Decent noir, badly flawed as a social issue film.

Kathy is literally cleaning out her desk and on the way to a great new job. Bill calls. She immediately drops everything and becomes a housewife. I know its the crux of the film but her rather extreme change of heart wasn't developed very well.

Then she's unhappy with her life, go figure, and yet never considers a job of any sort. It might be assumed that Bill doesn't want her to work after they're married, but there's never a scene with him forbidding her to work and he says over and over that he wants her to be happy. Also, as far as I can remember there was never any mention of children now or in the future.

There was some fairly good noir drama, Stanwyck was great, the agonizing dinner party scene was handled brilliantly, but the wife's-wasted-potential angle really fell flat. It seemed like Kathy was meant to be a sympathetic villain who was gloriously manipulative due to being repressed, instead her manipulations just felt sloppy and unfounded.

It's a shame too, considering that Crime of Passion was a little short at 84 minutes. it seems like a couple of extra scenes, 10-12 minutes worth, could have made this much stronger.

Hey fellas, this is yer Uncle Jim speakin'...