Crime & Punishment, USA

In California, Robert Cole (George Hamilton) collapses in front of the cops. He buries the evidence of his crime, but a dying man may have seen him. He takes the man back home to Sally. He had written an article stating that certain superior people can break the law which comes to the notice of the police. He is brought in for an interview.

This opens on Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica. The most fascinating part of this B-crime movie may be the locations. It's great to see the old California with all the oil rigs. It does have a young George Hamilton as the lead. He's fine, but he's never been a great actor. I wanted this to start as a darker noir crime thriller. Robert should leave the man to die on the side of the road. That's the darker start. It's interesting that Robert has his views. Otherwise, the plot drags and I don't really care about him. This is not as compelling as it should be.

To begin with, I almost did not acquire this when I chanced upon it, since the film does not have much of a reputation; even so, it has recently been released on DVD-R as part of Warners' "Archive Collection", running 96 minutes (like the version I watched) rather than 78 as listed on the IMDb! In any case, the result is undeniably gripping (given the source material) and decidedly accomplished (in spite of the obvious low budget) – with gleaming cinematography by Floyd Crosby and a jazzy score by Herschel Burke Gilbert.

Best of all, the performances (notably, as always, the arrogant protagonist and his wily nemesis) are reasonably impressive. George Hamilton (being nominated for a BAFTA award in his film debut) kind of channels Anthony Perkins here, and it is unfortunate that he would soon forsake such thoughtful roles for sophisticated (and, in the long run, superficial) ones. Frank Silvera plays his pivotal cop role as something of a buffoon; Mary Murphy's character, then, does not shy away from discussing her sordid 'profession'; while John Harding appears as the seducer of the hero's sister. Incidentally, Hamilton's scenes with the latter two are only slightly less compelling than his confrontations with Silvera (established in previous cinematic renditions as the novel's centerpiece).

As the title suggests, Dostoyevsky's morality tale has been updated to modern-day America: curiously, it eschews the pivotal figure of the pawnbroker entirely (though we are still told why the murder was committed) – indeed, the narrative here starts off with the arrest of the painter! Still, the victim's essentially disagreeable characteristics are transferred onto the afore-mentioned Harding – which seemed unnecessary at first, but this does generate an intriguing complicity between the two murderers…paid off, most effectively, in ironical fashion when the student ultimately confesses because he believes the other fellow killed himself out of remorse when it was over rejection!

In the end, the film is pretentious (boasting a powerful script by Walter Newman), with a tendency towards sleaze; that said, this mature approach is quite redolent of the transitional period in which it was made – being entrenched somewhere between studio-system Hollywood and the 'movie brats' generation. For the record, this was also director Sanders' first effort, of whose later work I have watched (and own) WAR HUNT (1962), ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (1970/2000) and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973); besides, I have just acquired THE American WEST OF JOHN FORD (1971; TV) and am interested in ONE MAN'S WAY and SHOCK TREATMENT (both 1964).

This is the kind of film, which you wonder how it ever got made, but in a good way. It seems to be the result of either a very low budget or some real out of the box thinking to transfer Dostoyevsky's classic to contemporary Los Angeles. Yet somehow the cinematography showing the seedy underbelly of sunny Southern California is perfectly evocative of the kind of desperation, want and need in the original novel.

George Hamilton, never a very convincing dramatic actor, does well in his first starring role as the murderer who can't resist teasing the inspector who seems to know from the beginning that Hamilton is guilty, in a plot device with another reviewer compared to Colombo. The final dénouement will be well known to readers of the novel or viewers of prior versions of the film.

The supporting cast is uniformly good, especially Frank Silvera as the police inspector and John Harding who plays Hamilton's sister's seducer. The jazz soundtrack adds to the dissonance and confusion of the lead character as he tries to evade discovery, while flirting with it at the same time. The film has a vibe similar to "Odds Against Tomorrow."

Clearly, this film wouldn't be for everybody. But I think that followers of the novel, which is still a great read whether or not, you've read it once or four times, will appreciate that whatever led the producers to transfer the setting to Southern California, and budget considerations or not, did an immense service to the novel by putting it in the glare and scrutiny of a dry, parched, California summer, where, instead of beach and sand and surf, that usually accompanies such scenery, you see desolate parking lots, cheap motels, and urban squalor as background to the characters and their melodramatic conflicts.

I think if you view this movie with an open mind, you will find it as unusual and fascinating as I did. Adaptations like this are rare enough. Of course, we are used to such stories been told on PBS with English actors with British accents playing the lead roles. Here you see that in America, we can update a classic and still keep it fascinating and current.

George Hamilton stars with Marian Seldes and Mary Murphy in "Crime and Punishment USA," an adaptation of the novel by Dostoevsky, directed by Denis Sanders.

The film "introduces" George Hamilton.

Hamilton plays a young man who kills and robs a pawnbroker and later comes up against a smart police detective (Frank Silvera) who preys on his conscience.

The only other version of this I've seen is the Peter Lorre one from 1935 and as you might guess, this film doesn't compare, and comparing George Hamilton to Peter Lorre - well, it can't be done.

One thing both films have in common is that they were done cheaply, and both in black and white. The black and white serves both films very well. It made the places in this film look kind of low-class and gritty.

The atmosphere was really the only thing I liked. The music was very loud and had those screeching trumpets one always heard in the '50s and '60s in films.

I also thought everyone acted somewhat inappropriately. It's possible it all happened in the other film, but it was either done better or I just don't recall it.

When a man admits to killing someone, what would make a woman suddenly decide she wants to sleep with him? Especially after an uncomfortable scene where he yelled at her and acted rather weirdly.

Hamilton would be talking and suddenly start shouting -- it seemed like the emotions in this film came on suddenly with no build-up.

It was interesting to see such a young Marian Seldes as Hamilton's sister. She was a stage actress and teacher, married at one time to Garson Kanin. She died last year.

I saw George Hamilton in "La Cage aux Folles" a few years ago. He's done a great job of marketing his personality, and he obviously has a sense of humor, but he didn't register much, and he co-starred with an excellent Broadway performer, which made him look worse. I don't think in films he was a horrible actor, just not that great.

So that's Crime and Punishment U. S. A.

A young man murders an old woman for money, then relies on a sense of intellectual superiority to defeat an investigating detective.

A heavyweight subject like Dostoevski would be a challenge for the most experienced filmmaker. For the youthful crew here, however, it proves way too much. For one, Hamilton simply doesn't have the gravitas to bring off a convincing intellectual heavyweight, and that punches a hole right through the film's middle. But he's not the only one. Silvera's cagey detective makes those cat and mouse sessions with Robert (Hamilton) borderline parody. I don't know what director Sanders was telling him, but whatever it was, it didn't work. Ditto Harding's hammy wife killer that produces another regrettable result. Unfortunately, acting here means more than usual since there's so much loaded conversation. Only the two women, Murphy and Seldes, come off aptly.

On the other hand, the filmmakers certainly don't lack imagination. Adapting a bleak 19th- century Russian novel to the sunny climes of LA amounts to an imaginative undertaking, whatever the outcome. However, modifying a dense 1,000-page novel into a 70-minute screenplay would be a challenge for Dostoevski himself. Unfortunately, the effort here is like trying to pack 10 lbs. of weighty story into a 5 lb. leaky screenplay. All in all, I'm glad the Sanders brothers and Hamilton went on to more appropriate projects.