{"id":6687,"date":"2024-10-23T13:17:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6687"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:17:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:17:02","slug":"crimes-of-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/crimes-of-passion\/","title":{"rendered":"Crimes of Passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Crimes of Passion <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 112 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unrated Version (strong sexual content, nudity, violent images, language, sexual references, drug use, depraved behavior)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ken Russell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Sandler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rick Wakeman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dick Bush\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 19, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison, Yvonne McCord.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $2.9M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: * \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Crimes of Passion<\/strong> opened to much controversy in fall \u201984. The studio was forced to cut 10 minutes or else be slapped with the dreaded X rating. Since respectable theaters, as a matter of policy, don\u2019t show X-rated films, New World had no choice but to acquiesce to the demands of the MPAA. It\u2019s the only way it could possibly turn a profit. Instead, it was the near-unanimous negative reviews that killed it. The real crime in Crimes of Passion<\/strong> is that it\u2019s boring.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Ken Russell (Women in Love), Crimes of Passion<\/strong> is an attempt at a serious exploration of sex and sexual behaviors. It\u2019s constantly undermined by a subplot about a psycho stalking the main character, a kinky hooker named China Blue (Turner, Body Heat). She\u2019s an interesting one. By day, she\u2019s Joanna Crane, an uptight fashion designer with intimacy issues. How do we know this? She wears drab outfits (usually a shirt and tie). Somebody says she hates anybody with a penis. Then there\u2019s the matter of her other job. Every night, she dons a turquoise dress and platinum blonde wig and hits the streets to fulfill the sexual fantasies of perverts. It\u2019s interesting the way Russell films her two lives. Her daytime activities are shot in a very matter-of-fact way. The nighttime street scene is depicted as a lurid world of seedy hotel rooms, peep shows and flashing neon lights. It\u2019s film noir meets porno movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Her boss suspects her of industrial espionage so he calls in a surveillance expect to spy on her. His name is Bobby Grady (Laughlin, Footloose) and he owns an electronics store. He\u2019s married to his high school sweetheart Amy (Potts, Ghostbusters) and has two kids with her. Their marriage is in big trouble and he\u2019s in denial. She\u2019s frigid in bed and barely tolerates him in and out of the bedroom. Bobby is instantly attracted to China Blue and tries to start a relationship with Joanna. It won\u2019t be easy. He\u2019s a nice guy and she\u2019s complicated (to say the least).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Russell could have done something interesting with this, but he opts to turn Crimes of Passion<\/strong> into a thriller by introducing the aforementioned psycho, a street preacher named Peter Shayne, played by none other than Anthony Perkins (Psycho). He spends his time watching peep shows, sniffing drugs and fantasizing about killing prostitutes with a sharpened stainless steel dildo he keeps in his bag with his Bible and other sex toys. He\u2019s obsessed with saving China Blue\u2019s soul. We know this because he says, \u201cSave your soul, whore!\u201d to which she replies, \u201cSave your money, s***head!\u201d\u00a0 Such wonderful dialogue in Crimes of Passion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To be fair, Crimes of Passion<\/strong> isn\u2019t all bad. The cinematography by Dick Bush (snicker, snicker!) is very good. I like how the China Blue scenes are shot. The acting is also pretty good (mostly). I have to compliment Turner for taking on such a role. It takes a lot of nerve and talent to do what she does in Crimes of Passion<\/strong>. She plays a character with a dual identity and does so convincingly. Laughlin is also good as the square husband trying futilely to hold his marriage together long after its expiration date. Potts does well as the wife who clearly doesn\u2019t love her husband anymore yet she\u2019s afraid to end the marriage for fear of being alone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Perkins overacts shamelessly in a role not too unlike Norman Bates. He even peeps at China Blue through a hole in the wall. At one point, he sits at a piano and breaks into a enthusiastic rendition of \u201cGet Happy\u201d. That bit is completely out of left field. This character belongs in a different movie, perhaps a sequel to Angel. I mention that particular movie because it came out the same year from the same studio and also dealt with a psycho killer stalking a hooker with a double identity (\u201cHigh school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u00a0I will say that the uncut version of Crimes of Passion<\/strong> is an improvement over the one released to theaters. I went to see it on a Saturday afternoon and was bored. It played only a week in that theater. What strikes me about Crimes of Passion<\/strong> all these years later is how it represents the arbitrary nature of the MPAA. They objected to the sexual scenes even though they weren\u2019t for purposes of titillation. The movie is about sexual behavior and removing most of that behavior from the movie renders it pointless. It\u2019s like these people have no respect for art or the artist\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

\u00a0However, I can\u2019t rightfully regard Crimes of Passion<\/strong> as art. It\u2019s a sleazy, nasty, boring movie that proves only that Ken Russell is a dirty old man. It\u2019s a dirty movie, nothing more. It\u2019s the kind of movie that masquerades as a serious art film so audiences won\u2019t feel guilty about seeing it. I\u2019m surprised I didn\u2019t see any men in raincoats at the showing I attended. I guess the perverts only come out at night.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crimes of Passion (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 112 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unrated Version (strong sexual content, nudity, violent images, language, sexual references, drug use, depraved behavior)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ken Russell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Sandler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rick Wakeman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dick Bush\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 19, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison, Yvonne McCord.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Crimes-of-Passion-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6687"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6857,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6687\/revisions\/6857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}