Writer(s): Barry Sandler
Starring: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, Bruce Davison, and John Laughlin
The first thing that pops up on the screen, immediately after pressing play on your remote control, are the words “A Ken Russell Film”. It's not very often that a credit serves dual notice as a warning, but Russell has always been known for his visual flamboyance and over-the-top fearlessness, and both of them are on display in Crimes of Passion, a hooker-falls-in-love-with-man film unlike any other. If you took Pretty Woman, removed all of the sappy hopefulness and lightheartedness, replaced it with both a healthy dose of cynicism, and Anthony Perkins as a maniacal street preacher, you would still be pretty far off from accurately describing this bizarre '80s concoction, but you would be getting warmer.
Kathleen Turner plays both Joanna Crane and China Blue: the first is what her coworkers refer to her as by day, when she holds a steady job working in a fashion design house, while the second is what her clients call her by night, when she throws on a blue dress and transforms herself into a self-described “$50 hooker” that focuses on fetishes. She shuns the safety of the safe, suburban apartment that she owns as Joanna, and operates out of a dingy, rundown studio in the city's red-light district, dressing up and playing roles that appeal to her paying customers.
Bobby Grady (John Laughlin), on the other hand, is a married man who's stuck in a sexless marriage with his annoying, frigid bitch of a wife. As the film opens, he is at a group therapy session, under the guise of merely being there to provide support to his friend, whom he came with. But all it takes is a little bit of ribbing from some females there before serious cracks start to show in his assurance that his life is perfect; it takes even less time than that once he returns home for us to realize just how miserable his existence truly is. She's an emotionless wreck of a woman, who's first reaction at everything he does seems to be rolling her eyes and sighing, while he recoils for a few seconds before trying again. According to him, they have been married for eleven years, and it's a wonder how he has even managed to last that long (although they do have two kids, so that is probably a rather large factor).
Bobby works at his own electronics repair shop, which doesn't bring in a lot of money; unsurprisingly, this is also a constant point of frustration from his wife, who seems to constantly be in want of material things that his meager income cannot provide. She urges him to work more so they can get the hot tub that only she seems to dream of getting, and nags him into responding to a job offer a friend had given him. It's a night gig as a private investigator. The owner of a fashion design house has noted that his business is losing money for the first time in twenty years, and is certain one of his workers has been selling patterns to competitors. His likely suspect is the shy, reserved Joanna Crane, who he feels is almost too good of a worker to be true; Bobby's job is to shadow her at night, to see where she goes and what she is doing in her free time.
From here, it's your standard sexually-repressed-married-man-turned-private-investigator-discovers-suspected-thief-is-actually-prostitute romance, as a series of events pull the two together for a steamy sexual encounter that shatters both of their worlds. For Bobby, it not only represents the first sexual encounter he has had in many months, but also the most open and honest; for China Blue, it represents the first time that someone was able to legitimately fight through her facade and catch her emotionally off guard. Through her character, she has made a secondary living out of anonymously manipulating men; the way they seem to long for her even after their paid time expires seems to be the only thing that gets her off. But her usual tricks don't work with Bobby—it's evident even as she denies it that she is reciprocating his feelings, a fact that clearly upsets her because it's the first time that she is not in control.
There is another, twisted piece to this already-complex web, and it comes in the form of disturbed street preacher Peter Shayne (an over-the-top Anthony Perkins). From the looks of things, Shayne has been a longtime fixture in these seedy city streets, rambling long-winded passages to sex workers and promising to absolve them of their sins, thus saving their souls. But for some reason, he takes a specific interest in “rescuing” China Blue, and begins to constantly stalk and harass her; things reach a peak when he (unknowingly to her) rents out the apartment next to her and installs peepholes, allowing him to hear and watch everything that she does.
I mentioned that Perkins is over-the-top as Shayne, but that wasn't a knock; it fits right at home with Russell's lurid vision. Reportedly, he molded himself so completely into his character, that he even became an ordained minister to help prepare for his role; he also allegedly sniffed nitrites before every scene, something that no doubt helped to bring an unhinged unpredictability to his character (indeed, the “piano scene” might just be one of the most effective villain moments in film history; it's so legitimately out of left-field, yet so convincingly portrayed, that it somehow simultaneously baffles, humors, and chills).
Turner and Laughlin also have great chemistry as the star-crossed lovers. The weakest link in the acting department would appear to be Annie Potts as Amy Grady, Bobby's whiny, empty shell of a wife. But I wouldn't be surprised if this was an intentional decision by Russell, to heighten her lack of appeal, and to succinctly summarize in just a few minutes of screentime how Bobby must feel having been married to her for the last eleven years.
The film's biggest drawback is that, once you look past the audacious visual style and vulgar dialogue, this winds up being too close for comfort to your average, everyday thriller. Russell is always keen on tossing in some unexpected visual surprises, such as an in-your-face music video for Rick Wakeman's “It's a Lovely Life” that comes out of nowhere, but no such attention is paid to the script, which meanders along the obvious path, and ends on an interesting note; “interesting” only in how noteless and truly uneventful it really is.
Speaking of Wakeman, his score (which is entirely based upon Antonin Dvorak's symphony, “From the New World”) is fantastic. It seems to catch a lot of flak online (much to my astonishment), and I'm generally not a fan of synth-heavy music at all, but there are some choice cuts here, like the aforementioned “It's a Lovely Life”, or “Eastern Shadows”, which accompanies a rather long sex scene. His music sets the appropriate mood, without sounding too dated, an impressive feat for any '80s score, made even more amazing by one so reliant on keyboards and the sounds of the times. It's truly an underrated work that really heightens Russell's own visual approach and makes it all stick together as one cohesive unit.
This isn't Russell at his best, nor is it Russell at his worst: it's just Ken Russell, period. His wild, carefree directing style never aimed to impress with pinpoint accuracy, which means his films frequently went all over the place, as if seemingly on a whim. It doesn't always work, just as Crimes of Passion doesn't always hit the mark, but this fearlessness and refusal to bow down to the “laws” of film (not to mention good taste) is what made him a truly underrated director. That, and his under-acknowledged knack for frequently bringing out the best in his leads, making him not only the stylish, confrontational visual tour-de-force for which he will always be remembered, but also a true actor's director.
RATING: 7/10
From here, it's your standard sexually-repressed-married-man-turned-private-investigator-discovers-suspected-thief-is-actually-prostitute romance, as a series of events pull the two together for a steamy sexual encounter that shatters both of their worlds. For Bobby, it not only represents the first sexual encounter he has had in many months, but also the most open and honest; for China Blue, it represents the first time that someone was able to legitimately fight through her facade and catch her emotionally off guard. Through her character, she has made a secondary living out of anonymously manipulating men; the way they seem to long for her even after their paid time expires seems to be the only thing that gets her off. But her usual tricks don't work with Bobby—it's evident even as she denies it that she is reciprocating his feelings, a fact that clearly upsets her because it's the first time that she is not in control.
There is another, twisted piece to this already-complex web, and it comes in the form of disturbed street preacher Peter Shayne (an over-the-top Anthony Perkins). From the looks of things, Shayne has been a longtime fixture in these seedy city streets, rambling long-winded passages to sex workers and promising to absolve them of their sins, thus saving their souls. But for some reason, he takes a specific interest in “rescuing” China Blue, and begins to constantly stalk and harass her; things reach a peak when he (unknowingly to her) rents out the apartment next to her and installs peepholes, allowing him to hear and watch everything that she does.
I mentioned that Perkins is over-the-top as Shayne, but that wasn't a knock; it fits right at home with Russell's lurid vision. Reportedly, he molded himself so completely into his character, that he even became an ordained minister to help prepare for his role; he also allegedly sniffed nitrites before every scene, something that no doubt helped to bring an unhinged unpredictability to his character (indeed, the “piano scene” might just be one of the most effective villain moments in film history; it's so legitimately out of left-field, yet so convincingly portrayed, that it somehow simultaneously baffles, humors, and chills).
Turner and Laughlin also have great chemistry as the star-crossed lovers. The weakest link in the acting department would appear to be Annie Potts as Amy Grady, Bobby's whiny, empty shell of a wife. But I wouldn't be surprised if this was an intentional decision by Russell, to heighten her lack of appeal, and to succinctly summarize in just a few minutes of screentime how Bobby must feel having been married to her for the last eleven years.
The film's biggest drawback is that, once you look past the audacious visual style and vulgar dialogue, this winds up being too close for comfort to your average, everyday thriller. Russell is always keen on tossing in some unexpected visual surprises, such as an in-your-face music video for Rick Wakeman's “It's a Lovely Life” that comes out of nowhere, but no such attention is paid to the script, which meanders along the obvious path, and ends on an interesting note; “interesting” only in how noteless and truly uneventful it really is.
Speaking of Wakeman, his score (which is entirely based upon Antonin Dvorak's symphony, “From the New World”) is fantastic. It seems to catch a lot of flak online (much to my astonishment), and I'm generally not a fan of synth-heavy music at all, but there are some choice cuts here, like the aforementioned “It's a Lovely Life”, or “Eastern Shadows”, which accompanies a rather long sex scene. His music sets the appropriate mood, without sounding too dated, an impressive feat for any '80s score, made even more amazing by one so reliant on keyboards and the sounds of the times. It's truly an underrated work that really heightens Russell's own visual approach and makes it all stick together as one cohesive unit.
This isn't Russell at his best, nor is it Russell at his worst: it's just Ken Russell, period. His wild, carefree directing style never aimed to impress with pinpoint accuracy, which means his films frequently went all over the place, as if seemingly on a whim. It doesn't always work, just as Crimes of Passion doesn't always hit the mark, but this fearlessness and refusal to bow down to the “laws” of film (not to mention good taste) is what made him a truly underrated director. That, and his under-acknowledged knack for frequently bringing out the best in his leads, making him not only the stylish, confrontational visual tour-de-force for which he will always be remembered, but also a true actor's director.
RATING: 7/10
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Wow, I was surprised to see this review.. I haven't seen this movie in YEARS, I remember liking it but didn't recall too much about it until I read your review. I'll have to see if I have it in my collection to revisit it in the near future :)
ReplyDeleteI'm a pretty big Ken Russell fan, so there will be more where this came from, eventually. You should definitely give it the ol' revisit. If you really need a copy, I happen to have two for some reason...
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