Sudden Fear (1952)

Forgotten Noir:
A Crawford Thriller
Sudden Fear (1952)
Studio: RKO • 110 min B&W • AR 1.33:1 • US: 7 Aug 1952
Re-release: Kino Video (Sep 2006)
Series: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood (5-DVD)
Starring: Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame
Dir: David Miller

While nominated for four Academy Awards — including for Best Actress (Crawford) and Best Actor (Palance) — Sudden Fear won nothing on Oscar Night 1953 and has been since swallowed up in the mists of time. (Gloria Grahame, although not nominated in this film, won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her role in The Bad and the Beautiful.) Sometimes billed as “female-in-distress” type noir, it’s a bit of a stretch to include it in the film noir canon — although it is a cracker of a suspense thriller starting at almost exactly half way in. At the very least, screenwriters Lenore Coffee and Robert Smith offer enough twists to qualify it for repeat viewings.

Myra Hudson (Joan Crawford), a very successful New York playwright, is about to launch yet another smash hit. Slotted to play the romantic lead in her latest epic is Lester Blaine (Jack Palance) but in the rehearsals Hudson fires Blaine on the grounds that the ruggedly handsome actor isn’t “romantic looking enough”. A few weeks later, Hudson is on a cross-country train to her home in San Francisco and Blaine, who has been stalking her, romances her successfully. In short order the penniless Blaine has seduced and married Hudson — and her fortune. As the story unfolds, Blaine and girlfriend Irene Neves (Gloria Grahame), plot to inherit Hudson’s fortune; however the older woman gets wind of the plot and makes plans of her own. The deft working out of the protagonists’s cross-purposes will have you on the edge of your seat.

In one memorable sequence, we see a murder planned out, minute by minute, and carried out in the mind’s eye of the murderer … and then we return to real time to see how the plan actually plays out. There are other devices in the film — such as an elaborate dictation device Hudson uses — employed with great effect even if they yield predictable results.

The smaller parts are well taken including by Bruce Bennett, a well-worn character actor of the day (and into 50s and 60s television), as Hudson’s friend and lawyer. “Touch Connors” also has a small but crucial role. Touch later took the stage name “Mike Connors” and went on to TV stardom in Mannix. This role was his screen debut.

Alas, while Kino Video often produces excellent work, this print is third rate at best with no evidence on screen of why Charles Lang would be nominated for an Oscar for his contribution as cinematographer. There are some wonderful location shots of San Francisco and clearly carefully planned and shot night scenes to amplify the suspense; but too much is lost in this transfer. Someone must own a better source print!

Still, it’s recommended viewing for noir aficionados and lovers of American film of the period. And, on the plus side, it is packaged economically by Kino Video as one of five films in “Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood”.