Product: Sudden Fear [VHS]
Rating: 5.0
A sterling Crawford thriller
Joan Crawford richly deserved the Oscar nomination she garnered for her emotionally charged performance of wealthy heiress and celebrated playwright Myra Hudson in the taut and suspenseful "Sudden Fear".Crawford monitoring the previews for her latest Broadway play fires leading man Lester Blaine played by also Oscar nominated Jack Palance. She doesn't feel that the craggy Palance has the proper matinee idol looks for the role. She soon after embarks on a transcontinental train headed for her home town of San Francisco, when she unexpectedly bumps into none other but Palance.Palance turns on the charm and woos Crawford and they fall in love and marry. Though acting as the perfect husband, conniving deceit surfaces through Palance's transparent veneer when he encounters ex-girlfriend Irene played by the lispy Gloria Grahame. They still are in love and plot to do away with Crawford before she can sign her updated will which will provide only a relative pittance for Palance.Palance and Grahame discuss a scheme to kill Crawford by an accident, in her office and are unwittingly recorded by her dictation machine which was left on. Crawford learns of the plot and with her calculating mind devises a strategy to save herself and murder Palance while implicating Grahame.Although her plan seems infallible she can't go through with it but the co-conspirators get their just desserts regardless.David Miller's apt direction and stark black and white cinematography are bolstered by the Elmer Bernstein musical score to create a gripping film noir thriller.