Product: Sudden Fear [VHS]
Rating: 5.0
The best laid plans...
Joan Crawford chews the scenery, Jack Palance looks ugly and menacing, and Gloria Grahame slinks around in this fabulous film noir. Crawford is a wealthy socialite and playwright who marries Palance, an actor she had previously rejected from one of her plays. Turns out he has a girlfriend (Grahame) and they're plotting to murder Joan for her money. Joan finds out and decides to beat them to the punch (so to speak) by hatching a plan to murder her husband and frame his lover for the crime, complete with a little dream sequence showing the audience how it's supposed to turn out. In the middle of the plan, however, Joan loses her nerve...and that's when things get really interesting. The suspense starts about halfway through the film, when Joan discovers the plot against her, but the last ten minutes of the film dials up it a few levels. A must for any fan of Crawford and/or film noir.