Ivan
Passer, a Czech writer/director of considerable skill who emerged in tandem
with Milos Forman, has worked steadily in Hollywood but never joined Forman on the A-list. Projects such as Crime
and Passion explain way. A discombobulated mess for which Passer deserves
much of the blame—in addition to directing, he was one of seven (!)
writers—this would-be caper flick lurches tonally from carefree to creepy and
back again, often within the space of a single scene. The script combines countless
incompatible elements, and the awful leading performances are delivered by two
actors who simply don’t exist in the same universe—Omar Sharif acts with his
usual swarthy intensity, while Karen Black pitches her portrayal to the level
of operatic campiness for which she is (in)famous. Poor Joseph Bottoms forms
the third side of a romantic triangle, but his laconic energy is smothered by
the work of the other stars.
The nonsensical story goes something like
this. Andre Ferren (Sharif) is a European investment counselor who plays games
with his clients’ money. His associate/mistress, Susan Winters (Black), agrees
to manipulate a rich aristocrat into marriage, with the intention of divorcing
him for a huge financial settlement that Susan will share with Andre. Things
get complicated when Susan meets a handsome American (Bottoms) and when
Susan becomes convinced that the aristocrat’s castle is haunted. There’s also a
subplot about the aristocrat electronically spying on Susan, so the aristocrat
may or may not be hip to the fact that she and Andre are running a con. Yet the
story isn’t the only bizarre element of Crime
and Passion so bizarre—the film is decorated with deeply strange
flourishes.
Andre gets aroused whenever he experiences
professional setbacks, so Susan’s pillow talk consists of stock losses and so
forth; during scenes featuring this behavior, Sharif seems frightening rather
than eccentric, as if he’s about to rape Black. The unpleasant vibe is
exacerbated by the film’s heavy-handed score, comprising moody electric-piano
music and sudden, horror-movie-style stings. Toward the end of the movie,
Bottoms sits in the castle dining room, receiving (offscreen) oral sex from
Black until he hallucinates—or does he?—that a knight in full battle armor has
entered the room. This bit is topped by the finale, during which Black and
Sharif hump outside the castle while Black shoots a dead body out of a cannon
into the valley below the castle. How any of this actually got filmed is a
mystery. For instance, did anyone think the vignette of Sharif taking a bath
and singing “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” was a good idea?
Crime and Passion: LAME
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