Product: Sudden Fear [VHS]
Rating: 4.0
Joan, distressed
One of the problems with buying Joan in the woman-in-distress in this movie is just that Joan is just not very good at playing it (She stares Palance down with the eyes of a gunslinger and looks as if she could take him out with one punch). Once she decides that she is going to engineer the demise of both her murderous husband and his girlfriend, we are in territory that Crawford is best in. But I am not saying she can't be good- despite the nutty scene where she finds out that Palance plans to off her (where she does everything but juggle while spinning her head around a la Linda Blair in "The Exorcist"), she's good in this one. (Especially in the scene where she catches her reflection in the mirror with a gun and actually "sees" herself for the first time. ) Slighly looney, like most late-middle era Crawford flicks, but our Joan makes you buy it lock, stock, and barrel.