Adding to Kathy's struggle is the fact that Bill is quite content with being just a police officer. He sees the value in what he's doing and has no desire to climb the ladder of success to obtain a more prestigious job. Kathy, however, wants more for him, so she manipulates and schemes to get Bill in tight with the commissioner and to estrange him from his friends. Eventually, sure her actions will get Bill promoted, she begins an affair with the commissioner (Raymond Burr). The commissioner, though, has his own plans, and promoting Bill is not among them. What will Kathy do when she discovers that her affair has been for nothing?
Barbara Stanwyck is one of my top five actresses (#3 on my list), and I think her films are always worth watching. She was an extremely capable actress, and I think she aged beautifully and gracefully. This film is definitely interesting and entertaining, so I hope you get a chance to see it. Happy viewing!!
