Crime and Punishment USA (1959)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Yet another morality tale on the notion that the terribly flawed Man can run, but he can't hide. George Hamilton is superb as a troubled, arrogant young man who attempts to justify having murdered a female pawnbroker. He's no ordinary killer, though. Bob is highly perceptive about people and calls things as he sees them, cutting through the hypocrisy he was raised on.["I was only making conversation," whines his conventional mother. "Why do you feel you gotta make conversation?" Bob retorts. "Can't we just sit and look and see if we've changed?"] Two men serve as nemesis to Bob as he tries to stave off his conscience. Police Lt. Porter, played by an avuncular yet incisive Frank Silvera, is a psychologically knowing voice of reason."I'm your North Star," he tells Bob. "You can't get along without me anymore." At the other end of the morality spectrum is the smarmy Fred Swanson -- who'd been "chained to a woman I had to close my eyes to kiss" -- and may or may not have killed his significantly older wife. ("In a way I miss her," he muses. "At least I had someone to blame when I felt miserable.") Swanson tries to convince Bob that he can run from the authorities, and, more importantly, his own pangs of guilt. But in the end even he doesn't believe his cock-and-bull story. Rounding out a stellar cast are Marian Seldes in the small but interesting role of Bob's older sister, and the beautiful but plainly named Mary Murphy as love interest Sally, a sad figure who tries to take a tentative step toward happiness.I was sorry to read on Wikipedia that Silvera suffered a fatal accident some years after this movie came out. I don't think I've ever seen a police official portrayed with such insightful compassion in a film.Although Dostoyefsky is listed as one of the writers, this production stands tall in its own right. I think this movie deserves far better than its current 5.9 ranking.Enormous credit goes to Denis Sanders, only 10 years older than Hamilton when he directed this film. I was intrigued to be reminded of another starkly unsentimental movie of the era, "The Naked Kiss," while viewing this. Really impressive work!

This is a well written script based on Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment." I think it is essentially a remake of a French film, with Jean Gabin,called "Crime and Punishment," later changed to "The Most Dangerous Sin," made around the same time. At any rate, self- justification, remorse, rationalization, guilt, and Truth are the subjects at hand. Each is handled slowly, without emphasis; the viewer is expected to bring much to the picture. This explains the films lower ratings. Hamilton, as an actor, is weak, others have been reminded of Tony Perkins. He was too handsome, and wasn't smart enough to use make up or a cheap haircut to make himself appear to be the poor student of his role. But, the real star is Frank Silvera, who underplays the cagey Detective, and is a joy to watch in action. He toys with Hamilton, who, unfortunately, just isn't his match (as an actor.) Marian Seldes plays Hamilton's long suffering sister.

A young man murders an old woman for money, then relies on a sense of intellectual superiority to defeat an investigating detective.A heavyweight subject like Dostoevski would be a challenge for the most experienced filmmaker. For the youthful crew here, however, it proves way too much. For one, Hamilton simply doesn't have the gravitas to bring off a convincing intellectual heavyweight, and that punches a hole right through the film's middle. But he's not the only one. Silvera's cagey detective makes those cat and mouse sessions with Robert (Hamilton) borderline parody. I don't know what director Sanders was telling him, but whatever it was, it didn't work. Ditto Harding's hammy wife killer that produces another regrettable result. Unfortunately, acting here means more than usual since there's so much loaded conversation. Only the two women, Murphy and Seldes, come off aptly. On the other hand, the filmmakers certainly don't lack imagination. Adapting a bleak 19th- century Russian novel to the sunny climes of LA amounts to an imaginative undertaking, whatever the outcome. However, modifying a dense 1,000-page novel into a 70-minute screenplay would be a challenge for Dostoevski himself. Unfortunately, the effort here is like trying to pack 10 lbs. of weighty story into a 5 lb. leaky screenplay. All in all, I'm glad the Sanders brothers and Hamilton went on to more appropriate projects.

I haven't seen this movie for more years than I care to remember. It was released accompanied by sensationalistic contemporary tag lines -- "Beatniks! Rebels!" -- partly because George Hamilton is seen playing the bongos once in a while. Yet, it has stuck in my memory. It really was an unusual film. First of all, Dostoyevsky is rather awkwardly superimposed on a story involving residents of modern L.A. The novel doesn't quite fit on the setting. People have serious conversations about God and the afterlife. Okay for a 19th-cntury Rusian novel -- but sunny California? Home of the Fountain of the World Cult? And it always bothered me about the novel that everyone in Petersberg seems to be acquainted with everyone else. It was a bit difficult to swallow that proposition in the novel; it is absolutely impossible for that to have been true in L.A. circa 1960, the most anomic community on the face of the planet. But instead of being an irritation, the lack of fit between the plot and its contemporary setting lends the film an unquiet, almost surreal quality. Something is off kilter and we don't know exactly what. We squirm with bemusement.Two points ought to be made. The movie must have been shot on the cheap. In this case, it inadvertently helps. We are given a tour of the seedier sections of L.A. -- railroad tracks, refuse dumps, shabby housing -- that a better-funded film would probably have avoided. Instead of Echo Park we get a slum. This is commonplace now, but it wasn't at the time. It's too bad nobody in California seems to know what a genuine slum looks like. Here it's all a sun-drenched, palm-fronded, flower-strewn paradise, however desecrated. They should have set it in Newark. And they needn't have used high-key lighting so consistently. It looks like an early television sitcom.Second, the acting is actually quite good. I am even willing to forgive George Hamilton's handsomeness. (He's always been willing to poke fun at himself anyway.) Mary Murphy is not the young naif she played in "The Wild One." She's not exactly a hooker either, as she was in the novel. In 1960 neither audiences nor agents of social control were prepared for that. But she is a serious kind of easy lay, which was still saying a lot. Best of all is Frank Silvera. The smooth admirable way in which he insinuates himself into Robert's life. The cat and mouse repartee. The wondering expression on his face, his amazement that Hamilton has not yet caught on, as he tells him who committed the murder -- "Why YOU did, Robert." I don't know how I would respond to the movie now, lo, these many years later. But, crude as it is, it's not just a shoddy ripoff of a famous psychological drama. It would be a mistake to think so. If all the elements of the film are amateurish, as in a high school play, the people involved seem to be hitting the right notes by accident. This is worth catching, a real curiosity.