It was the best of CRIMES, it was the worst of CRIMES. The year was 1935, two tries at the Dostoevsky classic: near total miss from Columbia Pictures, with director Josef von Sternberg & producer B.P. Schulberg licking their wounds after ankling Paramount, and miscast leads Peter Lorre, Edward Arnold & Marian Marsh vs. this remarkably fine French iteration, as close as the screen has come to justifying the attempt. In their sensible reduction, director Pierre Chenal and scripter Marcel Aymé emphasize chilling action, largely sticking with the novel’s ideas, ideals and relationships, strongly played out in lightly stylized sets that mirror the grandiose delusions of self-rationalizing killer Raskolnikov. That’s Pierre Blanchar as the impoverished sometime student, his handsome features almost burnt away thru untethered intellectual passion. Here, Raskolnikov seems less determined to give himself away right from the start which gives Inspector Porfiry more opportunity to trip up his suspect. Not that the great Harry Baur needs the help, carrying off the movie as soon as he shows up. (And looking like Vincent Gardenia of all people!) Of the three leads, only Madeleine Ozeray’s self-sacrificing Sonya feels seriously underdeveloped, too unmotivated, too abrupt in sympathizing with Raskolnikov. But the feel of the book survives, even some of its offbeat humor, which is more than can be said of other versions, like the prestigiously inert Soviet package (all four hours of it) from 1970.
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