Main Cast: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison
Release Year: 1984
Country: US
Run Time: 101 minutes
Plot
Joanna Crane (Kathleen Turner) is a cold, workaholic sportswear designer, divorced and dedicated only to her job. Once strapped into that role, Joanna looks for an "out" and finds it by donning a wig and hitting the pavement as a $50/trick hooker named China Blue. Explicit scenes show her at work on her night job, including a long S and M segment with a policeman. While making money as China Blue, Joanna runs into a menacing, fanatic preacher (Anthony Perkins) who is out to save her from this life of sin, but in the meantime, he is also busy watching nude girly shows. As China Blue and the sexually ambivalent Reverend heat up their relationship, he becomes difficult to read: is this psycho reverend a killer? While China Blue is plying her trade, Bobby Grady (John Laughlin) has finally realized after 12 years of marriage that his wife Amy (Annie Potts) is frigid and just as he has this remarkably delayed insight, he is assigned by Joanna's boss to find out if she is stealing designs or not. By tracking Joanna, Bobby sees her transformation as China Blue and as might be expected, sex is not far behind. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Review
The prime example of Ken Russell's proclivity for examining bizarre sexual underworlds, Crimes of Passion fails to generate resonance from its sensationalist subject matter, more concerned with taboo than insight. Anthony Perkins' porno priest, who quotes Bible passages moments after emerging from a peep show (and that's his least ripe offense), is the epitome of Russell's cartoonish, overstated approach. Kathleen Turner provides some balance to Perkins' scenery chewing, enough for the Los Angeles Film Critics' Association to have honored her as Best Actress, but she fights a losing battle with Russell's aggressive desire to shock. The film is so grisly and fixed in its perverted milieu that the daytime scenes feel like they might have been spliced from another movie. As a result, the B-story about the unraveling marriage doesn't work. Still, Russell has earned kudos for his unwillingness to soften his agenda, and Crimes of Passion wins some respect solely on the basis of this audacity. Ever eager to remove any glamour from the world of prostitution, Russell again explored the underbelly of the world's oldest trade in Whore (1991), which left viewers and critics cold for similar reasons. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Pamela Anderson - Hooker; Randall Brady - Cop; Norman Burton - Lou Bateman; James Crittenden - Tom Marshall; Peggy Feury - Adrian; Lisa Hayslip - Hooker; Janice Kent - Patty Marshall; Stephen Lee - Jerry; Gerald O'Loughlin - Ben; Ian Petrella - Jimmy's Friend; Molly Russell - Little Girl in Music Video; John Scanlon - Carl; Louise Sorel - Claudia; Thomas Murphy - Phil Chambers; Victoria Russell - Bride in Music Video; Deanna Oliver - Group Member No. 4; Joseph Chapman - Walt Pierson; Pat McNamara - Frank; Vince McKewin - Group Member No. 3; Donald J. Westerdale - Airline Trick; John Rose - Arthur; Seth Wagerman - Jimmy Grady
Credit
Stephen Marsh - Art Director, Linda Francis - Casting, Donald P. Borchers - Co-producer, Barbara Scott - Costume Designer, Ruth Myers - Costume Designer, Ken Russell - Director, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa - Editor, Larry Thompson - Executive Producer, Rick Wakeman - Composer (Music Score), Norman Gimbel - Songwriter, Christy Ann Newquist - Makeup, Dick Bush - Cinematographer, Bob Manning - Production Manager, Barry Sandler - Producer, Barry Sandler - Screenwriter, Christopher Amy - Set Decorator, Gregory Melton - Set Decorator
Bobby Grady (Laughlin) is an ordinary middle-class electronics store owner who occasionally moonlights doing surveillance work. He attends a group therapy session because his wife, Amy (Potts), has lost interest in sex and he fears their marriage is in trouble.
Grady is soon approached by the owner of a fashion design house to spy on an employee, Joanna Crane (Turner), whom he suspects of selling clothing patterns to his competitors. Grady discovers the fears of Crane's boss are unfounded, but Crane is moonlighting as a street prostitute using the name China Blue and wearing a wig and provocative clothing as a disguise.
Grady tells the designer there is nothing to his suspicions, but keeps quiet about Crane's double life. After having an erotic encounter with Crane in her China Blue persona, Grady decides to start seeing her professionally, and later, romantically. However, their involvement is complicated by his guilt and her intimacy issues — not to mention her clientele of regular patrons and their bizarre sexual fetishes. Among them is the "Reverend" Peter Shayne (Perkins), who alternately spends his time delivering soapbox sermons on the street, visiting peep shows while sniffing amyl nitrate, and patronizing prostitutes. Shayne has begun seeing China Blue often and declares a misguided need to "save" her. (When he says, "Save your soul, whore!", she replies, "Save your money, shithead.") Underscoring Shayne's contradictory nature is the cache of sex toys he carries in a small doctor's bag with his Bible.
Grady and Joanna's sexual encounters soon develop into genuine romantic feelings for each other. When Grady admits he may leave his wife and children, Joanna feels put-upon and depressed. She seeks solace in turning tricks because the encounters are not fraught with emotional entanglements. She dominates a young policeman in an S&M session, penetrating him with his nightstick, and endures a botched three-way in a limousine. A session with an older, dying man whose wife wants China Blue to give him sexual gratification one last time inspires Joanna to reveal her real (first) name to the couple, suggesting she is the proverbial "hooker with a heart of gold".
Shayne grows increasingly psychotic: he carries a sharpened metallic vibrator he nicknames "Superman" and starts stalking Joanna. He moves into a seedy motel next door to her nighttime place of business and watches her activities through a peephole. He also sets up a shrine with candles and numerous photos of her. Sensing that he is mentally unhinged, Joanna says she no longer wishes to see him, but Shayne follows her home to her actual apartment. Once there, he begs her to kill him.
Grady decides to visit Joanna to tell her that he has left home. He hears shouting when he arrives at her apartment, so he breaks down her door to find who he thinks is Joanna cowering in terror. He approaches the person, not realizing it is actually Shayne in Joanna's China Blue disguise. Joanna, wearing Shayne's clothing, leaps from the shadows and stabs Shayne with the "Superman" vibrator before he can attack Grady with a large pair of scissors. Shayne dies, convinced that his sacrifice has "saved" them both.
The film ends with Grady addressing his group therapist about his new relationship with a woman named Joanna.
Elgar (1962, TV) ·French Dressing (1963) ·The Debussy Film (1965, TV) ·Always On Sunday (1965, TV) ·Isadora Duncan, The Biggest Dancer In The World (1966, TV) ·Dante's Inferno (1967, TV) ·Billion Dollar Brain (1967) ·Song of Summer (1968, TV) ·Women in Love (1969)
