OVP: Sudden Fear (1952)

Film: Sudden Fear (1952)

Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame

Director: David Miller

Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Actress-Joan Crawford, Supporting Actor-Jack Palance, Cinematography, Costume Design)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

This week our reviews are going to continue to be a mix of films from 2020 (it's hard to imagine that we are still a few weeks away from the conclusion of this snail-paced awards season) and continuing to look into the past as we, well, clean out my DVR.  Today is one of those past-facing titles, as I decided that I wanted to watch a few acting nominees that I've never seen before.  Joan Crawford would only win three Oscar citations in her career, and the last of those would come in 1952, for her work in Sudden Fear.  This film has some iconic imagery, even if it's not the first film you might name-check Crawford for, but it is also noteworthy not just for Crawford, but for bringing another eventual Oscar winner to the Academy's attention: Jack Palance.  Palance was so well-liked in this role that he essentially launched a strange career where he would alternate between international star and nearly work-for-hire parts before finally getting his proper moment-in-the-sun in City Slickers.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Myra (Crawford), a brilliant & successful Broadway playwright who in the opening act of the film declines to give Lester Blaine (Palance) a part in her play because she feels he's wrong for the role.  They meet on a train, and seem to make up quickly, and that friendship blossoms into love.  Lester & Myra marry, but Myra (who is extremely wealthy) after the marriage dictates that most of her money will go to a foundation.  Thanks to a voice recorder in Myra's office, Myra (and the audience) discover after she says she'll leave some of her money to him in her will that Lester in fact planned on marrying Myra just for her money & humiliating her in the process, as he's in love instead with beautiful young Irene (Grahame), a former flame.  Myra also overhears on the recording that they are planning on killing her, knowing that if they do so before the will goes through that Lester will inherit her fortune.  After mistakenly breaking the recording, Myra must survive the weekend with both of these two plotting to kill her.  In the end, it is them who die, in a tragic case of mistaken identity, and Myra lives, much wiser from the experience.

The movie is noir, but it functions more as a melodrama.  I tend to enjoy melodramas, but I think the acting in them is hard to gage, and I'll be honest here-I don't get the love of Crawford in this role (and Crawford is generally one of my favorite actresses).  There's no depth to her Myra-Crawford plays her as a saint, but a saint so cloying you wonder how, precisely, she made it in the cutthroat world of theater.  There are also suspensions of belief (are we really intended to buy that beautiful, sexy Joan freaking Crawford has never been pursued by a man before Lester comes into the picture?) that make it harder to follow.  Crawford is a true movie star, and this is enjoyable to watch in parts, but is this good acting?  Probably not.

Palace is a bit better in a different part though again, so much of his character takes place offscreen that it's hard to gage (I get why he became a star after this, though, as he got to play a range of options with this duplicitous part).  Honestly, Gloria Grahame's side girl might be the best performance of the lot.  She is the one person who feels they exist outside the confines of a script that defies logic or convention.

The film won two additional Oscar nominations (and I suspect the score was probably close, though it mercifully was skipped as while the Elmer Bernstein music is sweeping, it impedes on the film at points, giving away key clues about the movie before they even occur).  The cinematography is sublime-great wide shots, and some clever uses of dream sequences.  The closet door ajar with the toy heading toward Crawford is ridiculously fun, and something Hitchcock would've been proud of.  And the costumes are intriguing.  I kind of like the iconic dual looks of both Crawford & Grahame in head scarfs...this would become one of Crawford's most recognizable screen moments (her firing a pearl-handled revolver into the dark dressed immaculately from head-to-toe), so they're doing something right.  Overall, though, I left Sudden Fear underwhelmed even though the actors, plot, and lensing all are things I would normally find irresistible.