Crime of Passion (1957; dir. by Gerd Oswald)
Barbara Stanwyck is an ambitious reporter in San Francisco who uses her "Dear Abby"-type column to catch herself a murderer and a real news job in New York. Unfortunately, she meets a nice block of wood during the case (aka Sterling Hayden), falls in love with him, and throws up her job offer for marriage and housewifery in the suburbs of LA. Boredom drives her to ambition for her husband and flirtation with his boss, Raymond Burr. When Burr has to retire because his wife, Fay Wray, is being driven to a nervous breakdown by the tensions of waiting at home for him, he comes to Stanwyck for advice, sleeps with her, promises her the block of wood is going to get his job, dumps her, and changes his mind. She shoots him with a gun handily picked up from an incompetently guarded evidence tray. The block of wood actually is a detective and detects the solution to the crime. He turns her in. She goes docilely. He did get the promotion she wanted, boxmint pointed out: "When Barbara Stanwyck wants you to advance, you advance." We both wanted her to get away. "Get rid of the gun," boxmint whispered during one scene. I just thought it, very intently.
The moviemakers probably thought the moral of the story was that ambition drives women mad, but I think it's that you shouldn't drop a perfectly good job in New York for marriage in the suburbs with a guy you met a week ago. Also, Stanwyck and Hayden had no chemistry, so it was hard to see the mad passion that supposedly impelled their marriage; Stanwyck and Burr had smoking chemistry, and I could happily watch them raise cynical eyebrows at each other for hours. Poor Stanwyck was forced to do too much innocence and mad passion. (Okay, only one phone call of girlish innocence. But it was still too much.) She is much better at cynicism and sensuality. Utterly wasted on the block of wood, I tell you.
Also, cars are evil. The cinematography tells me so.
The moviemakers probably thought the moral of the story was that ambition drives women mad, but I think it's that you shouldn't drop a perfectly good job in New York for marriage in the suburbs with a guy you met a week ago. Also, Stanwyck and Hayden had no chemistry, so it was hard to see the mad passion that supposedly impelled their marriage; Stanwyck and Burr had smoking chemistry, and I could happily watch them raise cynical eyebrows at each other for hours. Poor Stanwyck was forced to do too much innocence and mad passion. (Okay, only one phone call of girlish innocence. But it was still too much.) She is much better at cynicism and sensuality. Utterly wasted on the block of wood, I tell you.
Also, cars are evil. The cinematography tells me so.