Crime Without Passion (1934)

the leading man is my tpye

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is an unusual and surreal little film, starting from the beginning. The prologue says that the three furies go about the world enticing people to do evil. Then a shadowed figure of a man shoots a woman in cold blood and out of the droplets of the blood come the three furies, looking and laughing like female demons racing into the night.Then we are in criminal attorney Lee Gentry's (Claude Rains) office. He is mentioning to his legal secretary how he wants to get rid of his current girlfriend, Carmen Brown, a cabaret dancer (Margo), but that instead of that he wound up in a flurry of kisses and vows with her, once again. He wants to dump her for the ice queen, Katy, who does not seem nearly as enthused about him as he is about her. Basically Gentry delivers a monologue about how he just can't resist figuring out what makes the women in his life tick, getting them head over heels in love with him, and then their adoration repels him and causes him to reject them. You get the feeling that maybe Gentry has a 50ish legal secretary exactly because he does not want his bad personal romantic habits to follow him into the office.In the next scenes Gentry gets everybody on his bad side, the prosecutor, the police, he even sets up a situation to make it look like he feels Carmen has been unfaithful and that is why he is leaving her, making her feel their breakup is her own fault. Up to now everything Gentry has done is because he thinks he is better than everybody else, smarter, that he can take what he wants and not care for other people's feelings. And then he performs one unselfish act and it turns into what could be construed as murder. The police and prosecutors are certainly not going to go easy on him or believe him after he has made fools of them in court on a regular basis. So he sets out to make it look like he could not have committed the murder. His legal mind constructs an intricate alibi, even setting up an alternate fall guy for the murder.How does this all pan out? Watch and find out. The ending is like a cross between something Robert Serling and Alfred Hitchcock would come up with. Highly recommended. This practically one man show will hold your interest throughout partly due to Ben Hecht's talented writing and direction, and partly due to Rains' outstanding performance.

With a poll coming up on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best titles of 1934,I started searching round a DVD sellers site,and I was pleased to spot a great sounding Film Noir,starring The Invisible Man himself: Claude Rains,which led to me getting ready to witness a passionate crime take place.The plot:Feeling confident that he has slithered his client away from a guilty verdict,a hot-shot lawyer called Lee Gentry leaves the court before the jury has even had the slightest chance to consider its verdict.Ignoring comments from the press over him getting criminals off the hook,Gentry gives all of his attention to cabaret singer Carmen Brown.Despite Brown expressing her love for him,Gentry is desperate to get rid of her,so that he can replace her with his latest piece of arm candy: Katy Costello,this leads to Gentry putting fake dating ads in the paper as Brown,in the hope she will get back with her ex Eddie WhiteWanting Brown to reveal the suspected affair,Gentry starts attempting to give signals to White that the relationship is back on,with planted evidence.Taking his fake evidence to Brown,Gentry is horrified when Brown is still not willing to say that she is having an affair.Getting into a fight with Brown,Gentry ends up accidentally shooting her.Fearing that he could face the chair for murder,Gentry begins making plans on how he can use his slippery skills to escape from his own verdict.View on the film:For what was his 4th film role, Claude Rains gives a marvellous performance as Lee Gentry,with Rains making Gentry look like he is completely covered in grease that slides down Gentry's slick suits,which is highlighted by Rains painting Gentry as a ruthless Film Noir character,whose only emotion is getting one over all the "bugs" below him.Dipping into his Invisible Man past,Rains pulls the "id/ego" out of Gentry,and shows the "invisible" ego of Gentry to be a smooth talker,whose self-centred narrow vision stops Gentry from seeing the direction that the "bugs" are taking.Making her debut,16 year old Margo gives a tremendous performance as femme fatale Carmen Brown,thanks to Margo giving Carmen a smoking hot glamour style,with cracks which hint at a darker past hidden away.Making their directing debut away from the studio system,writers/directors (with the uncredited,extremely generous help of Lee Garmes) Ben Hecht and Lee Garmes (who cameo in the title…with their wives!) unleash a charcoal Film Noir.Opening with a breath- taking opening effects scene designed by Slavko Vorkapich,Hecht & Garmes paint a world completely covered in grime. The directors superbly use overlaying images,to show Gentry's ego/ID overriding even the most basic morals,as tightly-held close ups of Gentry showing pushing away any doubts,with the knowledge that he will always win.Opening with Gentry saying that he views the public as "bugs" the excellent screenplay by Hecht and Garmes pulls open every inch of darkness within the film.Keeping away from giving Gentry any likable features,the writers show every inch of Gentry to be dripping with a rich,decaying nihilism,that soaks up any possible light in its surroundings,with the sole goal of dragging even the smallest light (such as Carmen Brown) into a vicious Film Noir,as Gentry begins to find a passion for crime.

This rarely seen film was the third one made by Claude Rains, and only his second talkie. It was made just after THE INVISIBLE MAN, which gave Rains one of moviedom's best introductory film roles. So CRIME WITHOUT PASSION was sort of hidden by it's predecessor. This is rather curious because it was an early independent film, and it's creators were Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (the authors of TWENTIETH CENTURY and THE FRONT PAGE; Mr. MacArthur was also the husband of Helen Hayes). This was the first of two independent films made by them, the other being THE SCOUNDREL, a film about an amoral publisher played by Noel Coward. Both are interesting movies, though neither are above better - than - average. Being relatively cheaply made, their defects are too glaring (special effects are quite modest and...well cheap!).If people remember CRIME WITHOUT PASSION it is because of an early scene where Rains' clever lawyer wins an acquittal by putting a grandfather clock on the stand (symbolically, of course - it doesn't begin speaking and answering questions). The acting is uneven. Rains is superb, but Margo was always a heavy breathing/heavy speaking actress. Probably, she was available from Broadway productions in nearby Manhattan (the film was shot in the Astoria Paramount Studios).The role of the crooked "mouthpiece" probably was based on William Fallon, the leading criminal attorney in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Fallon frequently won acquittals of notorious gangsters, crooked politicians, and criminals. He was not afraid of going beyond the law - even getting into bribing juries. But he was a gifted attorney when he concentrated on his job (unfortunately he was also a heavy drinker, which destroyed his career and shortened his life). Unlike Rains, however, Fallon never killed anybody.

Beginning with an incredible sequence of the furies, this film about a successful attorney who believes he is far superior to the rest of mankind is a tour de force for the amazing Claude Rains. Very much an early 30's film with those wonderful Freudian overtones. (Margo, the dancer who plays Rains' mistress, was married to Eddie Albert, "Green Acres" and is the mother of Edward Albert, "Butterflies are Free".)