Destroying The Driven Woman

Crime of Passion (1957) – An ambitious woman leaves her journalism career when she falls in love with a decent but unambitious cop. Life in the suburbs turns into a nightmare.

Directed by Gerd Oswald

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Raymond Burr, Sterling Hayden, Royal Dano, Faye Wray

Why I Liked It – A movie ahead of its time on the subject of women and ambition.

Here’s a fascinating noir role for Barbara Stanwyck. I’ve mentioned before that she doesn’t get the level of appreciation from modern audiences that she deserves. This is a beauty. Kathy Doyle is intelligent and driven. Her role as “agony aunt” for the paper is beneath her skill and under appreciated by her boss. She’s literally told to run something from the previous month to cover some time off because no one will notice. While helping the police bring in a wife suspected of killing her husband, she falls for the honest, good looking detective Doyle (Hayden). But she’s in San Francisco and he has to go back to Los Angeles. There’s some long-distance romance, followed by a whirlwind marriage. This is the only point in the script that doesn’t work for me. She’s just gotten a better paying, real journalism job in New York when she drops everything for life as a traditional cop’s wife. It’s a huge bump in the storyline for me.

What happens after that is a realization that she is unfit for life as a dutiful suburban wife, the required kissing up to the Captain’s wife (Wray), or her husband’s complete lack of career ambition. All her personal ambition will drive them all into a collision that will destroy them.

Sterling Hayden is solid as the reliable husband who doesn’t understand who his wife is, but is willing to do what she wants to make her happy. In the end, his personal integrity destroys him. The captain is one of Raymond Burr’s last roles as a bad guy. He’s accustomed to getting what he wants, but Kathy Doyle puts him in her crosshairs. She’s trapped in the expectations of her life, but lacks any way of escaping those expectations safely.

“Crime of Passion” struck me as ahead of its time with the understanding of how middle American norms could be the agent of destruction for women. Kathy was at her peak when she was at work. She took on her boss and coworkers (all men) without fear. Marriage proves to be no reward for such a woman. There is no place for her intelligence. It challenges both the men and the women who live this suburban cocoon. Naked ambition is unseemly. A woman supports her man by maintaining his place in the social hierarchy through scrupulously maintaining her own.

It drives Kathy Doyle to extremes.

And that makes a very good movie.

You can stream “Crime of Passion” on Tubi, Xumo, Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube

Rating – *** Worth A Look